Sole Survivor
By Sinn

Drip, drip. Water dripping onto his face.

Mike Roberts came round with a start, thunderous pain pounding inside of his skull. Pain like he had never known, pain so intense that it threatened oblivion once more.

He opened his eyes.

Thousands of multi-coloured ribbons danced in front of his vision and nausea flooded over him. Closing his eyes quickly, he welcomed the darkness once again.

Slowly his mind found something to focus on, and unfortunately for him it was the fantastic pain throughout his body. From the waist up, everything hurt to varying degrees, mostly varying simply between plain old honest to god agony and absolute fucking nightmare. Once, long ago during his teenage years, Mike had suffered an impacted wisdom tooth. He thought that he had known true pain then, pain so intense that there was no room for anything else, but that didn't even hold a candle to this. This pain was so ferocious that it felt as if a fire of agony was raging through his entire body.

Apart from his legs. So far as his pain fuddled mind could tell, they didn't hurt at all. They were just...Well, just nothing. But at least they weren't hurting.

The rest of me might be a mess, he thought, but at least my walking gear's in working order.

For some reason which he couldn't quite place his finger on, a vague unease stirred in his mind at that thought. Perhaps his legs weren't fine. Perhaps....

He was prevented from pursuing this disturbing train of thought any further. His guts finally found their way past the bouncers and joined in with his party of pains and woes. He vomited into his lap and passed out.

His head snapped up. He had been dreaming, pleasant dreams of rolling fields and pretty girls, but all the while he had been aware that his face was wet. In his dream it had been wet with blood, but as he woke he realized that it was just water, still dripping on his face from somewhere overhead.

Mercifully, much of the pain which had wracked his body had receded, becoming little more than a smouldering ache. He supposed that it might still be intense, but when compared to the exquisite agonies of earlier, it was paradise.

Opening his eyes, he almost screamed at what he saw. Or rather at what he didn't see. Everything was black, as dark as a moonless midnight.

I'm blind, he thought, and the panic welled in him, an all consuming terror which threatened insanity. His hands flew to his eyes in an instinctive reaction, and as they drew close to his face, he realized that he could see them. He wasn't blind after all. It was only the night, dark as pitch and so gloriously embracing. He wasn't blind!. Relief flooded over him, an ecstasy of relief the like of which he had never felt before.

Although he now knew that he was not blind, it was still too dark to see much of anything. But although he could not see, he could still smell and hear. Right now he could smell something which might have been burnt rubber, the heady aroma of stale vomit and the thunderous stench of human excrement. And, outside, he could hear insects buzzing and birds calling, screeching tonelessly so that they sounded like a humans screams of terror.

Screams. He could remember screams....With a clarity which was stunning, memories flashed into his mind, memories so vivid that it seemed as if they were really happening at this very moment. The plane going into a dive, his companions screaming, a thunderous crash which could have been the end of the world, and then blackness.

Fuck, he thought, closing his eyes against the tears which had began to well there.

"Is anyone there?" he called, his voice harsh and croaky. His throat felt like ancient parchment, so old and desiccated that it would crumble into dust at the slightest touch from human hands.

Silence. There was no reply save for the screams of the birds outside.

"Come on and fucking answer" he screamed, ignoring the fresh jolts of pain which the exertion caused.

The noise startled some creature outside, for he heard the crash as it tore away through the undergrowth, but still no answer came.

He began to cry freely now, tears joining with the water which dripped upon his face.

What a bloody mess. It should have been so easy, just a simple flight and a single transaction to oversee. One delivery of cocaine, one lot of money to collect, and a hundred thousand pounds of commission would have been in his pocket. Only now he was here, wherever here was. God alone knew where, but it was definitely the jungle. He had seen it on the way down, and he could hear the sounds of animals all around. The others who had flown with him seemed to be dead or certainly in no position to offer help.

He was all alone in the night. For how long he cried he did not know, but slowly sleep crept up on him and he slumbered fitfully.

It was light when he woke. Sunlight was streaming down upon his face, and though it stung his eyes, he looked around. Everything was chaos, like some twisted vision of Dantes come true. The top of the plane had been sheared right off and he could see the tops of trees set against a cloudless blue sky. Colourful birds flew to and fro amidst their branches.

