Logan retched, his vision swimming as he took in the carnage of what once was a perfectly serviceable toe. Which was gone.
Which was gone.
He had no toe. Holy crap, this was real, and the blood kept coming. How much blood could you lose before you were in serious trouble? He thought back to all the medical documentaries he’d binged, but he couldn’t focus. His focus was down the snake’s mouth with his toe.
Okay, okay, second step…
Second step…
Fuck, it hurt!
Second step was to stop the bleeding! The towel was soaked but the only alternative was his shorts, and like hell was he undoing them and balancing on one good foot while he took them off. Soaked, gory towel it was.
Once he looped it around his foot and then tied it around his ankle, he lurched forward, swaying in place when he jarred whatever remained of his toe against the dock. Oh shit, that was a lot of blood. It was leaking out of the fabric, trailing down the dock and dripping through the cracks in the wood. Was that new blood, or from the soaked towel?
Third step! Logan needed to get back to—wait.
The hovering text that started this whole thing was back. It blinked out of the corner of his right eye like a demon strobe light trying to give him a migraine.
He scrunched his eyes closed, rubbing away tears before he opened them again and searched for his discarded glasses. For some reason he thought they were a priority. But even when he managed to stuff them onto his nose, he knew he wasn’t thinking straight. Blinking text, glasses. Who the hell cared when he was about to bleed out?
The text flashed again.
“Oh for—” He swiped blindly at the air and limped forward, placing his towel-wrapped foot against the dock as he—fell into the lake.
The warm water slapped against his bare legs and then he sank, sank like a stone, water engulfing him, rushing over top of his head.
Logan squinted at the surface of the lake through his glasses which somehow had stayed on despite everything. This was going to hurt, but it was either swim or drown and he wasn’t dying today, thank you very much.
He kicked the water, which stung like needles against his wound. How deep had he fallen? This day couldn’t get any worse. First the snake, then his toe, and now he was going to drown!
And that damn text, blinking, blinking—it never stopped! His lungs were starting to feel tight due to a lack of air as he kicked, kicked, and kicked, and the text…
[Level Up? Would you like to commence your upgrade?]
What the hell?
[Acceptance Noted! You have leveled up! You are now Level 1!]
[Your stat points have been automatically allocated.]
Logan flailed underwater.
[You’ve been granted the skill, Deepwater Idiot!]
Energy surged through Logan, and his vision flickered. He didn’t know what the crazy text meant, but whatever it did, he’d take it. His lungs relaxed as if he’d gotten a breath of fresh air, giving him enough energy to struggle to the surface.
As his head broke through the water, he took in a gulp of fresh air, and it was the best breath of his life.
Using his arms to swim back to the shore, he did his best to avoid moving his legs.
The sun glittered and reflected against the water, fogging up his glasses and making it impossible to see. As he lurched and then collapsed onto the beach in a sprawl on his back, a trail of blood soaked the sand. He’d lost the towel in the lake and now his wound was raw against the ground, a tingling sensation and numbness spreading up his leg.
Beyond the physical sensations, everything else was catching up to him. Logan had been in stressful situations before at work—being a call centre rep was no joke—but this was hardly the same! The worst physical injury he’d ever gotten was a broken leg from a fall from a bike and a few skinned knees. What he’d just gone through wasn’t anywhere close. But he knew that if he took the time to pause and process, he’d spiral into a panic attack—or worse yet—freeze. His injury took priority, and that strange burst of energy from the lake was long gone.
He needed help, and he needed it now.
When he staggered to his feet and limped forward by hopping on his good leg, he squinted through his glasses, everything a blur as if he were back in the optometrist chair. He couldn’t see shit. With a frustrated growl, he removed his glasses and then hop-staggered until—what.
Everything was crystal clear.
In fact, it was beyond crystal clear. It was as if his vision had turned into a magnifying glass. He could see each fine grain of sand, the beads of moisture crawling down the weeping willow tree in front of the cabin, the minuscule color changes on the ladybug buzzing in front of his face. How could losing a toe cause you to have 20/20 vision?
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Nothing made sense.
Maybe the loss of blood had caused hallucinations. That would account for the weird floating messages, the monstrous snake, and the surge of euphoria he’d felt underneath the lake. But if someone was hallucinating, did they wonder if they were? Either way, a philosophical question wasn’t going to solve the problem of his missing toe.
Logan dropped his glasses to the ground as he hopped closer to the cabin door, grasping the door handle with white-knuckled fingers.
That same reek of rot, mold, and skunk hit him in the face as he entered the kitchen, making his already unsettled stomach lurch.
A trail of blood followed him as he grabbed his phone and collapsed onto the beat-up green sofa in the living room, his naked back sticking to the green leather. Stress and the frantic rush of survival took a back seat to a feeling of relief. He was one step closer to getting help.
“Come on,” he muttered in frustration when his face ID failed the first time.
Finally, he unlocked his phone and dialed 911.
The call didn’t go through.
Again.
A busy signal.
Again.
Call failed.
Again.
A dial tone buzzed in his ear, and he closed his eyes in relief when he heard a voice. “All operators are busy. Please call back later.”
What. The. Fuck.
It was 911! It existed so you didn’t have to call back later. But after calling three more times, then trying his sister and friends with the same result, he finally gave up and tried a text instead.
