"Alone in the Forest"

The cold, wet snowflakes pounded him in the face while the howling wind seemed to counter his every move. If he attempted to move forward, the wind pushed him backwards and if he tried to turn around and go in the other direction, it was waiting for him. He found himself going around in circles trying to escape the atrocities of this most vicious storm that he had ever witnessed. Finally, the wind subsided for a moment and he continued his struggle down the mountainside. The blizzard had suddenly burst upon the land without warning, imposing its wrath and ferocity on every living thing and he was caught in its dreaded fury. He had great difficulty moving in any direction, especially since he could not see where he was going, so he just aimed his shivering body down the hill and pushed on with all of his might. At times, the snow was mixed with sleet, which cut his frozen face to pieces, causing such pain that it brought tears to his eyes. The tears irritated his eyes so much that he had great difficulty in seeing where he was going. He was not even sure that he was in the same world that he had awakened in this morning.

That was by far, not his only problem on this bleak, cold Saturday afternoon. It was snowing by blizzard proportions now, blowing almost horizontally from the northwest. He wondered if his tired, worn out legs could carry him another few feet. He struggled through the deep, fluffy snow, with every step that he took forward as painful and as eventful as the last one. How long had he been running and what was this he was running from? Was this thing following behind him just a figment of his imagination or a direct result of the fever and cold chills that had invaded his exhausted body. Where had the sudden blizzard come from? Was the thing behind him the master of nature and had it caused the blizzard to slow him down? So many questions plagued his tortured mind as he struggled to keep himself moving away from where he had last heard that eerie sound.

He could not really comprehend just how long he had been running through the freezing snow and ice covered, low hanging evergreen limbs, but he knew it had been a long time. It was like some nightmare that he often had, being alone in the forest and something evil peering at him from the cover of the pine trees. First one minute it was there and then the next, it was gone like the phantom that it was. As he stumbled down the slick hillside, he could remember bits and pieces of the previous events of this fateful day. It had all began, he thought, early this morning when he had pitched camp on the top of the hill by the old cave where he always camped out when he was in these hills. He had never seen anything unusual, nothing strange, nothing to frighten him; until now. His mind was brought back to the present by some strange sound like that of the wind howling through the pine trees. That sound. What was it if it was not the wind? Could he have imagined all of this and he was running from his imagination? How many times had his own mother told him that he had an over-reactive imagination and it would get him in trouble one day? No, that was real, he thought and struggled onward. The wind could never make such a bone chilling sound even if it whistled through a thousand trees. This was real.

First one hand and then the other grabbed for evergreen branches here and there to support himself as he tumbled recklessly down the hillside. His other arm often pushed back the branches blocking his way. Every now and then he slipped and fell but remembering the danger behind him, real or imagined, he got painfully up and moved on. This seemed like an automatic action as the trail led through the thickest part of the evergreen forest. It was beautiful in a snow-covered winter, but hard to navigate through. Were these foreboding enemies or just innocent trees that happened to be in his way? His conclusion at the moment seemed to be that everything in nature was his enemy; from the rocks at his feet to the tree limbs in his face, to the blizzard that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Beneath the deep snow, the dead pine needles from autumns past were slippery and he had to struggle desperately to maintain his footing when he stepped on them. Despite the snowstorm and the knee deep "white-stuff" all around him, he ploughed on through it as best as he could. He guessed that it was about three in the afternoon, but it was almost as dark as if it was night. It seemed like he had been running for hours. He wanted to stop and rest but he did not dare as the thing was somewhere behind him and he wanted to keep it that way. Preferably, as far behind him as it could be. As he struggled for each breath, he thought that it might be his last. But, it was amazing what one could do when one had to do something! With this horrible thought in mind, he doubled his efforts to get to safety. Get to safety? Where is safety unless it is at home in some cellar or maybe in the presence of my family. The thought suddenly made him realize that he had not heard that horrible noise behind him for a few minutes and he wondered where the thing was now, in front of him, behind the rocks to this left or standing behind some tree in front of him? Should he stop and rest or keep going? Maybe the question was, should he dare stop for any reason? His gut feeling was to keep moving just as fast as his tired legs would carry him and not to stop until he was home. That, was a long way from where he was. He concluded that he could not stop even if his legs could not carry him another few feet. He realized he would have to crawl, if he had to.