What Lasts in Us

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Alive, alive, alive. I'm still breathing. I'm alive, and I'm breathing. These are the words I wake up to. I'm groggy and so out of it. My body's sore, my head pounds.

I open my eyes and sit up, only to hit my head on something. It takes me a moment to realise where I am: in the boot of a 4WD. Alone. It looks to be mid-morning, late morning – or hell, maybe early afternoon.

My brain feels like it's full of cobwebs. I shake my head, but that only helps to make the pounding worse.

The blanket lies at my feet where I kicked it off during the night, against the window by the rear door. Beside me is another blanket, looking to have been thrown off when someone got up and left. My pack lies undisturbed against the boot, as does Nate's. But his rifle's not, and he's not here either.

Moving is torture. My head hurts, my body aches, and my neck is stiff – I can only look at something when I move my entire body. And when I touch my throat, even just lightly, it stings. My eyes water, and even swallowing turns out to be difficult. A memory – vague, hazy – comes to mind, but I can't grab hold of it. I remember hands on me, I remember pressure.

Sore and stiff, I slowly climb out of the car. When I find my feet, I lean against the door and take in my surroundings. Again I'm in a forest. Different to the one I'd been in last night? as the trees here are taller, wider, and spaced further apart. The ground is more uneven and littered with dead leaves. The sky above is bright blue, but the sunlight only breaks through some of the foliage and the ground below is dappled.

Leaves fall all around me, some already making the transition to Fall. They fall like confetti in different shades of green and gold and orange.

I take one, maybe two steps away from the car to find that the area's been rigged with traps. Hooked up to run between four trees, pots are tied to the rope; another has glass bottles tied together by their necks. There's even one rigged with what looks to be bones.

Which means Nate must be nearby. Or out hunting. Either way, he's left me in such a position that I won't get caught unawares while he's gone.

I approach the closest trap and duck beneath it, the bottles rattling slightly as my back grazes the rope. But as I right myself, I hear the distant splash of water in the opposite direction. I curse because that means I have to either duck back under the trap or walk around them.

I can't be bothered with either. But I duck back under the rope, move as fast as my aching body allows around the 4WD, and then duck under the trap that consists of the pots. This time I get caught, and it takes me a good five minutes to untangle myself. The pots rattle and clang against one another like musical instruments, and I hope it doesn't make Nate come running over here for no reason.

My jacket is riddled with holes, and I pull it tighter around me as I make my way in the direction of where I think I heard the splash of water. The uneven ground slopes downward here. I hang onto the trees as I propel myself forward, slipping and sliding and grabbing the trunks at the last minute before I lose my footing completely.

There's another splash, closer this time, but off to my right. I change course and move in that direction, conscious of my movements, of my stiff neck, my aching body, my throbbing ankle which is protesting every single step I take.

And then – I'm blind. I stumble and almost lose my footing. My already injured ankle twists under me, and it takes everything not to collapse to the ground and grab my ankle like Peter Griffin and go "AAARRRRGGGGHHHH".

The source of my blindness is the river ahead. The sunlight dances across its surface, the water reflecting the light right into my eyes.

As I limp forward, moving on an angle so the sunlight doesn't continue to blind me, I move closer to the water's edge. I take in the sight before me, the beauty of the river, the lush green grass that runs close to the water; the few trees that overhang, the branches and leaves that dance and move in time to the river's touch, the – I spot Nate's rifle and someone else's rifle propped against a tree, and spread out on the ground nearby are his clothes.