Looking around the interior of the plane itself, he saw Maria, still sitting in the seat opposite. She had been his lover and his partner in this transaction, but now her neck had been twisted so that her mangled face was looking down on her own back. Dark, drying blood surrounded her mouth and nose, sightless eyes staring vacantly.

Further back in the plane was Mikes assistant, Ramos. His limbs were sprawled unnaturally about him so that he looked like some bizarre contortionist, and what was left of his head roughly resembled a deflated football. White bone and ochre brain stared out from his mangled skull. Puddles of water lay in the aisles, tinged red with the blood of the dead.

Far worse was to come though. The agonies and endings which could come to anothers flesh were as nothing when compared with those which befell ones own.

Looking down at his legs, Mike saw that the force of the crash had slammed the seat in front of his backwards, crushing both of his legs and trapping them against his own seat. Through tears in the fabric of his trousers he could see that his flesh was black and that bones were poking out at crazy angles. Both of his legs had been utterly ruined.

"No" he screamed, pushing at the seat which was pinning his legs with all the strength which his wasted muscles could muster. It didn't move in the slightest.

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" he howled, beating his fists furiously against the front seat. Still no movement.

Tears flooded down his face and despair overwhelmed him. He was alone, held captive by his ruined legs in a plane which belonged only to the dead.

Then his eyes fell upon something which held out hope, albeit hopes of the most tenuous and illusory nature. On the seat besides him, exactly where it had been when the plane had crashed, was his briefcase. Contained therein was salvation, release and oh so welcomed oblivion.

Grunting with the effort which it took, he reached over and flipped open the catches which held the case closed. Inside was a collection of papers, all worthless now, a plastic bag containing his own personal supply of cocaine and a Browning 9mm pistol. And the most important item of all. His mobile phone.

Snatching up the phone, he looked at its display. Battery on half strength, signal on nothing. It was useless. He hadn't expected to get any reception here, not completely surrounded by trees, but at least it held out a hope if he could somehow manage to get clear. He switched it off, conserving the battery for later.

Reaching back over into the case, his hand hovered over the gun, and then moved onto the cocaine. The gun would come later, if and when all hope of rescue had been given up.

Snatching up the bag of coke, he ripped it open and snorted a decent sized pinch of the white powder, relishing the explosion of well being which it brought. Things never seemed quite so bad when you were high, a fact which he had discovered many times before, albeit to a far less significant degree.

After all, someone was bound to find him soon. They would figure out that the plane was missing, and how hard could it be to find the site of a plane crash?

It was a comforting thought, as was the relief from hunger which the drug gave. Since there was nothing at all to eat, it was a good job that cocaine acted as an appetite suppressant.

That was how he spent his first conscious day, and the two days which followed that. When he was frightened, he got high. When he was hungry he got high. When he wasn't high, he was sleeping. His water came from overhead, constantly dripping onto his face, and though it tasted bitter, it was enough to slake his thirst.

After three days however, the cocaine seemed to begin to intensify his hunger rather than banishing it. Several times he caught himself looking hungrily at Marias exposed legs. They were beginning to look might tasty despite their discoloration, and, even better, they were within reach. With little more than a stretch, he could grab them.

Lovely, succulent legs. Maybe not Kentucky fried, but right now they looked a fuck of a lot better than Colonel Sanders ever had.

High as a kite and hungry as hell, I reckon those legs will taste just swell.

Why am I thinking in rhymes in these terrible times?.

Something held him back, and for yet another night he went to sleep hungry.

A low, feral hissing woke him from his slumber, and his heart skipped wildly when he saw a pair of green eyes staring balefully at him through the rent in the roof of the plane.

It was a bloody leopard or something. Reaching over to grab his gun, his suspicions were confirmed as it jumped down into the plane. It wasn't a leopard, but it was a big cat of some kind, sleek and black. Every movement was graceful, and those eyes never left him as it dropped the little way into the plane.

Fangs bared, it stared at him and hissed ferociously, moving so that it could sniff at Ramos' corpse. All the while, those eyes stayed fixed on Mikes own. There was something hypnotic about those eyes, something which seemed to terrify Mike and yet relax him at the same time.

Anything might have happened but, without realizing it, he had been tightening his finger on the trigger. The gun went off, its discharge a thunderous explosion in the confines of the plane. He had not aimed and the shot went wide, punching a hole through the door which connected to the cockpit.

