People say before a storm everything goes quiet, the birds stop singing and the wind stops whistling. The trees stop rustling and the flies stop buzzing. People call this the calm before the storm. The birds weren’t chirping, the wind wasn’t whistling, the trees weren’t rustling and the flies weren’t buzzing. Everything was silent, motionless. The sky above was grey and the fog was thick. I could barely see anything other than the whiteness and my thoughts. My head was full of thoughts that nobody wants to think. Thoughts that only the bravest dare to comprehend. In my situation, I had no choice.
Suddenly, I felt. This was the first time I had felt in what seemed like days. Days alone with my thoughts. I felt the pain first, searing through my body with the heat of a thousand chillies and with the sharpness of a samurai’s sword. Then, I felt the rock, the cold hard rock beneath me. Then, I remembered, I remembered what had happened.
I was walking along the ridge top of a mountain, Braeriach. The grass was wet and my foot slipped, that is where memory stops. Where was I now? I looked around at my surroundings and I froze. I was sprawled on a rock, two metres wide and 20 feet below the ridge. It was then, after what seemed like days of my thoughts telling me, my body realised the situation. Something strange happened afterwards, for the first time in my life, I began to treasure every minute, every second. Thoughts that nobody ever comprehends, but for the bravest, are of death, pain and fear; my thoughts.
React!