OTHERBORN: THE CREVASSE

EPISODE TWO, PART SIX

It's very windy up top. It is snowy in the sudden squall. I am practically naked because I didn't prepare anything. I pant. I squeal and I shiver. "We are going to be a spot short of clothes."

I expect Second will sarcastically say, "You are, maybe." But he doesn't. He is totally crazed, frothing and beating his breast.

I try to calm him down by yelling realest realities now, like "We have no food!" or "Look at the sun! and "No water!"

I'll just have to make some liquid out of cactus... cacti?
And we can dig for it under the snow. And that's water. Snow can be water.

Then, I remember. No pot to melt it!

And eating snow assists hypothermia.

Ten, twenty minutes left, as I shudder.

I wave madly. I try to get Second to focus on me, but he charges and weaves back and forth, looking for tracks, with me trying to convince him that the female went the way that I want.

I yell, "Stop! You're making me seasick and I'm standing on land!"

He's cracking even more so. I point. But with all his nutso weaving, I'm at least able to keep up with him, if I walk straight while he does that. We are apparently scouring the edges for smells, if you're Second...tracks, if you're me.

We pass a broken tree, and there are some more shrubs and bushes as they rise along with a low slope nearby...up onto the flat... and I see a sudden, deep gouge, that must have caught the wheels of Brolan's vehicle...and pulled us over the side...into the crevasse.

It starts blizzarding hard...

And catching some whiff, Second nearly bowls me over. I try to grab hold. He ignores me, of course.

I cannot let go. Coarse white hairs, cut into my flesh between fingers. I try to get a springing leap off the ground high enough that I might attempt to grab a hold of the braid reins again.

My toe stubs, shin scrapes...in time to warn me, we're on rockier ground. So I attempt to peer down, that I might spot a boulder ahead...

Spring... bounce!! "I got you!"

As if Second could care!

Clinging onto the side of Second, trying to grasp onto the braid, all between running half-backwards, slipping in snow...barely grabbing hold, and Second's not stopping, or noticing me...

I, at last, know I can't hang on anymore and I'm about to let go...

Second comes to a dead stop!

"WHA—WOAH!"

He's had to give up because he can't find where to go in the blizzard, but at least I'm riding him now!

Bellowing his call into the snow stream, Second starts paying more attention to his surroundings... I notice him notice... Something...

We've come to a circle of vehicles that must've been part of a convoy of trucks.

There's nobody in them!

Second's sniffing. He whines, anxiety over where his love could have gone, but at least he comes back to reality, some. He lifts up a truck and looks under it.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for people."

"They're not under here!"

"Humans are random."

"Not in that way, they're not." But then I think maybe he's right. They could have hidden under here from the sun...or the snow...? How long were the trucks here? Why would everyone vanish at once?

"Maybe they were pulling a rescue!" I moan.

He grunts. "Then, they would have run off, certainly."

Now I know Second's back in his right mind.

I ignore him. "They would be looking for me...probably worried... No. Wait. I was trying to find them. They are lost. What year was that?"

"Feels like centuries!"

"How long, really?"

Second gestures wide. "Twenty?"

"Let's forget it!"

"We won't find them." Second is still lifting his snout into the wind, snow sticking to fur parts and whiskers. "If there's no one to look for, we can't look for them."

"No. What?"

"What, what?"

"And so your point was?"

No answer.

"They'll be out there somewhere..."

I try directing Second again. Massive head and neck stay in place. I persist in attempts to manually turn him, but I just make him trip.

I fall off when Second rolls into a gully.

He starts yakking to himself when he reaches the bottom. I shake my head. Second's too focused...

I scramble down to where Second has fallen. "Oh! Good. I thought you were snow."

"Arrr, arrr, arrr...rooooooooo..." Second howls with genuine laughter.

"I like it better when you tell the jokes," I snap.

"Thinks he's funny." He thrashes, pulling himself out of the snow.

I struggle to him, my thighs—which I can't feel—deep in the snow. I reach for his braid reins.

"I know I lost my family!" I babble. "And they didn't run off. I took a bit longer than I should have is all. They wouldn't leave me."

"I need real, too." He huffs, seeming to miss the sasquatch girlfriend he never had.

"This is the first time you've made a statement!" I cry. "So you're my friend still? You're still my friend now we're out here? Right? You won't go and leave me for 'her'?"

No answer.

"You haven't answered," I explain.

"Does an answer count as an answer if it's only another question?" he replies, but says nothing more.

The light's waning.

We spend the night sleeping under the jeeps.

Second takes two for himself that he props up on boulders, dragged nearer to me. It's too dark now to dig into whatever is in them.

We huddle. He stinks, but I only say, "You might want to change color in winter."

He hums.

"What do you think is real in all this?" I ask.

Second grumbles. I think he will answer. But then he snores. I turn my back towards his. The cheek of my backside is finally warmed.

—-/

Things should be much improved now for Cor in the desert, or is it possibly worse...?

Where might they be? What should they do?

Do you think anyone is actually looking for Custer? Or could that just be him?

And where are these soldiers?