the Journey to Nowhere and Everywhere

Dark

  I felt the cold rock under my feet, even if I couldn't see it. this place was dark beyond any recognition. Aside from being hard and wet, it was kind of difficult to feel anything through my feet. They were frozen, and each step caused a dull, stinging pain to shoot up my legs. I knew I had been here a long time, and I knew that my feet were worn through.. but I also knew that if I stopped.. if I gave up.. I would not make it to tomorrow.. I sat down for a moment and felt my legs, they were cold as well. I didn't notice they had lost warmth yet. Gently sliding my hands over my shins I could feel the scabbed over gash from when I fell earlier. Carefully I wiped off the blood from underneath it as best I could and continued to examine myself. My feet were cut in several places along the pads, and they felt like blocks of ice to my hands. I held them over the tops or a while , until it started being painful. then I pulled myself back up on the wall. Once standing, I wiggled my toes. I could feel them slightly for the first time in a while. Starting forward again, keeping my hand on the wall so I wouldn't get lost again like earlier.. ending up back in that cage was not an option.

   After a while I saw something. Taking this as a good sign, I continued until I saw a fork. The path on the left dark, and the one on the right where the glowing was emanating from. I took the right, hoping it was the light from outside. Or at least from other people. I thought to myself, 'I wonder what we would talk about.. I couldn't tell them where I came from.. they could be working together, or they could want to see it and get caught themselves. Neither one was a great prospect. I continued on, albeit a little more cautiously, listening hard and looking as far as the light would permit. everything really just looked the same in the blue glow.. the rock around me had a shine to it as though it were wet, though I was still cold enough to where I couldn't tell by touch.
   I was walking along the wall until suddenly I wasn't. I had apparently stepped on water and was swallowed whole. Immediately I felt the last of my body heat escape as the water grabbed hold of me. My clothes clung to me, making movement harder than it would normally be underwater. It was like being wrapped in a frozen, wet bodysuit suddenly and involuntarily. I tried swimming, but got nowhere. The water just kept pushing me down.. and down.. though I was still on the surface, it certainly wasn't down here. And I could feel my breath was about spent. I tried to swim again, in the now black water, and hit my head on something hard.. I could feel my body going limp as it released some of my air.. Black spots covering the small amount of sight I had left..