Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.

It hurts. That is the first bare thought to enter your mind, as you barely come around to what could be called ‘consciousness’, although not in those words. For the moment, you cannot understand what the term ‘word’ or ‘it’ is. Perhaps associated with your current condition, ‘hurt’ could be understood. Your eyes feel like they are gummed shut, and just to open them would require you to draw upon reserves of strength long since depleted. The noise of dripping continues around you as your every muscle aches, the left side of your face pressed against dirt, pebbles, grass, and your clothes soaked and chilled by the air, but you don’t even have enough willpower to shiver. The right side of your face suffers a prick of cold and wet, slowly making its’ way down your face as something trickles down on it from above. You can only hope it is water. Your breath is labored, and through your nose seemed quite inadequate. As you finally succeed in the simple act of being able to see, you find the term "see" to be exceedingly deceptive.

Around you is inky blackness except for the highly dim, almost nonexistent illumination of moonlight showing you a vague outline of what you can only infer to be a forest floor and few other ‘objects’ you can perceive to be in existance but no more than that of them, the few colors being presented to your eyes consist of deep, dark brown and deep, dark green, which, truth be told, are not in any form a drastic difference from the black. It’s a good guess that only five inches away from your face is a protruding, gnarled tree root. An incoherent thought quietly considers how much more it could have hurt to have fallen on it, but is quickly dispersed into hazy mists of what is left of your mind. Your continual focus on surveying the environment begins to drain and fade away, and you are forced to relax your futile attempts to study your location further.

Why are you here? How did you get here? Oh, you have no clue. All that you can recall on that is a blank more definitive than most other things you can perceive at the moment. You struggle to keep your eyes open as that crucial distraction causes your eyelids to droop. The throbbing pain going through your whole body is much more intense now that you are coming to a more lucid state of awareness, ever so slowly. A slight twitch of both arms confirms that while completely exhausted, possibly bruised and battered, they’re –probably- not broken. You can’t be sure, after all, it’s all a cold, throbbing pain, slowly going a bit numb. You’re very sure the numb is a bad thing, however. You can’t even give the same courtesy to your legs in your current state, and quietly squint your eyes in the face of a sudden, frigid, and intense breeze. The steady drips become more like a stream, and more parts of your body receive the lovely gift of a splattering of liquid pouring down on them.

You can’t take it anymore, and force your mouth, which feels almost sewn shut, to open. Your lungs rattle as you take a long, deep breath through your dry, parched throat making the first rattled, harsh noise you can confirm as being made by you, causing your chest to vociferously protesting the action with a sharp pain like needles in your side, forcing you to let it out quick enough. A face you cannot connect with any color or name vaguely surfaces to your mind, but you brush the annoying distraction away. Figuratively. If you could brush something away, you’d be in much better shape. You can make out that you are flat on your stomach, however, and you can make out something that could be your arm. But you have an instinctive feeling that something is wrong with it. Very wrong. Perhaps it’s not your arm? The pervading feeling makes you ill as you look at that barely existent shape. Your stomach roils impatiently, and can hear yourself gag a little. Desperation to not look at what is only a vague, not even fully outlined shape causes you to try to examine what appears to be ‘grass’ closer to your face. Yes. It is… Grass. A part of you rejoices at the simple clarity and definite shape you can recognize. You continue to study the

Moments uncountable and immeasurable pass by as you blink once or twice, control over your eyes becoming easier with practice, listening to the pattering sound, the rhythm of the wet coming down to you, your laborious breath slowly becoming automatic as your thoughts begin the slow process of gathering into a less dazed state. With the slow concentration and time it takes, you can begin to hear something else; your heartbeat. It fades in and out to your hearing; although you are convinced it is continuous. You can still only barely feel your legs, and you haven’t yet summoned the ability to move your arms much further than a tiny twitch. But slowly, you can feel your body begin to shiver on its’ own. Disjointed thoughts bring you concepts, words, visions of objects, and noises. But scenes, people and proper memories elude you completely.

Except for one voice. It is a brash voice. Female. Filled with vigor and spirit. Two things you completely lack at this moment. Not unpleasant, but simply the resounding memory of this simple noise elicits some form of… Anger. Rage. A brief invigoration from the strong emotion allows a hoarse cough which could not even masquerade as a laugh to emerge from your mouth. The aggravating motion causes a resurgence of agonizing hurt in your chest and throat.

For now, however, you feel you must…


[ ] Continue to wait. Regain your strength.

[ ] Attempt to sit or stand. You can’t remain here, and this is a step in the right direction.

[ ] Try to move your arms. You need use of them.

[ ] Concentrate on your legs. Allowing the numbness to remain and spread could be fatal.

[ ] Look at your ‘arm’, no matter how unpleasant the act. Try to twitch it again. If it is not your arm, it could be dangerous.