Dramatic Summer Love Story

Unfortunate Events

Another day off for me and I'm packing a backpack to go hiking with Penny, I call out and say goodbye to Dad and Sarah. I get in my shoes and jacket and wait outside for Penny to come to pick me up. She pulls up a few minutes after I step out of the house, she has a backpack as well along with her dog Leo who's coming with us for the hike.
"So what trail have you picked out for us today?" I ask as I get in and throw my backpack in the back with Leo.
"So like I told you yesterday, I was torn between two trails but I decided on the harder trail." She says and I think for a moment while buckling my seatbelt.
"Which one was that?" I ask, my mind is completely blank on the name of what trail she's talking about, I want to google it on the way so I need the name.
"The Catoctin Mountain Extended Loop Trail," Penny says and starts driving, I pull out my phone, and before I start googling I put on a Disney song playlist, we mumble the lyrics to the songs for the first half of the drive but then start singing once I've put my phone away after checking the trail out on the internet. It sounded interesting, and look really pretty in all the pictures I saw, the recommendations were all positive and I have a good feeling about today, the weather's perfect for a hike.
A couple of hour drive to the trail is finished and we park the car in the parking lot, there are many cars around as we suspect there would be, it's a busy trail in the summer. There's a small gust of wind in the air, we let Leo out and put him on a leash, with the backpacks on our backs we start our hike and head up the trail letting the sun and exercise immediately make us start sweating.
The view from the trail is amazing, the path is flat but also has ups and downs, sometimes we huff and puff, our chests lifting and falling rapidly. The air cools us down but not by much, for an hour we continue like that, pointing out pretty stuff to each other, then finally we sit down to have a snack, there are two tables in the small cleared area, a couple sits on the table nearer the table and so we sit down on the farther table.
I and Penny take our backpacks off and tie Leo to the leg of the table letting him roam free while tied up.
"So what are we going to eat now?" I ask and start taking some snacks out of my backpack, Penny does the same bad when we have spread out our food we start digging into the snacks on display.
While we eat I look around, there are a few trees around us and a bunch of rocks, small and big, flowers bloom and bees search the flowers for pollen. Nature's so pretty, birds sing for us and I check out the cloud in the sky, when I look down from the sky my eyes land on a cliff that hides in between the trees, it's a big cliff which I bet has a beautiful view, I have yet to take pictures on this hike and that looks like a great place to do so, however, a slight problem is that it's not near the trail, I can see that immediately, maybe I can convince Penny to go on a little rebellious adventure.
"Hey, come see this," I say to Penny and wave her over to my side of the table, she comes and sits down beside me and I point towards the cliff. "What do you say, want to go check it out?" I suggest and she ponders it for a second before smiling and nodding.
"Sure, what's the worst that can happen?" I shrug and we start finishing up our snack. We pack up our stuff back in the backpacks and head back onto the trail to continue until we're ready to get off the trail to find that cliff I saw. Once we think we're close enough to the cliff we leave the trail and let Leo off the leash since no one will see it and report it.
After a few minutes of searching off the trail and we spot the cliff, it has a beautiful view, the way down is very steep and we make sure to stay away from the edge. I put my backpack down as does Penny, then I hand Penny my phone to let her take a few pictures.
I pose on the edge of the cliff, but I'm far enough away from the edge to be safe, I smile big and do as I do when I'm posing for a picture. She snaps a few and the sunlight makes them amazing or so she says.
"Come show it to me!" I shriek, excitedly. She walks toward me with the phone in hand, Leo runs around circling us, he doesn't go too near the edge but since we're standing a few meters from it he doesn't have much space, so he's pretty much touching us when running on the side of the edge.
Penny shows me the pictures she took and she's right, they're amazing, pleased with my choices of photos I offer to take some for Penny but she says she doesn't want any photos. As I go to move and get my backpack the stones from under my foot start sliding, I'm so startled that I fall back and fall down the cliff. Penny trips over Leo when trying to reach for and help me, her fate is like mine and we both fall through the air, and down the cliff scraping ourselves against the rough wall. I yelp as the back of my thigh gets cut open on something sharp while falling.
We end up on a small base in the wall of the cliff, the fall all the way down is further, my whole body is sore and I have small cuts all over my body, the biggest one is on the back of my thigh, I roll over on my back and try to get a look at it, I don't see much other than blood. Penny sits up beside me, she's like me, has cuts all over her but she did not get a big injury like me, at least it's not visible.
At the beginning of the trail, there was a sign that told hikers not to go off-trail, I should have listened to it.
"Are you okay?" Penny mumbles and looks around, she's disoriented, maybe she has a concussion.
"I'm fine," I say and try to sit up, wincing as I do.
"Shit, Taylor, you're not fine you're bleeding, like a lot! Stay down, don't sit up." Penny says and starts removing her shirt, she rips it up and takes the smaller piece and wraps that up around my thigh, probably to try and apply pressure and stop the bleeding. I do as she says and lay still on my back. Leo is above us barking down at us and jumping around.
"Where's your phone?" She asks.
"How would I know?" My voice is weak.
"Shit! I think it must've slipped out of my hand. Fuck!" Penny rarely curses meaning this situation is really bad.
We sit in silence for a bit. "Where's your phone?" I ask her.
"It's in my backpack, which is up there where we're supposed to be. We never should have gone off-trail."
