Fish ocks, a penny from nineteen seventy one, something bent and warped,
too light to be valuable, a bit of old jewelry, perhaps smashed against
the rocks. Why am I doing this? I must like standing in the
rain. I must like the heady smell of seaweed and salt, a crisp
sound of wet sand beneath my feet, the inevitable feel of it between my
toes. Despite the sturdy shoes and thick wooly socks that I wear, this
beech is littered with cheap tat and nothing else. I've been coming here for
years, drawn by the excitement of a silver coin found in two thousand and
eight. Since then I found the odd musket ball, but nothing of any
real value. Most of the time, when I get down on one knee,
I anticipate disappointment, and yet here I am still scanning the sand and
rocks, looking for another one in a million find with my detector. But
there's nothing here. This place has been combed thoroughly, not by competing hobbyists,
but by myself, slowly and painfully, over a process of years.
This is hardly a place for sunbathers. The sloping cliffs rise overhead as I
pick my way along what little sand lies between the rocks and the ocean.
Seagulls coast lazily in the sky, but down here on the ground, the
wind is fierce, and so is the sea. White horses race furiously towards
the land, breaking not far to my right, folding themselves to pour lazily
at all clumps of rotting seaweed and stubborn rocks. I am alone, standing
at the feet of giants. For a moment. I take my headphones off
and look around, my senses battered by the wind, I stinging. I
scanned the way back when I began, there was an old man going for
a walk, But it's nowhere to be seen now not long, and the
tide will raise the way back. This isn't a popular beach, not with
families. Nudists sometimes come here during the winter to go racing into the waters,
screeching and giggling, titillated and thrilled. Those nude retirees visit this place
for much the same reason I do. It's not good for bathers, swimmers,
serfs, or much else. The rocks are dangerous riptides funneled by powerful
geography, have claimed more than a few lives. It does to do your
research before going for a dip, but if you're prepared, you can be
safe, and the tall cliffs make for an attractive privacy barrier. Only those
who know the area can find the rocky path that leads down to the sand.
Most don't even know it exists, one of the world's forgotten little corners.
I wonder why I'm still here when I've wasted the afternoon looking for nothing.
So far from comfort and warmth. It is a long way back to
the car. I picture the feel of a cup of tea held in both
hands, the sound of wind buffeting my house and wheels, and I'm ready
to finally call it a day and go home. When something catches my eye.
It glitters on the sand not far from me, and I approach it,
expecting a piece of litter wrapper. Perhaps I pick it up and trace
its shape with my fingers. My mind moves at a glacial pace. It
it is a gold coin. It is cold to the touch, handmade pre
saxon. The ancient head stamped into its metal is strange, warped with time.
It resembles a man with the mouth of an anglerfish. It is beautiful.
It is everything I've ever wanted, solid gold and thicker than a smartphone
six months rent in the palm of my hand. Didn't even have to use
my metal detector. It was right there on top of the sand. It
must have come from the water, placed here by those rapid waves. My
mind conjures the image of a sunken shipwreck a mile or two off the coast,
to water log coffers filled with coins, just like these clusters of jewels
gelded with silver and gold, an ancient treasure that has finally broke loose after
centuries of tidal warfare. That might mean there's more. I look around,
but there's only shale and sand hundreds of meters away, where the rocks become
hard to navigate. Something else shimmers in the sun, but that could easily
be a rock pool catching the sun. I should go back, I tell
myself, as I scan the beach once more. The sea is coming behind
me. The sand is narrowed to just ten meters. I know from experience
it will disappear faster than seems possible. Then there would just be water and
cliffs if I get caught. The best case scenario is that I'll be able
to scamper up the safety somewhere and get rescued by a helicopter. My humiliation,
paraded for all to see on local papers happens at least once a year,
but the stakes are higher than you might think. Another coin would make
a year's rent. Again, that image of a sunken chest full of treasures
flashes into my mind. Absurd. I tell myself a child's fantasy, but
I'm holding the evidence of it in my hand, a gold coin. How
often in my life has a fantasy come true? I dig my fingers into
the gold as hard as I can. I want to make sure it's real.
