The Ringing

The Final Standoff

            I woke up. It was still cold, even colder than before. But now little to no light was shining through the cave entrance-it was dusk. My stomach growled-I hadn’t eaten since lunch the last day. “Should we go try to find food?” I mumbled, still half asleep, my hair a mess. Nate nodded and pulled out his knife. We walked out into the cool air, freezing in our short sleeve shirts. I was about to offer to try to kill something, when I heard the sound of the knife cutting through the air. I ducked.

            Nate had thrown the knife across the pool, slicing a medium-sized bird in half. I stood back up. “Dinner is served,” he said with a grin as I stared in awe. “We used to kill little birds for fun when we were little kids,” he explained.

            I jumped across the river and grabbed the bird, pulling the knife out and wiping away some of the blood. “I’ll skin, you cook,” I said as I jumped back across the river.

            “Wait.” I stopped. “Making a fire-they’ll find us, won’t they?”

            Nate looked back at me. “As long as we use dry wood, we should be fine,” he deduced. “The smoke is the real giveaway.”

            “Promise you’ll use the driest wood you can find?”

            “Promise.”

            I took the knife and sat down, slowly cutting the plumage off the bird. It wasn’t something I had ever done, but it seemed easy enough. And with our current predicament, I didn’t mind the occasional feather in my mouth. The sky was growing darker, and I knew we had to finish quickly. I gutted out the eye, cut off the tail, and handed my finished product to Nate.

            “Not bad,” he smiled. I saw that his hair was wet, and he was wearing a fresh set of clothes. “I took a bath in the pool while you were skinning. You can take one too, if you want.” He saw my worried look and laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t look.”

            I slowly walked over to the pool, undressed, and slid into the water. It was cool, but slightly warmer than the outside air. The pool was about five feet deep, and I could feel the rocky bottom underneath my feet. I swam around, the water slowly removing the dirt from my skin. My head fell underwater and the mud came off, my hair flowing in the water, finally clean. It floated around the water. I lifted up my ankle and winced when I took off the makeshift bandage. My ankle wound almost burst when I took off the bandage, blood flowing everywhere. The skin around it was red, and there was a little bit of yellow pus forming around the corners. I moaned. Definitely an infection. “Something must have gotten into it when I fell,” I mumbled.

            I slowly rose out of the water, attempted to dry myself off, and changed into my other set of clothes. I walked over to Nate-the bird was now blackened, the fire luckily only emitting a small amount of smoke. We put out the fire and walked into the cave and split the bird in half, ripping off pieces with our hands. It wasn’t flavored, and a little burnt on the outside and raw on the inside, but it was warm and filled my stomach with a toasty feeling.

            Neither of us talked as we ate, both of us famished. As soon as we were done, I finally spoke. “You did a good job keeping the fire’s smoke under control. The smoke would’ve been the easiest way for them to find us.”

            He mumbled a thanks and we started to make our way under the blankets. But I heard a voice, and looked up to find a blue light, a blue orb right outside the cave.

            “Fire can also be used to find runaways.”

I closed my eyes. It was over.