Brandon awoke with a sudden gasp for air as though his breathing had been too shallow while unconscious. His face then cringed as his hands went to his head and face. The headache had returned with an even greater throbbing pain and his face felt a bit swollen, especially around his eyes.
After relenting to his current status, he sat up, but the pain in his head flared heavily and he immediately leaned over to vomit. There was not much in his stomach to regurgitate and he had to endure several dry heaves, which only made the headache throb worse.
Once he had control again, he stayed like that and groaned quietly. The pain had him disoriented as he struggled to remember what had happened. He let out another soft groan before turning over to get onto his hands and knees. At that moment, it was all that he could muster. Even in this position, he felt a bit dizzy and no doubt had at least a mild concussion.
Brandon struggled to maintain his balance and resorted to sitting on his haunches which allowed him to remain upright. That was when he saw it and the pain was at least off of the front burner, though, his vision felt like it was being affected by his pulse with a rhythmic blurring. This was enough to bring the memories back as he stared in awe at the beast.
It had to be around seven to eight feet tall, but it was the smell that caught him off guard with its pungency. He wrinkled his nose and managed not to make a sound. He had no idea how long they had been there, and it was likely that it would awaken soon as well as he could see the movement of breathing as it laid on its stomach.
Brandon clenched his eyes shut and let out a short sigh, both from the pain, and from the realization that the emergency pack was missing. He took his hand from his head to check the tablet, but it would not respond. He let out a much bigger but quiet sigh as he would now have to search for it. He also noticed that his sleeve was not fitting snugly and that he was feeling the full heat of the muggy atmosphere. Evidence that the nanites in the uniform were no longer working.
“That figures,” he said quietly through a long sigh. A sigh that expressed his reluctance at just standing up let alone having to find the backpack in his condition. He knew how cut-resistant this fabric is, and so he resorted to rolling up the sleeves. He then took a deep breath in preparation of standing up. He was worried that he would get even more dizzy.
To his surprise, he felt okay when he stood other than the fact that the headache flared once again, forcing him to scrunch up his face and groan once more. Brandon could feel his pulse in his bruised face even more so than before.
Brandon was surprised once more when he opened his eyes and focused on what he was referring to as: bigfoot. He was both relieved and terrified at the same time. He had found the backpack, only, it was underneath the giant beast. He almost cursed out loud, but clenched his tongue with his teeth for a moment to keep himself from doing it.
As he stared at the problem, clouds had moved in front of the sun causing the ambient light under the canopy to darken a bit. It allowed him to relax his eyes and his headache dimmed a little. At least something can go right, he thought.
He gauged the bigfoot to be around 400 to 500 pounds due to its height and musculature. He also knew that their skeletons are more dense as well. He looked around, but there wasn’t a lot of branches lying around, but as he turned to look back from where they came, he saw a fallen sapling that one of them must’ve broken on the way down. It looked to be thick enough. He hoped that it wouldn’t be too young which would make it too flexible to provide leverage.
Frustration began to set in as Brandon felt like there were more important things to be doing, such as, finding Sibley and the others, which would now be an extremely daunting task without the aid of technology. As he grabbed the sapling and hoisted it onto his shoulder, he wondered just how they will manage to get off of the planet. He knew there was more to this journey. It has to end with them setting foot back on Terra.
He slowed his approach as he neared the beast. The nerves he felt boarding the Laigon paled even more in comparison to his nervousness in that moment. His deep breath did nothing to calm them, but he had no other options at this point. He was determined to get more pain medication, and he didn’t see how he could survive for long without the other equipment in it.
Brandon warily eyed the bigfoot as he slowly placed the sapling’s broken end into the small crevice between the backpack and her abdomen. Part of the backpack was sticking out from under her and so he wouldn’t have to pry her body very much. Once in place, he gently pushed it up against her. He took a deep breath before pushing slowly. He waited until he felt some resistance before applying more pressure. He grunted a little as his knee pain began to flare up.
He was able to lift her about an inch and then he shifted to put his shoulder and upper arm against it so that he had a hand free to pull the backpack out. He struggled to maintain the balance of the leverage as he shifted down. His knee didn’t want to bend that far and so he had to straighten that leg. The heavy strain made his headache and face throb even harder, but he managed to grab one of the straps.
She still had too much weight upon it. He gave a short sigh before trying to push her further. His awkward position was making it difficult to apply more leverage. He grunted harder as she moved just a little more and this time when he pulled on it, it came free. However, when it did, he lost the balance of the leverage and her weight forced the sapling down over his arm, but he managed to pull it out from under it by dropping the backpack.
Brandon fell onto his butt, although he was able to catch the rest of his fall with his forearms behind him. He was quick to lay down and put his hands to his head. Yet again, the pain flared heavily, only this time, he felt a bit swimmy-headed as a result. Brandon was certain that if he were to stand that he would just fall over soon after. He knew, though, that he had to grab the backpack and get away, even if he had to crawl to do it.
