I’ve had this in my collection for quite some time, so I just thought I’d post it. I wrote it shortly after cycling home from college in the middle of winter, in the dark, in the pouring rain. (And, predictably, my mum told me to stop whining and that everything was so much worse when she was a kid…) This is a work of fiction, not reality though.

You can also find a prettier PDF version [1] here.

It is a cold December night, and the relentless howl of an angry wind is interrupted only by the endless random drumming as a thousand million raindrops smash into the upper canopy of the ancient Oak forest. Lightning crashes and thunder rolls across the sky. The flickering light reveals fleeting half-glimpses of the twisted and grossly distorted boughs of the massive Oak trees. Otherwise the night is deepest black, and the feeble light of my lantern slowly yet inexorable grows dimmer with every passing moment.

The road is treacherous, my wheels slipping and skidding over the waterlogged mud-laden cobbles. I must hurry, that I might reach safety before my lantern dies and I am left unable to see the road — and yet, I must proceed slowly and with caution, that I do not fall and injure myself, or damage my vehicle.

The water has found its way into every nook and cranny and crevice. My clothes are drenched, and cling to my body, restraining my movements. My muscles are rigid with cold, and my fingers and toes are numb. As I race through the forest, the wind threatens to topple me, and the fallen branches and missing cobbles to trip me. Now and again I hit a puddle, loosing momentum and warmth.

There are no lights on the horizon. There is no civilized place for 7 miles in any direction. But for the cobbled road and my own lantern, no one would ever guess that mankind even existed here. No one will come to save me. No sane person will venture into this forest on a night as this. If I do not return, no one will miss me. If my lantern failes, or my vehicle is damanged, or if I am injured, I shall succumb to the relentless cold long before I ever get out of this forest.

The trees are a tangled mass of writhing branches, an endless maze of trunks and boughs. The usually familiar road is rendered unrecognisable by the darkness. Many of the road-signs have fallen, and it is too dark to read those that remain anyway. My only hope is to recall the correct sequence of turns to reach my destination, and memorise my present position at all times.

But the hour is late, and I am bitterly cold. With every passing moment, the hour grows later, and my exhaustion grows greater, and the cold gets worse. Freezing, exhausted and sleepy, my mind is as dark as this forest, and I am rapidly loosing the power to think. The twisting, rustling, flickering darkness confuses and disorients me, and as my lantern continues to fade, I can’t help but begin to panic.

My body has become a machine for peddling, abused by the sapping cold and the constricting fabric. My mind is reduced to a single thought: the will to live. A desperate struggle to overcome the panic, sleep exhaustion, cold, disorientation, and my failing sight in the waning light.

If I survive this, the person who put me here won’t…