A sharp pain echoed across the woman's skull, bashing its way end to end in her cranium. There was a brief flash of light, one that pained her eyes and forehead worse than looking directly into the sun. The woman grimaced as the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth in a mix of saliva. Only after minutes could she will herself to open her eyes. Cracking them slightly she could see the outlines of stalagmites and bluish rock formations - all of which were shadowed by a bright opening at the far end of what she now realized was a cavern.
I don't want to die.
Darkness began to envelop her vision. The walls of the cavern began to reverberate slightly as though they were made of ocean waves. The light itself at the far end of the cave began to dim in a shadowy curtain that clouded around the peripherals of her eyes. The air she breathed agonized her extremely dry throat. It had a taste of mold and musk. All of her sensations of disgust were clouded in pain, however. She was going to die. Probably.
I don't want to die. Not here.
She stopped thinking about the pain for a moment, and lurched forward. Falling down a slight incline of what felt like melted lava given by how ribbed the stone was, as though it had "bubbled" over eons ago when it was molten. She rolled, like a crippled child attempting to have fun rolling down a green hill full of feathery grass. She did not find it fun. Especially when her ribs slammed into the base of stalagmite. She coughed.
I may die here.
Minutes later, through some haze of delirium and thunderous skull splitting pain that seemed to crack the bony perimeter along her forehead to her temples, she found she was getting closer to the light of the cave entrance. Her mangled hands with ripped off fingernails bled into her palms and onto her wrists. She didn't even realize her clawing to move toward the light had mangled her nails as so. In a moment she heard a voice, a bright, sparkling voice full of excitement.
"You know this is the way to heaven right?"
Svetlana looked to her-
Svetlana? That is my name?
Her eyes narrowed at the figure she just started to make out. It was a little frogman in a kind of tailored suit. Its giant green and hazel eyes stayed open as its tongue flicked its own eyes, first the left then the right. The creature seemed perfectly at ease in the presence of her immense suffering, of her blooded hands, face, and venously red eye whites. A feeling of angry frustration spewed flames up her throat from her gut.
Bastard. Stupid frog.
"Who is more stupid? The woman who races towards death or the frog who sits at ease with the idea of it?" The frog said without accent.
Shut up
She gritted her teeth, clenching them together and hearing a creaking as they pressed against the grooves of each other that had been created from grinding them so much. She focused back on the light, and started to crawl once more. Inch by inch. Pain by pain. The light was the only answer to the darkness she had found herself in. The pain was not avoidable, the light the only possible destination besides the darkness around her. There, at least in the light, she'd be able to witness something other than darkness.
Upon reaching the edge of the cave, the frog came to greet her. He paced up from her left side with a walking stick, it's wooding "tinking" created by each step he pounded the base of it into the rock beneath them.
"you are a stupid girl"
Yep. The stupidest.
"Who are you?"
A stupid girl apparently
The haze of pink light from a setting sun collided with her pale face and features. She bit her lower lip, then stopped immediately as the movement hurt exquisitely. She could not see the land before herself, the outside of the cave, for the frog blocked her vision.
"Who are you, really"
I'm Svetlana, the girl from the east, I come from the land just before the steepe
The frog lifted his cane and put it under her chin. With a small amount of force, he lifted her chin so she had to look into his giant, round, green and hazel bulges he called "eyes". From her position, the tiny foot tall frog looked like a giant from the tales of the northmen.
"What do you want? Girl from the east who came from the land just before the Steepe?"
I want.. I want water.
The frog removed his cane from beneath her chin, which fell down in short succession. Then, she felt a slight bonk on the top her head. To her surprise it did not hurt in the slightest.
"Water, no water. All water. Less water. Big water. Small water. Green water. Blue water. Water with red. Water that is full of the dead. Water that is black. Water that drips from a hat. There are many types of water to pick. But which water do you wish?"
The kind I can drink. Idiot.
"ok. So then. The water of life."
A moment passed, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, the frog was gone as was her pain. She had somehow gotten on her back. A slight breeze played sweet music with the grass and leaves. The wind wouldve been visible, had she looked at the grass that it was flowing across. There were trees around her, flowing back and forth in a calm kind of serenade. Her pain was a bygone thing. Her finger nails were back. After she sat up, she looked before her and saw the trees, the lakes, the grass, the steepe. A calmness settled over herself and she got to her feet.
