Exhaustion

Looking up at the sky I try to deduce the time. I squint up into the sun until my eyes feel dry and I imagine I can feel my optic nerves cooking inside my skull, but I'm no wiser when I finally look away than I was a moment ago. I blink furiously, trying to wash away the ghostly blue dots that fill my vision now. Too many ghosts now, I can't imagine why I'd want to summon up more.

It's afternoon anyway. I can't remember how long it's been since I slept last but it's getting difficult to concentrate and I'm starting to feel cold. Not cold, really, but I'm getting the shivers, which is crazy since I can feel waves of heat rising out of the waist-deep grass all around me. It must be at least fourty degrees Celsius out here, probably closer to fourty-five, but my mind has somehow turned this into penetrating cold. I want to laugh but I'm afraid of where that might lead, after all, that couldn't be more than three or four steps away from total insanity, could it? Hard to say, but I don't want to take the chance.

I feel rain in the air, though -- or I imagine I do -- and all I can think is that when the night comes I hope I'm not out in it. I'm not even sure why, I guess so I don't freeze to death, but even that doesn't seem like such a terrible thing. I spend a moment thinking about this and turn to look behind me. The tree-line, several kilometers away now, stands silent and unbroken and implacable.

RUN!

I don't know where the command comes from, I'm almost certain I didn't hear it so it must be in my head, but it cuts through the layers of cotton wrapping my mind and goes directly to my legs. I run.

How much time passes then? I don't know. The rhussh-rhussh of the grass trying to trip me fills my world with a sonic wallpaper while wet, sobbing gasps underscore the futility of my attempted escape. My vision narrows, spectral forms close in on all sides. I close my eyes hard, summon up my strength for one final push. If I can just make it across the field and into the opposite forest I'm sure I can find a place to rest and regain my strength.

Then I'm floating; hovering in the air; weightless and utterly free. Then sharp stones are cutting into my cheek, electricity rips through my right eye and I convulse wildly, squealing and crying in pain and frustration and then I skid to a halt. The spectres have left but now I'm staring up at the clear blue sky through a pool of water.

Slowly my exhausted mind grasps what has happened. My perspective seems wrong because my left eye is filling up with tears and I'm lying on my back. My right eye, by contrast, has stopped sending any information my brain can interpret as visual data, only wave after wave of static that feels like -- but isn't quite -- like the feeling you get when you press too hard against your closed eyelid. I have a feeling I won't be making much use of that eye for a while.

The spectres return again, apparently having decided they had nothing better to do with their time, and this time they don't content themselves with lurking around the edges of my vision. They loom over me and the last thing I remember before the block out the sky entirely is the smell of rich earth and wild rye grass filling my nostrils.

* * *

My face is caked with something I hope is dirt when consciousness returns. My right eye is nothing but a dull ache now but my cheek has seen fit to take up the banner. It feels raw and cold and I almost reach up to touch it before deciding that I don't really want to know just yet. I try to sit up but a hard, sharp lump just below my sternum makes me think that lying on the ground a bit longer isn't such a bad idea. My left eye has cleared now, at least, and I can see the blue sky has turned pink. So much for resting in the forest, but I've been here for ... how long? Hours at least, and nothing has found me yet. Maybe I should just stay here for the night.

* * *

I'm freezing. I wake up in agony as my teeth chatter, my right eye growls angrily and I feel insects crawling over my bloody cheek. The sky is filled with cold, distant lights arranged in patterns I could never see but I've always been assured are there. I look for something, anything that will tell me what time it is, but like my attempt earlier today -- I now think of it as this morning despite having been sure before that it was afternoon -- I fail miserably.

I sniffle and I realize that the tip of my nose feels like it's been dipped in ice-water. Frigid snot collects in the back of my throat and I cough as I try to clear it. Pain lances my chest through my breast-bone and I let out a gurgling cry of frustration.

Then I hear them. Voices, calling to each other in the strange, clipped tones I don't understand but know to be a language. I thought it was Spanish at first, but I've listened carefully to them for the last few months and I'm almost certain it is something different now.

I lie still, holding my breath, hoping they won't be able to find me in the darkness with only my single cough to direct them. I'm about to allow myself to believe I may yet escape when I hear the barking of dogs coming from somewhere much too close for my comfort. I don't remember which way I came from but I hope I didn't get turned around when I fell. Summoning strength I didn't know I had I roll over, ignoring the starburst of agony this brings to my chest, and scramble to my feet. Shouts of anger and triumph erupt from the field around me, but I barely notice them or the dancing lanterns as I somehow find the strength to break into a sprint.

The first dog is on me before I get anywhere near the trees. Powerful jaws tear into the meat of my left calf and instantly I collapse into a heap as the last of my strength leaves me. The second dog goes for my face but I get my right arm up just in time to protect myself. Breath reeking of rotting meat fills my face as my arm is jerked violently away. Perhaps the third dog would have gone for my throat had the handler not jerked it back at the last instant. The other two were also pulled away and I curled up into a ball, sobbing and begging for my life. An impossibly large shadow loomed over me and breath that smelled sickeningly of corn and blood assaulted me.

Nee caelia gyanna, otmya.