SAdDDesT eXPeriEnce.....

"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Intriguing it truly is how Shakespeare could bring out one's emotions through such doleful words. Nevertheless, it is true. Life is but an unfathomable tale of sorrow and misery, masked behind the sounds and faces of joy, leading only to the inevitable revelation of the truth, where one would realize that dreams are but an empty flask, easily shattered into oblivion.
    It came like a spear, prickling my soul. Perhaps it was the blanket being too thin, if only I had added one, no two, no it just would not have sufficed. Before then, I had always imagined a campfire to be the ultimate source of warmth and comfort in dark times... I stood corrected. For all I knew at that point, I could've been lying naked in the midst of a blizzard, the unforgiving gelid winds wailing proudly as they struck despair down to my very core. Accompanied only by a surfeit of queasy sensation patrolling by my uvular. It was incontrovertibly a one-sided battle. One which no adolescent should have to face without an ally.
    It must have been the fever, though one could have erroneously believed the source to be the merciless wind, howling plaintively across the campsite as it disturbed the rustling leaves, as if on purpose. The others have gone to restock on more wood to burn and I was left to rest in my tent. I would have gone with them had I not been cursed with this horrible fever at this wicked hour. Hiding from the coldness beneath the safety of my blanket was probably not the most courageous act, but it was a wise one. To follow them into the woods in my condition would be plain suicide.
    Before long, the wind wailed even louder in an utmost sorrowful manner. I reached into my pocket in search for my pills, my lifeline to be blunt, as it    kept my illness to a minimum. Somehow, as if things could not have gotten worse, they were not there, go figure. That was it, in a matter of moments the ascending fever would triumph over my natural resistance and incapacitate me, as would asphyxiation slowly sink in. Then, through the glass my memory a sliver of hope came to be. They must have still been with Percy. That fool wanted to 'take a look at them' earlier on and must have brought them along with him. It was simply a no-brainer, suicide or not, I must retrieve them, to endure the intensifying sickness would be worse than death itself.
    With a long, deep breath and a whole lot of foolish bravery, I rushed out, embracing the tempest and broke off looking for Percy. The trees grew thicker as both light and warmth from the campfire dimmed and faded away into cold and black despair.
    There was simply no time to adjust to the darkness. I scurried blindly forward towards who knows where, yelling out the names of my campmates as I shivered in the midst of grieve and fear. I had just about given up when a shout retaliated my efforts, it was of my name and I was sure the voice belonged to Percy. My tired eyes lifted and tried their best to search for the voice despite the overwhelming darkness. A dark figure spawned in the distance and I charged towards it, only to have it scream something in my direction, vaguely I assumed it to be in a warning tone. But unfortunately, the desperation for the illness to end got the best of me. And to be honest, I could not have cared less at that moment what the scream was all about.
    It all happened in haste. My foot felt nothingness, my vision descended, adrenaline surged through my veins. Was it a hole or a cliff, I could not remember. Miraculously enough, I had survived the fall, but miracles do not just happen everyday without a price, and I had paid every last bit of it. Ever since then, I had been paralyzed from waist down. And now I sit patiently in a wheelchair, sharing my story every now and then, awaiting nothing but a sad end to my life.