Sprawling with face down beside the cold and unforgiving the man fell awkwardly on the stony earth. His wretched body
railway track. His fingers twitched and trembled as they groped blindly in the dirt searching desperately for something just out of reach. The cracked screen of his broken cell phone lay a few feet away. It's shattered glass glinting faintly under the dim light filtering through the thick canopy.
"Come on… just a little closer…"he muttered hoarsely but his voice was barely audible over the steady drizzle.
A long and painful pause stretched between breaths. With a grunt he forced himself to turn over revealing a face and body battered and bruised. Cuts and scrapes marked his hands and elbows while sharp stabbing pains radiated from his neck and belly. His eyes squinted against the sting of blood and grime that coated his skin.
"God!," he whispered with ragged and weak voice. Blood dripped steadily from his nose mixing with the mud on his cheeks masking his features in a grimmest red and brown smear. His hands, slick with fresh blood shook violently as he tried to push himself up. But the world tilted and spun was refusing to obey his commands. "Not… yet," he gasped with cracking voice. "I can't… give up."
Seconds stretched like hours as he struggled to rise. His muscles screaming in protest, his body refused to cooperate, his limbs felt heavy as stone, his heart pounding erratically in his chest. Then all of a sudden with a shuddering breath, his strength gave out. He collapsed back onto the cold earth with shallow and uneven breath.
Darkness crept at the edges of his vision. The heavy deluge that had once poured relentlessly softened into a gentle drizzle. Rain splattered softly against leaves washing away the grime and blood that marred his face. The jungle around him was eerily silent, save for the persistent chorus of crickets, their stridulating song echoing through the dense undergrowth. The rhythmic patter of raindrops on foliage was the only sound breaking the stillness.
His eyelids fluttered but barely open revealing eyes dulled with pain and exhaustion. They seemed to plead silently with the fading light as if clinging to the last thread of life.
"Please.." he whispered, voice barely audible, not more than a breath. "Don't… let me die." But the darkness was closing in fast as if it was gulping the world around him.