My hands trembled as I walked on my death march. The stone chained to my waist and around my neck was staggering and gradually grew heavier the longer we walked. I stumbled and fell, scraping my knees on the tree roots and rocks below. I landed on the stone, thankful it was carved flat, and gasped as the wind was drove from my lungs. I laid atop my tombstone for a second to catch my breath, the ground just inches from my face.
The forest was littered with trees and their connections were strewn across the ground in interweaving patterns like spider web so complicated they were impossible to follow for more than a few feet. A hand grasped my collar and roughly pulled me to my feet, nearly driving me back to the ground as the short chain around my neck caught. I stooped low and heaved the stone back into my arms with a groan.
I sucked in another breath and stared at the sky. It was gray, a solemn layer of clouds casting my execution from the gaze of God. Here and there the trees would rattle with rain only to go silent once again and leave us to the sounds of our footfalls. No animals were skittering around from tree to tree, nor a bird flittering from branch to branch. I cringed at the abnormal hush that pervaded the forest and soaked into our souls. Every tree we passed seemed to loom in on us with branches stretched outward.
I paused to look around at the warped wilderness. Where was the color? The little signs that someone or something was still here? Where was the life? The very being of the forest seemed to have died and left just an empty gray shell behind.
For once I wasn’t afraid for only myself.
“Get a move on you.” One of my guards shoved me forward. I hadn’t realized I had stopped walking. “I swear, it’s like you enjoy carrying that thing around. Stopping to enjoy the view, laying down with it..” He rambled on until he realized no one was listening and then the always present silence resumed. It watched us, leering at us from the shadows, waiting for us to let our guard down and become comfortable in the almost soothing aura it emitted.
However, a man on his death march is never relaxed and at ease of mind.
Constantly I found myself looking side to side and over my shoulder, just knowing something was there. I shivered and suddenly became aware I was drenched in sweat. I muttered a low curse then decided the risk of getting sick would no longer be an issue. I almost laughed and instead just let out a long, shaky breath that swirled ahead of me in the bitter cold. I watched it drift away and readjusted my grip on the stone.
It slipped and fell from my grip, nearly crushing my foot, and I stumbled as it pulled me down sharply. I held my arms up to ward off the guards.
“I know, I know, I’m going.”
“Unusual.”
I turned my head to the side and a lump grew in my throat. I looked around as quickly as the chain would allow and felt my tombstone slide from my numb fingers, driving me to my knees.
All the guards were gone, not a sign that they had ever been here.
Tears welled up in my eyes as the darkness began to encroach upon me. Facing the sky, I saw the tree branches slowly, oh so slowly that it could have been an illusion, weave together to form a long tunnel of forest. But I knew it was no trickery of my eyes no matter how much I prayed it had been. What little sunlight I had had was now blotted out, a pitch black ocean surrounding me.
I wept in the darkness, succumbing to my worst fears and mourned the life that I hadn’t had time to live. So many things I had wanted to do, to accomplish, to strive for. All of my dreams and hopes melted away like wax into a pool within my mind’s eye before turning black and consuming my mind’s vision until it was impossible to tell if my eyes were open or not. Maybe I had already been lead out into the swamp with my stone and sank. Maybe this was what it was like to die.
A gentle breeze blew across my neck and face, carrying a bitter sweet scent like sugar and cyanide. Instantly I stiffened and the most terrifying chill crept up my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae until it dug into the back of my skull and imbedded there in my brain. Something worse than fear clutched my heart in an icy embrace.
I froze, and the world around me drowned in shadow.
A Walk with Death
No comments:
Post a Comment