takeitez (takeitez) wrote in thefield, @ 2011-04-14 11:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | .day 11, bethany |
One Can't Just Stand Around In Sand Up To Their Ankles
Who: Bethany
Where: The edge of the oasis
When: Late morning tp dusk
She’d woken slowly, luxuriating in the rare beauty of waking up before her alarm clock. With her head under the thick cover of her comforter, it hadn’t even registered to the heavy sleeper that the sun was out. More than anything, it was the warmth that brought her around. Had Brad cranked the heat up?
She flipped back the covers from her face and, instead of the tastefully mint-and-chocolate decor of their master suite, there was dazzling white light. Squinting, disoriented, Bethany sat up. It was then that she realized that she was not tucked up in her king-sized memory foam bed, but rather stuck in a contour of her own body in fine sand.
She stood and brushed herself off. The more that sleep cleared from her vision, the more that she became aware of her heart pounding in her throat. She didn’t know where she was! Someone had kidnapped her!
Bethany turned on the familiar blanket and pillow. She shook out the covers and groped into the pillow case, hoping she’d find some clue as to what had happened but there was nothing. She gently touched around her mouth and nose, but it didn’t feel like she had any chloroform burns (thank you, CSI). Shaking her head, she tried to get a grasp on what might have happened.
Kidnapped for ransom? Her husband had a good job but they weren’t dripping with wealth. They both worked hard. She knew that she was just a harmless baker. Could Brad have lied to her about what his job entailed? Or...had he done this? Was he tired of her begging for a baby and so he...just...got rid of her?
Bethany’s eyes welled with tears. How could he do this to her? She’d done everything she could to make him happy and he’d let it come to this? It didn’t even dawn on her that, in her panic, she’d taken a dramatic swing toward unreasonable and the unlikely.
Still, it did a wonderful thing for her. It made her angry. Bethany whipped the pillowcase off of her pillow and tied her hair up off her neck with it, knotting and tucking it so that it covered all of her dark hail. It was pale in colour, so she hoped it would prevent heat stroke. She gathered up the armload of her blanket and focused on the woods not so far off. She could make it. It couldn’t possibly be that far...
More than an hour later, she reached the shade. Her bare shoulders and arms were already sunburned. Even the bottoms of her feet felt scorched from walking on the heated sand. The air ceased to shimmer a few dozen feel in and, she could swear, she felt the trees breathe cool air on her skin. Miraculous.
Bethany spread her blanket out in a little clearing, no bigger than the surface of her bed, and laid down. She focused on catching her breath, hugging her pillow to her chest. In, out, her lungs still worked. Even if the plant life is purple, even if the sounds are unlike anything she had ever heard in the forest, even if the sun was burned white, she still had her lungs.
When she opened her eyes again, the sun had moved across the sky. The shadows were deeper and the air was cooler. Had she really slept all day? She pushed herself upright and blinked at the dark purple leaves of the bushes, feeling as though they had closed in on her a little while she slept. A deep shiver ran down her spine. She knew she couldn’t stay there.
Bethany draped her heavy comforter over her shoulders and head, which was great protection as she pushed her way through bushes. What wasn’t well protected was her tender, well pedicured feet. She stubbed her toes, stepped on nuts and pebbles, sticks snapped under her heels. She was trying not to cry by the time she found herself on a deer path, but it was getting so dark. She was sure she was not headed in a straight circle at all.
As she rounded the thick trunk of a massive tree, her foot sunk deeper than she expected between it’s thick roots. Bethany took a hard tumble, falling between two of the roots, her head glancing off a trunk. Trying to keep her balance, she somehow ended up flat on her back.
She blinked hard a few times to clear her vision. Raising a hand, she lightly touched her forehead and didn’t feel any wetness. Small favours. And then her gaze focused beyond her fingertips. There was enough light slicing through the upper branches to illuminate...what? A structure of some sort?
Bethany noticed that there were hunks of wood fixed to the trunk of the tree like foot and hand holds. Most importantly, it was definitely man-made. She struggled to her feet and draped the blanket over her shoulder. Reaching up, she grasped the first hand hold and tested it. It seemed firm enough. She was careful to test all of the foot or hand holds before she settled all of her weight on to it.
It was a long climb and some of the handholds were smaller than others. She had a couple of moments where she thought that she might loose her grip on either her pillow or blanket. Somehow, she managed to keep a hold of both by the time she made it to the platform at the top.
What she found was a sort of deer blind or lookout. It was partially camouflaged with woven vines draped and bunched. Looking inward, she could see a clear path that she hadn’t been able to see from the ground but the shadows were swallowing the features faster and faster. When she turned and faced out toward the desert, she could see for miles. All of the trees seemed to peel back from this point. All she could see was fire-touched sand, ablaze in sunset.
“Wow...” She said to no one.