How often does a fantasy need to come true? Just once I mutter
my words lost to the wind, it is uneasy. The rocks here are
sharp and treacherous. As a child, when my mother first brought me to
this beach, I imagined myself walking across a giant's fingerprint back. Then I
glided across stone ridges, pivoting the arches of my feet like a spinning top,
moving effortlessly across the strange landscape. Some of the caps are three four
feet deep. Falling would have hurt, but I didn't fall. I was
young, nigh invincible. It isn't like that now. It might be my
knees, It might be the fear, it might be the nerves. But
I wobble each time I left my foot, my body struggling to balance ridges
as thin as a pencil. I fall twice, and the second time it
hurts like hell. Ripped jeans, ripped skin, blood, a gash that
takes thirty seconds for the pain to reach consciousness. I griped my teeth.
Determination floods me. I look back and realize that the sand is no longer
there. Turning back now means wet socks and shoes angle high water. I'd
be humiliated. I look down at the cut of my leg, watching the
blood flow thinly into salt water until it turns a pinkish yellow. There's another
gold coin. All thoughts of turning back dissolve as I fumble for it in
my fingers. I want more. I want the coffer. I want to
run my fingers through gold like it's liquid. I want to submerge my arms
elbow deep into the treasure. I can't stop picturing. But the tide is
coming. The tide is here, furious waves falling just a few feet short
of my position. This we'll have to do two coins a year's worth of
rent. I accept this compromise and begin to turn back. A wave hits
me. It is worse than any punch. No boxer has ever hit this
hard. Here is a force that shapes continents, and it has me firmly
in its grip. I can't tell you how long this next part lasts.
There is salt, spray, foam. I am tossed about in a way
that I've never been before, like a roller coaster without the tracks. A
rock smashes my ribs, another, my ankle. Something breaks. There is
darkness, there is light. I'm dying. I'm sure of it. When
I a it is to the feeling of my lungs fighting for air while I
lie on my back for a second, I'm just an animal and loving it.
Then the breast comes flooding back, the tide, the beaches, the
coins. I lurch upwards and stare at my palm clutched so tightly I have
to will the muscles to open. Sure enough, the gold coins are still
there. I laugh, but the movement hurts, and even worse, it
starts something. In just a few short seconds, I am forced to reckon
with three terrible facts. First, my ribs are broken. Second, my
ankle is broken. Third, I'm going to be sick. The salt burns,
but it is nothing compared to my ribs and ankle. As I struggle
to roll over, I cannot help but cryers of vomit. I've never known
pain like this. I managed four pitiful heaves of seawater and bile before collapsing
in a breathless fit. My chest feels full of gravel. After a few
long breaths, I sit up, secure the coins in a pocket with a
zipper, and look around. I realize how strange the world has become.
I am lying on a flat rock at the mouth of a cave. I
must have been deposited here like one of those coins, and I count myself
lucky. I want to look outside. I want to take register of how
far I am along the coast and how low the sun has fallen. But
I cannot stand, and movement is beyond difficult. The best I can manage
is a crawl, and I soon realize I'm going to need all my energy.
A gentle lapping of water reaches my feet and soaks my legs. And
ass. I haven't even managed to catch my breath to contemplate the jagged ruin
of my ankle, and already the tide is catching up with me. It
makes sense. I suppose the sea put me here, so of course it
isn't far behind. Damn, I hiss out loud for the first time since
finding the coins. My mind snaps back into what feels like a normal speed.
