I crouched in a hut made of briars, a den with a roof of angry vines-- home to a wild boar, a pocket of bad air. Strange colors floated in the swamp gas I breathed, transforming vines into slithering, green snakes sprouting thorny legs, turning roots into gators, jaws snapping at my torn ankles, their weight in the mud shaking me barely. I sank into the soggy ground like a china doll swallowed by an unbaked chocolate cake, my back pressing already bloody thorns. Out of a black puddle rose a live, gray cloud, moving toward me, ready to feast on my open wounds as, in the distance, I hear him calling for her.
Mandy Holt