Desperation-describing without sight
I can feel my sweat, sticky and hot in every crevice, building up thick along my hairline, dripping down the side of my face, plastering my hair against my skin. I can feel my fingers sliding, the sweat on my palms easing my fingertips from the crevice to which they cling. I taste salt and dry bitter dust when I breathe in, and every gasping breath rings in my ears, the mournful string accompaniment to the percussive throbbing of my own heartbeat. My chest heaves against the stone, cold against the wet heat of my body. My heart pounds faster with every centimeter that slides beneath my fingertips, but my bare feet can't find a foothold. No sound gives any depth to my surroundings; I have become the single loud creature in an infinite web of emptiness. My knees are sore from pounding against the stone in my attempts to find a firmer foothold. I slide a trembling hand upwards. A draft brushes my skin, freezing the cold sweat. I feel as though I am about to plunge from the safety I cling to when I find another handhold. With the last inch of stretch I push myself up and slide my slimy fingers into the space, but my heartbeat has become the ticking of a timed bomb. An echo of my heartbeat in the distance – I hear footsteps, all too familiar. The click of stiletto heels sends a series of aches and shivers down my back so that I can almost feel the memory of the hundreds of lashes and the ice of the stone cell. Fear drives me loudly upwards, ever upwards into nothingness. I slide an elbow over the edge and I can smell freedom. Pine woods are freedom and I thrust my face towards it. I have only seconds, and the sweat falling from my body falls forever into the hourglass. The footsteps are everywhere now echoing from every direction, every line of the web in which I struggle tingles with the sound of those footsteps, but I have tasted the pine scent, felt the memories sliding down my throat pervading my bones and death can't be any worse than falling back again.
for thewritershelpers' 500-word-challenge