No One Cries For The Lost

XIV: Dancing Dragons Cross The Sky

                                                                                                   XIV

                                                                                     Dancing Dragons

                                                                                                Cross

                                                                                              The Sky

                                                                                             Day 199

Remain still...my beating heart. We're not out of this yet. And we may never be. Just remain still. And take rest. We have to keep going.

Martin and I long since make it through the woods. Walking further and further through the land of Somerset. Without my sled at my beck and call anymore and with this stupid brace preventing me, there's no attacking and hunting any large prey for Martin and I anymore.Instead I return to looking through lemming holes and picking ants and beetles out of logs with sticks in order to keep myself alive.Martin managed to wrap his jaws around a weasel and kill it on our second day trekking away from the ridge. It was a sweet taste of luxury...for about eleven seconds. Most of my food for the remaining few days afterwards – most of our food – is now eaten raw.I don't have the strength or the composure to hunt and cook anymore.Hell, I barely have it in me to gather the resources necessary to start a fire and keep one going through the night. And without the time or energy to set it up around our camps, Martin and I are lucky we haven't been attacked by anything in our sleep the past few nights.

I have a raging migraine and I don't doubt that it's likely from all of the raw rodents and insects I've eaten the past week. But I just don't have a fucking choice anymore. Even if I've got a million parasites in me right now. I just don't have any other options, other than giving up. And I've just come too far for that now.

Still, with my growing deliriousness and expended energy. Every day comes and goes and there isn't one day that goes by where I don't find that deep-seated desire growing in my mind, I want a caught and cooked meal.

Late in the afternoon on our third day from our trek away from my fateful injury site, Martin and I come across a river. A big river,not like the small ones we usually find. This one even has rapids and the ice is just barely covering the sides of it. It's a welcome sight considering the past six days we've gone without water. Especially me, since my injury. And much like Martin, I dig right in. First dunking my whole head, despite the cold, and then setting my thermos in and greatly refreshing myself. Four, five...six times over. It's a cold, refreshing feeling of that water going down my throat.

"Ah." I smile afterwards as I look up to the bright, burning sun high in the clear sky, "that hits the spot huh Martin?" I turn to him.

"Yup." He agrees underneath his gulps.

I reach over and pat his stomach. Rubbing his fur while I continue trying to drown myself in fresh, life-giving river water.

I reach out to the end of my stretched and straightened, braced left leg. I roll the bottom part of my jeans up over it, revealing that grotesque wound that once had a bone sticking from it. It went from being black a while back to a less black purplish after I melted snow over a fire and boiled it to purify it and poured it over it.Cauterizing it at the same time as I cleaned it. And now I use a little more water, this time cold, to further clean it out again. And then I pour it over those cuts on my cheek and forehead that still have yet to fully heal. My body is still in rough shape, but I'm getting there.