A short story of the struggle of an American woodworker in a South American Jungle, who ends up imprisoned in a cell made of earth, and held by peculiar assailants.
I leave my plight, or my will, in form of story. Understand what terrors must come in contact from the unexplored regions of forest still uncut.
Deforesting near the Suriname-Brazil border, woodsmen endured under the sawdust and verdant rain, whilst others haul off the remains of slain trees to a few trucks for processing. It was hard duty, but it paid well. Sun and heat were always respectively high, and nights, too warm for comfort. In the morning, contractors on site with protective apparel, appraise the land for agricultural development interests, occasionally offering suggestions on how to prepare for prospects. We paid little attention to ignore fostering their opinions. If anyone was going to tell us what to do, let it be our foreman. He informed allotment of thirteen months to clear the land. After that, it was back to our company’s lesser endeavors elsewhere for residential construction, and so we worked.
It was in the proceeding dusk that I signaled to my company, looking over my shoulder, walking through the brush, to let forward fluid excrement. Feigning masculinity, I had to hide myself behind trees, walking further than most to make sure no one was around to decline any friendly jests. Spotting a plantain tree ahead, I directed accordingly, and hoped to stomach something other than canned meats today. Once far from sight of the lumber camp, I caught the texture of dense, woven fibers stretched before my feet; I was taken victim to my cumbersome nature, falling with hands before me. My brow hit something hard, veiled beneath collected brown leaves, and knocked out my post-recollection.
With a terrible migraine, I forced my eyes from their shells, observing little but illuminated dust seeping from a little rectangular hole some distance ahead of me, and couldn’t tell exactly how far in this chilled darkness. I found myself sitting with abdomen tied to what felt like some wooden chair, and a smaller set of softer fibers around my neck. The cold, gritty stone texture of the floor pressed against my soles. Arms and hands oddly unbound, I quietly untied myself from confinement. Rope was heard dropping to the floor. Confused, I felt the twine or such around my throat, reminding me that I wasn’t clad in anything else. In a moment of realization, it was harshly understood I was not where I should be and my heart retorted with a startled jogging beat.
Heavily and sorely, ambling to the light at the other end of room, I stepped on abundant uniformed stones, swept them left with my foot and continued. Arriving at the door, a hand was placed for support and leaning in closer to look outward I conjectured, a marshland with rushes growing and a fair assortment of dull plants and land excavated and set down as some sort of walk way outside. One sluice channeled water from somewhere above to the marsh. Being not sparse, these ears hint at low-frequency clicking, which seemed omnidirectional and of various wavelengths. I do recall hearing it upon my awakening, but now more defined. Nothing else was apparent beside the disfigured little fish skewered of a variety unknown. I started feeling below the hole in the wall for a handle or some way to get out, though nothing of the sort existed. My captors were the only ones who could enter the chamber from the outside was one guess.
I started to imagine the kind of a people who would live in this gray-green wetland. I don’t recall being told of any swamps near the lumber camp. This couldn’t make any sense to me. Where was I? Captured by some indigenous tribes or some guerilla operatives? I couldn’t have any assumption worth creditability because I wasn’t very educated on the political climate of the area. As far as I know, there wasn’t anything going on. Why would we be logging in a disputed area? Ludicrous.
Being a man who was fairly maintainable under such situations, I put ways to escape through my mind. After all, they made the grave mistake of not binding my arms to the chair. They provided many chances for escape. I was naked, but outside it was still warm. Being a nude fugitive, I certainly wouldn’t have many qualms but the lacerations from running through the brush. I was strong enough to wrestle most men to the ground, if they just opened the door and came in to feed me, I’d just have to hide in the unlit corners by the door or just emulate a bound prisoner and when they started for the exit, ambush from behind. Break a neck, slam a face into the wall, use one of the stones from the floor to cave in a skull, eye socket, or neck. This cell, devoid of light would itself, be an advantage. These men must be new when it comes to holding captives, I thought with mirth. Beaming with confidence, knowing I could put up a successful fight; I only had to feel around for the schematics of the room for full offensive potential, though the skein around my neck is a disadvantage. Easily, unraveling its construct, it came off. I’m assuming it was for identification.
Starting to make a way around the earthen confine, I measured out a diagram in my mind: about two meters wide by four or five meters in length. It wasn’t much room, though enough to work with. The floor was unkempt and eccentrically littered, not just near the door, but around the entire room, again, were rotund stones, most Butternut squash in size and usually oblong and fair to handle. It crossed my mind to investigate the height of the ceiling, and being around a cubit above my head, except on the right side, an upward depression that I couldn’t reach fully into. Feeling around, I noticed that the texture of the depression was of a pronounced and grated quality. Maybe it could be climbed, but at the expense of over-stretched tendon. Plausibly, it may need attempt in desperation. Quaintly, understanding the lore of general construction, the corners were not perpendicular but beveled as if men carved this room out of the earth. Convinced, this room wasn’t poured cement. I sit back in the chair and ponder what will proceed.
