Time seemed to pass much differently here; as they traveled farther and farthur north, the day stayed longer and the night shorter. Henry and Torhild's skin darkened slightly; the constant sun exposure and hard work had toned both of them up.
Seven days passed. They both, in every moment, hoped that they were getting closer to land; nothing seemed to change, adide for a small iceberg coming and going during the ladder half of day 4. The GPS worked only once, on day six, showing that they had made fair progress, but, dispite efforts between both os them (well, Torhild's "effots" consisted of her slamming the yellow hunk of pastic repeatedly into the side of the boat, while Henry shouted at her, but it was something.)
Both of them, without the other, tried to calculate how far they traveled per day in those six days based on the data, but both were massively insucessful.
The nights were awful, though. Torhild was not entirely sure what made them so; there was something to the drkness and cold that seemed to consume her being, as if the noght was something far more psysical, like a hand on your sholder. She never was able to get much sleep, dispite her constantly exaused state, and when she did, strange dreams hunted her.
But, in later years, she would look back on that time with a controlled amount of nostalgia.
That night, though, nother fell asleep.
Well, hardly ever did they both fall asleep, for Henry could hardly manage to sleep more than Torhild did, but it was a mutual realization that they both did not sleep, and it would be no bother to the other if they stayed up. It was that night, that they opened up the top, and stared up at the endless stars that fell above them.
Then there was the Arorua. Henry had heard of it, even seen it on television a few times, but there was nothing quite like seeing it in person. It was like a hevenly light show, while one was stuck in Hell.
The dawn of day seven was missed by nither, dispite it coming at such an early hour. They made quick work of the day's rations, and they both laughed about nothing in particular. The air was still difficult to breathe in. Torhild remebered vaugely from a middle school science class that if one took too deep of a breath this far north, their lungs would literally freeze. That had always been a vaugely funny notion to her, and it was even more humors now that she was in that situation.
Thanks Mr. Jameson, She thought, about her seventh grade science teacher. Who knew that his mundane classes would ever come in handy.
There were a lot of things like that, actually, things that she had never expected to be of use to her, but actually had been. Building that boat t summer camp a few years ago had toned down her rowing skills; wilderness survival classes that, though they were not in a widerness by any conventional term, had become more important.
Like her enire life had been toning her down for this very situation.
She breathed slowly out as she rowed, propelling the boat forward another few feet.
Breath in, breath out, a cloud of white smoke, the steady thump-thump of her ever-beating heart.
She heard the first cry; a long-winded screech that seemed to be far off; she recignized it. The night of the crash.
"Shit." Henry summed up in a word.
"What the hell is it?" Replied Torhild turning competely around to the direction of the call.
"It must me some sort of aircraft."
Torhild had done a lot of thinking on that subject too; that was, she concluded, the only logical explanation.
"'The hell else could knock an entire airplane out of the sky." She said, standing up.
Henry pulled up the nylon cover.
"What's that going to do?" Torhild asked antagonistically.
"I don't know, but it isn't exactly like they can drop bombs on us, and if they drop anybody down, we have the advantage."
Another ear-splitting cry.
Henry and Torhild similaniously shivered.
They waited.
Two minutes, three.
Another cry.
A thud.
"What the-"
Ear splitting cry, right above their huddled figures in the life raft. Their faces were both illuminated in orange, as both stared to the blank canvas above, waiting.
And then it came.
A ripping noise, tearing a diagonal slash though the top of the canvass. Torhild fell backwards, a second before her face would've suffered a bloody blow. She held her arms up, as they took much of the force. A second later, blood stained her jacket.
Henry leapt for thge large duffel with the knife in it; a wicked looking black thing.
He brandished it, still partially blinded by the sunlight suddenly steaming through the tornd canvas. A shadow passed again, and he swung wildly at the sky, unable to see outside of s tiny relm.
Henry was able to move quickly enough as the thing came again, this time taking the majority of the cover off.
The last time, his aim was true, for as he yanked the knife forward, the forzen metal met flesh, and a monster fell into the sea. Henry watched as it sunk beneath the water, half of his world, and half of the one below. He wondered, for a long moment, if he had fallen into some sort of trance and was but imagining the great winged beast he had slain; but more pressing matters came, as his mind cleared.
Torhild's windbreaker was soaked in blood, both her arms torn to shreads. She appared to be inshock, staring at her wounds as if they were but a rugburn.
He knelt by her, as she took a shaky breath out her mouth. She began nodding her head, slowly at first, then frantically, as if she wished to communicate some unknown figure.
"Tor." He said, quietly, showlt removing the medical supplies from a duffel bag. They had decided to store them at the top of a bag, in case there ever was to be a time in which they would need them, they would be easily acessable.
She was shaking when he turned back to her, her arms quivering as blood washed down them.
She was not a quick fix; though the medical supplies were not, by any means adequate, and though he had experence in the feild, he, for several heartbeating moments, thought that she would bleed out. Right there in his lap.
But she did not. Both her arms required so many stitches, and though she stopped shakeing, it was hardly the end.
Night fell over the two, like a great veil upon their heads, and with it came the cold. Something like a snow storm begand around them, whipping Torhild's read cheeks and ruffling Henry's hair.
THe cover had truly been their most useful asset, he realized. for it as now a fridged cold, one he had not previously known.
Almost naturally, he wrapped his arms around his small travaling companion, and she curled into his warm chest.
Her mind seemed to have snapped at the moment that some great and terrible monster had nearly torn her face off; and she had become lost in a thicket of insanity. It didn't last long, though, and, like a doller store novel, she slept in a strange man's arms.
