Mythion: Human Transformation by Jason Davis
The first thing to bleed through to his awareness was heat, on his face, his chest, knees. Felt good to breathe it. Next the crackle of a fire registered as something he knew, his imagination rendering the scene from the fragments of its familiarity. The pine smoke, the wafting snake of it, led him into other frames of his life tumbling in, drawing him toward wakefulness.
It seemed time to force open his eyes, but he realized they were already open. They stung and were dry and he couldn’t blink. The fire crackled off to the left, set against a rocky wall, its smoke drifting out the opening. It was all yellow and marred and smeared in here, firelight dancing across the jagged rocks.
I’m in the cave.
Shards of fear sliced into his chest, cold, icy cold. Why did he feel so…light, and why was everything moving? Even the solid rock wall and boulders inside just warbled and wavered. He studied it all almost clinically, eyes dilated to black, trying to figure out why everything was so weird. He thought he might sit up, but he couldn’t, couldn’t move a muscle, igniting an ember of panic.
Then he noticed something stuck in his mouth, between the gum and cheek. It was nasty. He went to reach for it, but he couldn’t move his arm, and he didn’t have the muscle control to spit it out.
Where’s Daddy?
His chest sent a pulse of air up through his windpipe to call out for him, but it was a quiet “garuhhhh” instead, like a wounded animal. The panic took another notch up. His body struggled to move, but he couldn’t even flinch.
What’s wrong with me? Daddy! I’ve been captured!
Gavin’s eyes peered down and saw he was completely wrapped in burlap with pine boughs, grasses, and leaves weaved in, like a cocoon with plants poking out of it. Panic gave way to raw fear, his white eyes flicking here, there, up, down, taking more and more in. He realized his encasement was set in that old wicker chair he found. The cave opening was a black, jagged, oval void set in the firelit rock.