Get a Grip by Fear359 (f, qs, grim?) Ever since I was a little girl, my parents have always told me to get a grip on my life and the things I want. When things went wrong and I needed a shoulder to cry on they told me, "Come Suzanne, get a grip on life, and kick it in the ass!" Yeah, my parents, wonderful people, right? Anyway, I got married, and well, let's just say that I caught him where he should not have been, and so I decided to take a road trip down south, and see the sights. If I would have known that my piece of crap car was gonna break down in the middle of nowhere, I would have taken my husbands car. The road I broke down on was long, lonely and 1/2 mile from a swamp, (oh, joy!). I waited in the car for someone, anyone, to come along but I sat there for over an hour. So I decided that I would change my clothes, grab a flashlight and walk to the next town, and maybe, just maybe, someone would come along and give me a ride. I took off my heels, my skirt and blouse and changed right there in the car. I put on a pair of jeans, a long sleeve shirt and my tennis shoes. I grabbed the flashlight out of the glove box and opened the car door. The sun was dropping fast, and I knew that I only had an hour (at best) to make it to some kind of town, so I closed the car door, locked it, and took off walking south. I could hear the noises from the swamp, and to tell you the truth, they were not as bad as I thought they would be. As I kept walking I could see the moss hanging off the trees looking like ghosts in the wind. Don't ask me why, but for some strange reason I thought about going in the swamp and checking it out. I wasn't going to go that far in there, just a little way to see it first hand. I know, I know, not a good idea, but for once I wanted to do something for myself on my own. So with that in mind I stepped off the road and started heading for the swamp. As I got to the edge of the trees I thought, 'Maybe this isn't a good idea Suzanne. Maybe you should just keep going and find the next town.' But you know what, danger is everything, and for once I was gonna do something on my own. So I took a deep breath and headed into the tree line. Everything I saw on TV about swamps and how dangerous they are made me laugh. I saw nothing but beauty in it. I decided to find a trail so I could find my way back when I was ready to go. I walked on further into the swamp listening to the bugs singing their sweet little songs. When I came upon a trail a few yards to my right. The sun was almost gone, and I should have gone back then, but for reasons unknown I didn't. Call it stupid, but hey, after all I had may flashlight with me. So I stepped on the trail and headed deeper into the swamp. I was lost in the singing of the bugs, and when I came out of my trance, I was at a fork in the trail; one went up, and the other went down. Not knowing which way to go I went down (little did I know, I was really gonna be going down). As the trail went down the ground began to get soft. I turned on my flashlight and saw that the trail was turning into mud, not deep, mind you, but it was difficult to walk in. But I still kept going. As I started getting closer to the bottom of the trail, I could see something up on the trail ahead: a small piece of wood. It looked like part of a sign that had fallen with the help of time. As I got up to the fallen piece of wood I bent over to turn it over. That's when I heard a noise from behind me. I turned to see a huge alligator coming at me! Ok, ok! It really wasn't huge, it was 5 maybe 6 feet long, but to me that's huge! I started running forward, not caring what was in front of me. All I knew was what was behind me, and I didn't want to end up snack. I ran for all I was worth, and I think I'm worth a lot. Anyway, I saw a break in the reeds and headed straight for it. Mind you, I didn't feel the ground shifting underneath my feet, because of my hungry alligator. When I broke out of the waist high reeds, I saw a shack about 200 yards in the distance. I looked behind me, and my hungry little friend was gone. Lucky for me because I was tired and hungry myself. I couldn't go back the way I came so I told myself to get to the shack, spend the night there, and hike out in the morning. I started to make my way through the open field when I found that I was having a hard time walking, and when I aimed my flashlight towards the ground I could see that my tennis shoes were slowly being swallowed by the mud I was walking in. After what seemed like forever, I got my feet free, and continued forward. I got about another four steps, five at the most, when the ground seemed to just opened up and swallowed both my feet just past my ankles. I thought that it was just more mud and tried to pull my feet free, but it seemed that the harder I pulled the more I sank. I didn't think that I was in all that much trouble, so I thought that if I pointed my feet down I could pull my feet out with no trouble at all. I had to pump my legs up and down to get to mud to loosen it's grip on my feet, and when I felt the mud loosen up some I struggled but managed to get my feet pointed down. That's when I knew I had made a mistake, because the mud that held me fast seemed to just give way, and I sank up to my knees. I screamed at the top of my lungs, not knowing then what I know now. I plunged my hands in the mud trying to reclaim what was mine, only to find out that I could not pull my hands out of the sticky, mucky, muddy mess I had gotten myself into. As I sank up to my waist I knew where I was and what I had gotten myself into: Quicksand! Oh, Jesus Christ! I had walked right into quicksand, and with my arms stuck, there was no way that I was going to get out of this sticky trap. My screams I know scared every living thing in this swamp away. And if there was some kind person around here, they wouldn't dare go running around a swamp a night. As the quicksand slowly took me down to my chest I was finding it harder and harder to breathe. I had been screaming for what seemed like hours, but was only 2 or 3 minutes. Again and again I tried to break the quicksand hold on me, but all that did was drive me in deeper and deeper, until the quicksand had me in its grasps; I had sunk up to my neck, and it was like the quicksand was alive. It was getting tighter and tighter around me. Now as I am sinking to my death, all I can hear is my parents telling to get a grip on life and move forward. Well, the only thing that has a grip around here is this quicksand I was about to die in. If only I hadn't come in this swamp, if only I had kept walking down the road if only ... Too late, the quicksand is pulling me und--