Snippet #1911006

I slowly creaked my eyes open. It was light now but still dull as the sky was a hazy grey. I sat up and did a big stretch as my back was quite sore from the uncomfortable position I slept in. I slide off the makeshift moss blanket and drop it to a lower branch. I do a quick shoulder shrug and roll my neck to get out all those extra kinks. Feeling slightly better I have almost forgotten about my wrist until it reminds me with a painful spaz that jolts up my arm. I slowly untie and peel the old bandage off and inspect my injury. I'm quite pleased, apart from a furious redness there is no sign of infection. I place the old bandage down beside me and then awkwardly go about ripping my other sleeve and re-tying my wound. I lift my leg over and shimmy down to the lower branch. The dead rat is covered with flies and insects. It looks disgusting. It smells even worse. I hop down a few more branches so that I am just under the overhang of the leaves. The water below looked murky and suspicious. After last night I was not about to go jumping into the water. Using the old bandage as a barrier I reach up and grab the dead rat's tail. I give it a tentative tug. It hardly moves. Annoyed I whip lash the tail and that dislodges the rat a bit more. I don't want to climb back up and touch the revolting thing to move it so I try one more attempt at pulling it loose. As I whip lash it again and the tail makes a wave, just as it reaches the end I give it a sharp tug. It makes a sickening snap before coming loose and tumbling down. Blood is dripping steadily and some other things which I don't want to think about fall into the dirty water. Before I know what's going on there's a splash from below and a a huge pair of jaws with serrated teeth erupt from below. I'm so shocked that I make a chocked noise as my heart leaps to my throat and my stomach drops like a stone. I find myself tipping backwards and to try and keep my balance my arms are like windmills. Just as I'm going down my bad hand collides with a branch and I hold onto it for dear life. In protest my wrist sends wave after wave of agonising pain. I steady myself and slowly I stand back up. Somehow after all that I managed to hold onto that blasted rat. I peer down to the base of the tree in search of the creature to find that it's gone. Just vanished. But I wasn't born yesterday so I knew that whatever it was is still lurking underneath the water. I do a quick scan and that's when I notice just a short distance away a small stream of bubbles. Great. How am I going to get out of this mess now? I unconsciously tap both of my axes just reassuring myself that I have means of defence. But I wasn't about to do something stupid. I knew there was no way I was going to throw one of them and hope for the best. There was also no way that I was going to jump down and start hacking at the water hoping to get lucky. I thought on this for a moment until the idea came to me. I climbed down a few more branches so that I could easily jump down without injuring myself further. I slowly started to swing the rat. Back and forth, back and forth. It gradually was gaining greater momentum. I steadied myself and closed my eyes. In my head I started counting.
1...
2...
3...
Then with all my might I threw the damned thing as far as I could and as soon as it landed I dropped from the branch and ran in the opposite direction. I could hear the creature thrashing. I pray that it wasn't coming after me. Finally I was a good distance away that I no longer heard the beast, still I didn't stop there was no way that I was waiting around for that thing to come in search of me. Now I had been walking in this direction for quite a while and I knew there is a barrier, a deadly force field able to kill with a single touch. I made the decision to simply turn left. A straight 90 degree turn and I was off again. I had some sort of bearing where I was going. I'm pretty sure that the direction I ran from the creature was also away from the platform. I hope so because I haven't seen any familiar trees or my markings. This really sucks. I'm wet, hungry, lost, injured but the one that was most killing me was the thirst. I wouldn't be able to go on for much longer without a drink. My throat felt like sandpaper. I had to find a mine shaft and get some supplies and soon.