Arranged...WHAT?!

Chapter 8-Emergency Kit

Chapter 8 (not edited!)

Cody’s POV:

Groaning I push up with my right arm trying to move my body out of its stiff position. My left arm hits a rough bumpy surface, and a jolt of pain shoots through it. What the heck is happening? What room am I in? What the heck is with my whole body aching like there’s no tomorrow.

Using my right arm to hold my left to make sure it’s not jostled too much, I roll over onto my back. It looks like I’m in some kind of cave. RANDOM ALERT! I groan again, my whole body aches like it’s been poked with needles and then shoved through a tornado.

Another jab of pain shoots through my body, but this time it comes from my right ankle.

I ignore it because for now, there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I let my head fall to the left even though my stiff neck protest’s, and I look out at where the light is coming from. When I see the clear sky, and snow covered mountains everything from last night rushes back, and with it comes a headache that could kill a small kid.

I groan again, but not from pain, agony, depression, helplessness, no I’m groaning because of stupidity. My own stupidity. “I’m so stupid. I KNOW that you’re not supposed to climb alone, and if you do, you’re supposed to tell people where you’re going and when to expect you back, but NO! Stupid me, thought that I could just go for a nice climb, nothing would go wrong, I’d go back home with a refreshed mind and could face my parents level-headed and have a rational conversation with them about how retarded and dense they’re being about arranging me a marriage, but no, I have to get bloody stuck up in the frigging mountains with a sprained ankle and a laceration on my upper left arm, from that stupid pick ax. I don’t have a phone, I don’t have proper clothes- heck I should be happy I didn’t freeze to death last night. Oi, it’s gonna be friggin hell getting down from here.”

That whole thing was dripped in heavy sarcasm, but can you really blame me? I mean I’m stuck on one of the highest mountains in the united states, with no supplies, I have a right to be pissed with myself. Oh and don’t go thinking I’m crazy for talking to myself either, it’s perfectly normal, thousands of people do it all the time.

Back to the situation at hand now.  I flip onto my stomach and half crawl, half pull myself to the edge of the cave, being careful not to hit my head on the low ceiling.

Wow, that’s one steep drop. I’m a rough eight hundred feet up, but I could be twenty feet up and it wouldn’t matter if I can’t do something with this ankle. Going back inside I look around and explore my compact shelter.

I see something in the far corner, that I didn’t notice earlier. Once again using the crawl/pull move, I get myself to where the strange object is.

It’s an old emergency climber’s pack. A really old one, probably was made forty or so years ago, but it’s better than what I’ve got right now, so I flip it over so I can get inside.

On the front it says EMERGENCY, and has a red cross on the front. It’s faded, but still stands out against the dull brown fabric of the pack. I unlatch the top of the pack, and inside are food preserves. Just packets of macaroni and cheese that you pour a little water on, and heat up with a fire and pan, which is kind of useless without the water, fire, or pan, so that doesn’t really happy.

Digging inside the pack again, I laugh at my stupidity again, because why on earth would someone be dumb enough to put in the mac and cheese, but not the stuff to make it. From inside the pack I pulled out some fire wood, matches, small tin pan, and –thank the Lord- water.

First thing I did was grab the water bottle and chug it down. The next thing I did was get a small fire started with the pan sitting above it, using a wire hook.