It was certainly one of the worst days of his life. One of the worst.
It was a forest. A damned forest. Right in the middle of the cruel hand of nature, all those trees stealing all the air, all the light. And all those crawling things. Crawling across your body at night. Parasites all over. Under your skin. Eating you. Eating you alive. And things... things... stalking you at night. Watching. Waiting. Stalking. And when the trees cleared, you could see the vultures, circling above your head- Those dark figures against the soulless sky. Looking forward to that feast they'll have when you finally drop dead in this nightmare. Revt shivered, trying not to think about it.
'Too late,' he mumbled to himself, trudging through the dense wildlife.
Endless bark. Dark brown, rough. The stink of the leaves. His world enveloped in green. How many hours had it been? Days, maybe? Perhaps, an aeon had fluttered by.
No, this was certainly not the Women's Island. It would have been so much better if it were. Surrounded by beauties, who you could oogle at all day. And don't forget the fucking. The best par--
A sudden yelp escaped his mouth as his foot caught in a stray root, and the world spun around him as as he fell, face-first, into the mud.
'Arghhh!' He groaned, wiping the mud off his face with his sleeve, which was already torn, grimy, and soil as it was, then proceeded to curse. The mud just made his hygiene level even worse. He grimaced, trying to ignore how dirty he felt. He hadn't bathed ever since he got lost in this hell forest. Revt frowned, scratching his dirty blonde hair, a look of disgust on his face. Hours, days, or aeons? He got up to a kneeling position, smacking his itchy head, probably full of dandruff and dirt and god knows what else...
And then, something at the edge of his vision wriggled.
Images flickered into life. Slimy, wriggling, man eating worms, maggots in rotting corpses, centipedes, big and hairy, a millipede nest... He really didn't want to look... But no... Not knowing was worse...
Oh. Oh. OH SHIT, no, no, NO.... PLEASE NO....
He saw its legs.
Revt stifled a scream, scrambling back blindly with the agitation of a man in mortal danger, back pressed against a tree, cursing and swearing; desperate to get away from the monstrosity which crawled before him.
It was a millipede.
A bloody carnivorous millipede.
His eyes went wide with absolute terror, staring at the millipede, its tiny legs working furiously as it crawled past his boots. His heart hammered like a monster thrashing in its cage, threatening to simply urst. Would the thing crawl onto him? Climb up his arm, up his torso, eating into his skull..? Suck up his brain, eat the eyeballs, crawl out the nose, into the mouth, feast on the lifeless tongue--
But it crawled past, ignoring him as if he did not exist, its tiny head pointing somewhere else, someplace else, but not at him. For a moment, Revt was almost sure that it would suddenly turn back, and fly at him or something... But his fears were not assuaged, and it continued crawling over the fallen leaves, disappearing beneath them a few seconds later, unperturbed by his presence, uncaring...
Revt released a breath he did not realize he held, and his tense body relaxed, albeit covered in cold sweat. No harm done. Goddamn... What an ordeal... For a moment, he was frozen, picturing the way the millipede may have devoured him. Tunnels in his head, devouring his brain, his eyes, crawling out the ear, moving on to the stomach...
Revt cried in frustration, grabbing his head, shaking it violently until the images stopped flashing. Then, he started breathing in deep, thinking himself calm. Calm. He steadied himself, standing on his feet, walking away. I'm cool, I'm cool. No bugs in here, no more. And he focused on those few words as he trotted off, mouthing the words. No bugs. No harm. No bugs. No harm. No bugs. No--
His back started to itch. He groaned in annoyance, reaching up to scratch the offending spot... only to feel something. Hairy, and thick. Is it my hair? But it seemed to be moving slightly.
Moving...
A sudden shiver zipped down his spine. Pangs of terror. His heart accelerated again, as images flashed into his mind again. Of a giant, hairy thing, digging into his skull.
Oh. No. No. No. Not again. No. No.
His hands shook violently, as he reached back to the itching spot hesitantly, afraid of what he would find, his imagination putting fragments of nightmare images together, of giant, man eating spiders, feasting on dead bodies. His heart quickly gained speed, and he could feel the sweat dribbling down his face. Please let it be a stick. Please let it be a stick. Please let it be a stick.
He breathed in deep, and, with forced courage, brought the thing to his eyes.
It was...
A humongous spider.
Revt took a moment to register what the abomination which squirmed between his fingers were. And then he screamed and screamed, screamed like there was no tomorrow; his arm was spasming, his overdriven eyes following the creature as it jerked about wildly, dangling from his finger, its arms reaching out to him...Reaching out... And his brains... Reaching to eat it, to put it into its tiny mouth, laughing manically, spinning a tight cocoon about him as it prepared for hibernation, and when winter came it would crawl through his ear and eat his guts... Crunching sounds...
'GOD DAAAMMMNNN!' He screamed, shutting his eyes, loosing a wild cry of terror as he flung the spider away, still screaming after it, grabbing his head, falling onto his knees.
Away... It... Flies...
Away...
He was breathing heavily, looking down at his trembling hands, his mind reeling in shock. It had been simply a spider. A mere spider. And he had the Jesus scared out of him. His skin was sheathed in the cold sweat he only just noticed, and he felt both the heat of panic's wake, and the chill of raw terror.
A train of thought.
There were so many things in the forest. So many things. So many things he couldn't defend against. So many things you're scared of. Insects. The harshness of the environment. Starvation. Paranoia. Anxiety. Longing.
How could he possibly survive...?
That's because I can't...
And then, he was on the ground, curling up in a fetal position, his chest heaving as sobbing racked his body, his hair wet by his tears of self pity and regret, the memories of his family, his friends, and of the fear which engulfed him as the memories of his life played in his mind. So many wonderful things... So many... So...
Then, five words blazed in his head, incinerating all other thought, suffocating him, hammering at his chest... And he started screaming, screaming, and screaming...
I am going to die.
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This piece has no inspiration behind it. And it's ridiculously short.
The first story I've posted on YWS, additionally. Or a mini-short... Well. Meh. :O
I edited out the mistakes you pointed out.
, at least I prefer it if you do it that way
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