I am in incredible danger, and it's still not too late for that
look to run out. I pack my pockets. My phone is broken and
unresponsive. My only light is a waterproof torch I keep on my keychain Christmas
gift from my mother. She likes that I have a hobby, she says
it makes it easier to shop presents for me. I turned the torch on
and almost cry at the serendipity of it all. Until now, I've never
used it. The caverhead is roughly waist height, and it goes deeper than
my torch can reach. The ocean is rising behind me, furious and losing
its catch. Thankfully, the cave slopes upward a few meters in, so
I begin to crawl, seeking higher ground. I dragged myself off the flat
rock and further into the cave. I make slow progress across the collection of
eroded gravel, a random crap. The water is deposited here over the years,
fishing tackle, old nets, driftwood, her cat's skull. I cannot
help but stop at the last one. Hollow eyes glare back at me like
a warning. I shake the feeling off and move onwards. I am losing
the chase, I realize as the water catches up to my belly. Damn
it, damn it, damn it. I dragged myself elbow over elbow,
like they two on those army adverts. Be the best, I think over
and over as my ankle catches on the stones and my ribs grind in my
chest. I haven't cried like this since I was a child, but I
don't stop. The water is at my chest now. The cat's skull is
floating somewhere behind me, buoyed by the rising sea. I don't want to
join it. At last, I make it to where the ground begins to
rise. The darkness makes for an ominous savior, but here is my only
chance of survival, and I cling to it. I ignore the caveman inside
me. He is terrified of this place and is banging every warning drum in
my mind that he can reach. But I forge my way ahead regardless,
arm over arm. My progress is slow, maybe a meter for every ten
minutes. I cannot say for sure. I'm no athlete. When the rising
tunnel becomes too steep for my elbows that offer much attraction, I dig my
fingers into cracks in the stone and pull myself along that way. Meanwhile,
the water climbs still. I feel it's icy touch, reach my collar bones
and let out an audible cry. I don't want to die. It terrifies
me, the thought of it, the pain most of all, how aimless
is drowning I wonder less painful than this. I want to weigh up the
pros and cons of letting go and sliding back into the water, but my
brain won't let me. It's all or nothing. Instincts older than the continents
propel me, fighting to hold my chin up. As the water reaches my
bottom lip. I failed to notice the ground changing direction, a sudden downward
tilt that leaves my hands flailing. I want to pause, engage the way
ahead, but it's far too late. I am carried over the top by
a mix of gravity in the water's currents for a moment, and then there
is total darkness for the second time that day. I pass out. When
I awake, I am on my stomach and in so much pain that I
am actually able to register a glimmer of anger at the world around me.
This is starting to feel personal, and that spark of frustration is what gives
me the strength to lift my head up and try to gage where I am.
Luckily, my torch states strapped to my wrist, and I use it
now to see that I am in a head hike cavern. Near By is
a crack in the rock, and from there the water drains. Lucky for
me, or else I would have surely drowned. Behind me lies the way
I came. It is a nearly vertical wall of rock, ten meters high
and slick with algae and eroded smooth by millennia of waves. I have no
more chance of climbing it than I do the Empire State building. My watch
as another wave crest the top and strikes me like a thrown bucket. Nearby,
that crack has begun to fill backwash, lapping eagerly at my feet.
If I stay here, I will likely drown in less than an hour.
But this isn't a death trap, not yet anyway. The cave carries on
another tunnel, chest height big enough to crawl through. It bends gently out
of sight, and something about the darkness beyond makes my stomach curdle. For
all I know, it terminates after a meter, but I have no choice
except to try. I possessed crawling onwards around the corner. It seems safe
at first, but then the tunnel begins to narrow. I try not to
let it worry me. I'm on my stomach and there is room to bear
as the ceiling gradually lowers from six to five to four feet. When it
starts to graze my shoulder blades, I have to suppress the need to hyperventilate.
Then it's not just the ceiling that's getting closer. The walls on either
side encroaching my arms, and the panic becomes very real. I keep hoping
they'll widen any second, but they don't. They just keep pressing closer and
closer. I want to turn back already I can feel water reaching my knees.
I try to turn back and find I can't. This realization seems to
drain the world of all color. But I try, and as the dwell
on what it means, I keep going without realizing what I'm doing. I
leave my arms out in front until the walls narrow so tightly I can no
longer bend them at the l bow. I'm forced to move entirely on the
motion of two wrists and one functioning ankle. If I thought progress before was
slow, this was a thousand times worse. Time crawls to a halt as
I struggle against my own intubment, and I spend what could be ten seconds
or ten hours staring at a single bit of rock. The fingers of my
right hand working furiously, or my left foot tries to push me forward.
I move no more than a centimeter at a time without warning. The panic
hits me like a hammer blow. I can't move. I tried to thrash
an anger, but it's more like a seizure. My wrists and ankles flick
a left and right, looking for leverage, but there's nothing. I should
try to think clearly, but most of my mental energy as to go to
fighting panic. My motions reach breaking point and I begin to sob out loud
and curse. Soon I become hyper aware that I cannot breathe in fully because
the tunnel is compressing my ribs. There's no budge in the stone. It
is so unyielding. Every breath is limited, and so they start to come
faster and faster in a desperate bid to chase away the ever growing sense of
suffocation. I just want one deep breath, one deep breath, but I
can't. The more I struggle, the more desperate the need for oxygen becomes.
I am trapped in a downward spiral that feels like it is killing me.
