One Month Down

I'm running through a forest. I'm running away from something - but I'm not sure what. I keep stumbling over tree stumps and tree branches are lashing me in the face, cutting new cuts and deepening old ones. I know my legs are below me - how else would I be getting anywhere? - but I can't feel them and have to rely on guesswork as to where I'm putting my feet. Something warms breathes down my neck like the heat from the back of a city bus. I recognise the pungent smell but I can't quite place it - I've smelt it before, I know I have. Then I see the end of the forest, the light in the distance slashed by the trees that stand between me and potential freedom. My legs are still going, somehow, and my heart seems to be the only thing in my body that is functioning - how many beats per minute is normal? The edge gets closer yet still seems so far away, the pungent smell and warmth of a thousand ovens still close behind me. Then I burst out of the forest into the daylight. It's raining but I'm sodden from my own sweat and tears so I hardly notice. As I stumble to a stop I turn instinctively to look back into the deep darkness that lays behind me. But nothing is there, just the rustle of the trees in the soft wind and a few broken branches that I left in my wake.