I woke up the next morning to the smell of food. I got up and saw Grayson making some soup.
"Hey beautiful." Grayson said looking over at me.
"Hey." I got up and went over to the river and washed my face.
"Breakfast is ready." Grayson said, it honestly did not look appetizing at all.
"Breakfast for champions." I said sarcastically and we dug in. Oh it's not that bad. I guess bland soup even tastes good when you've been fasting for the last 20 hours.
After breakfast we put out the fire and put our stuff away and started walking again through the woods.
It was about midday and I heard thunder rumbling through the sky.
"Fuck. We ah e to find some type of shelter fast or we'll get sick." Grayson said looking up at the sky.
Just then I spotted a little cave on the edge of a hill a few yards away from us.
"Look theres a den. Let's go." We ran into the small caving right when the water started splattering down from the sky.
"Grayson, do you think we'll be safe." I said.
He stayed quiet.
"Are we ever going to make it back home?" I said, my voice cracking. Tears started flowing down my face and Grayson hugged me, kissing my forehead.
"It's gonna be okay." He said.
Suddenly I heard a little sound from my microphone. I took it out and pressed the button.
"Hello is anyone there?" I said but there was no reply. I waited and could here people talking but I couldn't make out what they were saying and the signal was cutting off.
"This is Sofia Jordan. I and Grayson Dolan are stranded in the California pacific forest. Please send help." I said those words into the microphone five times but there was no reply.
I sighed and put it back in the backpack finally giving up.
Grayson just sat there quietly saying nothing the whole time.
"Gray are you okay?" I asked.
"My leg is hurting so much more and I think it got infected." He showed me his thigh and sure enough an infection had formed around the wound. I tried looking for something through the backpack to deal with the infection but there was nothing other than some ointment.
"I guess we'll have to cover with this and pray someone finds us soon." I said rubbing the ointment on the infection.
I wasn't really the religious type but I had always believed in god no matter what and I knew in this moment he was watching over me all the time and would never let anything bad happen to me that I couldn't tolerate. I closed my eyes and made a small prayer.
Grayson suddenly shook my arm.
"Grayson in praying." I said.
"I think we have something bigger to deal with at the moment."
I opened my eyes and raised my eyebrow in confusion and then I heard someone stepping through the leaves and a stick crack less than 100 metres from us.
Grayson and I slowly stood up and I grabbed the gun and turned off the safety. I was the only one in the room, or the cave in this instance, that knew how to use a gun and I had to take advantage of that.
"Who is it?" Grayson said as he grabbed a fat stick from the ground and it turned out it wasn't someone but something.
Two bright eyes emerged out of the trees to be a wolf. My whole life I had thought wolves to be more furrier versions of dogs but boy was I wrong. This wolf was as tall as me and much longer and way too scary. I don't know how Red Riding Hood wasn't terrified.
"Fuck." Grayson whispered.
I looked up over the top and there were three more wolves on top of the caving and five wolves surrounding it.
"I think this cave was actually the wolves den." I said.
"Listen to me we're slowly going to back away from the den. Don't make any sudden movements." Grayson said to me.
We slowly walking backwards while Grayson kept his grip on the stick and I kept my gun pointing upwards ready to shoot if needed.
We got far enough away from the cave when I slipped in the mud and fell to the ground. The last of the wolves turned towards me and hissed. I tried jumping away forgetting about the no sudden movements rule and it pounced on me. Grayson pushed me out of the way and came in front of it, protecting me. The wolf slashed its paw at Grayson and it's sharp nails on Grayson's shoulder and ripped through his shirt. Grayson fell down from the pain and just when I knew the wolf was about to probably bite Grayson's neck off I pointed my gun at its neck and shot it three times.
It fell to the ground lifeless and I stood there still in shock. I snapped back into reality when I heard Grayson's screams.
"Shhh. It's gonna be okay. Let's get a. Further away from here." I said and Grayson nodded. clutching his shoulder in pain, we walked about half a kilometre further away and stopped at the edge of a stream. Grayson sat down on a rock giving up and I got some water in the bottle. I slowly removed his shirt revealing the cuts. There were three slash's on his left shoulder, they didn't look that deep but there was still blood seeping through.
"Here drink some water." I said giving him the water. I ripped his shirt apart and pressed it on the cuts to stop the blood bursting out.
"You didn't have to do that... you saved my life." I said to him. My vision got blurry with tears.
"I had to. Your my soulmate, my love and I'm your protector." He said.
I pressed my forehead against his and at that moment I had no hope. The love of my life was slowly going to die. There was no way he was surviving anymore. We both started crying from pain, exhaustion, and everything in between.
Please god do something.
Suddenly I heard a sound of a chopper.
I opened my eyes and shot my eyes upwards. A helicopter was heading in our direction.
"HELP OVER HERE!" Grayson and I yelled while waving our arms but the chopper started going right past us.
Do something Sofia.
I quickly gathered some wood and with my shaking hand lit a fire. Within seconds smoke started rising to the sky but it wasn't enough.
I grabbed the gun and faced it towards the sky and pulled the trigger. Boom.
We waited but there was nothing. I hugged Grayson and he held me tightly. I didn't know if this was the end or what. I clutched on to him fro dear life because he was all that was left keeping me going.
Suddenly I heard the helicopter flying over us.
A light shown down on us.
"This is the US Military. We are here for rescue." A soldier said in a speaker. They dropped a rope down and two soldiers came down.
"Come here." One of them said to me and I did so. He grabbed my waist with one hand on the rope. I wrapped my legs around him and we got pulled up to the chopper in the air with Grayson and the other soldier short after us.
They pulled us in and buckled us up.
"Are you hurt?" I shook my head and they asked the same to Grayson but he just showed them his bleeding shoulder.
The medics got to work on wrapping his shoulder and I looked out to the vast Californian forest below us.
Everything was finally going to be okay. I finally was going home.