Restless

My students said that they prefer to read 1st person POV, and part of the appeal of that is for the reader to imagine themselves as the narrator. So this was my experiment with that concept inspired by a random musing about what could possibly be a fate worse than death

Splitting pain pulsed in my skull like the ringing tolls of a death knell, and an acrid iron taste coated my tongue. My hands groped for purchase in, what felt like, recently tilled soil, and my fingers sunk down into the earth as I tried to push myself off of the damp ground. How did I get here? My mind raced through the ache and fear clawed at my heart as I squinted through the shadowy gloom. The vague haze of the rising moon reflected faintly off of the barren branches of trees.

My breath hitched in my chest. My limbs were tingling. As I lifted one hand to my scalp, dirt rained down around me, falling from my palm. Cradling my head between my hands, I rocked towards my knees and wailed into the suffocating night. The haunting anguish of my own voice was echoed back to me on the wind. Something terrible must have happened, but I couldn’t name it. When I tried to reach back into my mind, I met a dark void where my memories should have been.

Was I attacked? Who had brought me here? My breaths were coming in deep gulps, and the panic rising in me sent electric shocks of terror-- streaks of lightning from my heart to the rest of my body. Where is my shoe? My sock had turned brown, but then so did everything. Tears blurred my vision. Did I walk here? Was I dropped here? Where is my shoe? I couldn’t get past this simple detail. I didn’t want to, because somehow I knew that if I tried to look further back, I wouldn’t be able to find the solace of answers there either.

But darkness was all there was. Darkness and a feeling like my skull was breaking apart.

A rustle in the leaves brought me to my senses. I had to get a hold of myself. For all I knew someone was going to come back and finish whatever it was that they had started by dragging me out into the middle of the woods.

Blinking into the night, I held my breath and tried to listen.

Nothing. Everything had grown still around me. There were no crickets, owls, frogs-- eerily, there were no signs of life at all. This must be what it sounds like when all of nature holds its breath.

Rising to my feet proved difficult as a new wave of pain crashed over my head, nearly knocking me down. Spots swam in my vision, forcing me to brace my hands on my thighs.

When the cold wind started up again, it seemed to blow right through me. I needed to find shelter or someone to help me. Looking in every direction, the trees were all the same. None of them triggered any memories. My fears began mounting again, but I took a deep breath and tried to fight back the lump that had risen at the back of my throat.

When I opened my eyes, I was resolved to walk somewhere- anywhere. Not knowing which way to go, I just started forward, feeling strangely compelled to use the wind and moon as my guides. Occasionally, the wind would change course; then so would I, drifting like a fallen leaf trying to find its way to the ground.

I narrowly avoided branches when my leg buckled under me. Pushing through the pain, I righted myself and continued on, ignoring the occasional rock and stick that jabbed into my unprotected foot.

By now, the chill had seeped so thoroughly into my bones that tremors started in my lower back, sending shockwaves up to my shoulders. I couldn’t tell if it was just the cold or also fear and desperation that left my body jangling like a windchime.

I tried to take a shuddering breath, but coughed and spat out what looked like a mixture of mud and blood. I wrapped my arms around myself in a vain attempt to shake the cold out of me.

Trying to quicken my pace to somehow escape this torment, I took step after step, completely losing track of time. My mind had grown sluggish. Still, as the night wore on, the wind managed to guide me to a clearing.

My right knee gave out again with a painful twist, but this time I caught myself on a tree. Something told me I was too close to stop now.

Moving on autopilot, the path slipped away behind me until I was at the foot of a house. Was it mine? No. It couldn’t be. There were boards on one of the front windows and no paved driveway. I felt that somehow I had a driveway. I didn’t know how I knew this and no other details of my life, but there was a part of me that could feel pavement under my feet when I imagined the feeling that coming home gave me.

I clung to this brief flash of my past like a life raft that would buoy me to the safety of memories, but I was still floundering.

How could I not remember what my house looked like or my parents? It didn’t matter. All that mattered right now, was getting out of the blistering cold wind, before I froze.

The waning gibbous had risen enough to fully illuminate the path ahead. Moving toward the steps, I saw that a bicycle had been abandoned. Its rust-speckled kickstand and handlebars glinted in the moonlight, almost winking at me. On my way to the steps, I ran my fingers over the splits in the red seat. Yellow foam forced the edges of the cracked leather to stretch open in hard fissures. The lacerations of time were etched into its surface. If must have been left out in the elements for a really long time.

