Hi there. The name's Andrew and I feel as though I could pass out at any second right about now. I've been walking for the past 6 hours, my arms are cramped, my hands and feet have frostbite for certain, and my left leg is bleeding. Not to mention I'm carrying a teenage girl on my shoulders right now. As an immature 12-year-old boy, I always pictured scenarios in which a girl would be in trouble... so I would instantly jump in to save her. Maybe I would picture one scenario where a girl is about to get kidnapped... but I kick the bad guy's butt like karate kid. The girl would probably be in tears and jump toward me for a hug. Then, like a knight in shining armor, I would carry her on my shoulders away to safety.
Well jee, I never imagined I would ACTUALLY be carrying a girl on my shoulders though. This is the kind of thing that only happens in the world of fantasy. The world that's meant to be unrealistic and likely not meant to happen. That's what imagination is.
Anyways, the cute girl being on my shoulders part came true... but the rest is a lie. Just an illusion. The situation I'm in right now has nothing to do with me being a hero.
You see, the name Andrew means "Strong and Manly" in Greek. Ha, well that couldn't be any further from the truth. I'm the exact opposite of what my name means. I'm just a short, weak, and scrawny 12-year-old kid. I'm someone who looks more like a side character rather than the main character. Actually no. I'm not even a side character. Maybe a bush? Oh I know, I'm a twig laying on the floor next to the main character. That's what I am.
Anyway, now that you know a little of who I am, you must be wondering why and how exactly I got myself in a situation where a girl came to be on my shoulders. The answer's simple. It all started with a simple vacation in the snowy rocky mountains with my family and our friends the Smiths.
Every year since I could remember, our family and the Smiths family always went on vacation to the rocky mountains during the winter. I guess you could call it a tradition? The Smiths were our family's friends since I was at least 9 I think? The smiths were really nice people. There was Emelia Smith, Richard Smith, and their pretty 15-year-old daughter Audrey Smith. Just like the Smiths, there are only three members in my family. My mom, Rebecca Thompson, my dad Scott Thompson, and me... Andrew Thomspon.
Our vacation was going naturally just like it always had. We met up with the Smiths at the entrance of the huge cabin we always rented. Despite the cabin being on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, having no wifi, and the cabin often having a musty old scent, I rather enjoyed the place.
Audrey is a nice girl I guess. But she's always had a mind of her own. She's 3 years older than me and super feisty. She's like fire to me and I'm just water. Audrey has always been a lot cooler than me and rarely speaks or shows many emotions. That didn't stop me from getting along with her though. After so long of knowing her, we got really used to each other, and I came to realize that she's just the way she is naturally. It's nothing personal. When we first met I was 9 and she was only 12... but I swear the look she gave me seemed like she could light me on fire if she wanted. I was terrified of her at first... but as I said, I eventually came to terms with her normal attitude. In fact, I could even say I had a crush on this girl a bit. She was so much better than me in so many ways. In old English, Audrey means " Noble strength". Wow, she suited her name well and I knew that she was a beautiful flame compared to a lowly nobody like me. Her wavy red hair, soft green eyes, and cute serious face were so mesmerizing.
It only took a few hours for Audrey and me to become bored at the cabin while our parents talked in the 30-year-old kitchen downstairs. We were mostly bored because of the lack of wifi so we couldn't use our phones.
" Hey...um Audrey?" I softly knocked at Audrey's room before opening it slowly.
" Wanna do something? I'm pretty bored and all..." I shyly asked if Audrey wanted to hang out as I scanned the room for her. When I said I was bored I immediately saw her redhead pop up from under the bed.
" W..what are you doing under there Audrey?"
" Oh, it's just you. I was under the bed trying to see if I could plug my phone charger there."
" Ah, ok. Um so wanna hang?" I tilted my head to the right and smiled.
Audrey scanned me from the up and down before giving one of her bored shrugs. " Sure why not. There's nothing to do in this crappy place anyway."
" Yay, cool ok. Wanna go outside and explore the woods? We can check out that view of the huge cliff again like last winter."
Last winter Audrey and I had explored outside and found a hidden cliff that was super high up but had an amazing view of the entire side mountain.
" K, why not. Let's go ask our parents first. We can't let your parents or Emelia and dad know about the cliff though." Audrey stood up and grabbed her thick purple coat along with her other things such as black gloves, boots, scarf, and hat.
" Um...y..yeah ok sure." For some reason, Audrey had never called her mom, "mom". She always called her Emilia. I think this was because she's never gotten along with her mom. I'm not sure why though...her mom was super nice.
