I've always thought I'd die young and in a very romantically tragic way. Maybe I'd jump into the street to push a 5-year-old girl out of the way of a motorcycle just as an 18-wheeler drove by in the other lane and crushed me, saving little Sally in exchange for my life. Or at the very least I'd slip into a coma for a few years as all my loved ones waited patiently by my bedside weeping until I woke up. Possibly with amnesia.

Anyways, my point is, I never thought I'd get killed by something as definitively unromantic as a leech. But alas, we can't choose the way we die. Or rather, almost die. Or really, think we are about to die.

My near-death experience came when I agreed to go to Royal National Park with my roommate and the boys we had visiting us from the states. We rented aqua bikes, canoed around a river, checked out the sandy forest beach and then upon recommendation of a nice elderly woman at the information desk,  drove to a rainforest hike that was supposed to be "a lovely and peaceful 1 hour walk."

I'm not an outdoorsy girl to say the least, but the park official assured me it was easy, so a few minutes into the trail I took the lead. As I walked ahead of the five of us I though to myself "This is why I came to Australia! So I could do things I wouldn't usually do, like walk in front of the group trudging through bush not scared at all of a snake coming out to bite me." Well the last part wasn't so true but it had been my New Years resolution to try not to panic about everything so I proudly lasted about 10 minutes before I casually let Jon take the lead. I didn't want to test my newfound courage too much after all.

About halfway into the walk, I thought to myself 'Wow this isn't so bad. I wish they had given us a tougher hike." and we stopped to take pictures of a river. I looked down at my shoes, saw three black things scurry into my shoe and proclaimed "Ugh! Watch out there are lots of ants here." I kept walking but stopped when I heard Cyrus and Max rustling around behind a bush yelping.

"What are you guys doing?" I called back. "Trying to get these things off our shoes before they kill us!" Max yelled. I rolled my eyes and kept walking. All of a sudden Nina let out a piercing "OH MY GOD!" and I froze. Was a snake attacking her? Should I go save her? Or stay still and save myself? Before I could answer these tough questions I looked down at my shoes. 'Why is the dirt on my sneakers moving?' I thought, like an idiot. Then I heard Nina and Max yelling about how "they" were getting into their shoes through the mesh. "I just yanked one out of my skin!" screamed Max. "I can't get them off!" Nina howled. The moment of mass hysteria completely engulfed me as well. "CYRUS!!!!! Get them off my shoes!!!!" I screamed, hating the little black worms who I thought for sure would attack my skin and crawl underneath it like aliens, if what Max was saying was true. (It wasn't. He later told me that him and Cy were exaggerating for laughs but didnt realize anyone would take them seriously).

We all started running out of the patch of leeches, only to discover the entire pathway was covered in them. I'd look down and see their little heads slithering up in the air, like the little green mer-people that Ursula kept in her lair in The Little Mermaid. As we were running I heard Max say "Ew I just pulled one out of my ear!" That did it for me. I'm not a runner but I sure as hell wasn't going to let these alien parasite worms get in my motherfreaking EARS! I covered my ears and ran forward, terrified. Eventually I noticed nobody else was covering their ears (Max had been lying. Asshole.) so I started to calm down. We must be in the clear. I heard a mention of the word "leeches" and thought, 'Oh maybe they weren't aliens after all.' Then, I looked down.

There, on the back of my right calf , was a huge swelling bite gushing blood down my leg. The bite was swollen and yellow, with a sunburst of red around it seeping into my veins. It looked exactly how a leg would look after getting attacked by an alien parasite. I took deep breaths and calmly told myself it wasn't an alien bite. But then reality hit and I realized, I'm in Australia. This could be a poisonous spider bite. I showed Max in the hopes he would make fun of me and laugh it off. Instead he bit his lip, cocked his head to the side and said "Do you feel dizzy?" That was not the right response. I said no, although all of a sudden I was starting to feel dizzy. And nauseous. And poisoned.  We all continued running out of the forest, even faster now, and I heard Max and Cy whispering behind me. Not a comforting sound. Then I looked down. The bite had grown, and become more yellow. Max confirmed that this wasn't my hallucination and then told me I should stop running, since adrenaline can "spread stuff faster."

I held strong to my New Year's resolution and didn't outwardly panic. I pretended I had no idea what "stuff" he was referring to. Cyrus offered to carry me and I refused, even when he asked me again but this time offering up a "piggy-back ride." They couldn't fool me. I knew it. I knew I was dying, and nobody wanted to tell me. We made our way through the forest and after intermittently asking me "How are you feeling?" in a voice way too soft and void of emotion to NOT freak me out, Max asked if anyone had a cell phone to call 211 and contact the rangers "just in case." I wondered if this is what dying felt like. I had so much left to do in life. Was I really going to get taken down by some poisonous spider in some amateur bush walk that wasn't even that pretty? Or worse, was it a leech that would be my undoing?

We finally made it out of the forest. Luckily, in the time it took us to get out, my bite had gone down. The swelling wasn't as intense and the bleeding had almost stopped. After we removed all the leeches from our shoes, and Jon threw out his shoulder attempting to murder the one he hated the most, we sat down and looked at the damage. I didn't feel short of breath and dizzy anymore, and although Nina's and Max's bites didn't look the same as mine I assumed I'd had an allergic reaction and stated I just wanted to get the hell out of the national park. It didn't take much convincing. We jetted out of there only to almost crash into a black cat crossing our path. "Seriously?" Nina yelled. As we were driving home we passed a sign that said "Don't Give Blood" on the highway. "C'mon!" Cyrus proclaimed.

I sat silently in the backseat knowing what all these signs meant. I had narrowly escaped death, but it would find me again. Just like in Final Destination. Strangely, I felt serene in my acceptance of my impending doom.  We were supposed to go to the Blue Mountains the next day for a hike but after seeing that four of Australia's 10 most deadliest snakes had been on our benign forest walk, we declined testing our luck again and opted to attend a game of cricket instead.  That night when I went to bed I was 75% convinced I wouldn't wake up again. But that was okay with me. Maybe it's the peacefulness that comes from a near-death experience. Or maybe, I would have been okay dying but missing out on the most boring game of all time. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Picture caption: My bite is the one all the way to the left, taken after the swelling went down. Cyrus is in the middle with a leech on Nina's shoe, Nina's foot is upper right and Max's is lower right.