Orientation

Towering trees, covered in ancient thick bark, birth a cathedral around me. Their leaves create a shifting mosaic of jade, emerald, and lime, against the brilliant blue sky. 

A gentle breeze rustles the canopy like a soft sigh, carrying with it an unfamiliar smell. 

Slowly and shakily, I push myself up into a sitting position. My head feels clear, the fog of despair and anguish miraculously gone. The crushing weight on my chest has vanished. I can breathe, and I mean truly breathe. Each inhalation fills my lungs without a tremor of anxiety accompanying it. 

I look down at my hands, then at my arms. There is no wound. No fresh, crimson line. Only a thin, silvery scar amongst the numerous other scars and burns. It wasn't an ugly mark of failure, but a quiet reminder of a chapter that has finally ended.

I trace the new scar with my fingers. It is smooth and completely healed, a physical impossibility that is somehow less shocking than the vibrant, living world around me. It was real. The memory was real, but the wound is most certainly now closed.

My blue polyester polo is gone, replaced by a simple tunic of coarse green fabric, it has short frilly sleeves that clutch to my arms. My black work jeans have been annexed and remodeled into a loose blue pleated skirt with leather sandals adorning the peninsulas of my legs. 

This outfit is a lot more feminine than I am used to, but I feel the need to embrace it like new skin.

"Oh no where are they?!"

I snap my head around in a panic, a cold dread washes over me that eclipses the strangeness of my situation. 

My hand frantically pats the tall grass at my side before my fingers graze metal. 

My glasses… They are the one thing that has persevered through my journey of metaphysicality. 

Their gold rim basks in the sunlight, they were a gift from my parents after I landed my first role. 

I pick them up, and the familiar weight is a grounding anchor in this sea of novelty. I slide them onto my face, and the world snaps into a crisp overwhelming focus. Each leaf and shadow renders with perfect startling clarity.

A single, hot tear escapes, and slides down my cheek, nestling itself into the corner of my lip.

The moisture awakens a primal feeling in the back of my throat. My mouth is dry and my tongue thick.

"I. Need. Water." 

Getting to my feet is a clumsy affair. My legs feel long-limbed and uncoordinated after what feels like an eternity of disuse. 

I wobble, and my hand shoots out to brace myself against the nearest tree trunk. The bark is real and rough under my palm. 

As I finally steady myself there is one other question I must ask myself.

“Where the fuck am I?”

A forest stretches out before me unlike any I have ever seen. 

The trees are massive and their trunks are wider than I could encircle with my arms. Strange corkscrew-shaped flowers with petals of iridescent yellow grow in clusters at their bases, pulsing with a faint internal light.

There’s no litter in sight, not a plastic bag or fast food wrapper anywhere. Which could mean I am either in the middle of nowhere in a place untouched by civilization or I’m in Singapore… But judging by the lack of skyscrapers I think that’s unlikely.

Everything is familiar enough to be recognizable, yet different enough to make me feel like I am losing my bearings. I take a moment, just to breathe, letting the sheer sensory input settle.

 My body, which has for years felt like a burden to be dragged through shifts and sleepless nights, now feels oddly capable. There is a lightness in my limbs, an absence of ache in my back and a lack of tension in my neck. 

With no path to guide me, the only way to move is forward. I need to come across a river somehow. 

The initial shock of this new reality is slowly being removed as a feeling of analytical curiosity takes its place. An old habit of the actress within me I guess. 

I catalogue details as I go, in an attempt at trying to make sense of this new stage I have been thrust upon. 

A carpet of moss caresses my toes, with each step I grasp at the springy texture. It's a far cry from the unforgiving concrete of the city. 

The air deep in the forest feels distinctly different, from that of the clearing, each inhalation I take clings to the sides of my nose as it enters my airways.

I can feel a rosy complexion spread across my face, I can’t tell if it’s because I haven’t walked like this in years or if it is a byproduct of this new environment. But it’s a welcome addition to my new arsenal of emotions.

Unconsciously I have started to move downhill, only now realising it was actually my best chance of finding a stream or river. 

In the distance I can hear a low reverberation, an unsolicited invasion of the soundscape on my so far peaceful pursuit for water. At first, I mistook it for a distant waterfall, a steady, rumbling bass note. But it wasn't steady, it was irregular.

Thump…. Thump………… Thump… 

The once springy moss begins to feel spiky, every nerve ending suddenly on high alert. 

A branch somewhere to my left snaps with a crack like a gunshot. Birds previously unseen, explode from the canopy. The thumping is growing  louder, and closer, now accompanied now by a heavy, rasping breath that sounded like rocks grinding together. 

Raw, primal fear seizes me. But I made a promise to myself that this time it would be different. 

"You were supposed to honour them by living." I whisper, the words becoming my personal invocation.

The skirt I found quaint moments ago, is now a cumbersome trap, catching on low branches. My sandals, so comfortable for walking, offer little purchase as I scramble over roots and thorny bushes. 

The forest, briskly becomes a hostile maze. Trees are obstacles, roots are snares, and the beautiful, dappled light is a confusing strobe that hides the uneven ground.

Behind me, the thumping is a relentless drumbeat chasing me down.

"GRRUUNNKKHHAAARRRRRGHHH!" The guttural roar rips through the air, and it’s so full of malice that it feels like a physical blow. 

I risk a glance over my shoulder and see nothing but shaking trees and splintered wood where something immense is carving a path through the undergrowth. 

I didn’t need to see it to know it was big, and it was fast.

My lungs burn. A stitch stabs into my side, sharp and vicious. My legs, which had felt so light and capable, are now screaming in protest. 

This is it, this is the pain of living, the agony of fighting for one more second. It is terrifying and awful and I have never felt more alive. 

I push harder, tears of exertion and terror streaming from my eyes, blurring the world into a smear of green and brown.

My foot catches on a gnarled root hidden beneath a patch of leaves. My ankle twists with a sickening pop, and my momentum carries me forward, airborne for a single, weightless second before I crash down a short, steep embankment. 

I tumble head over heels, the world a chaotic whirl of dirt, leaves, and pain. I come to a jarring stop with my shoulder slamming against something hard and my face half-submerged in cold, running water.