This is the worst case scenario. I realize I was better off drowning.
Nothing can possibly be worse than this. I want to pass out,
I want to die. Neither happens. The world goes a bit woozy.
I'm overcome briefly by dizziness, but there's no changing this. Instead, I
am forced to face my fear, and while I cannot beat it, I
can at least observe it. I don't really have much of a choice.
Neither the cave nor I are going anywhere, so I pay attention to the
lightheadedness, the pain in my chest, the weight of the earth above and
below me. My heart races so quickly, it feels like it might just
seize up and stop. I focus on its rhythm. I count each beat
in the tattoo slowly without meaning to. This heightened awareness causes some of the
panic to ease up. I can describe it only is a sort of out
of body experience, except I never leave my body. I'm inside it,
painfully, aware of every constraint and bondage and every ache and pain. At
last, I notice something new. If I breathe out, the rock is
no longer squeezing me to death. If I exhale and keep the air out,
the feeling of constraint becomes almost tolerable. It is the only physical sensation
of relief I have felt since this began. And just like that, I'm
back in the driver's seat. It is so obvious in hindsight. I want
to laugh. I exhale and keep the air out of my lungs and wiggle
my foot. My body moves. I dried again, and this time I
inch forward. I do it maybe fifty a hundred times. All in all,
I travel a meter, I think, and then the rock gives way.
I wee plug a baby. I can breathe a full breath, and
the tunnel keeps widening. Before I know it, I have my arms back
at my side, and I'm using my elbows to drag myself forward. Soon
there is no tunnel scraping my shoulder blades at all, no rock to bang
my head against. I merge head first and drag myself out of the tunnel
and drop a few feet onto a rocky floor below. I roll onto my
back and let rip a laughter. It is howling and mad and like nothing
I've known before, weeping without a joy. I looked to my left and
right, ready for the next step in this nightmare. There is a man
smiling at me. Geez, I squeal, scrambling upwards and away without meaning
to. I kick him in the face, and his head loves backwards like
he's trying to laugh. I see his mouth in a bloody ruin. His
eyes and teeth are gone. He isn't smiling at all. He's dead.
Something has torn his jaws open and removed his teeth. The result merely looks
like a joker esque grin. Terrified, I shuffled over and briefly flick a
hand out to touch him a quick shove to the shoulder. He does not
react. It takes another three or four pokes before I finally convince myself he's
a nerd. Reality asserts itself with a kind of nun dread. This really
is a dead body, I tell myself. His face is pale in the
glare of my torch, but a quick hand to the forehead tells me is
still warm, and that windbreaker is awfully familiar. I rack my mind and
summon an image of that old man on the beach. He'd been wearing a
jacket much like this one. But it can't be him. I decide it
simply cannot be him. This place is a nightmare, I think, a
real life underworld. I look around and try to imagine how this body came
to be here. There are strange things bundled against the far wall. I
approach and go through them, but their effect is similar to the gold coin.
My thoughts become frozen and sluggish. I inventory them like some idiot,
unable and unwilling to see the bigger picture. Six coats, fifteen shoes,
countless hats and gloves, all of them torn or ripped in some fashion.
Three backpacks, exercise books from a school paper turned a much long ago,
A pencil case stuffed with soft pencils and broken pens. I dropped the last
item to the floor and swivel my light across the room behind me. I
don't like this. My mind raises with possibilities. Suddenly, I'm scanning this
small chamber like my life depends on it, desperate to answer a question that
supplants all others. Maybe I should have listened to my caveman thoughts. I
think I may not be alone down here. There is writing on the wall.
