Scrounging For Food

      Hours have passed since I saw Riley and who knows who dancing in each other`s arms.  I couldn`t stand the girl resting her head on his strong tanned shoulder, so I ended that dream as soon as possible.  I remind myself that it was all just a dream, a horrible nightmare really, and I fall back to sleep.

     I hear the all too familiar vicious squawk of the Fast Kill, and it`s really close to me!  No, it`s…it`s attacking me!  The bird stabs me repeatedly, sending unbearable pain throughout my body.  My hands fly for my neck as fast as they can.  The birds fly around me, and some even dare to drink my precious blood before the victor even has a chance to finish me off.

     Their stabs feel worse than the panther`s claws shredding my skin.  I bolt my eyelids together, and wait to bleed to death.  Then I come to my senses, “Cat!  Cat help!”  I cry out wondering why she wouldn`t help me.

     I open my eyes in her direction.  There she is lying, without an ounce of life left in her.  Her body is deflated, and covered in reeking green ooze.   Her eyes look like light blue prunes with small holes in the center.

     “Cat!”  I scream, and I am crying once again.  I close my eyes, and open them to find that everything is gone.  The birds have flown away, Cat`s body has vanished, there aren`t even any trees or grass or cool breeze.  There`s nothing left.

     I open my eyes and feel myself being shaken from the gruesome dream.  But who or more like what is shaking me?  On instinct, I jerk myself up violently.

     “It`s okay.  You scared all the animals away.  Nothing will hurt you.”  Cat soothes me.  This is when I realize that it was her icy hands shaking me.

     “Sorry for waking you.”

     “No, I`m glad you could,” she answers.

      Could?  What does that mean?  Oh right, I was given a time frame in which to live.  Guess I`m still alive though.

     “Well, goodnight,” Cat says drearily and rolls on her side.

     I look at Cat, who, surprisingly, is already safe in her dreams.  I`m left alone to bare the memories of my past nightmares.  My focus is on my most recent dream.  I am more afraid of seeing Cat die than I am of dying myself.  She`s my sister, so how could life go on without her?

     I close my eyes to try to catch a few z`s, but Cat`s face haunts me.  Her eyes read utter pain in every aspect of them.  Her eyebrows, knitted together, ask me why I didn`t help her.  Those little lips pressed together in the bravery that only comes right before death.  All this I see in the moment that I have my

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eyes closed.  I shake the image out of my head, and stare up at the trees.

     Cat`s image won`t leave me in the hours that tick ever so slowly by.  Every time I think about Riley or Mariah, there she is.  Tieson has her face, when I direct my thoughts toward him.  Even when I try to clear my mind, there she is, asking the same question.

     The crack of dawn brings me a slight bit of relief.  The night has passed, and the images are fading with it.  Today the sun hurries both the darkness and the horrors away.  The beginning of the new day brings the pangs of my famished stomach.

     That’s where the lion was coming from, I joke with myself.  I reach for my backpack for something to eat.  Nothing!  I take everything out of the backpack, and shake Cat`s clothes out.  Not even the remnant of a nut!  I feel my pants, and turn my pockets inside out.  Zilch!  The food ran out much quicker than I had thought.

     I decide to listen to my stomach`s song, and just rest here until Cat wakes up.  I really don`t want to eat anything poisonous, and I don`t want to scare Cat by being gone when she wakes up.  I lie back down, and count the seconds that my stomach isn`t growling.  So far I`ve gotten up to two!  The minutes feel like hours, or even days; and my stomach now reminds me of the panther`s growl!  They both have the same deep rumbling sound.

     Lying there is just not working.  I sit up so that I can wash my blood stained foot in the river.  It takes so much effort getting up, that I know that walking will be quite a chore.  I limp to the river, trying to steady myself on the broad trees.  “Food” is the only thing running through my head.  I dream about rabbits crossing my path, and the fine breakfast they would make.  The closer I get to the river, I dream about fish swimming up to my ankles, begging to be caught.  The river really isn`t that far away, it just takes a long time hobbling over there, because I`m a wounded gazelle.

     “Fried fish,” I say, letting my mouth water.

     I finally reach the river, and sit down on a rock next to the water.  “Ug!”  I jump up, and examine my wet butt.  “Ah, what harm can a little water do?”  I ask, sitting back down.  Technically my butt is drenched, but now that it is, it can`t get any wetter if I sit there, so I do so.

     I take off my shoes, and peel the blood-crusted sock off my leg.  Then I take off the other sock, and lay both of them on the ground.  I let the socks dangle in the water.  Rocks, lying on top of them, keep them from floating away.

     I dip my sore feet in the cool rushing water.  The water tickles my feet as it flows around them.  It feels so good, that I drop my feet another inch in the water.

     “Ow!”  I jerk my foot out of the water, and hold my hand around the now stinging wound.  Bacteria infested water, and open wounds don`t mix!  As I stare at my wound, I can`t help thinking that it looks

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like a shark bit me.  Yeah, it`s that nasty!

     My soaking pant leg clings to the wound, making it feel like it is on fire!  I gather my socks and shoes, and head back to camp with no game, no fish, and completely famished.

     As I limp, I kick up dirt that covers my wet feet, and now my wound.  What is it, trying to infect my ankle?  At the least, it must be trying to kill me from the excruciating pain.

     I arrive at a disheveled campsite.  Everything is thrown around, with order nowhere in sight.  Now there`s no food…no order…and no…CAT!

