Daysha pursed her lips and sucked a frustrating dribble of water from the pouch. They had been rationing for hours. Since they had set out from camp so early, the pair covered a great distance before the light of The Chased started to heat their skin.

The forest trees had maintained their comfortable proximity to the river. Now far from the water, the vegetation became as foreboding as the ground from which it sprang. Hardy cacti and yuccas threatened passersby. Spindly tubes of splintered grass groped the air like menacing fingers. The wind whipped and twisted around them; it breathed fire into their faces and spat stinging sand.

On the previous day, Maisen and Daysha had had a long, level walk to the mountainside. Their ascension was steady and their descent pleasant. But as they walked through this arid desert landscape, full of cliffs and valleys, byways and deadends, Daysha struggled to keep up with Maisen. They would scale a craggy rampart of petrous red dirt, often slipping before finding the hardened stone beneath fickle banks of sand. At its crest, they would scout the path forward before descending as safely as possible. Over and over they did this, struggling to see more than two or three ridges ahead at a time.

Atop one of the cliff formations, Daysha could look back on the mountain that lay between them and their tribe. She recalled the cool breeze she felt at the peak and what a release it had been. Daysha fought to let the memory cool her. Even distant storm clouds building over that far mountain looked enticing. She imagined crisp water droplets falling over her head and shoulders, trying to force her skin to prickle. But the only moisture she felt was her own sticky perspiration. Daysha rolled her shoulders and groaned.

Mid-Sky drew near and the pair had been hiking up and down high and treacherous embankments for hours. Maisen remained stalwart and Daysha refrained from any hint of faltering, but as they walked silently, the distance between them widened. Daysha fell back, pacing him at a stalking distance. He even left her eyeline a time or two as the narrow valley pathways bent around yet another tall crag. Only once did she actually have to double back when Maisen called to her from the top of a cliffside alerting her that she had missed the upward route he took.

On one rampart, Daysha waited behind Maisen who slowly and carefully descended a wind-carved channel down the cliffside. Daysha took the opportunity to extract another small dribble of water from the skin, swishing it from cheek to cheek to coat her mouth. And yet, her desire to guzzle the remainder grew from the sampling. Hot, tired, and thirsty, Daysha stowed the water away once more begrudgingly.

Maisen reached the canyon floor safely and turned to watch Daysha. She lowered herself into the crevice, carefully placing her feet moment by moment to maintain balance.

“No need to rush, Day. Take your time!” Maisen called from below. “I am going to get up the next ridge to see if you need to come up there too or if we can follow the canyon path a ways.”

“Fine,” Daysha managed, trying to keep her tone light. She was too exhausted and desperately focused to hide her strain.

It was important that Daysha not look too far ahead at what she was attempting to do. She still had a distance twice Maisen’s height to descend, remaining in a suspended sitting position with her legs and back supporting her between rocky cliff walls. Daysha deftly maneuvered, despite the pack she carried and the foot bindings that threatened to give way with the strain.

As she scraped and scooted her way down the steep stone fissure, Daysha could hear a sound rolling down the canyon. Quickly she realized that what she heard was not wind. Rather a sloshing, pulsing moan echoed along the rock walls. Daysha looked down the channel of the cleft below her to see a steady, black wall of water billowing across the canyon floor. The water spread to the width of the canyon walls and persisted ever forward with a decidedly increasing pace. The spillway rushed in and slammed out its own insolent path. The flow became a murky, foamy red. First sticks and pebbles, then logs and gobs of the flaking canyon walls sped by, adding more recruits to their ranks as they went.

“Maisen!” Daysha called out in a panic.

There was nowhere to go.

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Daysha couldn’t climb back up the cliffside. There were no roots or branches to hold. Her waning strength wouldn’t allow her to ascend the same way she’d come down. Bearing one’s self against an inevitable descent is very different from defying it in effort to climb. The impending ground below caused Daysha’s heart to race and breath to quicken.

There was nowhere to go.

She could not hold herself here. The water may not abate for hours.

She could not go any lower. The flow of the water grew ever faster.

Perhaps she should drop the pack? But there was no way to remove it without risking a fall.

Up. As impossible as it seemed, she had to try to go up.

Daysha reversed her movements. She pressed her toes and the backs of her arms into the wall to gain leverage. Her back and hips engaged and the pack slid ever so slightly up the cavern wall. Daysha settled as much as she could to catch her breath. She refused to absorb the futility of the moment.

She had barely retreated by a handbreadth. Daring to look below, Daysha watched the water flow knock against the canyon walls and pull chunks from the precipice. In a chain reaction, the rocks below her were released. The fissure began to crumble. A roar of water surged into the cleft, up to her hip. The pressure of Daysha’s foot pressed into the weakening cliffside and it broke away. She toppled back-first into the water which swept her down the canyon floor with haste.

Not for depth, but for speed, Daysha could not gain a hold on anything as she moved through the water. It knocked her along the canyon walls with no escape from the flow. Even in the midst of the chaos, she had the good sense not to place her feet down where a rock or some vegetation could snag a foot and hold her under.

She slipped the pack off her shoulders and abandoned it to the stream. She swam with all her might, with sputters and kicks, she fought to keep her head up. Daysha managed to grasp a floating log which allowed her to see over the muddy deluge, where she sucked in breath and searched for a path to life. Downstream, one low-hanging branch mercifully extended out to her.

Daysha knew it was either this or die. She released the log and kicked as hard as she could to the cliff side and its gracious branch.

With her fingers around the bark, Daysha felt her hand slip. The water flow slid around her waist, pulling her along, away from her rescue. But the branch held, as did her grip. Now with her upper half out of the water, Daysha could see just a little ways farther, a flat and dry outcropping on the cliffside was reachable. A thick tree sprouted from the hillside forming a ledge beneath it, sheltered in the rock-fold. She was holding a sprig of the root system. If she could keep near the rocky edge, she could grab the next branch and hoist herself to safety.

But the current gave no indication that it would allow her to float along the cliff’s edge if she were to release the root. Instead, Daysha eased her grip down the root to its feeblest point. She aimed her left hand at its target, using her arm span to close as much of the gap as possible, hugging the canyon’s edge with her body. With a fast and fervent kick, Daysha released the root from her right hand.

The water rushed at her hips and plunged her right shoulder into the flow once more. But her fingers found their mark. Prickly twigs bent, but did not break as she wrapped her finger tips around the blossoming stalk. Daysha spat out a mouthful of water and brought both arms to the branch. She folded her legs under her and planted her feet on the rock wall. Daysha pulled with all her might, finally freeing herself from the stream.

With three mighty heaves, Daysha managed to hoist her body onto the jutting edge. Her right knee breached the platform, but her left foot slid. The straw foot bindings with their leather strap ripped from her foot as a searing pain shot from the sole through the leg, into Daysha’s hip. She screamed out, rolling her body on the little outcrop, just wide enough for her to lay flat beside the tree that saved her.

The roaring flood sped by underneath. For the first opportunity in what felt like an hour, Daysha ceased from using every muscle in her body with calculated exertion. Daysha’s vision began to swim and she sucked in breath after breath. The world around her made little sense and the light waned under her drooping eyelids.

Maisen.

Had he survived the flood?

Survived.

Something told her this was her accomplishment; something told her it was enough.

Maisen.

Daysha exuded her last trace of energy with worry.

The first thing.

She had been the first thing on his mind. Many times he told her this.

Maisen.

Might it be that, of all thoughts, they would be each other's last?