Wolv

8 - Waking up

   A warm wind washed over me, ruffling my hair gently as the sun's rays began to shine through my eyelids. I opened my eyes only to shut them again quickly, the sun shining directly in my face. I rolled on to my back and opened them again. It looked to be early morning, with light rays trickling through the trees above me, diffracting past the branches. I opened my parched lips and inhaled, shocked that I hadn't died during the night. My mouth was as dry as sand, and I could feel my lips cracking and beginning to bleed as I inhaled.

    I pushed my self up and surveyed my camp, fighting off a momentary yet powerful dizziness. I was halfway between my kayak and my tree, sitting on an exposed section of granite. The dirt and rock all around my tree were painted a dark red from my blood and bile, and a trail of blood followed my arm from the tree's trunk. I looked down at my arm, and cried out in surprise. Teeth marks dotted a "U" shape around my puncture wound, but my cut, as well as the marks left by the wolf's teeth were scabbed over. The angry red lines that had been emanating from my wound had turned a dark purple, but for the first time in two days, I could actually feel my arm completely. I could move my fingers easily, though my wrist was still seemingly locked in place.

    "I'm not dead." I forced my legs straight, and shakily lifted myself into a standing position. The world began spinning around, and I dropped back down to knees, laughing. I had stood up! And I had refused to die during the night!

    On my knees, I shuffled over to my boat and freed the rear opening and grabbed a water pouch. I sat back against my kayak and drained the pouch, savoring every glorious drop, feeling it trickle down into my stomach. I threw the empty pouch back through the hatch and extracted my first aid kit. I unzipped it and pulled out the roll of gauze, cutting a length of it with my knife. I wrapped it around my arm tightly, fixing it in place with a piece of duct tape. I then felt down the length of my arm with my left hand; as I came to the middle of my arm, I could feel two little bumps, marking the break in my bones, yet the pain seemed to have subsided down to a manageable level. I flexed my fingers again, glad to have regained some mobility.

    I crawled around to the bow of my boat and ran my fingers along it, feeling the shattered wood and epoxy. I was alive, I wanted to leave this park, and that meant I had to patch up my boat if I was planning on staying alive. Somehow, I had to fill the gaping hole!

    I opened my last Backpacking meal and took out my tiny camping burner, igniting its flame with a half-sodden match stick. I filled my metal mug with water and set it over the flame. I turned over the pre-packaged meal, reading the back. "Beef stragonoff: A hearty meal for the hiker in all of us." 

   Lame!!!

   I had never been a fan of the stragonoff, but nothing in the world sounded more delicious. I waited for the water to boil, and then poured it into the package, salivating at the smell of food. I didn't bother waiting for the water to soak in, I began wolfing down the contents, satiating my ravenous hunger. I extinguished the stove's flame and lay back against my kayak, half expecting to vomit my meal up immediately. I waited and waited, but my stomach offered up no objection to the stragonoff.

    I tried to stand up again, putting my legs apart and slowly raising myself up. The dizziness returned, and my vision momentarily turned pure white before normalizing. I put my hand against a nearby tree, and began slowly plodding over to the water's edge. I stopped at the shore and undid my belt, and relieved myself for the first time in ages. I had never felt so relaxed afterwords!

    Once I had finished, fatigue began setting in once again, even though I had barely been awake for more than an hour. I stumbled my way back to my boat and retrieved a dry bag with a fresh change of clothes, and changed out of my blood-soaked outfit into a clean pair of shorts and a dry tee-shirt. I pulled out a pair of socks, but I realized that I was barefoot, and decided not to bother. I didn't even know where my shoes had ended up, and I was too euphoric to care. Somehow, I had survived the night, and the bone-splintering pain that it had wrought--which, oddly enough, was gone, save for a mild throb that corresponded to the teeth marks in the flesh. I wrapped myself in a thin towel and lay flat on the ground, falling asleep again.