While Lynn tended to the fire, Emily removed her shoes and stuck the tip of her foot into the creek. She found that the water was way too cold to bathe in, which meant that she would have to sleep in her dirty clothes. As someone who prided herself on always being clean, that was a tough pill to swallow. She turned to face her friend.
“It looks like we won’t be taking any baths tonight, the water is much too cold,” she complained.
"Yeah, I can't say I'm surprised. Our best option would be to take sponge baths, but that's a little difficult without something to wash ourselves with."
"Couldn't we use our clothes?"
"I suppose we could, but I'm not sure how they would fare after being exposed to the cold water."
"So... Basically, what you're saying is, no bathing for the foreseeable future?"
"Not unless you want to brave the cold water, no. Even if you were stubborn," 'Or stupid' she thought to herself, before she added, "enough to do so, then you would still need to worry about hypothermia or catching a fever."
"Aww..." Emily whined.
"More importantly, we need to figure out how we're going to procure food." Lynn said.
"Do you have any ideas?"
"Nothing concrete, no... I didn't recognize any of the berries or nuts that we passed. So our best bet is probably going to be catching fish or hunting game."
"I don't suppose you know how to hunt?
"Unfortunately I don't, or I just don't remember."
"So... Fish?"
"Or insects."
"Ew, no, gross!" Emily exclaimed with disgust.
"You say that now, but if we can't find any other source of food, then we might have no choice."
"Let's forget insects for now. What about fish?" Emily asked.
"I know how to fish, I think. But we'd need a fishing rod, and we'd also need bait. It might be a better idea to follow the creek downhill and try to find some form of civilization."
"I like that idea the most. At least for now."
"It's settled then. We'll follow the creek downhill until we're forced to seek out food or we find some form of settlement." Lynn said, their plans finalized.
Their discussion brought another matter to the forefront of Lynn's mind. She didn’t recognize any of the flora and hadn’t seen any fauna on their trek through the forest. On one hand, maybe she never had any knowledge about that stuff before losing her memory. But if that were the case; then why could she start a fire and why did she know how to fish? It stood to reason that she must have done something in her life that would have taught her those skills. She knew that had to be the case because Emily seemed to be almost entirely clueless when it came to surviving in the wilderness. Going by that line of reasoning, it was odd that she had no clue what was and wasn’t safe to eat and even more strange that she couldn't recognize any of the plants.
Lynn posed a question to the other girl. “Did you recognize any of the flora on our way here?”
“Mmm, what do you mean by flora?” Emily asked in turn.
Lynn replied, her gaze locked on an odd-looking tree. “Ah, I’m talking about the plants, flowers, that sort of thing.”
Her friend spun in a lazy circle, taking in the flora for the first time. “Actually, no… I don’t recognize any of these plants, or even the trees. I didn’t notice it before, because I was more focused on finding water, but…” She trailed off.
The taller of the two nodded, then said, “If it were just me, then we could blame it on my memory loss, but for you to not recognize anything either. It’s weird.”
The two girls were interrupted from their conversation by a loud, piercing screech. Seconds later that screech was followed by another and soon enough the air was filled with a grating cacophony of deafening screeches. Worse still, the screeches were getting closer to where the two girls stood. Emily wondered to herself if whatever creatures were making such an unholy racket might be the cause for the abnormal absence of wildlife, but her mind was too struck by fear to voice those suspicions. Her eyes honed in on her friend as the other girl came to stand by her side, the latter’s presence helping to embolden her.
Lynn walked over to stand beside Emily. She didn’t know the source of the noise, but judging by how grating the creature’s voice was, she could guess that it was nothing good. Neither of them had anything that could be used as a weapon, so their only real options were to hide or flee. Well, the first half of that statement wasn’t technically true. The stone shard sitting next to the smoldering campfire entered her mind, but she couldn’t really count on it for mounting an effective defense. Now that her life was at risk, she wished that she had thought of fashioning a spear or some other weapon. But unfortunately she hadn't, so she was stuck with the cards that were on the table.
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Emily didn't make any attempt to try and hide the fear in her voice. “W-What do we do? The sound of those creatures keeps getting closer!”
In response, Lynn walked over to pick up the stone shard. Then turned to face her friend before giving her reply, “We…” She swallowed, unsure of what to do in such a dangerous situation. “We need to cross the creek. That should hide our scent… I think.”
The other girl looked at her friend in disbelief and asked, “You think? The water is freezing!”
Her skepticism is met with a frown, and Lynn replied, “I’ve never been in a situation like this before!” ‘That I can remember…’ She thought to herself, before she added, “We either brave the creek and hope that it masks our scent or we try to run and pray that we’re not followed. Either way, it’s going to suck.”
Emily felt guilty for taking out her fear on her friend. “I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that.” She sighed. “You were just speaking the truth. I'm just scared. Plus, I'm not sure if we'd even survive trying to cross the water.”
The two girls were interrupted once again by a pack of three small, hunched grey creatures as they bursted out from the cover of the trees. They all had four legs and two arms, along with wicked-looking teeth and short, razor-sharp claws. Clutched in what served as the creatures’ hands were a mishmash of crudely made shields and blades. None of the blades were in good condition, with most of them being covered in rust and what appeared to be dried blood. Upon catching sight of the two defenseless girls, one of the creatures screeched, most likely calling for more of their kind.
Emily caught sight of the monster first, the terrifying sight caused her heart to skip a beat. She pointed at the new arrivals and shouted to her friend, “Behind you!”