Startled, the cat backed away, hissing wickedly its displeasure at being thwarted, and then with a single bound it fled back through the way it had entered, disappearing into the night.

Mikes heart was beating like an express train, but as the minutes pass its beat began to settle. He didn't sleep for the rest of that night, though. He just sat with his gun pointing at the gap in the roof, taking the occasional snort of coke to keep his drooping eyelids open and to give him courage.

Watching as the darkness slowly lightened into day, Mike realized that he was hungrier than ever.

It's legs or nothing, he thought, silently mourning the fact that he had not been able to kill that panther. But, oh, the thought of those legs repulsed him so. Those legs which he had kissed and caressed so often, those legs which were turning black and looking delicious.

He felt his mouth begin to water and he took another hit of his rapidly dwindling supply of cocaine.

Stretching, he grabbed one those legs and pulled it over so that it was within easy reach. Nausea flooded over him as he touched that cold and dead flesh, but some more cocaine took care of that. How to have your girl and eat her. A hit of coke to settle those last minute nerves, and then behold! A feast beyond imagination, a sumptuous banquet to please even the most particular palate. Besides which, she sure didn't need those legs herself. She really wasn't going to get up and go for a walk, was she?

He pulled his penknife out of his jacket pocket and flipped open the blade. The knife was sharp, and though her flesh was stiff and unyielding, he began to cut. He took a decent slice from her lower calve, a fair sized piece of meat which looked sweet enough to eat.

Taking a bite of the meat, he immediately spat it out, barely managing to turn his head so that he could avoid throwing up into his precious coke.

Another hit, and he tried again. The flesh was tough, but the taste was somewhat akin to that of cold and bitter beef, but he managed to chew and swallow. Nausea flooded him and his stomach heaved, but he fought the urge to vomit, and with every mouthful his stomach seemed to grow more eager to accept its new nutrition.

After another slice his hunger was abated, but even through the haze of coke, the part of his mind which still remained sane was sickened by what he had just done. He had just eaten his lovers leg. Wasn't that, well, cannibalism or something?

More powder, and the thought was banished from his mind. Only to be replaced with other, almost as worrying thoughts.

How long had he been here? It couldn't be more than a couple of days, though Mike had to admit that his sense of time was chaotic. No, it couldn't possibly be any longer than that, and help would be on the way. He was certain that it was.

Days passed, all seeming to merge into one. Marias legs were stripped to the bone, save for the tendons, since they had proved far too tough to eat. It had been like chewing on a branch from a tree.

She was starting to stink now, as well. He flesh had become rotten, attracting flies to steal Mikes dinner. He could see the white clusters of eggs, eggs which would soon hatch into thousands of maggots.

Far worse was the rapidly diminishing cocaine, and the constant nosebleeds from which he was suffering. He was having hallucinations, crazy visions of angels and demons in which reality was almost totally eclipsed.

Then, salvation.

He heard voices around the plane, and then a face popped into view through the roof. It was an ugly face, yellow and squat, but to Mike it was the most beautiful sight in the world.

"Help" he called, face splitting into an enormous grin as he held out his arms to his saviour.

Another face appeared, and then another. They were smiling and chatting excitedly to each other. Whatever they were saying was in a language which Mike didn't understand, but he knew that everything was alright. He had been saved. There might be a little trouble with the authorities when it was discovered that the plane was carrying a considerable amount of cocaine, but that was far better than starving to death or blowing his brains out in the middle of some accursed jungle.

The men were hopping down into the plane now. All had black hair and the same squat faces, short little bodies which were lean and finely muscled. Each carried a spear.

"Thank you" Mike said as they drew close, bursting into tears as he did so.

Then he saw something which stopped him dead. Many of the men had a most unusual adornment to their belts - human heads, shrunken and withered.

This wasn't a rescue party. Mike had heard stories about tribes like this. If they were anything to go by, Mike would soon be providing these people with a service which his lover had provided him. Food.

"No" he screamed, raising the pistol.

Before he could fire, one of the men batted the gun aside with his spear, and thrust its point into Mikes chest.

It bit deeply, tearing through Mikes emaciated frame and into the seat beyond. Pain exploded where it entered, and a bubble of blood burst from Mikes mouth. He tensed, clawed at the shaft of the spear, and then died.

Prodding him with spears until they were satisfied that he was dead, the tribesmen unhitched knives from their belts and began to cut, their lips watering all the while.