Hunger had stricken. I felt as if I hadn’t eaten in a few days. I was more so thirsty. A pool of barely potable water collected near the fore-corner of my room, I indulged hesitantly, feeling grit on my lips and between my teeth. All the while, that damn clicking persevered. Incessant! I cannot and should not focus on it. I’ll compensate my mentality. Think over it and cast it out, but still, lost in ideas, I can still acknowledge it behind thoughts, penetrating and infuriating. It was becoming dusk quickly through the small porthole and I was becoming tiresome of inquisition, cell investigation, and uncovering nothing of my whereabouts. I wish I was given at least a small portion of victuals today. No one once came by the door. Hoping someone would betray their presence and enter, I sat for what seemed like a few hours. Without any timekeeping implement, your judgment of time becomes skewed. Lethargically, I lie down on a makeshift bed out of the chair, which I shattered to a few pieces, and the rope. My feet were held off the ground by the chair-backing, the seat was under my arse and I lay across the rope and a few blunt stones to keep most my body off of the colder floor. As I lay, I tried to drive the clicking out of my mind; other vespertine sounds engaged a soothing effect upon me despite, and I drifted calmly and more effortlessly than expected.
The content of my mind started playing terrible tricks. My dreams are usually trite, but tonight it was surreal as a dream will be. Though the verisimilitude was untraceable, being on my back, insects scurry and crawl about my stoic body. It could certainly pass for reality, though insects of this size were long ago, wiped from the Earth. I was dazed and unconcerned. The clicking was there as expected, maybe penetrating through my subconscious to enter my imagination for tonight’s show. I try to make out the shape of the pests in still darkness, and they do seem to be of arachnid or social insect such as ants. I’ve never felt the weight of an insect before tonight. I laughed. My chest convulsed accordingly. The insects taking notice, started for my face. Their prodding appendages used for walking and tasting began brushing and pinking, but soon started weaving for replacing twine unraveled during the day. I recall last, something falling upon my head and striking it against the floor.
Another migraine, a stiff and unexplainably moistened back; I woke tied again at the abdomen along with one arm. I tried to get on my feet, a decent task for a one-armed man, and mildly enjoyed success after some struggle. Trying the strength of the bindings, proving too strong, I was unable to jar the rope. I gave up, but to help this painful hunger, I surveyed around in the dark for some food left by my captors. I found what felt like a spilled stew from a stone bowl near the door. Holding one hand against the wall, I lower myself to attempt a smell for identity. Inhaling once near, presenting the aroma of dirt and something bitter, I tried to eat of the dish from what courage was mustered; taking it in my mouth, then down like the skin of gelatin and tasted such of warm pungent avocado and blood. I could feel my throat cringe and my stomach shoot upward. I disgorged furiously and loudly. The vomit was mostly citrus tasting fluid, hydrochloric acid. What is this? I would have been satisfied with the courtesy of at least, flavorless food. Startled, having trouble progressing to a standing position, my hand loses its grip and at once I hit the floor. My abdomen is lathered in its own digestion. My right arm shoots to the right, landing in another bowl of soup. Consulting myself for a moment, I hypothesize more bowls have been laid about my room. Turning myself around, and starting for the other side of the room at a crawl, I encounter many of these bowls already emptied onto the floor and mostly shattered and jagged. Many of the stones I remember were missing. Abound searching the soaking floor with my hands, I discover one. Launching the stone in my hand toward the upper wall on the other side of the room, it hits, clinks deeply, and rolls within reaching distance. I toss it again. I hear another clink, but soon a sloshing of liquid, a separate thud, then the dissipation and scattering of shattered stone after.
Of course, but it didn’t make sense. How could I mistake stones for some sort of fruit or even an egg? Unless the stone collected water inside it, like some containing geode, then it would remain a stone, but the left over confusion were it the ovulation of some creature would befuddle me. How could the new hatching animal persevere through the petrified shell? I couldn’t imagine any plant bothering to have a harder carapace beyond that of a coconut. Nothing would get through to the seed to spread or free them; it wouldn’t even float across water if it had to. It would only make sense if the fruit served as a surrogate pot, supplying nutrients and dirt substitute, geminating through the casing and eventually taking root into the native soil, living still off the placental shell and endosperm until the next rain.
