The chapter
The heat was almost unbearable. Not that I, Daring Do, pony explorer extraordinaire, wasn't used to the heat, but this particular heat made me feel especially uncomfortable. Stale air rubbed against my lungs like abrasive sand paper. The pith hat I wore slid off my head and rolled across the floor, my eyes traced its sluggish rotation. I overtly realized that my eyes were opened so wide that the lids struggled to remain aloft, they twitched and shuddered but refused to fall completely shut or even back in to a regular state of openness. My vision blurred slightly as my pupils dilated and unfocused. The confused thoughts that bounced around painfully inside of my head gathered together as a single stabbing question, what was wrong with me?
Had I been poisoned perhaps? Darting-eyes suddenly lashed about the room, my gaze desperately hoping to find some source of my unusual affliction. I needed some kind of physical threat to apply myself to, yet I saw none. Deep down I knew that this 'problem' was all in my head but I desperately avoided that revelation.
My muscles taut, I stood, digging myself into the sandstone floor, there was a pounding in my ears, a howling in my head. "Move, move move move." I could not budge. The panic increased, welling up inside of me, my heart beating at great speeds.
And suddenly, just like that, it was over. I could feel the petrifaction drain from my limbs like a wet towel being squeezed dry. Breath, I had to breath. The dusty air filled my lungs as I took a deep breath evoking a violent fit of sputtering coughs. The sound of distant shouts could be heard through the walls of the pyramid. They were coming for me, I needed to get out of here.
For the last time I looked at the little ornate jewelry box that sat in the center of the chamber with which I resided. A disappointing haul for the effort it had cost me. I grabbed a curios amulet made of carved flat bone on a golden chain, and a slim cylinder that I assumed was a map casing, and stuffed them both into my pocket. Better to at least take something than to leave empty handed.
With a mighty kick I crumbled away a part of the aged wall. The voices behind me grew louder as their owners came closer. With one more kick I dislodged a large segment of the stone which crashed against the steep face of the pyramid exterior tumbling and sliding its way down.
There was suddenly a large crash as the wall behind me exploded outward. I had no time to hesitate. I leapt out onto the face of the pyramid and swiftly slide down the structure. Chunks of stone that had been dislodged by the explosion arced past me, frequently bouncing and crumbling into tiny bits of raining shrapnel.
I couldn't use my wings to take to the air, that would make me too clear of a target for the ones who were chasing me. I could faintly hear their voices nearly drowned out by the ruckus erupting behind me. They shouted angrily after me for trespassing on their grounds, but I cared little for their wrath so long as I could avoid it and escape to safety.
I pushed off the face of the pyramid when I neared the bottom. Rolling nimbly across the moonlight sands then curling myself into a tight ball to avoid being splattered by gravity's pull. The final fragments of rock landed in the sands around me with a muffled sound. I struggled to my feet and shook the disorientation from my head. Looking up to where I had come from I was surprised to see a dozen figures rushing down the side of the temple to catch me shouting with crazed desperation. I had not expected them to keep chasing me with such determination, my only chance was to hide. I got up and began running towards the dense jungle that shimmered with heat in the distance. Where exactly in Saddle Arabia I was located in, i could not say. Which was odd considering my natural knack for maps and directions. I hadn't seen any land marks that were marked on any maps that i knew of, and in what direction the nearest city was could only be guessed.
I ran light and swiftly so that the sand would not be able to wrap around my legs and slow me down. I feared not the living creatures that chased me, but that looming fear that had taking hold of my mind back in the chamber. I felt it almost physically chasing me from behind. And so I ran.
~~~~~~~~~
Wet. There was always a damp feeling about this place. Whether it be the heat seared precipitation that wisped around every bough, or the leeching; stuffy heat that drew the moisture from ones body, either way it always seemed hot. Hot and damp. The culmination of sweat on my brow coalesced into rounded baubles of liquid, like ornaments hanging from a tree, until they arced to the ground with a splash that only insects could hear.
For obvious reasons, the place could make you feel trapped. The thick jungle canopy blocked out any view of the clear blue sky that I so longed for. Like me, the trunks of the trees reached desperately for the sun, clawing and catching on the foliage of their neighbors. They rose like sturdy pillars from the earth , a testament to their might, their defiance of death. Only the strong survived here. Rotting corpses of the uprooted trees littered the earth frequently, now a home to all manners of teaming life. To the living goes the sustenance of the dead.
Four months, it had been four months since I came to this place. One hundred and eight days with no company but the heat that wished to drain away my energy, while the bugs drained away my life blood. I saw this place as it really was, an honest place, a place of genuine savagery, a place of such teeming life and also such teeming death. The dead had no rest, no time to lay a while and "ascend." Scavengers made swift work of anything that had expired or become weak. Plants, animals, and even myself if I would let them. An entire ecosystem, a society, based and sustained on the death of others. I society that I, the Adventurer, had become a part of.
I need not kill for food, with so much death surrounding me all I had to do was look a while and find something that could sustain me. The forest did the work and I shared in its reaping. But finally the time came when I would be held accountable, when it would be my turn to pay back the forest for keeping me alive. But today was not a day which I wished to be feasted on, and so;once again, I ran.
It followed me. I saw it in the hanging vines ready to tangle me. In the roots poised ready to trip me. In the poison plants, the stinging bugs, the thorny branches and the hungry eyes that watched me from behind the leaves. Was it really right to take without giving anything in return. I had come to this land as an outsider, my rounded pith hat swinging weakly from its string around my neck. The jungle had welcomed me with open arms, had kept me safe from what was chasing me. I came in, all the problems from my world trailing close behind. The jungle had eaten them, my problems; my troubles, the jungle had devoured them all for me.
As I ran I could feel the unrest and the "regurgitation". My tribute had not been paid and so the jungle was spitting my tribulations back at me. The anxiety, the pain, the connections, the desperation, the fear that grabbed hold of my lungs like a vice, the jungle pelted them back at me like stones. I felt my hackles rise, my ears were pounding, shapes and shadows plagued at the edge of my vision at every turn. I was running away from death and in doing so, was running back into life. A life full of hardship and misfortune. A life full of anxiety and fear.
Quite literally there was no light at the end of this tunnel. I burst out of the hot crowded forest and into the pouring rain of clouded daylight. The sudden temperature change at first shocked my body, but then soothed the burning heat that I had kept inside me for many days. Thin trails of steam rose from my skin, lifting away the trance of the jungle. My mind was once again clear.
But it was in this clearness of mind, this depth of perception, that I could once again feel pain. Things had been so simple in the jungle. A hunger headache, that I had not felt in the dizzying heat forced me to rub at my temples. My senses were no longer dull and I thought keenly back to the time among trees. The essence of the jungle must have still had a slight hold on me, because for a second I though of returning to that place. But instead I turned away. The wind howled angrily aloud, the forest did not have the power to howl for itself. I knew it would carry my voice so I left my message in the wind.
"In time, I will repay this debt. But I will do it my way." I made this promise earnestly, some day I would settle the debt, but for now I turn into the lashing winds and beating rains. I pulled my vest tight over my shoulder and began to walk into the openness of the world. It was cold and wet. The dampness clinging to me I could manage, but the cold? the cold was almost unbearable.