Spencer

I've got twigs and some things which look like not quite ripe berries. I've dug in the ground for roots but I don't know what I'm looking for. I just know that they are there somewhere. I know I am surrounded by food but I don't know where it is. I've had enough water to drink, maybe too much water. My stomach hurts and insects are biting at my bare skin. I'm too hot and I'm sweaty. Hair keeps sticking to my face and my boots are causing my feet to get a nice crop of blisters. This makes me decide to remove the boots and walk just in my socks for a while and it's only when I do that that I realise how many stones and thorns and other bits on the ground to stick into the bottom of my feet and cause a different sort of pain.

I keep telling myself that this is stupid. I have been trained to cope with things like this, but all I can think about is that if Floyd was here he would have been providing for me and then I feel even more stupid for letting him do this to me and I feel a nasty deep down rage that I stood there and let him drown. If that's what happened.

At the point of the river I'm at now the trees reach right to the bank. I am stumbling over the big ancient roots which have twisted their way out of the ground and are turning this, what I thought would be, quick walk to safety, into an obstacle course. My feet keep slipping causing me to scrape and dig at my shins and make me grab out at things to hold onto and some of those things have long thorns waiting for me to tear at my hands with. The sun is at its highest point now and so to try to reduce the burn I am getting on my shoulders I pull back into the forest a bit deeper and sit and wait in the shade.

The stomach pains which I thought would go away if I rested seem to increase. I don't know if it's because I'm too hot or if it's because I've had too much water from a river which would not be running with natural spring water, but would also be housing the natural dirt that the animals leave behind. I decide to remove my jeans and fold them and use them to rest my head on and try to sleep for a while. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. Not now I know that there is something out there; something which ripped Floyd apart as I dreamed my nightmares. I think tonight I will be awake waiting for the night time creatures and monsters in the shadows to come and get me too. And so with the griping pains inside me with seem to be travelling alarmingly downwards I curl up and close my eyes.

I have no idea how long I lay there for, but I didn't sleep. I just lay there and felt the insects biting at me and the sweat running down me until there was nothing else I could do but leap to my feet and find somewhere to empty my bowels. The pain brings tears to my eyes but I've leaned now that I can't risk drinking from the river. I can't afford to get sick. I have to keep as well as I can or I'll never make it out of this place. I clean myself up as best I can utilising some leaves with I know are safe to use and then pull my jeans back on and walk slowly back towards the river. I may not be able to drink it but I can wash in it. I can at least attempt to keep cool. I'm rubbing and scratching at the skin on my neck and arms and chest, but I realise now that whilst I lay there stupidly in the shadows wondering when my stomach was going to explode that I'd been giving every biting insect in the area a fresh bit of flesh to chew on, and they did a good job. I don't think there is any part of me which hasn't got a bite on it. I'm covered in little bubbles of blood and smears where I've slapped things off my skin. The natives who used to roam this area many centuries ago would have had something to combat this. They would have known what to use to stop the things biting constantly, but I personally don't know what that something is. I just know it was some kind of grease mixed with other things which they covered themselves with. I'm going to have to suffer. I'm going to have to ignore it.

Now that I know I can't drink the water safely my mind turns all the more to the need for food. I pluck fat leaves from trees and nibble on the edges of them in the hopes that it'll take away this raging thirst I now have. My mouth is dry. My stomach is empty, and my backside is sore. Along obviously with the continual itching and scratching and stumbling and getting things stuck in my feet. I judge that it's mid afternoon of my first day out here and already I'm about to give in.

Again I strip off only this time I slide down into the river and have a wash. It really feels wonderful to have that cold water rushing over my sore skin. The water here is deep enough to reach my hips and I can feel the pressure of the river behind me trying to push me over and pull me downstream to wherever this eventually leads to. I bend slightly and let the river pass over my back and I splash the cool water lovingly over my chest. I so want to reach down and gulp up a mouthful of lovely cold water but the memories of that pain it caused last time are still much too strong. There are fish here. I see them fly by me under the water and I wonder if it would be possible to do what Floyd did and catch one. Small point in that if I'm unable to light a fire though. I make sure I get my hair nice and wet and then clamber back out and side on a tree root at the edge. I'll try to light a fire. Then if I can do that I will attempt to catch a fish. Decision made I look around me for things I could use to burn. Floyd seemed to get things in no time at all, but it's taking me a while to find what I need. Small tiny bits to start it with. Something slightly bigger for when it catches, and then something big for when it's going properly. By the time I have a good sized pile of sticks the sun is beginning to go down again. With a sigh I pull the lighter out of my pocket and crouch down next to the sticks and attempt to light it.

