Dribbles - 11. Blinding Light

The darkness gave way to the light and I found myself just as unable to see. Tears streamed down my face as the white radiance stabbed through my eyes and blasted my brain. I groaned and turned away, stumbling with one hand over my eyes and the other stretched out in front of me.

"Help!"

My voice was a hoarse croak, barely audible to my own ears. My bare feet slapped down on the rough hard surface, cracks and rocks buried in the sand made me stumble. I waved my arm in front of me, recoiling when I felt streamers from the trees brush against me. The softness was startling after more than a week in a rocky prison.

"Help!"

Weaker now, I stumbled and fell, not feeling the edge of the overhang until I was over it. Both of my hands shot out in front of me but I was too weak to protect myself. My arms collapsed under my weight and I felt a searing pain as my forehead slammed down to the ground. The stabbing pain became a soft blanket that covered me as I rolled over, the trickle of the stream I landed in soaking into my parched skin. I was so weak that I could barely turn my head, trying to suck up some of the precious fluid with cracked lips and a swollen tongue.

My head fell back down to the mud, unable to hold it anymore. I floated in the white radiance, feeling the warm slide of fluid from the throbbing cut on my forehead as tears escaped my lowered lids. I didn't want to give up but I couldn't go any farther. The pain began to fade and my breathing slowed. I had fought and struggled, unwilling to die in that cave. I never expected I would escape the blinding darkness just to die as sightless in the bedazzling light.

Ironic didn't begin to cover it.