Rust

Chapter 1

     The boy opened his eyes to a pounding headache and the sound of distant birds chirping which echoed through a corrupted forest canopy. A beam of sunlight warmed his face as his body reanimated. He was prone, with his arms out to either side and his legs together. He clenched his fingers as the numbness abated. He then lifted his head to glance at his feet, only to be met with his neck finding more difficulty in the task then he had anticipated. He saw his well-worn blue sandals past his jeans, and beyond both, an eternity of looming trees watching him.

     He let his head retreat back to the earth and conjured the will to rise. He lifted his arms, which felt more like dead-weight than anchors and pushed himself to a sitting position. His head spun and the forest spun around him. He grabbed his head and rubbed his eyes. He felt sick to his stomach. Heaving brought no relief. His stomach was empty. He was now aware of how dry his mouth was as well. He gulped, achieving nothing but a fit of coughs and a bleeding throat. 

     Digging deeper into his already depleted morale, he jumped to his feet. He swayed, and his knees buckled, but he kept his balance. He looked around him. These were no ordinary woods. There was barbed wire, rustic metallic mesh, and steel beams jutting out from the ground like claws from the earth. All appeared very ancient and showed a thick orange hue. The sun hid behind a stream of clouds.

     'How did I get here?' he asked himself internally. He dug deep into his memory, yet found nothing. Not his previous journies, nor his friends or family, nor his own name. He struggled and hit his fist against his forehead, only worsening the headache. He became enraged. 'WHAT. IS. MY. NAME?'. He dug deeper and deeper into the pit of his mind but found nothing. His head swirled and a pair of tears danced down his face. 

     The liquid only served to remind him of his raging thirst. He looked around him. The distant sound of a brook that he only now picked up on called to him. He took his first steps towards the sun and adjusted his pace as he honed in on the sound. He moved out of his little clearing and was careful not to step on any barbed wire. He ducked under a bent steel beam and stumbled between twin trees. He hadn't anticipated how dark it would be inside the forest. Shadows loomed, being fought by islands of light that peaked through the canopy. 

     After tripping nearly a dozen times, the sight of mossy rocks and the smell of freshwater lured him into hope. He picked up his pace. The stream he came upon jutted out from the trees up a hill to his right, jumped down and through speckled boulders, and swam past to his left, bending and cutting into the close horizon. To his dismay, the river shown a dull-orange color.

     Desperation overtook him. He threw himself to the ground and cupped his hands into the frigid water. He gulped as much as he could manage and drenched his face in the water. It was disgusting. It felt like he just licked the floor of an abandoned factory. He didn't care. He drank so fast he nearly choked. It took him a minute to realize he was crying because of the cold water hitting his face. He felt sick. He was scared. He was alone. He sat by the brook and let the water run past his left hand. The light above flickered back and forth as the clouds passed. His stomach settled, though he couldn't get the flavor of rust out of his mouth.

     A thought hit him. The rust must be coming from somewhere. Civilization? Home? He lingered at that last thought. He couldn't recall a home, but he knew what it was like. What home ought to be like. A warm blanket. A family. A refrigerator filled with soda and all the food you could ever want. He turned his mind off. He didn't want to cry again. He was too exhausted for it and he needed what little strength he had left.

     He rose again. He went around the small waterfall and struggled his way up the hill. When he reached the top, he saw that the forest rose gradually in elevation, and almost unnaturally and perfectly so. A stop sign, with the paint nearly worn off of it, was strapped upside-down to a tree with barbed wire about 20 feet away. A tire leaned against a tree immediately to his left. More beams than 'normal' planted all around. The birds played on a loop behind him, and he heard them flutter from above. He felt uneasy about moving forward but proceeded nonetheless.

     He hugged the river, leaping from one rock to the next playfully, keeping his mind distracted from the strange and terrible situation he found himself in. The forest was getting darker as he walked. He couldn't tell if it was because of the growing thickness of the trees or if the day was escaping him, or both. His fear was growing with every step, and he was too tired to keep jumping across the river. He dragged his body onwards for what seemed like an eternity, Passing a half-buried car engine, a thick metal pipe that was through a tree's trunk a couple of stories off the ground, an archaic attic fan, a cage, and other bits and bobbles of twisted and ancient metal. The elevation was getting steeper and the river was moving faster to compensate. His legs were moving slower. 

     He stopped at the sight of a ledge that peaked over the rising elevation. As he got to the top, the forest flattened out. The ledge also appeared rather unnatural, as it seemed like the earth, in a perfectly straight line had been cut and lifted a few stories above its previous location. Bit's of metal was lodged into its wall, providing the only unique impressions into the strange cliff face. He looked left and saw that far into the distance, the cliff tucked back down into the ground. He looked right and saw something that immediately made him jump back. He saw scales. Giant scales. The body they belonged to was long and its height was taller than him.

     His heart nearly fell out of his chest as his eyes followed the length of the monster. Wrapping around and disappearing over the lowering elevation. As he kept turning, he fell back and screamed as the saw the giant head of a snake just a few feet away from him. He crawled backward as fast as his arms could carry him as the wicked beast stuck its tongue out and inched forward. He stumbled to his feet and nearly fell on his face, barely catching himself on his hands. The serpent let out a hiss behind him that shook the ground itself. He could hear the crunching of leaves and crack of wood that suggested it was following him.

     He panicked. Looking left and forward, not knowing whether to run or climb. He looked back, and his choice was made for him as the snake was cutting left to surround him. He reached for a steel beam and heaved himself up in one swift motion. He was breathing heavily and his whole body was shaking. He sunk his hand into the soft dirt for leverage but found no luck as his fingers sank down. In a panic, he punched his fist into it, and a sharp pain rippled up his arm. He forced his weight onto it, hurting him more, and grabbed for a tree root. A much closer hiss roared out from behind him. He pulled his fist out of the dirt to reveal barbed-wire wrapped tightly around it and blood oozing down his arm. 

     He gripped the top of the cliff edge and clung to the grass, miraculously not giving up under his weight. He rolled up onto the surface and looked back once more. The snake was lifting its head off the ground, and its bright red eyes met his. He saw the hunger and rage in its glare. He rolled further and came to his feet. In front of him an array of cliffs and caves that jutted out the side of a hill. The river came out of a small crevasse between fallen and jammed boulders. He made for it as fast as his dying legs could carry him. 

     The beasts head hit the ledge and its body soon followed. The boy jumped into the river and waded waist-deep into the cave. The darkness engulfed him as he trudged forward. The snake stuck its tongue into the cave and let out a final hiss that shook the walls of the cave around him. The boy feared the cave would collapse from the vicious vibrations. He knew he was safe, at least from the snake, as it was too big to fit past the opening. He turned back and watched the beast curl around and vanish from his tiny view. He could still hear it for some time until its sound seemingly stopped. 

     He grabbed his chest and nearly held his thumping heart in his hand. He let out a shiver as the cold water ran past his legs. He wasn't going back out there. Not for anything. His heart rate slowed. He stood still and listened to the sound of the water bouncing off the rocks echo around him.

     He didn't care what sat in the darkness further into the cave. It was his salvation. It was a direction. A path, a hope. He turned and pressed onward through the rusting river deeper into the heart of the cave.