Personal addition #10

Here is chapter 2. I think there will probably be a second part to this chapter as well. I'm really enjoying writing this story because I'm not entirely sure where I am going with it. So far I am just making it up as i go along. I have learnt that I really enjoy describing nature scenes. It comes easily because my family is very outdoorsy so i have been in a lot of the settings that i describe in my story. I hope this chapter isn't too boring. Enjoy.

Chapter 2

That night she dreamt of many large shadow creatures that were milling around her. For some reason she didn’t feel threatened by them, she only wished she could see what they were. She had a feeling that they could help her somehow. The ghostly shadows came closer and closer but just when she thought she would be able to touch one, a loud shrill noise, almost like a whistle made all the shadows retreat. She tried to follow but none of her limbs would move. Sadly she watched as all her guardians left and she was once more alone. The dream ended in pure darkness that was tainted with a choking sorrow.

She awoke around mid-afternoon by the position of the sun. He throat felt like someone had poured burning hot water down it. She whimpered in pain as she accidently jostled her broken arm. To her, it felt like she was already dead, but her stomach told her otherwise. It growled loudly, demanding food. She couldn’t even muster the energy to move out from under the pine tree, let alone go looking for something to eat. She wanted to scream! This situation was impossible. How was she supposed to survive when she was injured and had no idea where she was? She had seen some of those survival shows on tv but they usually took place in a jungle. That didn’t really help but she remembered that if the contestants got really hungry, they would eat the plants.

She looked at the pine needles that hung in front of her face, considering trying to eat them. She had never heard anyone say that you couldn’t eat pine needles, so she used her good hand to pluck a few off the branch closest to her. She put the small needles in her mouth and just let them sit on her tongue for a minute. They were bitter but seemed to hold a tiny bit of moisture so she sucked on them. When she could get no more moisture from them, she chewed them, which made the bitterness even worse, so she swallowed them quickly.

She repeated this several times until her thirst had lessened slightly. Her throat only burned slightly now and the short reprieve was like heaven to her. Now that her head was a little clearer she tried to take stock of all her injuries.

Her right arm was the worst. It was definitely broken and she needed to make a sling or a makeshift cast as soon as possible if she wanted it to ever heal. She also had her head wound to worry about. She felt around her head to see how bad it was exactly. From what she could tell it wasn’t too deep but it was very wide and very long. The cut went from just above her right eye all the way to the top of her head, where it was at its widest. Those two seemed to be the most urgent.

Other than that she just had some nasty little cuts and she was covered from head to toe in bruises. She would live if she could make sure to set her broken arm and to keep her head wound from getting infected. She was also a little nauseous, so she most likely had a concussion to top everything off.   She thought again back to some of the shows she had watched. One man had broken his leg in a challenge and his friends had used some long branches and a shirt to make a makeshift cast.

So she started with her broken arm. She looked about for two sturdy branches and then for some cloth to bind her arm. The branches were easy enough to find but the cloth was another story all together. All she had on was a torn T-shirt, a pair of denim shorts and her bathing suit. She had no idea why she was dressed like this or if these were even her own clothes, because she was usually against showing so much skin, but this was all she had to work with. She managed to rip the bottom of her T-shirt off with some difficulty and though it was small it would have to work.

She put her arm on the ground and in a second of brave madness, pulled her hand so that her forearm was straight like it should be. She screamed in excruciating pain and nearly blacked out but she managed to get the branches secured firmly against her arm with the T-shirt. She panted heavily as tears streamed down her face and her arm throbbed incessantly. At least that was over and done with. Now for her head wound.

The only thing she could think of doing was to try and clean out any dirt or debris that had become lodged in the wound. She ripped off another small piece of her ever shrinking shirt and used that to wipe the wound clean. It hurt almost as badly as realigning her bone because the wound was caked in sand. She continued to wipe the wound until she could feel almost no sand at all, left in it.

Through with tending to her major wounds, she collapsed against the sticky, spiked trunk of the pine tree and just took some deep breaths. Once she had calmed down a little, she chewed some more pine needles and seeing it was early evening, settled down to try and sleep.