I have a bike kind of like this one, I suddenly realized. I used to ride it to and from school. The instinct to ride off, floated to the surface. Detritus in the shipwreck of my memory. I rubbed my eyes unable to scrounge the waters for more insight.

As I ascended the porch steps, the second one creaked loudly. I froze for a moment, but a blast of cold air forced me the rest of way up the short stoop. Reaching for the doorknob, I had an ominous feeling that I had been here before...

Without realizing it, I was in the house, still shivering. I must have pushed my way through the door while I was trying to remember what had happened to me. It was just so hard getting my thoughts straight through the throbbing ache in my skull.

The door creaked closed behind me, and I leaned back on it, shutting out the wind. Despite retreating in from the cold, my breath still swirled in a foggy wisp before dissipating in front of my eyes.

The moonlight shone through a few of the unboarded windows, illuminating the space to me. There were no curtains blocking the light from streaming in, and the foyer opened up to a vacant room with a large staircase on the far end. The wind and my entrance must have disturbed the air, kicking up the dust that had started drifting in the moonbeams.

I wanted to call out for help, but then considered what I had just done. I just stepped into a stranger’s house. A kidnapper could be hiding out in here. This may have been the very place I had run from.

I needed to escape, but felt trapped. The walls were closing in on me.

There was something wrong with this place. I could feel it.

Still, I tried desperately to crawl out of the fog of pain and paranoia. It was too cold to leave and just wander aimlessly through the woods. I knew I would have to wait here until the morning.

I had started to walk into the room, when I heard that same, loud creak from that front stoop. Turning abruptly, I threw my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of my breathing.

They must have followed me from the woods! I backed away from the door and ascended the stairs in a flash. My footfalls generated an auditory map of my hiding spot. With each step, the old floorboards groaned their warnings, but I ignored them, continuing around a corner, entering the first room on my right. I didn’t try to shut the door for fear that its creaking would further give me away. I crouched down beside the door, and waited with bated breath.

The sounds of the house were magnified. I turned my head trying to localize the pops and creaks that I was hearing. Was my attacker coming closer? It was getting hard to think again, and my heightened anxiety was making my head hurt so much more than before.

Confusion and pain forced my eyes closed once more. I wished I could just wake up back in my bed. Maybe this was all a bad dream. Nothing seemed to add up.

But when I opened my eyes, the room still stood before me, sullen and empty. The only noticeable feature was a gaping hole in the center of the floor.

I considered my options. Hide until the kidnapper or killer or whoever it is, either finds me or gives up the search. Or I could try to fight them off with…

What? My only remaining shoe? I looked around the room for something else to use as a weapon, but my eyes were drawn back to that hole in the floor. It was almost calling to me.

Maybe if I heard the kidnapper outside the room, I could drop down the hole and escape into the room below.

I inched closer, being careful to move silently. It looked like a monstrous mouth. Its jagged pieces of broken wood were ragged teeth stretching out in every direction like the circular mouth of a lamprey. It stretched its jaw before me.

Only a yawn, it beckoned, nothing to worry about...

The stillness of the house seemed to hum now. Could the sounds I heard before just have been the house settling? I couldn’t tell. What I did know, though, was that there wasn’t anyone directly outside of the room or moving through the hallway. Waiting at the mouth of this hole, stirred up the thought that maybe the intruder was below me, and I could drop down on him when he wasn’t expecting it.

As I considered this, the adrenaline that coursed through me made it hard to differentiate fear from a slight thrill. Of course, I would have done anything to trade that excitement for a warm bed and the blanket of memories that I had taken for granted until now.

I knelt on the floor, stalking forward, and carefully testing the boards for creaks on my way towards the lip of the hole. My anticipation was rising with each movement closer to the trap that I was going to spring on this killer, this kidnapper. I don’t know how I knew, but I could feel like something or someone was down there. I just needed to see what it was.

I froze at the sound of another creak below me and waited, muscles taut and listening intently. When nothing followed the noise, I inched so that I could peer over the edge.

Just a little further.