"I'm sorry, it's my fault." I apologize. I look up and see Leo again, he looks like he's trying to find a way down to us. "I think we might need to tell him to stop and stay there," I say, it's totally out of context to Penny but she follows my eyes and finds Leo. She calls up to him and tells him to stop, he's a good boy and after a few calls he's sitting and whining at the top of the cliff, which is better than jumping around.
"You think we should call for help?" I ponder out loud, maybe it's not worth it, we're many meters away from the trail and also much farther down than anybody.
"I think we should give it a try," Penny answers my question, I guess we could try, it wouldn't hurt anyone except maybe our voices. "Let's give it a go." And we start calling out, yelling, for anyone to hear, we ask for help, Leo barely has any idea of what's happening but I think he might have gotten a bit startled because he runs away while we call and tell, when I see him move away from the edge I yell at him to stay but he doesn't listen.
"Maybe it's good that he went, maybe he'll find someone and lead them here. Just cross your finger and hope for the best." She coughs, we have no water or food, we shouldn't waste our energy when we can't replenish it.
"Let's stop, no one hears us," I say and Penny agrees.
"How are you feeling?" She asks me and looks at my thigh.
"I'm a bit light-headed, and I'm not sure if I'm hot or cold?" I chuckle a bit but from the expression on Penny's face, I take it that it's not a good sign.
"We better get some help soon." She mutters but I hear it, I feel a pit in my stomach form but ignore it and try to distract myself, I look around and try to notice my surroundings but with each passing minute, I feel like I'm getting dizzier and dizzier. "Taylor, you're starting to look worse, talk to me what's up?" Penny says after we both stay silent and ponder our situation.
"I don't feel good."
"What's wrong?" She asks and I'm starting to get worried by her words and tone. I describe to her what I'm feeling, dizziness, lightheadedness, a hard time keeping my eyes open is most of what I'm struggling with, Penny tries to hide her concern but fails miserably, maybe she thinks that because I'm slowly bleeding out if we don't get help then I don't notice her distress. "Taylor, I want you to keep your eyes open and keep talking to me." She looks out in the air like she's remembering what to say to me, she might be getting her lines from medical TV shows.
"Okay, what do you want me to talk about?" I ask, I'm not up for much thinking and I'm pretty sure she knows everything. The friend group we're in always knows everything, if not from the person directly then it's from someone else who knew about it, that's just how it works. So I have nothing to ramble on about.
"Tell me what you see." Penny finally settles on after thinking for a while.
"Okay, let's make a game out of it," I say and try and prop myself up to see better, it's painful but I get a slightly better angle after a few moans. For probably more than thirty minutes, we take turns describing an object in our view making the other person try to guess what it is, but it keeps getting harder and harder for me to stay awake and aware of my environment. I listen to Penny talk but start to zone out, I'm just so tired and even though I know I'm not supposed to I allow myself to close my eyes, it's just for a second, a second won't hurt.
"Taylor!" I hear but my brain doesn't acknowledge it, a few ruffles later my eyes shoot open after getting hit by the horrible sting of a slap landing on my cheek. I look at Penny who's leaning over me, she's shocked but brushes it off, she's going to speak but stays silent when we hear barking.
"Leo!" Penny yells just as I process what it could be. We hear more barking and then hear it right above us, we see Leo standing there, and then comes a woman behind him, she's panting, she probably had to run after Leo.
"Holy shit, oh my God! Are you okay?" She yells down to us.
"We need help, we can't get up and my friend has been bleeding a lot!" Penny yells back, or maybe she doesn't, the woman I'm looking at starts speaking again but the sun shines brightly over her, maybe she's an angel or devil here to take me away to death, heaven or hell, whatever it is that comes after life.
"Taylor, stay awake!" Penny tells me, I can barely acknowledge what she said, she shakes me by the shoulder and I open my eyes even though it's so goddamn hard. "Start talking again," Penny instructs and starts removing her blood-soaked ripped shirt from my injury to replace it with the other half. I yelp as she ties it and then I notice that the woman is gone.
"Where did she go?" I ask, Penny knows what I'm talking about and tells me that she's running to find reception and call 911 for help. I relax a bit when I hear that soon we'll be rescued, but when is still unknown and we both know I've been bleeding for a long time, we don't know much blood I've lost or anything like that, could I be dying? I don't want to die, I'm not ready, I haven't even started college.
More horrible thoughts of what I'll miss if I die now pass through my mind but with each second and thought I feel myself drift into unconsciousness. Before the air smelt great, it smelt like summer but now my nostrils are filled with the smell of my blood that covers my leg and the ground under me.
Penny has been keeping me away by slapping and pinching me, I'm pretty sure that if we had water she would be throwing it on me.
"You hear that?" Penny says, and I listen like she's doing, we hear loud thuds in the distance, maybe it's a helicopter Penny suggests and I cross my fingers. We continue to listen, it gets closer and if it's not a helicopter it must be a plane, I don't believe this could be anything else than those two options. The woman comes back and tries to yell down at us but we can't hear anything and then into our sight comes a helicopter.
I feel relief that the rescue is here but this unfortunate situation is not over yet, it could have effects for a long time after this.
The medical helicopter doesn't land, it sends down two paramedics with backboards to strap us to and then send us up to the helicopter. It's like my body knows we'll be in good care and is allowing itself to shut down, the paramedics land on the small space of ground we're on, one of them checks on me and the other one sends Penny up. After Penny is safely up there with a third paramedic I have both of the paramedic's attention on me, they decide they can't do much now but get me up to the helicopter and bandage me a bit better there, so that's what they do, however, I fall unconscious on the way up to the helicopter.