I cannot recognize the language, but it frightens me. Paragraphs of it
scrawled in neat blocks, one after the other. Occasionally it is broken up
with simple pictograms of ships and spear wielding men. If it tells a story,
I cannot make heads or tails of it. Something about the scene is
getting to me, nonetheless, the body, the pile of forgotten things,
an ancient language. I stop myself sinking into another full blown panic by remembering
that these are all irrelevant details. I need to leave this place no matter
what. There are several tunnels leading out of this cavern, all much larger
than the last one. I pick one at random, Hopefully it is more
reliable than the last. I crawled through, fighting the pain. I rise
on to my knees and hands. It hurts like hell, but it lets
me leave swiftly and quietly. I scamper along, offering only one last sad
glimpse of the body. The old man is looking at me. He is
still grinning, and I am glad to take the light away and put distance
between us. Whether or not this path leads out, I appreciate that it
at least stays wide open. At points. It is even large enough for
two or three people to walk abreast. I've never been thankful of this kind
of room. Before, just the day ago, this would have felt like
a crowded elevator. Now it's like an empty stadium. It lets me stop
and catch my breath, lets me raise ahead and make progress. Either can
happen on my terms. Minutes slide away in the dark. My time has
no meaning for long periods. I turn the torch off and navigate by sound
and touch, relying on my echoes to tell me when the tunnel takes a
sudden change in direction. This is something that if you had asked me this
morning, I would have told you I could never imagine. But it is
surprisingly easy. More than once I did. Take the change in what is
otherwise uniform soundscape and stop lighting up my torch and seeing a sharp bend right
or left. I am acquiring a competency that gives rise to a flickering hope.
This confidence fades when I come to a fork in the tunnel. For
a moment, I'm caught by indecision. But then something familiar catches my eyes.
There is a gold coin, another pristine, just like the one on
the beach. This time it does not exhilarate me. No images of sunken
chests come to mind, only the leering grin of the palate corpse I left
behind, and the grim words etched into stone. The world is heavy,
weighing down from above, and I am so small and alone down here,
the darkness so complete as to suffocate. I stare at the coin, and
it's positioning in a tunnel that takes a hard left turn out of sight.
I don't like it. I don't like its placement. Taking it would place
me right at the threshold of the unseen. I'm certain of nothing in this
underworld, possessing only the risk averse instincts of a prey animal. But I
decide that coin is a trap based only on those instincts. It is almost
arrogant, unsubtle. I'm wide eyed, with a smell of blood still freshen
my nose, A twitching hair ears raised. I have a feeling that whatever
set that trap is near enough to hear my every breath. I am separated
from death only by the gossamer thin limits of my perception. It's right there,
and it expects me to take the bait. I realize, with some
disappointment, I already have. I'm two coins deep into this nightmare. This
whole thing a carefully laid trap from the start. My only hope is that
I'm no Highland hair. I can think beyond action and reaction, but I
have to be quick. I weigh up my options. If something is there,
do I really want to let it know I'm aware of it? I
suppose every ambush, sooner or later, has to release itself. Better to
be in control. I decide I find a rock. There are plenty of
them. Slowly, quietly, I back away from the fork and find a
ridge in the stone walls that I can hide behind. It is small and
offers little shelter, but it's the best I have and I hope it work
anyway. I thumbed the switch, and my light goes out. I throw
the stone in my fist and squeeze myself back into my hiding space and hold
my breath just in time. The stone smashes into the wall of the right
hand tunnel. This is the one without the coin. There is silence for
what might be five ten seconds, and then there is only the gentlest of
sounds, the touch of something soft against the stone. What a far cry
from the synthetic world of engines and buzzing motors I'm used to. I have
spent my life training myself to ignore those kinds of sounds, barely perceptible scuffles,
a cat's footfall, a bird's wings, a scurrying rat. But down
here the sounds like thunder. It makes my blood run cold, and the
hair and my scalps stand on edge. A part of me had thrown the
stone, convinced I would only prove myself wrong. But now the terror is
so real that I can almost reach out and touch it. It is as
tangible as the wall I'm trying desperately to dissolve into, as real as my
own flesh and blood, ay and being hunted. Whatever was in hiding has
seemingly taken the bait. The sound of its movements disappears down the right hand
tunnel. Thank God for that caveman. He remembers the plan. Acting on
instinct and painfully aware of the ticking clock, I forced myself to peek around
the rocky outcrop and turn on my torch. There lies the fork again.
And if I had any doubt about the trap before, it is thoroughly beaten
down. When I see the gold coin has disappeared, I waste no more
time and scramble on all fours down that turning, pausing only briefly to consider
if my hunter has employed a double bluff. Oh well, I think it's
too late. Now around the corner, I go and find nothing but darkness.
I could try and perform some mental gymnastics convince myself there was never anything
there in the first place. But on one of the walls I spot a
streak of something reddish brown. There was just enough time in passing to be
sure that it is blood, and then I'm gone, desperately crawling further into
darkness. Occasionally I stop and check over my shoulder for signs of something giving
chase. If it took the bait and followed the wrong tunnel, who's to
say it didn't quickly realize and is now barreling down on me. Although the
tunnels don't intersect down the line, if something lives here, it must be
incredibly familiar with a layout of these sprawling caverns. I am merely a tourist
in the shadows, hopelessly lost and ill equipped for this kind of survivalist nightmare.
