Amber
As much as I want to just let myself freeze to death as I lay against the cold, snow-covered ground; I know that I cannot. There is too much that I still want. I want the love and the future that Granite and I promised to each other, and if I don’t get up now, then we will never have it.
I pull my body up from the snow and pull my eyes off from where Granite is lying on the ledge beneath. He is still not moving, and I can’t tell from way up here if he is even breathing.God, I hope he is still breathing.I try to calm my mind and ignore the painfully frozen feeling in my bare toes, so that I can make a realistic assessment of the situation. I am on this mountainside, cold and alone, with no survival skills and no idea how to get down to rescue Granite, assuming that he is even still alive. I know that I need to get down to him somehow or else we will both die.
I quickly run back to where my few things are gathered on the ground and collect what little I have into the backpack, which I then throw over my shoulders. I put on my shoes and jacket, affix the straps of the backpack securely to me, and contemplate trying to climb down the side of the mountain to get to him. The slope is so steep that it is more like a drop-off right here. I know that if I even try to climb down, I will more likely than not, fall to my death. As I look around, I can see that there are other parts to the mountainside that slope instead of just pitch off at a steep drop, and I think that the best chance I have of reaching him is to try to find another way down, that will lead me toward the spot where he is laying. I take one last look over the edge at him and whisper that I love him and am coming. Once I head to find another way down, I won’t be able to see him until I reach him. I hope more than anything in the world, that he holds on until I can get there. Even then, I’m not sure what I will be able to do, but at the very least we will be together.
I walk down towards the sloping side of the mountain that I think will lead me to him. There are parts of the walk that are more like a descending climb and I fall so many times, my pants are starting to become shredded. When I lose my footing and slide down a good distance, I land inside a small stream which soaks my boots and pants, and makes me pretty sure that I am going to end up with hypothermia. Still, I continue on. After what seems like countless hours, I realize that I have lost track of time. Without my phone, I have no way to see what time it is, and I am also soon completely disoriented with direction. All the woods seem to look the same and the sky keeps changing so I can’t tell if I am still headed on the right path.
When it starts becoming too dark to see where I am going, I realize that I have to stop and rest for the night, or risk falling since I can’t see what lies in front of me. It is a pitch-black night with only a sliver of moon so I can’t even count on the moonlight to help. I find a spot that is fairly clear and nestled up against a wide tree trunk. There, I curl up and try to rest to conserve my strength. I use the single blanket from my backpack to try and keep warm, but it is not the same as Granite’s body heat and I find myself shivering uncontrollably.
I don’t want to cry because I know that it will only make me feel more helpless, but I can’t seem to stop it. All I can think about is Granite lying helplessly on the narrow ledge of the mountainside and worry about whether or not he is alive, and even if he is, I worry about what could happen to him alone there. If he turns, he will fall from the ledge. If he has broken his back or his neck, he won’t be able to move, and I won’t be able to carry him from there.
Why did this have to happen?
I cry to myself, thinking about how perfect things were going to be, and about how we were finally at the point of freedom together. I thought about how Clay was probably angry that Granite had escaped, and about the irony of how the mountain might very well be responsible for our deaths instead of Clay. Eventually, my body gives out for the night. I am too exhausted and too cold to stay awake any longer and I feel myself fall asleep to the sounds of the nighttime animals calling through the air. If I wake up in the morning, I will be even weaker and colder than I am now, and at some point, my body will give in entirely. I just hope I can reach Granite before that happens.
As my eyelids close and I wonder about whether or not they will even be reopening, I think about the warmth of Granite’s body against mine and the safe feeling of being in his arms as I pull the blanket around me tighter. If he is sleeping too, then maybe he is having the same thought and the same dream. Maybe that will be what keeps us both alive through the night; the thought of being back together, wrapped around each other until the morning.
Granite
There is pain everywhere.
I don’t know how long I have been unconscious for, but I can remember it being light out when I fell and now it is almost nearing dusk. I can’t remember very much about the fall over the edge of the mountainside, and even less about the impact when I hit the ground. The only thing I remember about that was the split second of intense pain and a loud cracking sound that seemed to shatter my eardrums. What I remember most of all is the terrified look on Amber’s face as I pushed her away from me to keep her from falling as well. I know that she stayed safe on top of the mountain because I saw her face as I fell. In the moment of falling, time seemed to work so strangely. It was as if it happened both within the blink of an eye, and also so slowly that everything in my memory is elongated and fuzzy like when you used to be able to fast forward videocassette recorders at a slow speed. I remember feeling conflicting emotions of happiness that she would be alright and sorrow that this might be the end and I would never again be able to hold her in my arms.
None of that matters now. The only thing that matters is the current situation. I can’t even turn my head without pain shooting into every joint and muscle of my body, but I do it anyway in order to see where I landed. I am on a very narrow ledge, which I am glad was here or else I would have absolutely been dead at the very bottom of the mountain which is a much further drop. The only way that I can see to get off of here, is to climb the steep side of the mountain until reaching a small, sloping area that leads back into the woods. It’s not an impossible climb, but I fear it is for me in my current state. I know that I won’t last long here without food and water, and some sort of way to treat the injuries that I’ve sustained.