" Let's go." Audrey jogged out of the room and I followed her downstairs to the kitchen. I waited outside the old white doors though and let her do the talking. It took a minute but she eventually walked out and said: " Alright let's go now." She didn't seem too excited since spending time out in the freezing air probably wasn't what she had planned for the afternoon.
" Ok."
Before I finished putting my heavy green coat on, I turned around and caught glimpse of our parents in the kitchen. For some strange reason, a feeling of sadness hit me as I watched our parents laugh while sipping tea. It was like... it would be the last time I see them...
I quickly shook the thought out of my head and pushed my annoying blonde hair out of my eyes before rushing out the door behind Audrey who had already started walking through the thick birch and pine trees.
" Ugh, this all sucks." Audrey rolled her eyes and stayed silent for the whole time we walked to the cliff.
I was a bit nervous being out alone with Audrey since I didn't know what to talk about. The things I liked weren't the things she usually liked. By the time we got there, I looked around in amazement.
" Audrey it looks the same as we left it right!? Isn't the view amazing?" I looked around impressed but she wasn't impressed. The only thing on her mind was the unfinished Netflix show she had been watching before we reached the cabin.
" Tsk, I can't believe this." Audrey crossed her arms over her chest and took a step forward.
" Hey, what are you doing?" I nervously asked her as I took a step forward myself.
Audrey turned to look at me surprised until she smirked and rolled her eyes. " Pussy cat."
" Audrey, do you realize how high up we are? A drop like that could be hard to survive..." My heart began to race as I took another step toward her when she only kept moving back.
" Loosen up a little Andrew. Jeez." Audrey was only a few inches away from the tip of the cliff as she smirked again. Slowly she bent down and picked up a small rock so she could through it down the cliff.
" Audrey I'm serious. This isn't funny." When I said this, my voice cracked a little and she noticed how fearful I truly was. With this, she sighed and shrugged before walking towards me again.
" Pff, gosh Andrew what's wrong with you? I'm fine so just chill out." Audrey gave out a heavy sigh and stopped when she heard a crack noise.
She looked downwards and whispered out " Andrew. Did you hear that just now?" I didn't believe her prank until her tone of voice sounded nearly fearful for a second.
" Audrey, come here quick."
I quickly held out my gloved black hand as she walked forward before hearing the crack again. This time she gave out a little yelp and fell on her knees.
"A..Andrew!"
" Audrey!"
When I yelled, the crack noise turned into a mini-explosion as the ground below her broke and she fell downwards. Some snow flew into my eyes as I squinted in confusion, shock, and fear. Without a second thought, I blindingly rushed forward in hopes to save her.
.
.
.
" Aaaah!!!" Our loud screams were in total sync as I grabbed her gloved hand before she completely fell.
" N..no Audrey!" I too was slipping from the cliff as I stared into her terrified green eyes. Was this how it would all end? I could feel the strain of my wrist being pulled by her hand and the bottom half of my body sliding downward because of the slippery snow.
Audrey was so scared she could only whisper out the words, " Andrew please...help."
With that... we instantly both fell from the cliff.
.
.
.
*ONE HOUR LATER*
" My..leg..." I whispered in a hushed weak tone as I opened my eyes slowly. I could see the view of the entire cliff I and Audrey had just fallen from. I was almost at the very bottom...but part of a tree had caught me and Audrey from certain death. I looked around with blurry vision in absolute confusion. I was trying to remember what had fully just happened until I felt the pain in my left leg.
It was bleeding. It wasn't broken or anything but it had for sure been stabbed by a stick when we hit the tree. The cut was at least a pencil wide and pretty deep. It hurt. Like really bad. My mind immediately drifted back to an old memory that happened years back. There was this one time in 3rd grade when I fell from the swings cuz I was swinging too high up. when I landed, I hit a sharp rock that burrowed into my arm. The pain I was feeling right now felt very similar to that time but even worse.
The rest of me seemed ok enough. I for sure had many cuts on my face, a lot of my clothing was torn to shreds, and I had a lot of bruises... well at least nothing was broken. What about Audrey though? Was she ok? Was she even alive?
I turned my body in Audrey's direction as I yelped in pain when the stick that was stuck in my leg came out slowly.
" Aaah! It...it hurts!!.." I winced hard and looked at Audrey's condition. She seemed ok on the outside. Although she was bleeding from her nose, head, her clothes were also shredded in parts, and she had so many cuts on her hands. However, her arm seemed to be bleeding ALOT.