But each time I look, there is only empty space, a frighteningly
sterile landscape, brutal and haunting looming over me and my hands and knees.
Rock walls curved and jagged, ribbed and rippling, a concrete colon where light
can only reach so far. Each time I look, I have to force
myself to break eye contact with the darkness and resume my journey. I do
this sixteen times. I do not know how long a lapse is between each
glance. I only count the number, until at last, the everlasting tunnel
takes a break and I am deposited and yet another cavernous room. This time
I am almost blinded by the light it emanates. For a moment I turn
my head upwards, expecting to see a bulb. Instead, there is a
hole in the roof, and only the faintest glimmer of sunlight makes its way
down. But after hours in pitch black darkness, it felt like staring right
at the sun. It is too far to see the way out, or
to get any real hint of the sky beyond. I can't say if it's
night or day up there, but I know the sky must be close,
so close the hole itself isn't far above me. And use my light,
I can spot a kind of ancient rusted ladder embedded in the rock. It
won't be easy climbing it so injured, but given my limited choices, I'll
have to manage. For the first time in hours, I stander. My
two feet reaching upwards hurt everything from my chest to my toes. Broken ribs
grind, A swollen angle pulses pain through deaden nerves that seconds ago reported nothing
but hissing static. I swear it is so bad my heart stops, or
at the very least it missus a beat. This must be the kind of
stress that can kill healthy men, and I'm not even healthy. My elbow
doesn't even get past my shoulder when I'm forced to gasp for breath and the
whole house of cards comes tumbling down. I fall back, and even that
hurts more than I can imagine. Suddenly I find myself questioning if I really
haven't in me to climb that pitted, rusty ladder. Something screams it isn't
far away. This room, like the others before, has many ways in
and out. It is rising on the walls too, picked the grams of
something strange with a head of angler being worshiped by men the size of ants.
My torch flashes crossed them all and makes nightmares of the shadows, but
nothing yet leaps out at me. I realized, this is it the only
chance I'm getting. How many chances do I need, I asked myself,
Only one, I mutter. I force myself upright, and before my nerves
have time to register the landslide of pain ready to collapse me. I hop
on one foot. It is all I need to reach the ladder with one
swinging arm, then the other, so that I'm there, clinging on for
dear life, feet barely an inch of the floor, with tears streaming down
my face. This already feels like too much, but before I have time
to give up and fold into myself, there comes another scream. This one
is so close. I cannot help but imagine that whatever lies in the dark
is excited to finally catch up with me. That last thought tempts fate.
It seems still swinging eyes darting to and fro from the several tunnel holes,
I catch a glimpse of something. It is racing towards me. It is
human, vaguely in the way that the monsters in our nightmares often are.
I laid out my own scream or something like it. It's just the cartos
sort of yelp, because whether I realize it or not, my muscles have
kicked into gear and I'm somehow doing a pull up, my legs kicking furiously.
I drag my way up until the first rung is at chest height and
I'm able to grab another overhead. The pain in my chest retreats to a
dull throb. I try foolishly to use my bad ankle to climb, and
realize there aren't enough endorphins in the world to let me put weight on a
broken bone. I let out another cry and switch tactics. I have to
use my arms to lift myself and rely on one good foot as a stabilizer.
This would be difficult but manageable if I had all the time in the
world. But with the memory of that thing bearing down on me, it
is akin to torture. I am flooded with a sense of futility, of
pain and needless suffering. But if I've learned anything in the last few hours,
it is that the human body runs on its own firmware, and it
isn't slaved to your brain. My arms move their own accord. My body
rises one rung at a time, too fast for common sense injuries, a
bound, grazed skin, a bumpt head, Each step up as me clumsily
bashing or banging some sensitive part of me into the barely visible rocks. Instinct
may be in the driver's seat, but it's happy to leave me with the
consequences of its recklessness. I feel every ache and pain, every stinging wound
embedded with grit, every ligament stretched to breaking point. Oddly, I don't
mind this arrangement. I want to live. I am glad there is a
caveman inside me to take care of moments like this, especially when I glanced
down between my legs and see pitch black eyes glaring up at me with thoughtless
glee. I cannot get over how human that face is. I expected something
insectile, maybe even a rachneid. Whatever is below me, whether it's some
hybrid or mutant, it is vile and fast approaching. The vibrating in the
ladder tells me it is climbing too. I try to climb faster, but
I really am operating on all cylinders right now. There's nothing left to spare.