I make an attempt to wriggle my fingers and toes, just to make sure that I haven’t broken my back or damaged anything that would paralyze parts of my body. As painful as even the tiny motions are, at least I can feel everything moving which is the best news that I could have hoped for. Everything is still functional, but my body is just probably left in a state of some broken bones and a concussion. I’ll survive the injuries from the fall if I can just get off this ledge. I try again to pull myself up to a sitting position to see if I can commandeer my limbs to follow direction and maybe start to climb. But the pain is just too much and I really can’t move at all without wanting to scream. That won’t do me any good as far as being able to climb that distance. I’ll end up losing my foothold when my muscles jerk and I’ll fall the rest of the way down, which will be the end of me altogether. So, I have to just stay laying helplessly on the ledge for now.
I look up toward the top of the mountainside where Amber had been standing and I watch for her. I call out to her and it hurts my chest to push the air out behind my voice. I’m betting that I have at least a few broken ribs. I hope to see her look down at me, but she isn’t there. I worry and wonder where she could be and why she doesn’t answer me. She has to still be up there, unless she tried to climb down to get to me and fell to her death. That thought shakes me so badly that I force my pained body to turn just slightly enough so that I can look down over the ledge at the ground below. I don’t see her body there, so that gives me hope that she didn’t attempt the climb and is still okay up there somewhere. I worry that something will happen because I know that she cannot survive by herself all alone in the woods and I blame myself for getting her into this entire situation. I promised her that being out here in the woods would be safe and that I could protect her and provide for her here completely off-grid. And now I have abandoned her to fend for herself without any idea how to do it.
My thoughts become consumed with all of the things that could befall her. She will either starve, or die of dehydration, or fall and get hurt, or maybe even get injured or killed by an animal, or something equally as deadly in the woods. I have to get to her.
I don’t care how much it hurts; I push myself to get up despite the pain. I need to get off this ledge and if climbing is the only way to do it, then I will climb. If my muscles twitch or my bones snap, then I will dig my hands into the dirt and hold onto the rocky sides until my palms tear and bleed. I will not let go and I will not drop because one way or the other I have to get back to Amber.
I holler from pain into the nighttime air, which is cold and quiet, and carries my painful howl echoing throughout the mountain peaks. When I am able to pull myself up to the side of the mountain, I dig in my heels and reach my arms above me to start the climb. I am also pretty sure that there are bones in my legs broken and a fracture in my wrist that makes it difficult to operate. It doesn’t matter; I will climb.
Amber
When I open my eyes, it is morning and I am slightly pleased that I have survived the night. It is a dark thought to think that death might be easier than living, but if I let myself think that Granite might not be alive, then death seems much more friendly to me. It seems even colder now than it had last night, so on top of being scared, I am also freezing. I get up, ignore the pang of hunger that cramps my stomach and the dry, parched feeling in my throat that is exaggerated even further by the bitter coldness of the air I breathe in, and I start my trek back down the mountain again. I try to look up and around me to get my bearings on which way to head, but it is really difficult because all the trees and sky seem to blend together and look the same to me. I’d like to think that I am getting closer to him, but there is just no way for me to tell.
I keep walking since it’s the only thing that I can do. At least the slope continues to go downward and if I judged the distance away that he was, I still had a little bit ways to go on a descent. The faster I walked, the more it warmed my body. Unfortunately, the more I walked it also burned more calories. At some point my body was going to start to protest about putting forth so much physical exertion without being given any food. At least I had been able to put a little bit of the water from the stream into the flask in my backpack so that dehydration wasn’t an issue yet. The stream water tasted a bit like licking the bottom of a slimy leaf and I hoped that it wasn’t going to make me sick. I think that I had also remembered hearing something about how you could eat snow since that was essentially water too, so as long as there was snow on the ground, I should be okay with hydration. I wish that I knew more about the wilderness and knew which kinds of leaves or berries or things you could eat to stay alive. If Granite and I both survived this, I definitely wanted him to teach me more about how nature stuff works.
I stop when I hear something crack on ground behind me. It sounds like a twig or branch crunching beneath someone’s foot. I half expect to see a deer or some other form of wildlife, but instead, I see the one thing that I fear the most, the one thing that I hadn’t even thought to worry about since I thought we were safe in the woods;Clay.
He grabs me by my shoulders, and I scream. I scream so loudly that it sends a small flock of birds into a frantic flutter out of one of the trees up ahead. I scream so loudly that if there were any people around in miles, they would hear me. But there aren’t. There is only me, Clay, and Granite, and I don’t even know if Granite is awake to hear my screams.
Clay doesn’t even bother covering my mouth while I scream because he knows it too. He knows there’s no one around to help me this time. I should have known that he would come. He is every bit as resourceful in the wilderness as his brother is, and I’m sure that he figured Granite would try to escape into the woods.
“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” I shout at him after I can’t scream anymore. “Why can’t you just go live your life and leave us to live ours?”
I try to fight him off, but I can’t. He is stronger than me even on my best day, but right now I am too weak and too cold to be able to move my body with enough strength to do anything that would match his power over me. Clay wraps his hands around the top part of my arm and grips me so hard that it hurts as he drags me alongside of him.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand, not that I am in any position to be able to force him to answer my question.
“To find my dear brother,” Clay smirks.
He has a large backpack on the back of his shoulders and another pack affixed to his waist. It looks like he has brought all of the supplies that he would need to stay out here for a long time, even longer if he knows how to survive off the wilderness which I am sure that he does.