His fingers were paler than usual and white at the tips from blood loss, and he could hardly feel his phone as he managed to send a desperate text message to his sister. If he didn’t stop the blood from pouring out of his wound, a text wouldn’t matter. He’d be dead.
The kitchen towels were filthy and smelled moldy like everything else. His discarded white t-shirt next to his keys was the only thing he’d trust to be clean in the whole cabin. He was only wearing beach shorts, and he was seriously starting to shiver, but better to be cold than to catch gangrene.
Little did he know that it was difficult to tear a shirt. He tried using his teeth, then finally tugged on a frayed area on the bottom which broke the seams and allowed him to tear off a decent strip of fabric.
Now, to the matter of his toe.
When he’d used the beach towel down at the dock, he’d been frantic and not about to take anything in other than blood. Looking down at his foot, the reality of seeing torn skin, dangling glistening flesh and the tip of a white bone made him finally retch for real.
There was nothing for it. It was gory, but it was necessary. He used a smaller piece of his torn shirt as an absorbent bandage, positioned it at the gory end, then wrapped the rest around the end of his foot as tight as he could. Biting his lip so hard his teeth cut into skin, he braced himself as he tried to staunch the flow of blood by putting pressure on the stubbed end of his missing toe.
Everything swayed alarmingly. The wound had been throbbing non-stop, but now it felt as if the snake were back, but this time its fangs were a thousand knifes puncturing him in thirty second intervals. The agony was beyond his imagination, beyond what he could even perceive agony to be.
Ding!
[You have been granted the skill, Idiot’s Paradox! This uncommon skill is granted to users who are relentless in inflicting agony on themselves. Hint: geniuses never receive it, so perhaps you should stop whatever you’re doing?]
Logan jerked, the back of his head hitting the cabinet behind him as he tried to scramble away from the floating text. He was still hallucinating. He had to be. But a trickling doubt made him wonder. Sarcasm wasn’t his forte, so why would his hallucination show up that way?
If anyone were sarcastic, it was his sister, and he sure could use her help. For that matter, why hadn’t she texted back? His phone wasn’t silenced, and she was glued to her phone all day. Say what you would about their relationship, if he sent an SOS, she would never hesitate to respond.
He grabbed his phone and opened his messages. Right next to his text message, an exclamation mark indicated it hadn’t gone through.
He tried again.
Same result.
As a Hail Mary, he tried 911 again.
Nothing but a busy signal.
No help was coming from the professionals, no help was coming from his sister, calls weren’t going out, and his closest neighbor, Eleanor, was a 15-minute walk away. Eleanor loved to take nature walks, so there was no guarantee she was home even if he managed to limp his way over.
There was nothing for it—he could either wait to see if the phone lines cleared and possibly wait for his death at the same time, or act—despite how crazy that action seemed.
Logan was going to drive himself to the hospital with a missing toe.
With his phone tucked into the pocket of his wet shorts, he scanned for anything in the cabin that could help. A cheap kitchen broom was in the corner next to the front door, and he was able to unscrew the handle from the broom end. It would work as a makeshift cane.
He wrenched open the fridge for a bottle of water, then took a quick detour to the bathroom to grab a roll of toilet paper that would work to staunch the blood if it started up again. When he found a bottle of aspirin, he reacted as if he may as well have found a bottle of gold. The pain was a steady throb of what hell must feel like, so he’d take anything that could help—even if it was regular old painkillers.
He put the bottle of water, toilet paper and painkillers in an empty garbage bag, grabbed his keys, and then swung the bag over his shoulder, using the broom handle to limp back outside.
His grandparents had built the cabin on the waterfront, but the reason it was so remote was the stairs that everyone needed to climb to get to the road.
The stairs leading up to the hill to where he’d parked may as well have been Mt. Everest.
“It’s only two flights of stairs,” he mumbled to himself. He could do this.
Setting the end of the broom handle down on the base of the stairs, he lifted with his other foot, somehow managing to keep the bloody towel from touching the wooden step. While he was on the fourth step, the pine trees on his left rustled and Logan jumped, almost losing his balance. Eyeing the underbrush with wary eyes, he limped up the rest of the steps with new energy, panting as he reached the top and saw his old truck. The dirt road was so narrow there was space for only one parking spot—two if you parked half on the road. There wouldn’t be any traffic coming. It would be up to Logan.
This was working; he could do this. He was right-handed, his injury was on his left, so he should have no problems driving as long as he managed to stay conscious.
He was already envisioning the story he could tell his co-workers once this was behind him; if there was one thing he was known for, it was boring. This would impress the hell out of them.
Logan opened the driver’s side door and then threw in his bag of supplies; he clung onto the top of the door frame with one hand and half-scooted into the seat with the broom handle, but the thing—
“Shit!”
It wouldn’t fit in the truck. Wait, why did he even need the broom handle? Once he got to the hospital, he’d have help, stretchers, professionals and shit. Wiggling out of the seat, he limped back across the narrow dirt road, about to throw it into the bush—
BOOM.
Stunned and thrown on his back on the ground, he stared up at the blue sky in a daze. His ears were ringing and something wet and warm was running down his forehead.
The hallucinations were back! There was no other explanation. Since in what world did you encounter toe-eating snakes, blue text, and exploding trucks?
“Holy fuck,” he said in stunned disbelief as he looked at the remains of his burning truck.