The Fickle Winds of Autumn

Kira charged forward as fast as her stiff, exhausted body could propel her. Her first bold strides carried her onto the crust of soft, sticky floor; the oozing guano gave way and clasped at her ankles; the heavy, acrid ammonia gripped her throat and made every breath a painful, rasping spasm.

She drove her determined legs onward; she must find a pathway through the foetid, stinking swamp; she must keep moving; the distant glimmering light was her only hope of survival.

Several black silhouettes swooped low; their rough wings clattered and skittered around her terrified ears; their sharp mouths gouged and ripped at the skin of her forehead and face.

She fought back the urge to scream; she forced her head down and thrashed at the air above her, desperate to keep the insidious creatures away from her eyes and mouth; the bitter, cutting bites stung deep into the vulnerable, exposed flesh of her hands and arms.

Her pounding feet sank deeper into the reeking mire; she struggled to drive through the cloying, boggy morass; the vicious swirl of piercing, puncturing wounds increased.

She battled through the traumatic pain and dug her weary legs in harder, faster; she must ignore the blistering, caustic lacerations and focus only on her escape - the protective shielding light flooding in from the mouth of the cave was her only hope of salvation.

The thick, squelching strides of Ellis and Aldwyn splashed out above the thump of her own turbulent heart. The bleak, obscuring gloom brightened with every painful footfall - but still the shadows of the cave persisted - the deadly distance still remained.

A shrill, shattering shriek crashed down from the dark ceiling above. The hopeful light of the exit flickered and wavered, confused by the deafening swarm of predators. Kira did not dare look up; she must focus, she must keep running - it was her only chance.

An intense, collective screech blasted through the echoing rocks; her ears stabbed and spiked in pain; the slimy floor darkened with rapid darting shadows.

A blizzard of voracious black swooped and engulfed her; the insatiable stinging bites blotted out the light from the exit. Ellis cried out beside her; the hostile swarm scavenged at his neck and shoulders and face. Through the dizzying, aggressive swirl she caught a momentary glimpse of Aldwyn - his cheeks and forehead gashed open, his face spattered with blood and creased in pain, his arms dripping with a writhing mass of the rapacious creatures.

A huge devouring cloud surged at her head; she drove her straining body forward and tried to shield her face with her arms; a plague of sharp, savage bites ripped and tore at her flesh; an unforgiving torrent of tiny piercing, stabbing mouths burrowed through her tunic and punctured her stinging shoulders; her helpless, obscured senses were blinded by the painful, incessant thronging drone of their wings and shrill cry of their menacing squeals.

The insidious, seething weight pressed down on her; the wretched ooze grasped tighter at her weary legs.

But she must keep running - she must keep moving; the dark of the cave would grow lighter with every heaving step she could wrench out of her beleaguered body.

She thrust forward and forced herself to squint out through her arms and the buzzing, swirling vortex.

She was well over half-way.

Surely she could make it?

Surely the Surrounder could not be so cruel - to bring her all this way just to fail now, so miserably and in such pain?

The churning wall of living, biting blackness swarmed at her body; she screwed her eyes tight shut, and tried to shield her face under her arms. She crashed through the whirring maelstrom of hungry, stabbing mouths, unable to see, or hear, or think properly - she only knew that she must keep forcing her wilting body towards the light, or suffer the terrifying consequences of failure.

The ravenous weight of haemagiles sunk into her shoulders and hair; she staggered on blindly; her clumsy foot stumbled and sank into a deep pit of the thick, sludgy excrement, almost to her knee.

She floundered and toppled to her left, and thrust out a desperate hand to prevent herself from falling face-first into the evil stench of the guano.

Her palm slapped hard on the sticky, slimy surface.

She tried to push herself up, out of the wretched, filthy gunge; her fingers sank in deeper - lost below the surface of the foul sludge - and snared her hand in place.Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

Her face was exposed; she thrashed frantically with her one free arm, but could not fight off the vicious, incessant attacks; a myriad of piercing bites stung and gouged at her flesh.

The strident, unending predatory screech overwhelmed her reeling mind.

She squeezed her eyes and mouth even tighter shut; she twisted and wriggled her trapped leg, determined to free herself and keep moving; the seeping quagmire squelched and swallowed her further down into its foetid foulness.

A cold weakness of fear shivered across her drained body.

She must move.

She must get out or die where she was.

She leant her weight forward and tried to lever herself out with her free leg and arm.

The heaving storm of voracious haemagiles redoubled their angry onslaught.

She pushed and kicked; the tenacious stench clasped her; the deep ammonia fumes burnt acrid tears from her eyes.

The thin surface crust of the guano cracked and swallowed her other leg and arm.

The marauding haemagiles tore at her from all directions - her back, her legs, her arms and head; she kicked and wrestled her captive, useless limbs; she exhorted her enfeebled frame to fight, to push, to escape - but the flailing panic of her efforts only squashed her down deeper into the stinking, sludgy quagmire.

Her weary body faltered and sagged; her energy and hope drained and bled; the heaving cyclone tore and raked at her doomed flesh.

She could not hold out much longer.

She forced herself to glance forward - perhaps to use her eyes for one final time - to blink through the terrible dark blizzard at the light which flooded in from the cave entrance, still a cruel and impossible distance away.

The bold outlines of Aldwyn and Ellis hobbled clear, into the shining depths of the waiting sunlight.

They had made it!

They were both safe!

A shattering wave of relief and sadness fragmented across her.

Her companions did not deserve to die so cruelly, so wretchedly after all the kindness and help they had given her.

It was her fault they were there at all.

But now they would live.

Ellis would live.

He would live - but without her.

Her dark consciousness came in fits and starts; it drifted beyond her control.

Blood oozed down across her creased face and split from her tormented forehead.

A torrential weight of the tiny pulsating creatures seethed and pressed on her; their ferocious frenzy stung and carved into her flesh.

Her ears blocked with wriggling, barbed teeth; her hair buried under a crawling, burrowing mass of jabbing, bitter mouths.

The writhing, unceasing pestilence forced its way mercilessly into her nostrils; she held her thudding breath and knew her final despairing moments were close; the irresistible, feasting burden crushed her weakened body down into the suffocating, putrid faeces; her hope of reaching the daylight extinguished forever with every fresh, piercing bite.

Her lungs stretched taut; her will sapped; she wanted to scream and gasp for breath; she opened her mouth, but the remorseless invaders stormed and wriggled between her choking lips; they tore at her tongue and the inside of her cheeks; they suffocated her as they gorged on the fleshy parts at the back of her vulnerable throat.

She knew her next strangled breath would be her last - she would soon be making her own personal contribution to the pile of bones she had so recently been walking over.

It would not be a pleasant way to be called into the arms of the Surrounder - but the nuns had taught that none of us can ever choose how, or when, that meeting would take place.

A dark weakness overtook her like none she had ever felt or known and drained her of all thought and energy.

Her head swam in dizzying, black waters.

She could no longer sense the millions of tiny cuts to her flesh, only the rapid beating of her own distant heart; she clung on desperately for a final few vital moments of her life.

She could no longer breathe or think or feel.

A sudden spasm of tightness gripped at her shoulder; a vast engulfing blackness dissolved and overwhelmed her.