Don't Get Eaten

Chapter Sixty Three

The first thing I notice was the icy coldness piercing straight to the bones of my being. The next thing was the fact that I couldn't breathe. Sounds of raging whooshing clogged my ears where I couldn't hear anything else. My vision was swarmed with murky darkness filled with dirt particles. Flaying my arms about I try to fight against the strong current that was pushing my body in all directions.

Desperately trying to find the surface to relieve my lungs from the pressure of getting no air. Kicking my legs I push on something hard and torpedo upward, my head finally breaking through where I was quickly able to gasp a lungful of blissed oxygen before I was instantly forced to submerge again in the cold depths of raging water.

This was it. I was going to die by drowning.

But as much as I wanted to let go, to let the rapid river to just take my life, instinct kicked in along with my anxiety. Clawing my way back to the surface I break again, gasping another lungful of air, quickly looking around to find what I can see.

I was surrounded by white water. The dark grey sky as the rain continued to pour down and the top of the trees that was quickly passing by as the river current takes me further away. My lungs hurt, my feet and hands frozen from the icy coldness, and the heaviness of my body that wanted to sink from the pulling of water that swished in every which way.

I didn't get to stay above water as it once again drags me under. It felt like forever. The river refusing to let me go yet refusing to take me as well. It was a constant bobbing of in and out. My limbs were tired, my breathing more difficult as water lodges into my mouth making me nearly swallowing it to where I was beginning to choke.

I couldn't take much more of it. I was so exhausted that I finally gave in, closing my eyes as I'm once more submerged under the weight of the water. I let myself sink, the current still pulling me in all directions but I was so tired that I no longer fought it.

The image of Zared's disappearing face right before he was taken from me seared my mind, my heart clenching painfully. And all I could think before I allowed the unconsciousness to evade was that soon I was going to join him.

That soon we'll end up in the same place together after all.

***

I'm being dragged.

Or at least that's what it felt like.

Piercing cold air hits me, water swooshing against my lower body. I feel hard packed dirt and pebbles against my cheek, the roughness rubbing my skin uncomfortably. I was lying on my stomach, teeth chattering as gentle rain drops continue to fall.

Slowly, with difficulty, I open my eyes. Trees line my vision, trees that were still and not moving. Broken down logs scattered the bank where I was miraculously washed up. I felt pressure in my chest when suddenly a gush of water pulls out of me, causing me to cough and sputter releasing my lungs of the pressure and I was able to breathe again.

But as soon as I was relieved of the near drowning, my eyes felt heavy, my body weak and dead to the world. I couldn't stop it even if I wanted too as I once again pass out.

***

A sound jerked me awake, but like before I was too exhausted and cold to move. It was darker now, the rain finally stopping. The night sounds evaded my ears, slow crunching of leaves and branches not too far off from where I was still lying half on land and half in water. I was so out of it that I didn't even react to the monster that was a dozen feet away from me.

It doesn't look my way as it continues to walk around looking for whatever it could find. I was to the point where I didn't care what happens to me. His face swarms my vision again and my heart clenches with a sharp throb that wouldn't go away.

But before I allowed myself to burst into tears my eyelids once again felt heavy, and I allowed the blissful emptiness to take me over a second time.

***

Voices.

With more difficulty than before, I open my eyes to mere slits as the voices first started distant and echoing until they became more solid, more profound. I hear a sharp gasp and couldn't even make out the faces that swam in front of me. They seemed to be looking down in my direction and I hear one of them say,

"Oh my God! He is alive."

"We should take him back with us."

I feel pressure against my cheek, my eyes closing again.

"He's nearly frozen. Come on. We'll have to carry him, it's almost dark so we have to hurry."

I feel warmth press against me, and it was like it was all it took for my body to start shaking uncontrollably. Every part of me started to flood with pain and tenseness. I couldn't help the groan from coming out of me in that moment. I didn't know who these people were. Whether they were friend or foe, but for now I basked in the warmth they provided and before I could try to speak out my world goes dark just as one of them hauls me up into the air.

***

I felt hot all over.

It wasn't just a simple warmth but a burning inferno deep within me. My eyes burned and my head felt like lead as I tried to open them to see a ceiling above me. My tongue felt swollen and dry, my throat parched as if I hadn't had water in days.

My skin felt like it was on fire and something heavy was weighing me down. Slowly turning in the directions of the voices I see a tiny fire in the middle of a room with boarded windows. There were three people huddled near it as they conversed.

Their voices were too low and too muffled for me to hear them clearly. My chest felt constricted and a little difficult to breathe. I try to call out to them, but no sound made it pass my lips. I felt so tired. So very tired.

Thoughts refused to enter my mind, only focusing on the here now and why I was feeling so freaking hot, wondering who these people were and why they saved me. I tried to move but lifting even a single finger was a challenge. But I made some noise since all three heads turned in my direction.

One of them, a young man roughly around my own age came up to me as quietly as he could. His brows were furrowed in worry as he gently takes a cooling hand against my forehead. "He's burning up even more." He whispers.

Someone else comes up next to him, a woman. Wearing an identical look as the other person, she too feels my head.

"Can you hear me?" She whispers closely to me.

All I could do was nod since my throat didn't want to work.

"We found you on the riverbank. You have a high fever. We're trying everything we can to break it but its proving difficult."

I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and try with all my might to get one word out, "Bag?"

They both frown, before her eyebrows shoot up. "Oh, yeah we found a sack not too far off from you." She left our side only to return with my pathetic looking bag that seemed to have been damaged in the river.

I was surprised it made it with me at all. It could have been long gone by now. I swallow hard again and rasp out, "Front...pocket."

If they weren't aware what was inside then that told me they didn't bother to check it. Normally anyone faced in this situation would have snooped in the other's belongings. Especially if they were on the brink of death.

My eyes close involuntarily as she rummages through it and gasp. Opening them again I see her eyes wide and holding the antibiotic medicine I was smart enough to grab at the last minute before leaving...

My mind goes blank refusing to think of anything before the river. But tears still well up in my eyes regardless. I tune them out and look away as they start whispering again. I was too tired, to heartbroken to even care anymore. They could let me die if they wanted too and I wouldn't fight it.

I don't even register my arm being pulled out of the blanket or the pinpoint needle as they injected the medicine in my system. All I cared about was entering into that black void of dreamless sleep that will keep me from remembering that I was alone.

Alone with nothing to hold onto.