Somewhere in Alaska

Chapter Five

Stephanie had to lie down for a moment to catch her breath. As David was untying the rope from around his waist he noticed a small tare in the right hand side of his top. Despite his top being wet, he could still see that it was stained blood red around the tare. The rush of adrenaline had made him briefly forget the pains he had felt in his side, not knowing how badly he was injured, and not wanting to worry Stephanie, he turned away from her to quickly have a look at the damage. As he lifted his top he saw a small gash about an inch long, it didn't look too deep but was still bleeding. He lowered his top and turned back to Stephanie,

"Are you ok?" he asked worryingly.

"I'm ok, just a bit shook up, and my chest is hurting, think I swallowed a bit of water in the panic of it all," she replied whilst trying to sit up.

"Don't move just yet, lie down for five and let your body recover from the scare," said David as he made sure he was standing side on so that Stephanie couldn't see the tare or blood stain on his top, "I have to pop off a min, nature calls, I'll be right back." he said whilst heading up the riverbank and into a patch of trees.

David made sure he was out of sight before taking his backpack off, it was watertight so luckily it didn't get flooded from the river. Whilst rummaging through his first aid kit, he remembered that he had used the remainder of his antiseptic cream on Stephanie's cuts and grazes when he first found her. From what he could see his cut was clean, although he couldn't get a proper look as he couldn't see from a decent angle. For now all he could do was apply a couple of butterfly stitches and cover it with a dressing. He wrapped a bandage around his waist to apply pressure and help stop the bleeding. Once he had finished patching himself up, he quickly changed into his spare top and packed everything away.

Whilst trying to ignore the pain, David walked back to Stephanie. She was sitting up now and drinking some water, he noticed straight away that she too had changed her top.

"Great minds think alike ay?" he said whilst grinning and pulling at his fresh dry top.

"Yeah, thought I should at least get half dry, it's Chloe's, I doubt she will mind though. It got a little bit wet but will soon dry in this sun," replied Stephanie after letting out a little laugh, "I thought you had gotten lost, you were gone a while!"

"No I didn't get lost, we aren't having much luck though," said David as he carefully sat down by Stephanie, "especially you with how many falls you've taken, although that time was actually my fault so I'm sorry."

"No don't apologise David, you saved my life, again," replied Stephanie after finishing her bottle of water, "we knew it would be risky crossing the bridge, we had no choice. It was no one's fault," Stephanie paused for a second then suddenly stood up in a hurry, "the note, I forgot about the note."

Stephanie looked up the banking to find the quickest and easiest way to the top. After climbing and pulling herself up, she headed in the direction of the bridge.

After only a couple of minutes of walking, Stephanie had made it back to the bridge and was easily able to find the note, same as the last one, it was stuck to a tree with a plaster. She took it down and read through it quickly,

"Stephanie, hope you got over the bridge alright, was wobbly as heck so we went one at a time, some planks broke but no one was injured luckily. We hope you are ok. Camp isn't far from here, half hour walk at the most. Follow this path through the trees and you'll see the tents set up on the left. Hopefully we will see you soon! Keep an eye out for Chloe and Mark, they went a different way to us to search for you. Amber."

After reading the letter Stephanie felt a bit more relieved, she knew she was almost back with her friends and she hoped they'd be willing to help her and David find Leon. She wanted to get moving and find them as quickly as possible, so headed back to the banking where David was.