Ten Zero

The first thing I feel is rain.

I go to wipe my face of the water, but find my hand obstructed by some sort of fibrous material. When I open my eyes, all I can see is darkness and bars, and for the briefest of moments, I'm convinced that my captors have decided to take a more direct hand in my imprisonment. But as I attempt to flail, I find that the force holding my limbs and body down is little more than an afterthought, as dozens and dozens of sticks and branches fall off of me. The sudden, jerking movement, however, sends a wave of nausea throughout my body, and I do my best to roll over the various shrubbery to get to a position where I can somewhat cleanly empty out my stomach. "What... what the fuck?" I think, utterly confused by my current turn of events. "I remember... wasn't I building a trap? Did I take a nap? Why do I feel like shit?" I think, as I do my best to clear the cobwebbed corners of my mind. I turn my eyes around the muddy clearing, spotting the rock in the near distance, then do my best to trace a path back to where I thought the trap may have been. Eventually, I manage to find the half dome like metal plate, but the sapling based trigger mechanism is utterly destroyed. "Shit," I bemoan, as I look at the multiple hours of handiwork down the drain. "I needed that to work! I need food, or I'm just gonna get too tired to function, and then I'll just end up starving to death."

I do my best to make my way to my feet, but my body feels like a pool of disturbed water, with every minuscule movement sending waves of sensation ricocheting throughout. Between bouts of nausea, the entire process is leaving me overstimulated and off balance, but after an arduous 5 minutes, I find myself steady on my feet. "...ughh," I cough out, my mouth too dry to form coherent sentences, even in the rain. "...boil," I mutter, as I do my best to trudge through the muck over to the river. Even with the rain, the water isn't flowing much faster, but the bank of the river is much wider, leaving my walk towards the shore blissfully short. Once I get there, I realize I don't actually have a container to boil the water in, and I can feel my heart start to beat heavily. It's clear that whatever experience I had while passed out wasn't pleasant, and even though I'm unable to recall it, my body seems to have no issue. Just the thought of drinking more of this water sends spikes of anxiety along my neck and back; my shoulder's subconsciously tightening at the mere idea. "Please...," I cry, tears forming at the corners of my eyes, in a desperate plea to my body. "I need water. I can't not drink water," I croak out. I know that I'll last a day or two, but whatever water I had had in my body I likely sweated or vomited out, and my thirst was just as powerful as the day before.

My plea goes unanswered, however, and trying to fight my anxiety as well as my nausea is just too much all at once. "FUCK!" I cry out in the rain. "FINE, I'LL just... I won't," my voice tapering off, as I try to acquiesce to my body's request. I know, deep in my mind, that if it comes down to it I will absolutely drink more tainted water from the river rather than die of thirst, but right now, I'm fighting on too many fronts. As much as I would like to just be able to boil the water, trying to do so without a container is simply impossible, even ignoring the rain pouring through the canopy of the brownwoods. Instead, I rotate my body as slowly and deliberately as I can, and begin to forge my way towards the ruined remnants of the trap.

After a brisk 3 minute walk 100 feet away, I reach the trap, and pick over it to determine what is and isn't salvageable. From what I can immediately tell, it appears as though the trap may have actually caught something, from the various scratch marks on the inside of the metal plate. However, much like I expected, the plate was simply not heavy enough to hold anything for any length of time, and after the clawed creature managed to break free of the improvised cage, it proceeded to tear up the surrounding saplings and branches. Whether it was a moment of frustration by the animal, or it was something that was smart enough to understand what had happened wasn't clear, but what was very clear was the fact that the trap was ruined, and I would need to redo it in it's entirety in a different area. As I bend over to pick up the metal plate however, my body rejects the motion, and I quickly have to kneel down to avoid heaving up what little acid remained in my stomach. "I haaaate this...", I moan, the tears coming to my face unbidden. The pain and exhaustion and nausea are all conspiring, and the rain (which should feel refreshing and cool on my fevered forehead) feels subtly sharp, as though carbonated. I take a moment with my head resting against the cool metal surface of the plate, before arduously beginning the process of standing.

Once on my feet again, I look past the immediate clearing, but can't seem to find anything appropriate for a trap. "Probably because I tore up every viable branch and sapling in the area for my lean-to. Which I never even built," I think, looking at the pitiful collection of sticks and branches resting on the brownwood nearby. "I... I don't like it, but I need to move on. If I stay here, I won't be able to find a spot to set a trap, and even though moving means I'm going to need to rebuild the lean-to for a third time-", the thought itself forces a whine through my lips. I know in the logical part of my mind that this is only going to get worse before it gets better, but the logic is being overridden by the misery of the present. "Come on... Come on. Come ON. COME ON," I shout, doing my best to hype myself up, despite the situation. "You're in the part of the show where it looks bad for the protag, but that's just for tension! It gets better!" I say, the vibration of the words causing a headache to begin blooming. "Rising something... or... fuck," I say, the headache making me taper off, unable to focus on my thoughts.

