Alone

Training

I wake up to birds chirping outside. I sit up and crack my back. I notice a quiet snoring and turn around. I see her lying there. I almost forgot about her. I shake her hard and she jolts awake. "Get up." I say seriously. "You need to learn to be woke up by the slightest sound, in case someone or something tries to sneak up on you and kill you." I say walking out of the house. She follows me out and stretches. "So what are we learning first?" She says clapping her hands together. "We're going to learn to not be afraid of eating and killing an animal." I say cheerfully. Ew. Never doing anything cheerfully again. "Oh, great!" She says sarcastically. "You know, I never got your name." She says. "I'm Ezrie." She says sticking her hand out for me to shake. "Piper." I say turning towards the deer hanging from the tree. "The blood should be all dropped out by now so it's time to skin it." I say starting to climb. She watches as I scurry up the tree in amazement. "What?" I ask. "Never seen someone climb a tree before?" she shakes her head. "Not like that before." She says. "Like what?" I ask. "You climb so fast!" She says stepping closer. "So?" I ask. "So, I want to be able to do that." She says planting her foot hard on the ground. "It will take you as while." I say mentally laughing at the thought. "I've been out here 7 years, and I perfected it after 5." I call down to her. "Just teach me! Please!" She pleads. "I will but you will have to practice daily and you will suffer from blisters for about a month or even more." I say hoping she'll back down. "I don't care." She says. Dang this girl is stubborn. The role slices in two and the deer falls. Dirt flies up and Ezrie coughs a little. I jump from the branch I sit on and land next to the doe. "Time for your first lesson." I say smirking. I lead her to the skinning table and lay the deer down. I pull my pocket knife out and start. She stares in disgust at the blood that goes out every once and a while and at all the meat. "You actually eat this?" she says shocked. "To survive, yes." I say. "You can't live without getting over the gross part of life." I say as I finish. I cut up the meat and start a fire. The deer starts to cook and I cut up the rest of it. I store it in my house in my 'cupboard'. "When you cook, you want to make sure you cook both sides and you cook it all the way through, if you don't cook it enough you could get sick, if you cook it too much, it gets burnt." I say as I flip the meat. We both eat a little and then show her how to hunt. I don't really need to hunt for food right now, so i'll just show her on trees and things. "Here" I say handing her a bow and arrow. She clutches them in her hands softly. "No." I say taking them back. "Like this." I say firmly holding them in the rest position. "You try." I give them back to her. She grips them too hard so her knuckles whiten. "Loosen a smidge." I say tugging at her fingers a little. Her knuckles turn back to normal color. "Good, now set the arrow." I say helping her get the right form. "And pull back the string." She grunts. "It's too heavy!" I face palm. dang it. I forgot about the weight. "Okay, let's use one of my old ones, how many pounds do you think you could lift?" I say walking towards the house. "Mmm, about 7." She says like it's impressive. My eyes widen. I didn't even make a bow as low as that. "Let's try ten." I say pulling it out. I made this one merely by accident. I thought I was weak so I would need it to be like that but it turned out it was way too easy. I hand her the bow and she sets it up with ease. Maybe she is a little stronger. "Pull back." I say guiding her. She grunts a little as she pulls back the string. Nope. This is perfect for now. "Let go!" I say. She let's go and the arrow goes flying and lands in the grass about 6 feet away. "Good, now you know how to shoot an arrow." I say patting her on the back. I run up and retrieve the arrow and bring it back to her. "Alright now let's aim for something." I look around to find something pretty close to us. "Ah, how about that tree right there." I say pointing. "Okay." She says nervously. She pulls back. "Alright now close one eye and try to see the arrow going into the wood of that tree." She listens and studies it for a second. Then, she releases it and hits a tree to the left of it but the arrow still sticks. "Good job!" I say patting her on the back again. "No it isn't! You're just saying that because you have too!" she says dropping the bow and folding her arms. "No I'm not! You got plenty close to the target and that was your first time!" "You did really good for your first time, no joke." I hand her back the arrow. She resists but eventually takes it and picks up the bow again. "Good, now you practice, and I'll check up on you in a little bit." I say turning to leave. "Your leaving?" she says a bit worried. "Yes, but I trust you, just keep aiming for that tree." I say and walk away. She starts to pull back but drops the arrow. She sighs and picks it up. She tries again and is about an inch away from the tree. She's getting better.

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So what do you think so far?

Comment!

Also, shout out to my BFF leximilbradt!

Go read her book falling for you!

Who do you think you would be in this situation?

Piper- strong, determined, knows the ways of the woods

Ezrie- Weak, shy, no idea how to do anything

Comment! and vote! they make my day!