Lost To The Wild

Stay With Me

I rush over to the man's body. I want to touch him, to help him. My hands reach out and hover over his body. I can stop their frantic tremors. 

There is just so much blood.

His face is bruised and swollen. Purples and blacks and blues cover his cheeks and neck like paint on a canvas. I touch the skin hoping to offer some comfort to this strange person, but he shows no awareness of my presence. His flesh is pale as a corpse, and nearly as cold. His nose is frostbitten and eyes are red, and puffy. I hold his jaw in my hands. Tilting his eyes towards my own, but they are too heavily drooped to see me.

I suddenly catch myself chanting in whispers the same words over and over again.

"Please be OK, please don't die, please be OK, please don't die..."

He pushes out a gurgling noise that instantly silences my babble. I try to think back to any point in my life that would have prepared me for this moment, but I can't think of any.

"We need to get you inside," I mutter to myself, pushing my panic into the furthest corners of my mind. "Yes. That's what we need to do, then we will get you warm, and then everything is going to be alright."

I need to stay focused.

Stay sharp.

Stay alert.

I grab my bow, throwing it on my back, then quickly try to squeeze between his body and the tree trunk. Nimbly snaking my hands under his arms, and wrapping them around his torso. Holding his body in an awkward hug. I give a rough tug, trying to drag him with me, but it only causes us both to fall to the snow.

"Come on!" I huff, using my legs as leverage against the ground, slowly pulling us up the slight hill.

We weren't very far from my cabin, but felt like an insurmountable distance.

My muscles burned, my lungs were being crushed, and unwanted tears couldn't help but escape the corners of my eyes. I had grown strong living in the forest. My muscles were lean and hard in a way that can only be accomplished by working in the outdoors, but the small distance between us and my cabin had me doubting myself in ways I thought I'd forgotten.

He wasn't an overly large man, but the dead weight of his body was too much, even for me.

I push off the ground again, grunting and falling backward with his body on top of mine. We made slow and steady progress through the snow. It was just a repetition of noises. My strangled grunts. His body dragging. The thump of us falling to the ground.

Every so often he would make another pained noise. I felt a tinge of guilt creep up my spine when I heard this, knowing that I'd pulled too roughly or touched him in a sore spot, but at the same time I felt relief. Relief that he could still feel pain. Relief that he was still alive.

We continued on that way for a long time. Our constant struggle the only thing disrupting the otherwise serene forest, until finally our salvation was within reach.

"We're almost there! Stay with me!" I yell at him through heaving lungs.

I give one last hard push off the ground, sending both our bodies flying through the front door and landing ungracefully on the solid hardwood. The clatter of the fall echos around the room until only my loud gasps for air were left.

Get up. I tell my body again and again, but it just won't listen. Everything aches and fatigue is quickly devouring my senses.

No.

Get up.

I painfully rise up from the floor, feeling the sting in my limbs. I stumble in a rush to the door, closing it, and blocking the harshly chilled winds.

I stumble to the fireplace desperately grabbing at the kindling and matches. My hands shake as I strike the match into a spark. Fire bursts from the stone pit and instantly the air shifts into something welcoming.

The man lies gracelessly on my floor. I grab his arms again and slide him over to the fire. I pull blankets from the closet and wrap his shivering body in a messy cocoon.

By the time I'm done he just looks like a pile of blankets. I smile as his face relaxes into a sleepy expression.

My initial panic subsides, now that we are both safe and indoors. I gently lean against the wall pressing my forehead to the wood, concentrating on the steady flow of air entering my lungs and being released. I used to do this a lot when I first came here. When I wanted to forget I would just press my forehead to the wall and imagine all my memories being absorbed by the wood.

What the hell.

That's all I can think to myself. How does something like this happen? I've been out here for nearly a year and haven't seen a soul. No campers, or hikers, or loggers, or anybody. Now suddenly, in the dead of winter, a half dead man appears.

This can't be happening.

I quickly glace at the fireplace again, hoping that he will be gone, and hoping that this is all a dream. But life is never that simple. All I see is the hill of blankets with a scruff of black hair popping out of one end.

Unsure what else to do I unhook the rabbit from my belt and start making dinner.