Sweat flooded from my forehead. My legs ached from hours of slogging through the knee-deep mucky swamp. My camouflage shirt was torn ragged on both sleeves. I was exhausted. My two foot machete was now dull from endless strikes against ferns and branches and brush. My arms burned from the relentless swinging of the long heavy blade.
I had to keep going. Moving forward. There was no turning back now, only looking back in panicked glances of trepidation. I wanted to get away. I needed to get away. I had to get away. My life depended on it.
I cringed at the sloppy sucking sound of my mud covered boots working their way through tangles of reeds and roots. But I kept my focus. I knew it would end, this nightmarish day, and it would turn into a hellish night if I was not able to find a way out soon. I searched for any break in the foliage.
Then, at last, an opening ahead? Hope! I stepped out of the dense forest onto a path that eventually turned into a roadway. An actual roadway. I stumbled east in the fading dusk towards a grouping of faint lights glowing in the distance. Salvation?