Patagonia

Only You

~Jasper~

The meat from the puma lasted us for weeks, keeping us somehow surviving through the peak of winter. The harshness of the weather combined with both mine and Abby's lack of energy, kept us mostly inside the shelter, sleeping beside a bed of warm coals.

I would tell her all my most ridiculous stories and embarrassing moments, I held her close to me, kissing her softly as I told her all the many thoughts I had always had of her.

I made her blush, laugh, smile, cringe in embaressment, irritated, worked-up, passionate, open, wholly mine. She was my life, my only source of energy or light. When the winter grew darker, our food supply slowly disappeared once more.

For threat of frostbite, I was unable to venture outside like I used to in the warmer days of summer. This was now an artic tundra with nothing but offense: merciless nature at it's most wild and forbidding.

The weeks felt endless. Only my love for Abby kept me pushing onward. I swore I would protect her or die trying.

My rations of food had been replaced with leaves and insects. I scrounged what I could privately while secretly giving Abby the majority of the food.

She was so much smaller than I. Already fully aware that she was heavily malnourished and severely underweight, I stopped caring about myself, only wanting to ensure her survival.

By the end of the ordeal, I could honestly say I was proud of myself. Nothing had prepared me for this change of our lives, but it happened. And I kept her alive.

She lived.

~Abby~

The day the plane flew over us was the day I screamed and threw my arms up into the air with a hoarse voice. Tearing out of the tent, I ran down to the shore and screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Jasper!!! Jasper come quick!!!" I called back behind me. I had forgotten to wake him up, but it was only around ten in the morning...although he usually woke up way earlier.

The sound of the plane engine grew louder as I watched in miraculous joy while the entire body turned inward and headed downwards in our direction.

I cheered and screamed while the seaplane landed on the lake and came to a stop near the shore.

"Jasper, come quick!!!!" I shouted behind me again.

The first-responders helped me towards the airplane as I kept frantically repeating,

"There's someone else, please there is someone else. My companion, Jasper."

Suddenly, my eyes took in Jasper's weak, frail form stumbling out of the shelter. I launched myself towards him but then....time stopped moving.

The moment his eyes lifted to mine, he smiled back at me. The softest, most kind, most endearing expression of love he had ever given me. He stumbled foward before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed onto the leafy ground.

The scream that tore out my throat was ear-splitting.

Before I could reach his body, the first-responders were already setting him on a stretcher and running towards the seaplane.

Inside the plane, I sat in front of the stretcher, holding Jasper's hand in my own while sobbing face-down onto his chest.

"You can't die, Jasper, you can't leave me like this!"

The men who had found us were speaking to me in a foreign language I couldn't understand as they tried to check my vitals and comfort me.

Nothing mattered though. My world was small now. Jasper was all that mattered to me, he was the only source of life I saw.

I clung to him while I prayed and begged fate to roll the tide of miracles in our direction. My eyes faltered closed when they pressed an oxygen mask to my face. I found myself drifting away as if floating ontop of water, like the mountainous lake of Patagonia itself.