The explosion knocks me onto my back. How a lighter can explode like that I don't know, what I do know is that my hand is burnt. I lay there in agony and put my hand up in front of my face to get a good look at it. It's not good. It is a very long way from being anywhere near to being good. I roll over onto my front and push up with my left hand and then leg it down to the river. I know I have to cool it down as quickly as I can. Get it into the water. Immerse it for a long time and try to stop the burn going too deep, but I have a nasty feeling in my stomach and in my hand and fingers that the water isn't going to help me too much. I don't slide carefully into the river this time. I am just thinking, my only thought is "get you hand in the water" and so I leap foolhardily into the water. My feet slip on the stones and I'm on my back again only this time I'm under the water. I feel my head crack on something but that is only a distant discomfort as I'm still just thinking about getting the burn in the cool water. Spluttering and coughing I get so at least my head is out of the wet and then carefully manage to kneel. This means that the water is at my upper chest level. It would be freezing cold if I thought about it, but all I can think now is "oh god my hand". It's taken over every thought as I let it rest in the water.

I just stay where I am for a long time. Too long for the comfort of my mind but I know that I have to keep the hand cool. The light is dimming fast or time is moving too quickly, I can't quite work out what it is now. I know I need to give my hand a careful look before it gets too dark and try to find something to cover it with. Yes I know I can't wrap it but I also can't leave it for the mosquitoes and other insects to feed off. And so slowly I lift my hand from the water and have a look at it. There are nasty blisters all along my fingers from my palm. That's OK, I can cope with that. What I don't like the look of is the deep red rawness of my palm. I don't like the blackened areas. I don't like the twinkle of bits of metal embedded in my hand. Very carefully I run the fingers of my left hand over the wound. I know that this is going to get seriously infected if I don't at least remove the shards of cigarette lighter sticking out of my hand. I wonder how much this is going to hurt and if I should get out of the river again first. I really don't want to pass out in the river and end up drowning like the owner of the lighter did. Slowly and carefully I stand and realise that I am feeling very light headed. Probably shock and hunger and the rumbling of my insides again and so I just stand for a short while with my eyes closed and try to think what to do. Slowly the light headedness passes and I've made no decisions at all except to know that I have to get out of the river and back on dry land before it gets completely dark. It's a hard scrabble back up the bank again. It's only a few feet high but enough for it to be a problem. I slide back into the water a few times whilst I clutch my right hand as tightly to my chest as I dare. I can feel the heat radiating off it but I cannot stay in the river any longer. I suspect that it takes me about fifteen minutes to get back onto the roots at the river bank. All I want to do now is curl up and sleep until this adventure is all over, but firstly I need to pull those bits out of my hand.

Times like this remind me that there is always a good reason to have long fingernails. The first bit is located and pulled quickly from my hand. It makes a nasty almost sucking sound as I pull it out. This bit is a couple of centimetres long. I drop it to the forest floor and look again at my hand. There is now a small trickle of blood making its way across my palm and in the gloomy light it looks almost black against the redness of my skin. I feel gently around again and find another bit of metal poking out of my hand. I grip it between my fingernails and pull.

When I open my eyes again I'm lying at a strange angle between the roots of the tree. My bad hand instinctively held against my chest. I pull it gently away from me and hear the squishing noise it makes as I leave what I assume is a bloodied hand print on my chest. I have to move. I can't stay here all night. I've hit my head once again and now my back hurts because of the way I was positioned after passing out again. I was at least right about not being in the river when I attempted to do this. I ease my way slowly across the tree roots on my backside. Although there is a large moon I don't seem to be able to see anything much and all I can feel is pain. I wriggle forwards until I find a flat surface to rest on and then just sit and take big breaths of warm night air and try to concentrate on the sound of the river and the night insects and not my heart pounding too hard in my chest. My lungs try to force to me to take short quick shallow breaths of panic, but I'm not going to let this get to me. It's only my first night for goodness sake! I've burnt my hand and I've done untold damage to my backside. I've repeatedly hit my head and nearly drowned and I've vomited everything and anything which could possibly be inside me. If this is just the first day then I dread tomorrow. At least I don't have to worry about catching fish now. I have no way to light a fire.

All I have now is the sound of the water and the buzzing of insects around my face and ears and the continual bite, bite, bite of the mosquitoes. And pain. There is a lot of pain. I curl up and hold on tight to myself and look at the red eyes looking back at me and I know it's my imagination, but I'm sure I can hear voices whispering, or is that just voices in my head?

You're going to die.

You've only been here one day and you're ready to give up.

There's no way you're going to make it out of here in one piece is there genius?

It won't be so bad tomorrow.