Swamp

	Trudging through the muck, the man grimaced to himself as he peered into the darkness. He yanked his right foot with a loud squelching sound and stepped forward, wincing as it slipped back into the freezing layer of mud and water and grime. The biting cold chattered his teeth and froze the water in his boots as he desperately tried to find the motivation to continue onwards in the dead swamp, each step in the grime becoming increasingly difficult. The lantern's pole slung over his shoulder like a vagrant's sack felt as if it had frozen to his fingers, casting a weak bubble of light around the man as it fought a losing battle against the oppressive darkness
	Off in the distance more lights twinkled. The man blinked his eyes, straining himself to see off between the stunted trees. Could be his eyes playing tricks on him. Could be other people, striving towards the end of the swamp much like himself. Could be something else. There were worse things lurking about the swamp than just the cold and other wanderers. The lights flickered on and off, like so many little stars in the night sky. At this distance, it was hard to judge if the lights were moving or not, or even if they were there at all sometimes. It was getting difficult to focus on them with the cold slowing his limbs, dragging his knees down as the swamp tried to claim him as its own.
	Wrenching his feet forward, the man almost lost a boot, stumbling over an unseen root deep within the watery slime of the swamp. Falling forward would equate into death here, it was hard enough not freezing to death with the amount of watery concentrate filling his boots, his feet had gone almost entirely numb. His thin jacket would become instantly water-logged, face slamming into the surface as if he had impacted a brick wall. Shock would be almost immediate, and assuming he even had the strength left in his arms to pull himself out then hypothermia would set in even faster than it already was, the slow doze of a frozen death as his corpse sank down to join the numerous others lurking just out of sight. Gods above, even freezing to death would have been preferable at that point, as his lantern would unable to be salvaged at that point. Whatever might be waiting just out of his lighted sphere in this wretched swamp would finish the job far faster, far more painfully, than the cold ever could. No, should he fall, it would be best to just to accept his death in the swamp's frigid embrace. Suffocation and hypothermia are terrible ways to die. Not the worst. But terrible nonetheless.
	The silence was almost as unbearable as the cold. Any normal swamp would be alive with noise, even at night. Between the whining of insects, the low groans from the bullfrogs, the sharp whistling of birds and rustling of wildlife, a swamp is a hotbed of activity and the passionate motion of life. Not this one. The silence was a heavy blanket, an almost smothering weight of nothingness and death. It was almost as if nothing existed outside his light, the constant gulping as he wrenched one foot after another through the mud and the swishing of his boots through the watery top layer were his only companions through the darkness. Never before had he realized how loud the silence was, always living with almost some kind of background noise filling his life with static and distraction. Now, he felt truly alone, a single soul lost within the confines of what must be hell itself.
	The lights were definitely moving. He was just able to make out their progress against the trees and his own movement as reference, but they were moving-and in the direction he was going in, no less. Whether that boded well for the man or not, was yet to be seen. People were attracted to light, especially in such an overwhelming darkness. Whether they were other humans, or something attempting to dangle the false promise of hope in front of him as a twisted fishing lure, he did not intend to find out. All he wanted was to finally end this nightmare, a reprieve of safety and warmth, luxuries he had all but forgotten at this point. One way or another, this would end. The only question was whether it would by his corpse being eaten by the bog or him knowing solid ground for the first time in what feels like an eternity. With each passing step, the former seemed all the more likely.
	At this point, that glorious sanctuary at the end of the swamp was receding, even from the man's mind. He was losing his purpose, his memory of why and of how he even began his merciless trek across the swamp. The quiet. The cold. The darkness pinpointed by the meager lights. The twisted trees acting as silent watchers, almost judging him as he trudged past their immaculate, frozen forms. Sickly, dead trees that looked more like countless poles sticking out of the water, like so many graves for the hapless wanderer's foolish enough to venture forth. He could feel his mind eroding, all sense of self being consumed by the vast emptiness that permeated the air around him. Why was he here? What was at the end of the marsh? What convinced him to even begin this march of death? W-who was he, even? The beginning of his journey seemed so far away. There was a beginning, yes? There had to have been, absolutely, of course! He couldn't just have spent his entire existence here in the swamp, there had to be something to him outside of it!
	For the first time in what felt like forever, the man felt a new emotion bubble up out of the murky depths of his despair. Panic. Panic for what he was losing, panic for his mind slipping away, panic for the memories slowly drifting off into the distance like the distant lights that were moving across his vision, for his very identity slowly eroding away. It was the swamp. It had to have been the swamp. It was just playing tricks on him-the monotony! Yes, that great sameness that he was dealing with was just making it hard for him to focus! Please, for the love of god, he was just having some difficulty concentrating because of his feet and the cold and the hellish abominations that had to have been staring at him for who in their right minds could even know how long! It could get to anyone! No, he was a person! He existed, goddammit! There was more to life, more to his existence than this hell he was marching through! The man cried out, his raspy voice a desperate call for validation in the empty night.
	There were more lights now. They dotted across the darkness, speckling around him like so many fireflies.. It had an eerie wonder to it, a grand majesty that only served to punctuate and emphasize the sheer scope of the swamplands he was making his way across. No matter how far or how long he trekked, they never got any closer to them. They only moving in tandem with him, drifting along in the same direction, towards.....towards whatever? Where was he going? Regardless. The lights were rather numerous now, replacing the stars absent from the blank sky overhead. As his bleary eyes tried to focus on them, they almost seemed to be sitting at different heights, as well. Some were barely skimming across the watery surface, some towering near the tops of trees, with no rhyme or reason behind their spacing in relation to one another.
	They were almost peaceful. Serene. Almost comforting. The dozens, hundreds of lights floating out in the darkness between the trees, the man felt like they were just barely out of reach at points, guiding him towards whereever he was going. Guiding him through the darkness. The lights couldn't lead him wrong, could they? No, of course not. He smiled to himself, pulling his feet forward across the ocean of twinkling pinpoints, the darkness encroaching in on his own globe of flickering incandescence. As his mind finally gave up the struggle, as everything the man once was slowly dissolved, the lights stared down from all sides. In the end, it was the lights that finally killed him, the gentle serenity lulling him down so that, by the time his exhausted knees finally gave way and the waters claimed him, he was already gone. It wasn't a struggle, so much as a surrender.