Part of Them

Part 20

Shutting my eyes right after opening them, I groaned in protest. I must've passed out early in the morning and now the sun was blinding me.

Feeling around the frozen hard ground I remembered that I was currently in the middle of nowhere. I was hearing some birds that didn't mind the winter weather chirping in the distance and old trees creaking in the wind.

I finally adjusted to the bright lightning and opened my eyes. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw the surrounding forest being enlightened by the sun.

Hissing in annoyance I tried to get up, but fell back down immediately due to the throbbing pain in my ankle. I had to squint my eyes to look at what's wrong with it. The foot was twisted in a funny angle and it seemed to be quite swollen.

Great, what am I supposed to do with a broken foot?

Can I even limp anywhere in this state?

Not only could I barely breathe due to the pain, but I was also very dizzy and cold.

Shaking my head at my luck, I crawled over to the nearest small tree and broke off two somewhat thick and straight branches to use as support for my foot and then ripped a part of my sleeve off with my teeth. It had been completely torn anyways, no loss there.

I then proceeded to tear the cloth into two long halves.

Grimacing when stuffing one of the the ripped pieces of cloth in my mouth I placed it in between my teeth and tried not to breathe through my nose.

I let out a deep sigh as I pulled my leg close to get a good grip on the injured foot, but I felt slightly reluctant about pulling through with my plan. My hands were a shaking mess, but they would have to do. There was no other way out of this.

Gripping the healthy area above the injured part of my ankle, I used the other hand to slip off the lousy shoe, who's sole was peeling off slowly and holes were slowly forming all over the surface, while biting down on the dirty cloth.

Ignoring the blisters on my hands caused by the sunlight, I grabbed my bare foots base with my right hand and let out a shaky breath. I felt a shiver go through my entire body as I thought of my next move. I shook my head.

I tried bent the foot back into its rightful place with one swift movement but as I did, I felt a weird motion in my ankle. I bit down hard on the cloth, almost so hard that I thought it'd draw blood.

The pain was unimaginably strong. I almost screamed.

After I thought I was done, I came to the realization that I had used too much force and the foot was now bent in the other direction. Tears started to form in my eyes and before they blurred my vision too much I bit down even harder on the cloth and bent the foot back into its rightful place while screaming into the cloth.

Not caring whether it was entirely straight or not, I grabbed the two branches and pressed them onto both sides off the ankle. Then I spit the now wet cloth back out of my mouth and used one hand to pick it up and wrap it around the base of my construction.

Wrapping the other piece around the top and finishing it off with a knot, I noticed that I was still groaning and shivering in pain.

As I let myself fall back onto the hard forest ground I looked up into the sky above. The treetops seemed to dance in the frosty wind when a snowflake landed on the top of my nose. Lifting my hand in the air to reach for the half blue, half cloudy sky, I glanced at the back of my hand. It was burning red and filled with blisters and only then did I remember what time it was.

Panic started to settle in my stomach as I didn't even want to know what the rest of my exposed skin looked like.

I knew I had to find some kind of cover, like a cave, but I didn't know how I'd be able to move like this.

Looking around frantically, I spotted a recently fallen pine tree with a thick bush of needles big enough for me to hide under. I knew I had to crawl there somehow, but the pain was so strong.

I was actually quite thankful for the cold temperatures at this moment, as it somewhat numbed the pain from the sunburn but it would still be unbearable to crawl this far with my foot.

Rolling around onto my stomach I let out a sarcastic laugh between my clattering teeth.

Hopefully the cold kills me in my sleep.

Using my arms to push myself forward through the trampled down grass I- wait, trampled grass? I thought this area was abandoned and in the middle of nowhere- suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps. There were a lot of pairs, but when I turned my head in the direction they were coming from, I only saw my parents.

My father wore a relieved expression and my mother was smiling excitedly and spoke.

"There you are, Faehr. We've been looking for you forever!"

When I looked over at father happily, I saw him nodding his head contently and he continued for his wife.

"What's wrong with your foot? Did something happen?"

After he said that, his skin started to peel off. Horrified at the scene unfolding I screamed and looked over to my mother. But her face wasn't the same and the noble clothes she was wearing had turned into a brown, dirty dress.

Not knowing what to do, I shook my head at them. Both of them had transformed into John and Linda, my old adoptive parents that took care of me until they found out about my "true nature" and beat the crap out of me.

They approached me with twisted smiles.

"Now would you look at that, John. Looks like the poor boy has hurt himself. What a shame," Linda spoke in a mocking tone.

I tried to crawl away, but my body refused to move.

When they reached me, they started cackling like crazy with laughter. Soon, the laughter turned into demonic snorting and their face contorted into evil grimaces.

Looking down onto my small form, which had rolled up into the fetal position by now, they spit on me.

"You deserve way worse than just some broken ankle, little devil. You should burn in hell," stated John.

Then Linda sneered and opened her mouth.

"I think this life is his personal hell," she laughed.

"If you can even call it that, you living dead," John joined in.

Suddenly their bodies started to decay right before my eyes. Their skin turned pale and purple and I could see maggots crawling out of their mouths and clothes when they fell to the ground as lifeless corpses.

Snapping my eyes open in horror, I jolted awake. I was sweating profusely and I had a thundering headache.

Already knowing where this was going I cursed life and lifted my hand up from under the blanket to feel my forehead. Seeing as my hands were already extremely warm and my forehead was even warmer, it became apparent to me that I was having another fever. That would explain the weird fever dream, which had actually been based on real memories, but turned into something weird later on.

When I groaned in annoyance, I threw the hot blanket off my burning body to cool down.

This is just great.