1 Waking Up (1/2)

Numbness taking over his body and slowly fell into slumber.

Suddenly, for his mind was as a switch was triggered and he was completely awake and all his senses of awareness were triggered and his eyes opened wide open. To him, the sensation was that not even a minute have passed since he closed his eyes.

Then it hit him, the comfy bed suddenly was strangely uncomfortable, he felt as he was laying down on top of a very hard tree root which traversed his back with its hard and unmistakable shape.

But that could not be possible, so he moved to the other side forcing his eyes close, trying to force himself to sleep.

Soon he realized he couldn't, a stranger feeling took over his body as he could not feel his sheets, nor listen to the air conditioning noise but still the cool breeze was caressing his cheeks.

Fear forced him to open his eyes once again, but calmer now, he started to analyze its surroundings.

It was dark, too dark actually, he couldn't see a thing. Where the hell were the led lights of his computer, modem and alarm clock, but they were nowhere to be seen”A blackout?” he thought to himself, trying to reach for his cellphone beside the bed.

The smooth feeling of his cellphone was replaced by a rough surface that he did not recognized. He groped it a few times to make sense of what he was feeling ”A tree!? how?!” he screamed in his mind. He was confused, but it was certain now he was indeed laying on the spouting roots of a tree, he began to smell the scent of earth and could feel it now he started to move his body. He could not see it, but he sensed that the tree seemed to be very big by the shape of its trunk he was reaching to lean his back on.

Sitting down he tried to calm down, thinking to himself ”No point in getting edgy now, I need to see what's going on, I need to get my eyes used to this dark so I can see where the hell I am”

After he sat down, he lost track of time... it felt like many hours rushed through, and for many times he tried to call for help... but not even his echo could be heard back in that darkness.

A strange sense of stillness and silence was the only thing he could be certain of that night.

All that time went by, and yet his eyes were barely able to discern what was near him. There was no moon, no sound of cars, no lights... nothing but darkness.

Trying to look in the distance was completely useless, that damned darkness veil covered everything like a thick blanket.

Afraid and with his nerves on edge, he did not dare to move from that spot. All he could do was concentrate all his senses on his surroundings, the last thing he needed was to be attacked by an animal or a dangerous insect.

Eventually, the longest night of his life showed signs of ending. At the distance he noticed very slowly the first light of dawn began to rip the dark veil apart.

A short burst of relief engulfed his mind, just to be replaced by a sense of even more despair. There was nothing but trees until his eyes could see. Before him was a very thick forest, and all he had with himself was his pajamas: a very old black shirt with some holes in it and blue sleeping shorts. He had nothing on his feet to protect from the forest grounds.

He tried to look after a higher place to get a hold of his surroundings, but all he could see was what the trees in the forest.

Without direction, he wandered...

Soon his mind was trying to make sense of what happened ”was it some sort of accident? A plane crash? sleep walking?”

Such thoughts rapidly stopped as his mind always came back to the fact he was still wearing the pajamas he went to sleep with that night, his feet were completely clean until awhile ago...

”this is a dream!” he thought while stepping on stones and branches for the past hour and realized he felt no pain to it, nor were his feet hurting by doing so. Of course he felt them under his feet but for a indoor person to go on barefoot hiking it surely would be a very painful experience to say the least.

He was walking for hours now, and was still not tired, after staying up all night, walking for who knows how long and still.... still he was barely sweating despite all that. The only thing he felt was a strange sense of tingling now and then over his whole body. But the more he tried to comfort himself, he couldn't shake the feeling that deep down he knew he was in a very dire situation, and that he was very much awake.

After awhile he noticed he was going uphill, ”finally something different, now i can be sure I'm not going in circles”

His mind was working towards the realization he was in a very strange forest, its been awhile he was paying attention to it, but he could hear no sound aside from the leafs and branches dancing with the eventual wind. There were no animals, or insects, nothing remotely moving, or much more alive than your average tree... That realization only aggravated the eerie feeling he got whenever he stopped and just payed attention to the surroundings.

As time passed by he started to feel even more strange, it was not fatigue accumulating as he first thought.

”I barely dropped a sweat so far, and its been only half a day since dawn, it surely felt like an eternity, but the sun just now reached its pinnacle in the sky, my mind is playing tricks with me... I must be hungry or something, just a few hours that I've been walking... but all my body is getting numb, and despite how much I rest, it doesn't go away... this damn hill is not helping either... how long can this go on? It feels like I could've climbed the goddamn Himalaya twice by now but I didn't even reached the top of this god forsaken hill ”

Not only the numbness was taking over his body but also the eerie feeling now also assaulted him while moving forward. His notion of time was firmly believed in what he could see in the sky. The sun could not lie, despite a mortal senses it sure to follow his course, uncaring for the troubles of a human. But that notion that kept him sane, was being greatly defied by his mind and senses every step forward, he knew something was definitely not right.

After a while now he was walking in auto mode as he could not feel his feet touching the ground anymore. First he stopped once in a while to rub his feet, searching for signs of bad circulation, but his feet looked normal and well colored, his toes were full and pumping blood more than usual, probably because of all the exercise he was doing.

More time passed and the sun was still up in the same place, unmoving... his body felt as if weights had been attached to his every limb and body.

Continuing onward the feeling intensified, the numb sensation prevented his senses but the strength he was now exerting was far from normal, he struggled to move his limbs as if they were immersed in the water, resistance of something he could not feel, if he closed his eyes he could easily believe he was immersed in water since the struggle to move was similar. After a while in that state, the invisible water seemed to be turned into mud, and quicker than before now it seemed to be getting thicker and thicker at every step since more and more was being required for him to move, going forward was proving to be a real pain. But strangely enough he took little rest every now and then.

With great effort he was walking non stop now, he began to fear if he stopped once more he would not be able to get up again...

Suddenly without him noticing, the scenario changed, he had finally made to the top of the hill... Joy refilled his exhausted strength. There he could see a big lone tree, that similar to the one he woke up. Confident in his efforts he finally took shelter in its shadow while observing the surroundings.