I don't want to, but I look down again, and there it
is even closer. It is smiling with a rubbering mouth full of glassy teeth.
I hate it. I lash out with my bad foot without meaning to,
and hurt only myself. The pain is so severe I am forced to
stop climbing and sob. And it is in that moment I feel claws sink
into the hot, swollen flesh of my calf. I let out a hell
of a noise. It empties my lungs and burns a mark deep into my
being. WILL remember the way this scream feels until the day I die.
It is the moment in time where I give into despair, where I lose
all hope as my nervous system gives into a pain in juice seizure that sees
my fingers go numb and my limbs go limp. The last thing I remember
as I fall is the sight of an iron grate overhead, only ten twenty
meters away. A man I think is standing there and shining a torch straight
down. He says something I cannot hear. I tell myself this is a
hallucination, nothing more. I enter free fall. My head HiT's a rocky
outcrop beneath me. Something crunches darkness. I come to in a hospital bed
with a feeling in my chest that makes me think of war. A lash
left or right. Grab a hold of a table and jerk it across the
floor, ready to wield it like a club. The nurse in the corner
is afraid. She doesn't realize it. But I'm fighting for my life,
or at least I think I am. Slowly, I blink the halogen glare
away and take in my surroundings. The battleground fades. I realize where I
am. I try to hold back tears. It doesn't work. Within seconds,
I am balling. Arms embrace me. I don't know who they are,
and I don't care. I embrace them back, I seize them and
cling unto their unfamiliar body with such severity. They mutter words, there's someone
nearby along the effects of Jesus hurting me more rust, movement, a needle.
I'm asleep again. Hours maybe days later, I awakened to find my
mother and a policeman nearby. This time, my senses return in time to
stop panic. I'm finally given the story of my rescue. They were looking
for me the entire time, and by chance they heard me near the old
storm drain. They came rattling down no more than a few minutes after I
hit the ground, and found me lying there, bleeding and broken. Strangely,
they say I had no real injuries from the fall itself, a bumped
head and a broken wrist on the way down. But from that height I
should have broken my neck. Something cushing my fall, I think and laugh
uproariously. My mother looks worried. She must think of gone insane. Who
can blame her? I was down there for over twenty four hours, although
it didn't seem like it to me. I explain this to them. The
elasticity of time in the dark, and they nod like they understand, but
of course they don't. Somehow, it takes me another hour to realize I'm
missing a leg. This perplexes them as much as me, indiscrepances in the
nature of the wound. An expert stands to the side and explains as much
to me. The words are a distant drone. I'm taken aback by the
sight of the stump, all neatly bandaged. Apparently it took a lot of
surgery to neat an up. Despite everything, I am angry. I thought
I was dead. There should be a small price to pay, and yet
the knowledge that a part of me went to feeding that monster makes my stomach
churn. I want to be sick. A piece of me is down there
somewhere, dissolving in stomach acid, waiting to be excreted in some foated corner
of the monster's lair. When I start to cry and shout in impotent rage,
they have to sedate me once more. They assume it is simple shock,
But there is more to it than that. I am consumed by a
deep hatred that is hard to explain. Months later, I find myself recounting
this story to try and that hateful feeling. All this time, I cannot
escape the sense of unfinished business. Every time I mess up with my prosthetic
slip stumble, momentarily forget it is there. I feel the anger burning inside
me. Every night I spend hours in agony from phantom pains, trying to
soothe a wounded brain using a mirror of all things. Sometimes I think I
would have rather died if it meant killing that thing all my weight such a
steep drop. I picture myself crushing it and leaving it a gory, broken
mess. I've never felt this kind of enmity. Evidently I'm not alone.
One morning, a knock on the caravan door. It takes me far too
long to get ready. I'm not yet practiced with a limb. Putting it
on taking it off takes me nearly twenty minutes to get myself together. My
mood is darkened since my rescue, and I practically kick my door open with
a raw ready to curse out anyone who disturbs me. I find no one
there, only silence and another gold coin