"But this isn't a story, is it? In real life, people just die. You could just die here. You might die here," I think, as my mind rebels against me. I know that, I know it's not a book, I know I need to take it seriously, but I also know that if I focus too much on the immediate now, if I don't try to reframe the situation, then I might just crack and break. More than food, more than water, the thing that is the highest priority for me in this situation is hope. If I lose my optimism, if I start to think that there might be a chance that I won't live through this, then I'll spiral, and then I really will be fucked. "Mindset is everything," I think to myself, as though trying to reassure. I do my best to plaster a smile on my face, and even though it feels like a facade, and my body tells me to stop, I strain to keep it there. Then, feeling like a pile of flesh and muscle and a haphazard arrangement of bones that had been glued and taped together in the shape of a functional person, I start to make my way down the river.

The walk is more difficult than expected. I had tried to account for everything, to steel my mind against the arduousness of the journey, but even then, found my imagination not up to par to the physical reality I was currently suffering through. The headache that had started to develop a few hours ago had exploded into a full on migraine, and while my nausea had mostly settled, I was instead now having to deal with the new aches and pains that had come on. "*It'll pass"*, I think to myself, "I just need to keep moving. If I do, it'll loosen up my muscles and they'll ache less." I knew I was telling myself a lie; I had been moving for the last 4 hours, and it wasn't helping. But I was doing my best to keep my mind off my current physical situation, through whatever means I had at my disposal, regardless of their effectiveness.

"Tripped on... my steppin' stone," I half mutter, half sing, doing anything I can to keep my mind distracted. "Got up, and kept on going. Just me, traveling alone." I know I haven't made any real progress along the riverbank, not like I had managed to on the previous day. But there was enough distance between me and the previous clearing that I could start to set up a new trap. "Wake up, another day," I continue, as I trudge over to a promising looking area with a number of springy looking saplings. As I approach the (hopefully) new home of the animal trap, I do a sort of drop/toss of the metal plate, my side yelling at me in protest to stop straining the muscles around the wound. "Alright, that was one goal down. I just need to... I've gotta turn it into a trap now," I think, as my eyes tiredly scan the area. I was going to need some more saplings and branches, which meant I was going to have to spend some more time walking between various spots in the forest, bending and pulling and tugging and making all the sorts of movements that my body was absolutely finished with doing.

"In desperation...," my voice barely audible, as my vision starts to blur. The rain continues to do it's utmost best to drown me on dry land, and I can feel myself coming up on my limit. "This is irony, or something, isn't it. I've always though that in some sudden, awful survival scenario, I could conquer nature. I'd be able to forage and trap and rescuers would show up, and I'd just be hanging out, thriving in a home away from home. But instead I'm here, soaked to the bone, limping along with a massive injury I got on the second day, and absolutely exhausted from vomiting because I forgot one of the basics of survival. And I haven't had a goddamn bite to eat in nearly 4 days, because I didn't eat when I got home." I could feel the rage and frustration building in my limbs; the aggression wanting to be vented through physicality. "And is this how I go out? Fucking... like a loser?" My breath was coming in heaves now, as I did my utmost best to keep myself steady against the rising flood of emotion. The dam that I had been trying to build all day had been overflowing sporadically, but now it was threatening to burst.

"Is this it?" I ask, to no one in particular. I didn't know if I was being watched by the kidnappers, but I felt confident they would let me die. There would be no savior swooping in to rescue me from my own ineptitude. I either succeeded or failed on my own merits. And what little confidence I had drummed up was quickly evaporating, leaving nothing but undirected anger. "I SAID, IS THIS IT?" I shout, my throat feeling raw from the multiple exposures with stomach acid. "YOU KIDNAP ME FROM MY HOUSE AND THEN... WHAT? WATCH ME EXPIRE IN YOUR RAT MAZE?" I cast my gaze around the copse of trees, hoping to find something, anything, that would indicate a human presence. But, like before, there was nothing but the dark brown bark of the redwood lookalikes, and the ever present yellow tinge of leaves on every piece of leafy flora. "WHAT, YOU DON'T HAVE TV? YOU COULDN'T JUST WATCH NAKED AND AFRAID? YOU HAD TO TORTURE A 20 SOMETHING? YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!" I scream, my voice cracking on the final expletive. I listen to my voice rebound off the small amount of exposed stone in the area, until finally, there's nothing but the quiet roar of the rain, drenching everything that dared be exposed to the elements.