Just as he opened his eyes and planted his hands to get up, there was the bigfoot standing over him soon grabbing him by the throat and lifting him up to her eye level. Brandon gasped and clenched her large wrist. She wasn’t choking him, but her grip was painful, and it only served to worsen his ongoing aches. He had enough time to try to wrench free before she roared in his face. He was forced to try and turn his face away and close his eyes as quite of bit of spittle flew from her mouth. There was also the stench of her breath. Brandon doesn’t get nauseated by much, but this made him want to vomit.
As Brandon lifted a hand to try and punch a soft spot on her wrist, her long roar waned in the end, turning into a low squeal. He had enough time to look up and watch her eyes roll back as they both fell to her right and his left. The suddenness of it caused his stomach to lurch into his throat.
He winced heavily as they both hit the ground. He tried to break the fall, but his injured knee began to take the brunt and he was forced to land on his upper arm. Brandon immediately let out a long and frustrated groan from the new pain in his knee. It didn’t feel like any parts of it got injured worse, but the pain went to a new level.
Brandon groaned again as he rolled over onto his back and took a few deep breaths to try to subside the nausea that once again churned his now empty stomach. He put a hand to his stomach and the back of the other onto his forehead as he tried to breathe through it. The pain was not letting up, but his stomach began to settle.
He turned his head to look at the bigfoot, and that was when he noticed that a thick piece of a branch had punctured her upper left abdomen which was dangerously close to her spleen if it were to be in the same place. The branch was keeping the bleeding at bay, but she no doubt had some severe internal bleeding occurring, which was most likely the cause of her faint.
There was no reason—other than his own empathy—to want to help the beast. She would not hesitate to tear him limb from limb with ease, but something in the back of Brandon’s mind told him to help her. He was recalling the moments from his childhood when he had found an injured adolescent bird that had most likely failed its first flight attempt. He took it home and he and his mother managed to nurse it back to health, feeding it oatmeal and mushed up worms that Brandon had dug up.
The fond memory forced a tear out of the corner of his eye and a slight smirk to his face as he remembered the theatrics of trying to catch it in the house after it had healed. It was intense in the moment, but looking back made him see the humor of it all.
After taking a deep breath, he finally noticed just how quiet the local ambiance had become. The beast’s roar must have scared everything off. If it weren’t for all of his pains, he would’ve relaxed more in that moment, knowing that any possible nearby dangers were gone. Luckily for him, his nausea had subsided and he bent his left leg up to see how well it was functioning.
Nothing screamed at him, and so he slowly picked himself up and tested his weight upon it. Somehow, it felt as though their most recent fall had corrected something within it. There was still some pain, however, it was more dull now. He knew that it was most likely still injured, but he felt more confident about walking on it.
There was a sudden gust to the gentle breeze that had been blowing which was followed by a long and distant rumble of thunder. Brandon now knew there was a storm coming, and if he had to guess, it would involve very intense raining, and very likely on a scale to which he is unfamiliar.
The sky began to darken as Brandon knelt on his right knee to access the medkit. His logic told him that it was foolish to help the bigfoot. From his knowledge and experiences, though, he knew that she would probably not wake up unless medical attention is applied. The best thing for her would be a dose of medbots. They would stop the bleeding and consume any toxins and foreign materials molecule by molecule. He wouldn’t be able to see her off like with the bird, but he was confident that she would survive.
Brandon wasted no time giving himself a shot of pain medication before getting going. Just as he approached where they had fallen down the ravine, the rain began pouring hard. The drops were quite large and almost hurt him as they would hit his open skin. He had to shield his eyes to look up the ravine. He let out a long sigh, dreading having to climb the fairly steep hill. It looked as though there would be enough handholds from the foliage and exposed roots along the way, but the rain was quickly turning the dirt into mud.
He could see where the water wold normally channel down the ravine and so he moved over a bit to avoid it and started climbing. He wasn’t getting much strength from his injured knee which was forcing him to use only his right leg to push himself up. It was definitely going to slow him down, and that forced another sigh out of him.
Brandon had climbed only about twenty feet as he paused for a moment. The rain was now pouring down the hill in a sheet all along it and it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain his footing. He looked over at the rivulet at where he had originally thought about climbing, and then he looked down to see how far he had climbed. He went to let out another sigh, but he heard a loud bang from above and whipped his head up to see a very large light brown fruit falling from the large tree growing at the edge of the ravine.
He went to yell out an expletive, but decided instead to sort of roll over to a new spot. The backpack caught on something which caused him to lose his grip just as the fruit splashed down into the rivulet and they both went down the hill. Brandon was able to slide down as he watched the large fruit roll almost to the bigfoot. It had to be almost four feet in diameter. His stomach grumbled as he thought about whether or not it was edible.
Brandon stopped his slide with his right leg, but allowed himself to be carried down by the momentum, rolling over onto his stomach. He was quick to lift himself up as the rushing water threatened to drown him, and the mud threatened to keep him stuck in place. As he stood, it felt like the mud covering him was weighing him down, however, the rain was quickly washing it away.
Brandon let out another long sigh as he would have to follow the base of the ravine and hope that at some point there would be an easier climb. It was important for him to follow the path and clues that Sibley had laid out for him. This detour would only make it take longer to find her.
“Hang in there, Sibley. I’m coming.”
Thank you so much for reading. Please consider leaving some feedback. Have a wonderful day....[[|:-)
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