SHARK FOREST-a survival thriller

Chapter 7

K had tied the 'lucky scarf' she was wearing to one of Rosemary's branches (the one she'd run into), and was ranting about several unfortunate life incidents to the tree for a long period of her time.

Useless, you might think, and K would have thought the same. But it was only when she was ranting about not being able to watch a drama, that she remembered something she'd seen in a tv show; A very useful little survival tip for if anyone happened to get lost. (Very useful things can be learnt when doing seemingly stupid things).

Pleased for having remembered it, she quickly made her way over to the clearing her tent had been in, following the straight-ish path she had run along the previous night.

Once there, she shot a hurried glance around, then relieved that there weren't any sharks within sight, she quickly began collecting the remnants of her tent and blankets, wary of every bush and leafy tree branch that looked big enough to hide a shark. Once K gathered all the fabric, she bundled them tightly in her arms and viciously slammed them against a nearby tree, to get the mud out of them. Then she laid them down in some clean-ish mud and began to pick out the remaining junk from the clearing.

As she worked, rivulets of sweat poured steadily down her forehead, her back, and limbs, draining her of water. Her lungs were burning, and her arms and feet ached. It was difficult work, and not fit for someone like K. She gathered a particularly heavy armload of junk, and began making her way over to the pile of junk she'd kept heaped up at the corner of the clearing.

Her foot struck something, and somehow lodged itself under it. Her ankle twisted, and she fell forward with a startled gasp. Pain shot up her right leg, as K fell forward with a shriek, and landed heavily on the mud. All the junk she had been carrying flew out of her grasp, and fell majestically around--and on her, sending sharp painstaking where they hit.

K felt like her eyes prickle, and liquid blur her vision. She was miserable, and felt like crying. She had never worked herself so hard before. Her feet, arms, and back ached. Even her bones hurt! And the mud and filth covering her and smothering her face only made it worse. She lay unmoving for a while, in an attempt to let her muscles relax. But they remained tense. She decided then, that if she ever made it out of the forest alive, she would demand 500 dollars more, and an extra happy meal from the sleepover girls.

She checked if her ankle was broken, or too damaged, by twisting it around. Thankfully, her ankle was fine; but she might have torn or twisted a muscle.

K sighed unhappily, deciding that she couldn't rot in the mud forever, as much as she wanted to ("cuz of them damn sharks" she grumbled venomously). She lifted her head, craning her neck around to look at what she had tripped over.

The displeased look on her face immediately disappeared, when she saw that it was a water bottle! Clean, uncontaminated water! Her tongue and mouth were as dry and rough as sandpaper, and her throat burned. She immediately snatched up the bottle, and without thinking twice, emptied the contents down her throat. Her throat remained dry. The water wasn't enough, but it was something.

*

At around afternoon, when the sun was directly above her head, K left the clearing with the mud fairly smoothed down, and a 'HELP 'spelled out on it with fabric--large enough to be seen by someone with remarkable eyesight from a helicopter.

K left the clearing incredibly exhausted--more exhausted than she'd ever been. But she was proud of herself for completing such a feat. She had found a new limit to how much she could do; a limit that surprised her.