Tasting Mud

Lee kept his head down, not at all eager to lift his head up to see what expression that the God of War wore on his face, picturing a sneer in his mind.

Suddenly, a boot came down and forced Lee's head into the dirt of the forest floor below, mud making its way into his mouth and his tongue tasting the dry, disgusting flavour of it.

The instinct to choke bubbled up and Lee did nothing to suppress it.

He was already struggling to breath from the mad sprint that he had just failed at, and now, while quite literally eating mud, he was not particularly eager to die of asphyxiation in such a humiliating way.

Especially not to a man who Lee had already mocked and managed to get away from through being so unlikeable.

With hindsight, in that very particular moment where Lee was certain that he was going to die, it then occurred to him that maybe the God wanted to humiliate him for what had already happened before in the other forest, as well as for taking his sweet time in taking so long in his supposed journey.

It then also occurred to Lee that the God of War could probably fly him to his destination to make the negotiations, eliminating the whole source of the conflict, aside from the humiliation.

Lee also wondered why his mind always worked so fast when he was in these dangerous, life threatening situations.

Why he felt the most alive and active within them?

When he knew that death was an inevitability and arriving soon?

After spending the whole night awake, Lee found that he was so, so tired.

Choking on the dirt and soil in his mouth, Lee shifted his head to the side, trying to allow his mouth to be free to take in the biggest gulps of air that he could, allowing the God of War's books to pull on his hair, undoing the ribbon that had been holding it up, and yanking the strands further into the earth, pressed within with all the insects, bugs, and other such leaves and debris on the forest floor.

"If you want me that badly to go to my destination, why not throw me there, or drag me there on your flying sword?" Lee shouted out, his mouth half pressed back into the ground, causing him to let out a cough as he struggled to take in a breath.

A rogue piece of a snapped twig fell into his mouth, and almost too seamlessly, into Lee's throat, unleashing a storm of coughing and hacking as his body tried its best to expel the blockage and obstacle now within Lee's body.

Sitting up and bowing over, eyes tightly pressed closed, Lee hacked out what he felt was an entire lung and a fair bit of blood as he put all his effort and concentration into clearing his airways and preventing that little piece of the natural world from killing him in what would most certainly be an even more stupid way.