" Oh my god... did she break it?" I wondered that and tried climbing a bit towards her.
" A..Audrey...please...don't die..."
Let's just say that reaching out for Audrey in a tree where both of us were badly hurt... was a bad idea. Because I was moving so much, the tree swayed back and forth causing her and me to fall out.
" Aah! Ouch!" Audrey and I hit the cold snowy floor that had been below us.
The only good thing now was I could crawl over to her and see if her heart was still beating. Slowly but surely I made my way to her and checked her heart rate with my shaking cold hand.
"...." My face lit up a bit as I felt her heartbeat slowly.
" Alive... S.. she's.. alive" I thought.
.
.
.
* 20 min later*
I gave out a loud cough and noticed blood came out when I did so.
" C..crap...Mom...dad..." I felt like crying but I was so tired and hurt that I didn't have enough strength. The only thing I could do was think about how to survive this and get back to civilization. Our parents didn't know about this cliff and we also can't go back up the cliff. The only way we can go is straight ahead. I think if we were to go straight ahead, we could make it to the ski resort they have not far away from the cabin. Well... not far away wasn't very true.
The ski resort would take us at least two days to reach by foot and with our injuries, I was willing to bet more like 3 days. If we tried to waste our time finding a way around the cliff or climb up that monster it would take us longer believe it or not.
There was only one way.
I looked up ahead of me and my heart sank as I saw nothing but deep snow, woods, and wild ahead.
" I'm terrified," I thought. " But this is the only way to live..."
Glancing back at Audrey, I decided to tear a few of our clothes to cover our wounds a bit. First I tore some of my white shirt from underneath my thick green coat that was luckily still intact and useful. Bandaging my leg was extremely painful. I had never experienced anything like that. It was as though someone was slowly plunging a knife into my skin. I just wanted the pain to end.
Next, I crawled over to Audrey who was still unconscious. Slowly I lifted her thick purple jacket and saw a yellow shirt underneath. She seemed to have three layers so I just tore off a bit of the yellow shirt. It took a while because my shirt was easier to rip after putting effort into it. Hers was much more difficult. I even had to use my teeth to tear it.
Once I was fully finished I sighed and took a moment to breathe and even laid down as I stared into the cloudy gray sky that had small snowflakes dropping from it.
" I...I wonder if the parents have tried calling for us right about now..." I closed my eyes and winced as I still felt the horrid pain of my left leg. My jeans were soaking wet because of the snow, so the cold on the wound made things even worse.
With my eyes closed, I unconsciously reached for Audrey's bleedy hand and held it tight. It was just us in the middle of nowhere. We were badly injured, no one knew our location, and it was freezing cold. I had never felt so lonely at that moment. Holding Audrey's hand tight was the only thing I could do. The only thing I could do for myself and for her.
After a while, I slowly wobbled as I tried to stand using the old tall birch tree as support.
" T..there we go..." I mumbled under my breath as I kept wincing from the pain. The bruises I had also hurt very much.
" A..Audrey I'm sorry but I'm gonna m...move you now." I slowly went to her and after several tries, finally got her well-positioned on my scrawny 12-year-old shoulders. Believe it or not, Audrey was a bit older than me but she weighed hardly anything. She was a rather short 15-year-old... well even though she seemed so mature.
Before moving forward, I picked up a fallen birch branch and used it as support for me to walk with Audrey on my shoulders better.
" I...I... can do...this...right? We won't die...Audrey..." I tried taking deep breathes in but my chest hurt from even breathing in the frosty air.
Slowly trudging forward, I just stared ahead. The only thing waiting in front of Audrey and me was mile's worth of woods and snow.
It didn't take long before my eyes watered a bit from the pain I felt both mentally and physcally. I wanted desperately a chance to run straight into my parents' arms. That's the only thing I wanted as I walked straight forward through the freezing air.
" How did this...h...happen? I..I...don't wanna be here...mom...dad...anyone please...help us."
I was a naive idiot to even think about calling out for help. It was such a pointless thing to do.
Why you ask?
Because there isn't any help or mercy to be found in the wild... only pain.
.
.
.
As I would soon see.
Alrighty, you guys! I normally write anime fan fiction since that's more of my comfort zone...but I had a sudden urge and idea to write a survival storyyy!!!! ( And I know I knowww! I'm already working on like 3 fanfic stories but I can handle it! )
There might be a little romance too but I'm still thinking!
k you guys!!! See you soon!