Still, clicking persists as usual, anew; from the thrown stone’s direction, I perceive one frequency of clicking clearer than the rest. Not on my feet, I traverse the ground slowly to prevent startling anyone or thing. The clicking becomes definite. As I reach to pull myself closer to the cell front, my hand descends on a moistened, aligned-ringed flesh. The coiled body began to dilate. It let forth a series of loud, closely interspersed clicking. Overcome with terrible fear I threw a hard fist into its body. The monstrous maggot, taking the hit, simultaneously spurts a sound and rolls quickly into the door and continues to sputter music. It was that moment I felt my entire mind break apart and drift away from itself in a spherical explosion. My eyes wide and mouth unexpressed, a terrible fear. I felt indefensibly vulnerable. The clicking began to canker my mind’s eye, unable to withstand each in secession, becoming louder.
Insects, indefinably ant or spider, with iridescent white hair came in from the ceiling’s hole, the scurry of movement around the body made it difficult to tell how many legs they had, but I didn’t care. Pure horror is an incredible and indescribable feeling. The clicking went beyond deafeningly intense to starve my thoughts from fruition. They came into discomforting proximity. Terrorized, I was howling, flailing, stomping, and in desperation, jarring my body against what I considered the door. Truth told, there never was a door. Urgently, I threw punches near the rectangular slot with placid scenery in its gaze, bleeding skin and even breaking bones in my knuckles, hopeful of crumbling the wall enough to get out. Frenzied insects clamped my calves in their mandibles and immense pressure smoothly sailed through skin, muscle, tendon, bone, and acutely nerve. Pain was amplified by a neurotoxin. Attempt to stave off the assailants was met with sudden violence. The bastards started sealing up my leg wounds with mucous, then a skin of woven fibers. They wouldn’t let me die so easily. I was becoming sedated and mildly paralytic. Quickly and enwrapped around joints and limbs, I was able only to submit to these animals. White hairs betray forms still active around the ceiling entrance. I could still see, but unable to move, I was in such terrible horror I could only let seldom tears burn my eyes. Carried along, harnessed, and lifted, my entirety was grinding against the earth as I was forced through the hole in the ceiling. They forced and broke my clavicle. If I were able, I’d scream a murderous note for immeasurable pain.
I was pushed and dragged along for a few minutes until the tunnel came to a downward slope. I continued in and out of consciousness. I wasn’t sure how long I’ve been moved about or in what direction. I could only see a blur as of moonlit hairs randomly scurrying. Unforeseen, the passage ended entering an underground cavern of immense height. Clicking in unsettling discord emanated from depths and dispersed beyond. Within were sculpted inhabited mounds sparse with bright whites, luminescence moving about for what seemed miles, and radiant cultivated fungal fields. In the distance, a few spires towered high above the mounds and were of especial detail. It was, though alien to me, of a beauty inspiring catharsis. Some lights were clearly just patches of placed fungus and fluid pools which lined and covered paths for navigation. I wouldn’t think insects had an appreciation for aesthetics, but it would seem that way. Logically, it would be that bioluminescence, was a means to communicate direction and order. An assemblage of larger insects met with those toting me about. Without discretion and of clock-work, too soon before my visual indulgence in the underground colony, I was taken by the beasts into an adjacent cavern path away from the lights and darkness again reigns.
Disconsolate, I cannot feign faith in myself now. I could only make out the hair of my mindless captors. The colony hosts set me in a small cavern room against a wall on my side. Pain tears through me. Most of the workers disperse, except for one or two managing and arranging eggs, and so, I discover I’m in a nursery. I lay for a while, unable to move. A thin, wiry creature, much like a walking-stick but with a large, obtuse thorax pulling behind it, approaches me and stabs once in each leg, my right shoulder, and deposits. Unable to endure, I pass out.
Any amount of time has passed. My stab wounds fester, as do my broken bones. The exoskeletal nurses force feed me to keep this near-corpse alive. I know it’s happened more than once, but I’ve a singular experience. Prods split and hold my mouth open, while another expels curdled putrid foulness for seconds, and then thankfully, departure for unconsciousness, and after hours later, briefly, I come to consciousness. I can’t be sure if I’m actually sleeping anymore. They retain my body as a parasitic host for their youth, for another symbiotic breed alongside the others. I’ve felt two clutches, bloat and rupture through my flesh. My last memory of waking reality: lips, mouth, and throat mangled from violent feeding, a nurse had implanted its feeding siphon through my abdomen into my bowels. A similar breathing system was implanted and now, death, unforgiving forevermore.
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