The thunder rumbled across the sky, long, low, and aggressive as the storm promised to exert it's authority over the elements. The ground shook as the sound traveled though everything in the woodland alive or dead. As the lightning flashed in advance of another roar, the dark pathway below was illuminated allowing nothing to hide for a split second, before plunging all life back into the darkness.
"Ouch" Hannah cried out as she stumbled over another tree route on the ever narrowing path through the trees. Hardly able to see in this weather she had been caught off guard by the protrusion into the meandering walkway.
"Man was this a bad idea" she mussed out loud as she pulled herself up off of the floor to continue her struggle. She had decided she needed some time out from home, kids, husband, housework, time out from life really and a walk through these woods at dusk had served her well in the past. However, with the hum of suburbia lost in the distance, the unexpected turn of the weather had turned a nice sunset walk into an intensive quest for life as the cloud cover advanced the darkness of night upon her within minutes.
With no torch, only sneakers not hiking boots, and just denim shorts and a white tea shirt to cover her, she was not prepared at all for the battle against nature that she was now engaged in.
Suddenly all was silent. The leaves no longer fought each other at the winds command. The birds couldn't be heard. The thunder had stopped. Even the air, even Hannah's heart and lungs seemed to be silent as she looked up observing the apparent suspension of time.
And then it came.
With a crash so loud she could have sworn it were a bomb, and the echoed rubbles that followed over the landscape, the thunder and lightning ripped through life in unison, declaring the beginning as they tore open the sky and threw the large painful raindrops towards the earth below.
As Hannah looked up through the flashing sky, through the fast moving tunnel of water falling, she was lost in it's dark beauty for a moment. Flying upwards, spiraling and then suddenly falling back to earth as the cold hard rain slapped against her face, stinging her pale complexion.
"Bugger" she sighed as her face and arms dropped limply towards the ground. She looked at the quickly forming mud on the path in front as the icy water formed waterfalls cascading from her long black hair, streaming across her dark brown eyes, past her button nose and across her full red lips. Falling ever further until, flying though space after leaving her chin, they once again formed a mighty river over the landscape of her ample chest.
"This is just typical. Take a walk to get away from it all and here I am, soaked to the bloody skin. Yeah thanks!" she cursed at the elements, at what ever controlled this world, this 'life', at herself.
Her feet reluctantly resumed their duty, trying their best to carry her body through the swamp of mud and branches that had quickly replaced the path they once trod. At 30, Hannah was not unfit at all, and had done her best to keep in shape between all the cooking and cleaning and trying to keep an entire house hold happy, forsaking herself time and time again. Where was her time for pleasure, for happiness, for self indulgence? "Fat chance!" she said under her breath and she contemplated the very reasons she existed. This was her lot. To cook and clean and make everyone else happy.
Her path now was becoming increasingly unclear. The spasmodic light gave false indication as to where the true path might be, forcing her deeper and deeper into the muddy depths of the wood. The wind and rain drove against her, turning her without her knowledge, pushing her, pulling her, guiding her to a destination hidden from everything.
"OK. So this is bad. Yep this is Bad." The realization slowly came but rather than resulting in panic it resulted in a depressed acceptance "So, I'm lost!"
Hannah stopped for a moment. Looking around, trying to peer through the rain and darkness surrounding her she tried to find any signs of direction. Slowly turning a full 360, her eyes darting, squinting, searching for hope, her head began to shake negatively as the hopelessness was confirmed. Every tree. Every bush. Every Shadow. Everything was just a dark damp blur and meant absolutely nothing.
Her head dropped again and for the first time she became aware of the ridiculousness of her attire. The white tea shirt was soaked. Her large breasts clinging to the tight fabric and showing themselves through the once white material in now near perfect skin tones. The cold rain cascaded over them, forcing her nipples to respond against her will as they grew hard in response to the elements assaulting them. Her denim shorts had shrunk to an even tighter fit than usual and, clinging to her supple cheeks, were riding up uncomfortably between them, shaping themselves into a copy of her form. Shaping around everything between her legs. Cold and wet.
Her eyes continued down her bathing body, past her naked shivering legs to her feet. Or at least to where they once were.
"Oh yuk" she began to cry as she tried to wriggle her trapped pumps free of the mud they had both sunken into. Mud, had surrounded them, sucking them down into the unstable ground, then, when access had allowed, had seeped slyly into them, molding itself around her feet, weighing them down as it consumed them slowly.
The more Hannah tried to lift her feet or twist them, the more the natural vacuum seemed to grip her, until at last, with a disgusting "plop" one foot was free. Free of the mud but also free of her shoe. Soon after the other followed, but the pressure applied to the first to free the second, now had it entrapped even deeper than before.
