An Echoing Past

I was in a marsh with a scattering of twisted dead trees, the air thick and humid, making it a struggle to breathe. It smelled of rotting wood and damp earth, the sky thick with a brown film with the sun's light struggling to push through. I didn't know how I got here, or why I was here, only that here I now stood in this foreign landscape with nothing to do but push forward. So I began a stumbling walk toward where I judged the sun was, though I wasn't quite sure due to the brown fog that covered the sky. I wore boots, but not the type meant for walking through the mud as I did now, pulling them sharply from the thick goop, the squelch sounding every time I pulled them out. Once and awhile the ground would even out to solid land with brown grass growing in clumps that scratched against my skin but that I relished in its existence due to it making my journey easier.

I went on for many hours like this, my breath coming in short gasps and my limbs shaking from the exertion. But all I knew was to keep going, for nothing in the horizon changed and nothing around me altered, it was the same marshy landscape over and over almost seeming to repeat itself on a never-ending cycle. There were no sounds besides the whistling of the wind once and awhile, my heavy breathing, and my footsteps that changed from squelching or quiet stomps. There were no birds, no animals, no wildlife that I could see. I reasoned that there should be an exorbitant amount of insects, buzzing around me and the mud, or birds of prey searching for small critters. But the land was silent and still. Even my brain didn't take the time to make the constant buzz of thoughts and questions like it should, all that was there was the need to keep moving forward.

I looked down to my feet, my left was knee-deep in the brown guck, my right was levered on a grass clump as I tried and wedge the rest of my leg out. I wiggled a bit, twisting the leg this way and that in hopes to set it free, but to no avail. At this point, the mud had started a slow descent into my boot and to my already soaked socks. I felt panic set in then when nothing seemed to help, in fact, all movements seemed to make it worse. At the realization, I stilled my panicked struggling to stop and think. My boot was completely filled now, my foot completely surrounded in the wet mud. I knew that the boot was lost and my only hope was to try and just get the foot out. I was thinking it over when a shrill cry rang out somewhere behind me. I jerked my head up to look in the direction but nothing seemed out of place. It had sounded animalistic, but even so a chill ran up my spine. The panic, which before I had managed to control was now climbing its way up my throat once more choking me as I started wiggling my leg.

I grabbed onto my thigh and pulled, trying to lift my leg at the same time in the hope to lift it free. But like last time the movement seemed only to suck my leg deeper into the mud and it strained my other leg on the grass to the point of pain. I stilled and took in a deep breath slowly, releasing it with a sigh. I then looked around me in hopes of finding something to grab onto or maybe lever myself free. There was one of the twisted dead trees a few feet away if I could grab one of the branches that hovered above me I could maybe hoist myself up. Moving slowly even though my entire body was screaming at me to run, I gently leaned forward in the direction of the tree with my hand outstretched to one of the nearest branches. Off in the distance but much closer than before came another shriek, but this one sounded more human and like a scream than an animal yowling. Whatever it was was definitely coming closer and I did not want to be around when it got here. I briefly wondered if the reason I had felt the need to keep moving was because of whatever this thing was screaming off in the distance, but I pushed the thought away and focused. I reached as hard as I could without wiggling enough to sink, but my fingers barely brushed the tips of the dying branch. Another scream, once again closer. I felt the hair on my arms stand on end, an instinct within me telling me that whatever it was was not natural and not friendly. My heart was thundering in my chest as I reached and with a great deal of luck, I managed to get the branch caught in between my two fingers and pull it closer.