I scream until my throat is raw, until I can't make any more sounds, until the only thing that comes from the abused muscles is a choking sob. Warm tears mix with the sharp sting of the lukewarm rain, running down my face and onto the ground below. I kneel there, my arms wrapped around my sides, partially to try to give myself some support, partially because the yelling was making my side hurt. Flashes of everyone I was leaving flew through my mind, as though to rub salt in the wound. Some part of my brain wanted to revel in it, to sit in the exhaustion and misery and soak it up like I was the rain; soak until I was fully drenched, and just stop trying to fight so damn hard. But a different part of my mind, the incessant part that would not shut up no matter the situation, refused to die with a whimper. "Really? This is the best you can do? Three days in a slimy forest and you're an emotional, fractured wreck? This is pathetic. Why are you giving up so easily?" it said, although it didn't feel as though it was trying to be unkind. It felt more like an honest examination of the situation.

I did actually find it odd how quickly the circumstances were causing me to fall apart. I normally considered myself to be a bit more resilient than this; hell, when my house burned down in a wildfire, I laughed and filmed the entire thing on my phone as I drove through the blaze, and when I was safe, I made a meme out of the footage. I really didn't like the idea of dying, but I wasn't scared of dying. This was hardly the first time I had found myself in a life threatening situation, so why was it so hard? I took a few steadying breaths, and leaned back against a brownwood, taking a moment to let the catharsis clear my mind of the immediate emotions. "Phew, nearly lost my cool there," I said, a small smile gracing my lips. It was pretty obvious I had spiraled, but the moment of levity helped me move past it. "This is so weird though, I really don't understand-" but my musing was cut off by a sudden wracking cough. I attempted to catch my breath in between the exhalations, but it was like my lungs were trying to eject themselves from my body.

"Did I catch pneumonia or something? What a stupid way to go out that would be," I think, as the coughs finally get weaker and weaker. But as the coughs abate, it's as though they are stealing my strength along with them. "Oops," I say, almost immediately recognizing my mistake. "I really shouldn't have sat down." I reach my arms down to the roots of the brownwood and try to lift myself up, but the texture of the wood is now slippery like soap, and I can't get enough leverage to pull myself back to a standing position. Just the minor action is enough to get me breathing heavily, and I stop before the cough decides to make a reappearance. "Welp, I've got some sort of bug. I don't know what it is or why it's so damn virulent, but this is probably how I get got. I fucking always knew it would be something stupid like this," I think sardonically. The one thing I always felt had a leg up on me was weird body issues. Stroke, disease, organ failure, etc. You could do your best to stave it off, but even the most physically fit people in the world would get randomly struck down, and I couldn't really think my way out of a heart attack, or beat up cancer.

"Damn, I listen to, like, all the music in the world, but I never thought of a cool song to go out on," I think, as my eyelids begin to feel heavy. I know I'm not dying immediately, but there was a good chance that once I went unconscious, I wasn't going to wake up. A song title tickles the back of my mind, and I chuckle. "No One's Around To Help. Not very epic, but...", I do my best to sit up a little higher, and take a deep breath to try to force my eyes to stay open a little longer. "fitting, maybe." I mumble. The song didn't have lyrics, but I was a proficient enough whistler that I figured I could make a good enough approximation. I go to start whistling, but my first try leaves something to be desired. "Booo," I say, as though my own audience. "Sorry, you've been a great audience..." I murmur in response to myself. "Let me give this one more shot, something to send you off with." I breathe in through my nose, the taste of the air finally no longer bothering the back of my tongue, and I begin to whistle.

I can hear the sound sharp, loud, and clear ring out through the forest. I hadn't even noticed, but at some point my eyes had closed, so entirely focused I was on the sound coming from my lips. Behind my eyes, I can see the purple of the video that accompanies the song; the slightly detuned bass track playing in my mind, my whistle's harmonizing perfectly with the memory. I know I'm going to fall asleep, because I've done this exact thing a million times before; closing my eyes and telling myself it was only for a moment, seeing a visual play out in my minds eye, and suddenly transitioning to a dream without any noticeable seam. But for a brief moment, I'm no longer aching, and I simply soak in the feeling along with the hum of the rain, and the gentle scuffle of footsteps.