IS SHE DEAD OR WHAT?

Most of this was just me going "bullshitbullshitbullshit." 8D

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I woke up face down in a river of sewage, and that is not a pleasant experience, let me tell you. The fact that I had my face submerged in murky water filled with God-knows-what, however, didn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that I could smell it. Underwater.

I floundered around a bit before getting my feet on the slimy ground at standing, wiping the God-knows-what from my eyes. The water was about hip-deep and stagnant. Even though I had just been in the open air, a low cement ceiling was above and damp walls loomed over me. There were a few dim lights overhead and I waded over to a narrow walkway I could make out along the side of the putrid river.

The smell made me want to hurl, but I was extremely confused about where I was and how had I got there and why I could smell underwater, and I had this massive headache, and it felt like ants were gnawing circles in my temples. So I sat down. It was then I realized I was not wearing the paint-stained shorts and a band T I had thrown on that morning, but rather my lucky jeans and a teal button down shirt over a white tank top, which were all somehow dry. I pulled my collar away from my chest to confirm that, yes, my bra had also miraculously changed.

This was all very perplexing.

Playing with fireworks on a construction site had probably not been a good idea. But it was our favorite less-than-legal hangout place, and it was Independence Day at midnight, so we’d done it anyway. I could rationalize that perhaps the ground was unstable, and perhaps the one that went off dangerously close to me had made it collapse. It would make sense that I could then fall through into a sewer, but I couldn’t think of any excuses for the smelling where one should not be able to smell or that sudden wardrobe change. Or way there wasn’t a gaping hole in the ceiling with everyone else yelling down to me.

Mentally grasping for rational explanations for impossible things made my head throb even more, and it felt as though it was steadily getting heavier. I groaned and raised my hands to knead it with the base of my palms. Except my hands instead found something metal and tubular protruding about six inches from either side of my face. I pulled on it gently with one hand. The headache instantly went from bearable to dizzying and the ants gnawed harder. I choked back a scream and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for it to subside. It took a few agonizing moments but was back to normal before I lost it and started whimpering.

I had learned two things from that mistake. One, I had a pipe going through my head. Two, I shouldn’t touch it.

It occurred to me that it didn’t make very much sense that I was still alive, what with the pipe and all. But a lot of things right now didn’t make very much sense, and I decided it was best to push those questions aside until I figured out where I was. I started walking along the edge.

I didn’t know much about sanitary systems, but I assumed that I would eventually find a ladder up to a manhole or something like that. My footsteps made smacking noises as I went along at a casual pace. I wanted to hurry, to break into a run, but I forced my body to at least pretend it was still calm. I focused on my footsteps: right, left, smack, smack.

After about twenty minutes of walking, I was starting to shake with suppressed panic. I hadn’t encountered anything but barren walls, not even a connecting passage or a pipe bringing new waste. The sewer water was still stagnant, unmoving. No matter how hard the hopeful part of me was trying to stifle, the logical piece of my mind insisted that still water meant that there was a good chance there was no exist. There were no pipes moving the sewage along.

Just the one in your head, I thought in mild hysteria. I didn’t know what to make of the pipe. The panic at the idea that I was trapped in a sewer was overpowering the headache and overriding my worry for much else. I was caring less about the fatal injury in my head and more about the fantasy of throwing a super-powered punch at the wall and breaking through to daylight.

I bent over and brushed the knees of my lucky jeans, they way I did when I wore them bowling or to take an important test. Even if I was wearing them inexplicably, I might as well indulge in a calming superstition. Just brushing them didn’t help, though, and I starting manically beating at my knees with my knuckles. A few seconds of this made me feel better, and I continued walking, albeit at a much brisker pace.

After a very long time and two more goes at beating up my knees, I was reduced to trudging along the seemingly endless sewer, shouldering drooping pathetically. I wished I hadn’t asked Sophie to hold on to my cell phone and keys in her purse. Not that I would get reception down here, but I would have at least been able to figure out how long I’d been down here. I decided to take a break.

Careful not to hit my pipe against the wall, I leaned back into it. Dampness pushed through the back of my shirt, but I didn’t mind because, along with my feet, my back was growing sore from so much walking and I wanted to give it a rest. I sat idly wondering silly things, trying to cheer myself up. I wondered about if maybe I could get a deal with drainage company, being in advertisements and talking about how I could use the pipe in my head to clear my sinuses. I wondered if my lucky jeans were just my old shorts in disguise and that’s why they weren’t being so lucky today.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard voices.