Page 3 of Nash
But, just as I reach to the edge of the trees, my foot catches on something. I tumble forward. Rolling head over heel down a huge slope.
My back slams against one rock after another. I shield my head with my arms and let my body take the brunt of it. Pain surges through my body. I scream so loud it feels like my throat is being torn in two.
I’d completely forgotten about the slope. In all my excitement to get to the cabin, I’d let my guard down. Ignored sensible safety protocols.
“Arrrgh!” Eventually, I come to a halt. I look up at the dark ferocious sky. My mouth tastes of blood. My leg is throbbing. I feel like I’m going to be sick. “Help,” I moan. “Someone, please help me.”
But I’m all alone. There’s nobody around for miles.
I close my eyes and try to gather my strength. A part of me wants to lay down and fall asleep. I’m too tired to keep going. Too tired to drag myself the final few hundred yards to the cabin.
But the other part of me knows it would mean certain death to lay out here all night in the rain.
Hypothermia will set in. Animals will feed on my limp, lifeless carcass. My face will be plastered all over the news. More evidence that mankind isn't so smart. So strong. Just a bunch of tiny ants waiting to be crushed by Mother Nature.
“No.” I grit my teeth and force myself onto my knees. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
Somehow, I manage to crawl towards the cabin. One painful inch at a time. My hands and knees and back are covered with mud and screaming with pain.
“Come on,” I yell. “You’ve got this. You can fucking do this!”
The cabin gets closer and closer. I have no sense of time. The clouds above are so thick and so dark they’re blocking out the sun. My expensive watch is smashed and broken. Maybe I’m crawling for minutes. Maybe I’m crawling for hours. I have no way of knowing.
My whole existence shrinks down to one tiny, painful, pitiful inch at a time. All my focus directed like a laser beam on moving my hands and my arms and my legs and stopping myself from laying back down. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back up again if I lay down.
“Yes!” I climb up the wooden steps outside the cabin. Each one feels like victory. “I’ve done it.”
I collapse on the porch. My head rests against the dark, wet wood. The door behind me opens. It creaks on its hinges and then slams shut.
A face appears above me.
For a second, I think I must have died and gone to heaven.
“Oh my God!” The woman says.
She kneels down and puts her hand against my face. She has the most beautiful green eyes I’ve ever seen.
“No,” I say, “not God… Nash.”
She puts her arm around my shoulder and somehow helps lift me to my feet.
Apparently, she didn’t find my joke funny.
I’m so much bigger than her, but she doesn’t show any sign of struggle as she helps me through the door.
“Quick,” she says, “we need to get you inside.”
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Keira
“How’s that?”I ask. “Better?”
Nash turns his head from side to side and runs his hand across his shoulder. “It couldn’t have been much worse,” he says.
I sit down on the armchair next to him. The fire’s going and it’s warm and snuggly.
“That’s the problem with you city boys,” I say. “You come out here thinking it’s all fun and games and you get yourself in trouble. Then someone like me has to come and save the day.”