I placed my hand on one of the boards closest to the opening and shifted my weight onto it so that I could look into the cavern below. Without warning, the plank seemed to lose substance. My hand plunged down into the void. My arm and head followed the dreadful dive, but my legs and abdomen instinctively flatten against the floorboards, clinging desperately to the wood for support.

My eyes met someone else’s before I scrambled back up the ledge, I didn’t dare to tear my eyes away from the person’s until I was on my feet, slamming and locking the door to the room I was in.

In that instant, I had memorized the face, those eyes, and they were burned into my mind.

What did I do? Stupid! I’m so stupid! I chastised myself for thinking that I could sneak up on them. Surprisingly, I didn’t hear a shouted response or footsteps starting up the stairs towards me. I froze, straining to hear their movements. I pictured the face in my head, hollowed features, prominent cheekbones, skin stretched tight across the face. I readied my fists for a fight, but the house remained quiet.

Then I considered those eyes, hauntingly familiar and unwavering. The expression, unchanging. The position was odd, too. It was as if the person was lying on their back…

I shuffled back towards the ledge, hand on my head to fend off the headache bearing down on me. I could see a pair of legs, then the torso, and finally those eyes. They were wide and sunken with fear

Oh no! I realized with sudden dread, this was just another kid. Another victim of the kidnapper. They must have left me in the woods when they brought this kid in here.

Kneeling down, I slipped into the hole without thinking. When my feet slammed into the ground, I crumpled to the floor on impact.

“Ahh!” I sucked air in through my teeth. The drop was higher than it looked.

“Are you O…” my voice trailed off. The kid wasn’t moving. The smell of something gone bad made it hard to breathe down here. My chest constricted. I started wheezing.

A dried, red stain haloed the body. There must have been so much blood that had soaked into the wood, causing it to buckle and warp. The ripples started closest to the figure and settled further out, as if the body was frozen in time, just at the moment of impact with a dark lake. Instead of sinking down, buried by the warm waters, it lay suspended at the surface. Trapped between worlds. The pain in my head was no longer something I could ignore, so I shut both my eyes trying to block everything out. Still the battery of questions kept coming.

How could someone do this to a kid? Should I be worried it’ll happen to me? The house was still quiet, other than the throbbing pain in my head-- that steady drumbeat that seemed to intensify by the minute.

I opened my eyes. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

I examined the body further, crawling now as I moved closer. The eyes stared accusingly at the ceiling.

This was all too much, I shook my head, which only made the pain worse. Had the kid fallen? It must have been dead for such a long time. The smell and…

The child’s leg was bent in the wrong direction, and I noticed that one of the body’s shoes had fallen off. I scanned the moonlit scene to see broken pieces of wood and plaster strewn around the room. Then I followed the kid’s eyeline to what looked like a shoe that was hanging by its lace on a broken floorboard above us: a piece of meat still caught in the maw of the wooden monster.

They had fallen, maybe dangled from some time before slipping out of the shoe and onto--

I looked down at my own feet. How had we both lost our shoe? I looked at the body’s feet and then my feet. Then at the body’s pants and then my pants. I squeezed my eyes closed as tightly as I could, and clenched my jaw.

“This doesn’t make sense!” I moaned, “It’s not real.” My head swam, and my hand flew to my face. I rubbed my eyes.

The pain. It was all too much.

Something warm was dripping down my neck. When my fingers probed the spot, a searing streak of pain cleaved my scalp in two. I opened my eyes; my hand was slick with a red sheen, and a foul metallic flavor was coating my tongue once more.

I looked down at the face--

My face.

No. It couldn’t be.

My vision blurred as I ran away from the terrifying truth.

The rooms swam past me as I found my way to the front of the house and through the door. At the top of the step, my leg gave out from under me, tossing me sprawling down on the stairs.

After dragging myself to my feet, I tried to get on the bike--my bike and ride it far away from here, but when I tried to grab the handlebars and kick off, it didn’t move.

I shouted in frustration and staggered off into the woods.

I can’t recall how long I walked...

The sky was starting to lighten, but my legs gave way, for good this time, and my fingers sank down into the moist soil. Closing my eyes, I lay back.

A worm wriggled away from my fingers. Through a fog of tiredness and pain, I felt strangely jealous of that worm as it burrowed down into the earth.

I wish I could do the same.

Until I can, I’ll just rest here a while...