Having already heard the screech, Lynn had already turned around. What she saw terrified her, but she knew that she had to get back to Emily so that the two of them could make a run for it. She slowly backpedaled until she was standing just in front of her friend, trying to stay as non-threatening as possible to not invite harm upon herself or Emily.
Regz was unfathomably surprised to find two undefended human females alone in the woods. They didn’t have any weapons or guards, from what the Skrak could tell, and that was extremely rare for humans. Even though they were both defenseless, Regz hesitated. This is because the last time the tribe had gone after defenseless humans, the tribe had been invaded in retaliation and they suffered massive casualties. Now, being a Skrak, Regz wasn’t all that intelligent. All he knew was that anything that involved humans was bad. Still, the tribe had already hunted most of the food in this section of the forest, and it was hard to resist the trembling morsels in front of him. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, he was saved from having to make a decision when the two females did a 180 and made a break for it.
Emily's heart pounded in her chest as Lynn slowly backstepped, worried for the safety of her friend. After her friend stepped within arm's reach, she slowly reached out to grasp Lynn's hand and gently pulled the other girl with her as they backed away from the monsters. After hitting the edge of the creek, she turned around and began to make her way across, pulling the amnesiac girl behind her. To say the water was cold would be a vast understatement. The only thing that kept her from returning to the shore were the three heavily armed monsters that she could hear screeching behind her.
Lynn did her best to support Emily as the shorter girl pulled her across the creek, but the cool water and uneven terrain proved hazardous to her balance. She knew that the cold water would kill them just as well as a blade, if slower. From behind her, she could hear the monsters screeching and giving chase. After fifteen seconds, she heard an object impact the water a little ways to her right, followed by another to her left, and two more in quick succession behind her.
She cried out to Emily, “Go faster, they’re shooting at us!”
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Emily replied, her voice filled with fear.
After a harrowing journey across the creek, the two girls made it to the other side. Just as they were about to flee into the cover of the forest, a stray arrow pierced through Emily’s upper right arm, prompting a tortured cry of pain from the girl. She fell to the ground and was nearly tripped over by Lynn. The pain from her injury left her incapable of moving and the barrage of arrows continued to rain down around the two girls.
“Emily!” Lynn cried out, nearly stumbling over her fallen companion. “You’re going to be okay, don’t worry.” She said to the shorter girl before she pulled her injured friend towards the shelter of the treeline. Her heart raced for the whole half-minute that it took to drag Emily behind the cover of a large, ancient looking tree. Now behind cover, she assessed Emily's wound. Somehow she knew that breaking off the shaft or trying to pull out the arrow would only lead to her friend suffering more. Even with little to no medical knowledge, she knew that the other girl's remaining days were numbered. Their only hope was to find civilization before infection set in or Emily bled to death.
As much as she hated to do it, she knew that she had to force the fallen girl to stand up and move. She said as much, “Emily? You have to stand up. If we can’t find someone to treat that wound, then you’ll die.” She followed up her words by grabbing Emily’s uninjured arm and gently trying to pull the other girl to her feet.
“Hurts.” Emily whimpered as tears trailed down her cheeks, leaving unblemished skin in place of the dust that covered most of their bodies.
Lynn wiped the tears flowing down her own face with her free hand. “I know it hurts, but you have to get up. We have to find help.” In the privacy of her own mind, Lynn doubted their chances of finding a doctor capable of healing her friend, but some chance was still better than none.
Emboldened by her friend's words, Emily slowly stood to her feet, before she pulled her hand away to cradle her injured arm. Putting on a brave face, she said, “I-I’m okay, but I don’t know how bad the wound is...” Morbid curiosity and necessity drove her to look at her injured arm. Already nauseous from the pain of her injury, the sight of the shaft sticking out nearly caused the poor girl to retch. After she suppressed the urge to vomit, she took one last look at the wound to see how bad the bleeding was. Luckily for her, the arrowhead appeared to be holding back most of the blood, but she didn’t know how long until the blood loss would affect her.
Emily didn't know it, but her friend had been studying the wound as well and concluded that, while painful, the wound didn’t look fatal. Even though she wasn’t a surgeon, she knew that the circumstances might eventually force her to try and dig the arrowhead out of her friend’s arm. She only hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. With her examination of the wound complete, Lynn said, “I think it’s just a flesh wound. Our biggest worries are infection and blood loss, so… Let me know if you feel feverish or different.”
To both girls' surprise, they were not pursued further after they broke line of sight with their attackers. Either the monsters couldn’t swim, or they chose to let the girls go. Either way, they were both thankful for the turn of fate. Emily tried to keep silent, but any jostle or bump to her arm brought with it a stab of pain. Her friend led her as they followed the creek downhill, wincing in sympathy whenever she heard Emily gasp or cry. She wished that she could provide some form of anesthetic to the girl, but she knew nothing of herbal medicine and, even if she did, none of the flora was familiar to her.
The only saving grace for the two girls were the three moons shining down on them from on high, though neither of them had looked up long enough to notice the fact that there was more than one moon. Another thing that had gone unnoticed by the girls was the fact that both of them were slowly dying from hyperthermia.
Confused and affected by a sudden onset of drowsiness, Emily called out to Lynn. “Can’t… Think…” She paused, struggling to vocalize her jumbled thoughts, before she said, “Help…” Finally, unable to stay awake, she collapsed to the ground.
Lynn barely heard the words spoken by Emily, because she too was suffering from hypothermia. She turned to face her collapsed friend, but her mind remained too muddled to offer any assistance. It wasn’t too long before she too collapsed. Both girls remained unconscious on the floor of the forest, with no help in sight.