     “Blade…Blade where are you?”  Cat yells.  I can hear the fear in her voice, as she yells this out every few seconds.

     “Cat, are you okay?”  I counter.

        I run in her direction, stepping on thorns, and prickles, and who knows what else.  I push that out of my mind, though, and focus on finding Cat.  I yell her name louder and louder, as my head darts from side to side, searching for my dear Catara.

     I catch a glimpse of something…or someone running away from me.

     “Cat!”

     She freezes, and then we run towards each other.  I sweep her in my arms, and folder her in a bear hug.  “I`m sorry for leaving you.  I had gone down to the river,” I explain.

     “That`s okay,” she says between sobs.

     “Why are the supplies scattered around the campsite?”

     “I was hungry, and I didn`t find any food, so I was afraid that you ate something poisonous.”  The tears pick up as she tells her story.

     “Don`t cry, Cat.”

     “I was afraid I had lost my sister.  I looked everywhere for a body, and when I didn`t find one, all I could think was that you ate the Sleeping Rattler.”

     “Hey, I`m here.  I`m okay.  You didn`t find anything edible, though, did you?”  I ask trying to soften the mood.

     She shakes her head, “I`m sorry I came on this journey.”

     “What!  Why, what`s wrong?”

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“If I hadn`t come you would still have food.”

     “Whoa…whoa…whoa!  I really don`t care about missing a meal.  I like getting to know you, I like having a sister, and I like living.  These things wouldn`t have happened if you hadn`t joined me.”

     Cat smiles at me, and I know that everything is just right now.  We walk to the camp with our arms around each other, and then we set the place aright.  The blanket and the clothes are the last things to be stuffed in my backpack, and we both slip our knives between our bodies and something else.  For Cat, it is her flask string, and for me, my brown cowgirl belt.  I wrap my leg in the infamous gauze and scope out the area for any signs of hidden objects.  This is a no item left behind journey, so once I am sure that the last object is enjoying the elbow bumping room in my backpack, we continue our long hike upward.

     The emptiness takes its toll on both of us, but mainly me.  We walk much slower than I would like to, but I`m the one who`s lagging twenty feet behind Cat.  There is a tight pain just below my chest, and all I want is something to calm my lion.  We scan the trees, and below them for something…anything edible to eat.  Noon comes and goes with no luck of finding an ounce of food.  The hours tick by slowly, and supper approaches with still no sign of food.

     “We should have saved the crazy bunny`s or the panther`s meat.”  I finally speak what was on my mind for the past hour or so.      

     “I`d give anything to eat that Fast Kill.”  Cat answers.

     We plop down on the ground, not even bothering to set up camp.  I find the pot and hand it to Cat.  Them I start collecting firewood for cooking our drasoral.  She fills the pot with dirt, and as she is doing this, she comes across some worms.  I am coming back with an armload of wood, and look down at her “treasure.”

     “We need some protein,” I say gagging on my own words.  I feel like puking now and possibly after supper.  I force myself to build the fire.  I feel like I was building my own fire for the stake, and fanning it myself. 

     In half an hour, Cat is half-way through boiling the dirt, and its inhabitants.  The smells, no matter how reeking, make me even more hungry.  I can almost taste it, mushy worms and guts mixed with dirt!  My favorite!  It is better than nothing though, I think.

     When the drasoral, which is really soup this time, has finished boiling, we divide it evenly.  I grab a spoonful of dirt, and force it down my throat.  It tastes delicious!  I think I may have even eaten a head in that bite.  I have to force myself to keep the food down.  The sliminess doesn`t go well with me. 

     “Still taste like cheesecake?”  Cat asks.

     “What?”  I am totally confused.

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“Last time you said it tasted like cheesecake.”

     “Last time I wasn`t thinking, it`s nothing like cheese cake!”

     I`m about to eat my second bite of disgustingness, when the leaves in the bush beside me start to shake lightly.  Cat and I jump to our feet, leaving the bowls behind and gripping our knives in our hands.

     “Rattlesnake?”  I ask Cat.

     “Can`t tell.”

     In that moment, a fluffy white bunny hops out from behind the bush.  Cat backs up and holds her shoulder, right where she had been clawed.  The bunny startles me too, but I quickly get over it, not willing to let him go.  I throw my knife at him, and hit him right in his little chest.  I feel bad for killing a baby, but then look to the bright side: we have a real supper!

     I grab my drasoral soup and pour it out, the mud runs down the plate making a gooey mess.  Cat does the exact same thing, and takes the pot, spoons, and plates to the river to wash them.  Meanwhile, I skin the bunny, making sure that I keep as much meat on as possible.  I take out the heart, liver, intestine, and other stuff that I would die if I ate.   In another hour, the fire is roaring, and our bunny is nice and crispy.

     We save half of the bunny for breakfast, but feast on the rest.  The bunny is crispier than I had thought, and it`s on the verge of getting too hard, but I chew the meat thoroughly, so that`s not a problem.  I savor every bit of food.  It burns my tongue, and scorches my throat, but it fills my pleas for food.  Now I won`t lose my supper.

     After the half of the bunny is completely vanished, it is so tempting to eat the other half.  To get the tempting smells away from us, I wrap it in the cleanest shirt that we can find.  Even the cleanest shirt has mud and bacteria covering it, but I wrap it up anyway.

     Then we lie down and watch the dancing flames.  The fire licks up the wood, and when the wood falls into the flames, sparks fly up like magic.  I fall asleep listening to the crackling fire.