The trees move with the wind to one side and then to another.
The shadows are playing tricks with the mind.
Paranoia make the silence seems to be a precursor of footsteps.
Foosteps who can come from behind him or beside him.
He fears that hidden by a twisted trunk or behind a thick bush lies his bloodthirsty pursuers.
The look of some crows on their branch far above him appears mocking.
As if the birds snicker at the mortal's panic on the ground. The vegetation surrounds him and can easily cover an human form to his sight. Dust spins and spins to watch his surroundings.
His eyes catch the slightest rustle of foliage, and his ears the slightest whisper. He thinks of Eyes.
This boy who in fear fled into a tunnel of darkness to disappear. Will he end up like this? Disappearing in unclear circonstamces?
Covered in mud, his hair plastered against his cheeks, he looks like a horrified golem emerging from the ground.
Something in his leg hurts from the intense chase.
To not have a cramp he avoids any sudden movements. He walks, paying attention to the roots and the stones so as to not stumble.
The foliage of the trees becomes thicker and descends lower. Forcing him to bend his back to move forward.
The branches are intertwined like ivy and thus reduce the lights passing through. But the mist completely retracts its claws.
Now that he is more calm, he feels the cold with renewed strength.
He holds back a sneeze, then a second. Arms crossed on his chest, one of his hands still holds his only weapon. When he feels something on his neck he first thinks of a branch. It's a weight that drag itself along his skin with each steps taken.
He pays no attention to it and continues to advance with his
inclined back to pass under the branches.
But the weight remains. He raises his free hand to get rid of what's on his neck as he continues to walk.
What he touches is soft, thick and mostly hairy.
The thing falls next to his left foot.
It's a spider.
With its legs extended it is as big as his face.
The insect has the appearance of an Australian huntsman but its body has the thickness of a blond goliath and legs twice as long as Dust's fingers.
He didn't scream when he was attacked by a shadow in a mine, nor did he scream when he saw a bunch of savages rotting alive trying to hit him with an axe. On the other hand, when this insect lift the upper part of its abdomen with its front legs in an action which he knows as combat posture, he freezes.
When that giant spider jump so high it could reach his face he screams.
He avoids it somehow and by this gesture raises his head. That's when he notices another one of those spread-legged things is on top of him. The body of these spiders is hairy but their limbs are pink like baby flesh ending in a black tip.
Multiple eyes like black marbles catch his attention. That one Dust does not manage to avoid it. The thing with its fangs ready to plunge in his skin grips his face with its eights legs. One in particular touches the inside of his lip as he opens his mouth.
-Hell!
The slap the ugly thing receives effectively peels it off of his face.
His view now unblocked in front of his eyes appear a canopy full of tunnel webs. A weight hits his leg and he notices one of the two insects climbing on him again. He dislodges the spider larger than his hand with a trembling slap.
The boy is almost squealing under the strain. Other spiders suspended by a thread descend slowly from the branches. Another jumps on him.
Dust is not looking for more.
He starts running again before any of this thing can get on top of him.
Branches hit his face like whips and somehow he manages to eats webs.
And those fucking spiders take a while to give up.
Jumping in the air like devil locusts behind him.
After a while the boy arrives in a clearer space. Small puddles of mud are on his way. Dust in a hurry runs right into it.
At some point his foot hits some kind of bubble of mud, sinks and then... and then
his foot is stuck in it.
He tries to lift it by taking support on his other leg before noticing that this leg too is stuck.
Ah.
Quicksand.
The boy feels stupid.
He turns his head and sees that the spiders did not follow him here. If he had looked behind him more often he could have stopped earlier. His gaze searches for a piece of wood, a rock or a tree trunk to hold on to but everything is too far for his arms to reach.
Of course.
Dust then thinks of screaming for help. Then he thinks of the savages he risks attracting by shouting. He thinks about it while the mud rises to his knees.
Which death is preferable? Suffocating by mud? Or to be sliced by an axe?
It is a difficult choice.
It's ridiculous when you think about it.
He was one of the first to take a stick to prevent this kind of accident but in the end he finds himself in this kind of embarrassment. If he pushes this train of thought further, it's not the first time he has dropped something that could be useful.
His lantern for example.
If he survives he will pay more attention to this sort of thing. Besides, if he survives and returns to the previous castle, he will fill his bag with food and clothing and tie everything to his wrist to not let go.
And he will also have a stick.
Yes.
In the end he decides to call for help. Not because he thinks getting sliced is better than asphyxiation.
He hasn't found the answer to that question yet.
But because he weighed the pros and cons. And while doing so it seemed to him that he had more chance of surviving against humans than against quicksand.
Anyway even if it is the bloodthirsty ones who come they will have to get him out of there first to take his head.
Who knows?
Dust has already managed to escape them once so why not twice? This is how, motionless in his puddle of mud, he breathes in the moist air and screams at the top of his lungs.
-CAN ANYONE HELP ME?!
He feels a bit ashamed to ask for help. And still ridiculous. He was going to die because he stepped on the wrong puddle of mud. Not because of any murderous people lurking on this forest but because of a puddle!
- I'm stuck in a quicksand! OH PLEASE!
-SOMEONE?!
-I AM ALONE ! HELP ME PLEASE!
-IS THERE ANYONE?
he feels himself being swallowed up by the quicksand which rises to his hips. Deep in this he feels the increased pressure on his legs. The swamp forest is silent as a tomb.
Like a dying man scratching his coffin in a useless effort to get out of the ground he keeps trying
-HEY ! PLEASE !
-Shut up.
Suspicious!