Fiction

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Adam awoke with a jolt from a sleep he’d never meant to have. There were thorns pressing into his check, where he lay flat out face down on the ground.

He jumped up and looked around him, breathing heavily.

He was in the middle of an old wood and could not make out whether it was dusk or dawn.

An eerie mist drenched the woods like a blanket.

Where was he and what had happened?

He turned around disorientated, looking this way and that. As he peered through the looming, forbearing trees; their branches seemed to reach into the mist and disappear.

Where am I?

As hard as he may, he couldn’t make head or tail of this situation. How did I get here? He asked himself.

As he took a step, he landed his foot on a bramble; it violently tore at the skin.

Jumping in pain he snagged his side on the branch of a tree. Ripping at his ribs and tearing into his flesh.

His eyes stung as they ran over with water. He looked down at his exposed rib, which was a river of crimson and gently began to nurse it with his rattling fingertips.





He was stark naked.

He looked up and began whimpering to himself. He didn’t know what to do, or where to go.

How did I get here? He said out loud.

Silence followed in an eerie still as he listened.

No birds, no animals, no insects, just him and a mist drenched forest.

He began walking again, being much more careful where to tread. His foot was in agony, his ribs pounded as a hundred wild stallions running through a meadow. And he felt exhausted and so very alone.





Suddenly, the silence was broken by a hopeless and piercing scream.

He froze…

Eve!

He began to run shouting, Eve, Eve, EVE…where are you? There was panic in his voice as he pushed on harder, thorns whipping at his face, branches dragging across his bare legs, gnashing at them like a cheetah at its prey.

Blood gushed from his broken body and he was crying again Eve, where are you?

All he could hear was a crying, desolate woman, wandering aimlessly just out of reach.

But there was another noise, a terrifying hissing snarling tremor. And it was looking and searching and longing, a wanton predator in need of murder.

Adam searched and searched, screamed till his voice went hoarse, run till the skin and flesh were stripped from his feet.

He stopped, heaving, coughing and spluttering hard and heavy as blood and sweat leaked from his every pore and broken wound.

Where are you he whimpered to himself? But still he could not find her.

He realized it had turned dark, so dark in fact, he could see nothing, And with that he feel to his knees crying “O Lord, my God please have mercy, please have mercy” his sobbing voice was lost to desperate emptiness.

It was just then that through the trees, a simple flame sent forth welcoming crackle of light and hope that danced and twinkled on the tears and blood and sweat cascading down his cheeks.

To the left of the campfires glow stood the silhouette of a woman standing facing him.

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