I could feel my body being pushed and pulled before I woke up with a sputter. I panicked. My brain thought I was drowning and I scrambled to my knees and pulled myself away from the water that threatened to pull me back into its depths. I felt heavy and my eyes threatened me with pain shooting from somewhere behind them. I froze. My lips parted and even though they had just been flooded with water, they tasted salty and were already dry. I attempted to keep my eyes open but the light disagreed with me.
I waited a moment for my head to clear. I listened instead of relying on my sight. I listened to the waves of the ocean crashing along the beach. I felt the sand squish beneath and between my fingers. It was wet. I hadn’t crawled far enough from the water. My toes felt the sea foam and twitched in response. I had no shoes on. This added to the list of things that confused me. No shoes. I was on a beach but couldn’t remember how I got there. It was daylight but the last thing I remembered was tucking myself into a glass of wine while I stared out of my balcony onto the city at night.
I dared to open my eyes but this time I forced them to adjust to the light. It was definitely from the sun and it was high in the sky and with the sand beneath it, they both were cooking me and anything else that dared to trespass on it. Further up the beach were a thicket of palm trees and ferns. I couldn’t see passed it but the land continued to incline upwards it seemed. I looked along the beach but in either directing it just seemed to continue passed the horizon. And just as my taste buds had explained, I was certainly washed up from the ocean. The large body of water expanded as far as I could see.
Where I lived, I was nowhere near the ocean. It was hours away so I knew I had to at least be a few hours from home, but even then, I had gone to those beaches. The sand wasn’t as white and pure. The beaches closest to me were polluted by their visitors. This beach looked untouched. The only footprints or signs of anything walking across it were my own.
I slowly pushed myself up further onto my knees and sat back onto my legs. I wasn’t wearing a shirt. My skin was screaming its warning that I had been in the sun for too long. I had to get off the beach. I had to find shade and I needed water. My lips screamed for water.
I pulled my left leg out from under me and around until my foot was planted as firmly as it could into the sand before I pushed against it to lift me up. My head spun, as I stood upright as if I were freefalling from a plane. I steadied myself before I tempted to take a few steps towards the palm trees and ferns. They were the only refuge from the sun that I could see and I needed a break from the heat.
It took a few steps before I felt confident I wasn’t going to fall into the hot sand. The bottoms of my feet were feeling raw. My brain tried to scream at me to return to the ocean where at least the water would sooth me, but I knew that would be more dangerous. It took ten more steps before I reached the shade of the ferns and allowed myself to sit back down and digest what was happening.
I closed my eyes again. It seemed easier to think that way. It blocked out the glaring light from the sand and seemed to contribute to the coolness the shade provided. The ferns were extremely large. I had only seen ferns this large in action movies where the adventurers had to use a machete to slice their way through the exaggerated jungles. But these ferns were real and much taller than I was as I sat down in the cool ground. The temperature seemed immediately different the longer I sat there. The shade from the thick ferns around me blocked out all of the sun. Each leaf that grew along their stems like a rib cage were as thick as my arms. Some were even thicker.
I had placed my arms behind me to support my weight and could lean back. My throat was still struggling to swallow. I had a small, dry itch that refused to leave the back of my throat. An involuntary cough tried to fix it until I began to struggle with the pain behind my eyes from the coughing. I wasn’t sure how long I had been out in the ocean or how I even got there, but it was long enough for my body to thirst.
I tried to move but my brain sent flashes of red and white before my eyes. I tried to blink away the blotches of light but they refused to leave. I was beginning to struggle with more and more irritations from my body and if I didn’t start fixing it, I felt that I’d start going mad.
“Move,” I croaked. My voice sent razor blades up and down my throat. I regretted speaking, but I was desperate to get my own mind to stop fighting against me. I knew the shade was safer than the ocean. I knew it was out of the sun. Here my mind was convinced that I had time to think, so I had to convince it otherwise.
I needed water. I needed to figure out where I was. I needed to find help. I would not figure any of these things out unless I moved. My head nodded and it was as if a switch flicked on somewhere between my ears. I leaned forward rubbing my hands together to get off debris from the ground. I got on my hands and knees. My limbs wobbled until I held myself there for a few moments before pushing myself up onto my knees. My head hit one of the ferns hovering over me and my whole body flinched. I panicked, or at least my brain did. I wasn’t sure if we were working as one yet. I almost curled up in a ball and gave up. I could feel myself wanting to do that for a brief second. I could have, but my throat reminded my brain what it needed.
I stood up and used my arms to push away the ferns. The end of the foliage was so drastic in comparison to the blank sands of the beach that ran along the expansive ocean. It was so thick and hindering. I could only see a few feet into the thickness of it. Standing tall, the ferns still reached my forehead. I could feel the sun beating down on top of my head. I could feel the heat seep into my hair. I wanted to duck down and hide in the ferns, but my eyes scanned the area. There were trees about twenty feet ahead of me. If I could get into the trees, I’d be safe from the sun, but I’d also possibly find water. Trees needed fresh water to grow. There had to be something that was keeping them alive.
I took a few steps forward listening to my throat before my brain screamed at me. I froze, wondering what it was that the brain thought was dangerous until I looked at the trees again. Even my throat gasped and gulped down a large portion of air. The trees were massive. On a holiday once through the state of California, I had come across trees that were this massive. There was one in particular the trees here seemed to emulate the most. I had been travelling through California’s Sequoia National Park and come across a tree referred to as General Sherman. I had felt like an ant in comparison and it had taken me over 100 steps just to walk around the tree. The ferns seemed tiny in comparison to the trees and they were just as tall as I was.
I had felt small crawling out of the ocean and the trees weren’t helping. Surely a place like this would be world known. The world’s largest tree in California had competition here. I shook my head in disbelief. I had to be dreaming. Surely.
I began a slow pace towards the trees. I couldn’t travel along the beach and the ferns weren’t going to suffice for long. Besides, they were only growing in a large patch along the beach and trees. To either side of me, I could see the trees towards. They were mighty giants surrounding me and challenging me to brave their depths. I had no choice.
I quickened my pace and I found my resolve and in no more than a dozen or so steps I found the world around me swirl together as a large snap collapsed the ground beneath me. I fell with a loud thud. My legs buckled and my whole body rolled until my head slammed into the earth. I lay on my back and looked up at the sky above me. It was blue. Alluring. Peaceful. But the sky was further for me it seemed as I lay at the bottom of a pit. The cold earth didn’t hide the pain my head and legs felt. I wiggled my toes and moved my legs slowly. They weren’t broken. I felt the back of my head and rubbed my fingers together. No blood.
The fall wasn’t enough to do serious damage but it was deep enough for me to be trapped. I slowly stood up but the edge of the pit above me was at least twice higher than me. The ferns blocked enough of the sun to make it impossible to see clearly. My hands trembled as they felt along the sides. The pit’s sides were smooth. Too smooth. This was dug out for the purpose to trap prey.
Today, I fell and became its latest prey. My throat forgot about how thirsty it was. It stayed quiet and still. I barely swallowed.
My brain flickered a few thoughts and my throat agreed, “Who are my predators?”