I cleared the rocky steppe leading out of the Heavenly Fields to continue on South. I felt at peace with the gods and the cherry colored clouds upon leaving the blissful grasses. My eye twinkled in the Birdsong sun, watching white egrets flock in wide v's over the newly leafing trees. My childhood was built up on my own leisure walks though the Heavenly Fields and Aylin's small lessons on peace and individuality. She always told me my parents truly loved me, but I didn't know whether or not to believe it. Nowadays, it was the wind that tidied my mane, the grasses that fed me, and I was taught to understand my own kind by watching the visitors in the tall field grass.

    My journey through the slowly changing lands was a long one. There was an ache that crawled like spiders in my anemic legs. Each step was an unbearable bite as the terrain changed. My journey came to an end when the ground suddenly evolved into a slick flat of purple flowers and dangerous mud. My cleft feet fell through a crevice in the grass catapulting me in a pulling shock against the sticky mire that cried an awful squelch, resisting the frenzied yank of my legs. The murk consumed me, staining my stockings black as I struggled to just get free. I only sunk. It was not long before I could not move at all, trapped awkwardly chest high in the methane-smelling murk. My muscles became long strings that I could no longer command, sweat oozed over my bay coat, and my pearly yearling hair was coated in the splattered mess. I rested my lips on the side of the mud pool and I came to terms that I was indeed stuck. My emerald eye flicked around the black mire, and I tried to buck out of it once again. I only sank inches deeper. If I was completely still I wouldn't sink, but one wrong move could send a leg further under.

    It could have been minutes or even seconds that past before my young survival instincts kicked in. I was horrified as the suction sounds flooded my ringing ears and the pressure would not give. I did just about the only thing someone of my age in this situation could do. I screamed. "Help! Help! Someone please! Help!" I prayed silently to the gods of Helovia, help.