I just need sleep

It was now 2:30 in the morning I had been going for about 14 hours, exhorted, wet and hungry, I had to rest. There was no village in sight. I had stopped many a time to listen for animal sounds or the tell tale chicken crow , nothing. There were no lights, not even the smell of smoke from a cooking fire. Eventually I was forced to stop on the edge of a mangrove, the path ran into it and the tide was in, it was too risky to try and cross in the dark.

Keeping in under some bush to shield myself from the wind, I sat down in the water and mud. I opened my back pack and took out my wet mini sleeping bag. Propped up against the bush I wrapped myself in it, trying to keep out the light drizzle. Closing my eyes I tried to sleep, all I wanted to do was sleep. Slowly the cold crept in; once again I began to shiver. In the back of my mind was the constant fear of hyperthermia, if it set in I’ve had it.

Every now and then there would be a little up draught of warm air, where was it coming from, I sat pondering. Finally I worked it out, the swamp water. Should I risk what the swamp had in it, I needed the warmth. Which was the worse of two evils, cold or bugs? I crawled out under the bush and to the mangrove, putting my foot in, yes it was warmer. I slid into the swamp, it was like a Luke warm bath from the ocean water, but every time it rained, the cold current would mix in again. I put my sleeping bag on the bank behind my head and must have passed out for a bit.

I awoke with a startle, spitting profusely and chocking on something buzzing around the back of my mouth. In my exhausted state, I must of fallen asleep mouth agape and some large insect saw the gap. Managing to avoid swallowing the manic buzzing monster I expelled the air of both lungs, managing to blast it into orbit, coughing and spluttering I staggered around in the swamp which was now starting to empty with the tide, just as the first strip of dawn light was painted across the horizon, light and warmth were now only minutes away.