Skies of Rain

[SkullKrusher]

"And here I thought my job was simple. Oh well, teaching people how to shoot and getting shot at is really an easy job for anyone, especially when there's danger involving you and your way of using a gun." Derek lazily spoke out after the others, trying to sarcastically speak out how 'easy' and 'simple' his job was and practically not noticing the signs Lani and Karrin shared between each other.

"My job's much more different than yours, guys. I'm an ex-commando. Served in Iraq for four years as a private and went all the way up to sergeant before being decomissioned with a medal of Honor. As the FARC is at it's peak activities here right now, I was travelling to Lima to possibly stay as long as five years here as a private company's guard and also help out some militia and guards learn how to better defend themselves. It's also why I know what downed the helicopter that came to search for us. After those five years of serving, I could either take up a project to create a private defense company here funded by the US Military OR comtinue as a private guard for that company." He added, knowing how much he'd been of use right now and helped out people with his experience.

"Heck, if we were lucky I could easily meet one of you. The private company I work in gives free personal guards, and I could be quite easily place to guard one of you guys."

[Shyrus]

Feli hopped down from the tree and continued to walk behind the others. "Well aren't you all just fancy with your jobs of amazing," Feli said with a tone in her voice that indicated she was trying to be funny. Of course, she was never very good when it came to being funny. She quickly dropped the joke and continued. “I’m just trying to become a journalist. Although I’m not as amazing as a doctor, an ex-commander, scientist or engineer, it’s kind of been this silly little dream. I was on my way here to try and study a couple things like the animals here. I never thought I could get this close though."

[Mistress of Whispers]

Karrin stuck her tongue out at Feli's self-disparaging remarks. "Don't count yourself short; journalists do important work to keep people informed. I used to be a huge fan of Lois Lane." The latter was said with a friendly wink.

 

"Your company gives out free guards?" she asked Derek. "Who picks up the tab on that? At least, I assume they're in business to make a profit and not as a charity."

 

She felt a little ambiguous about Derek's work, though there was no denying that his survival expertise had come in handy. Like most doctors, Karrin had ethical objections to armed guards; often citing that her job would be easier if guns were *much* stricter regulated. Having worked in New York's largest hospital, she also knew that security was sometimes needed to keep gang retaliation out, but she'd be happy if she never saw a guard outside her ER room again.

 

She turned to Lani next, a tinge of hope in her voice. "You fix boats, or can you build them as well?" If they came across a river, a boat would considerably enhance their speed - assuming the engineer could work with wood and rocks, since those were all they seemed to have out here.

 

She addressed Cody last, still hoping to get a clue about his lucidity. "So have we discovered any new species yet? I don't remember that red bird from my field manual, or those green-eyed spiders." She shuddered as she thought back to the bird with the potential to crush skulls (thankfully it seemed to be a fruit eater) and the strangely territorial spiders.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rarek]

Lani sighed and shook her head. "I just fix 'em love, don't build them. Building a bow and arrow from sticks is one thing, an entire boat is entirely another." She cursed as she struck her foot on a rather large rock embedded in the ground. That would hurt later.

 

Cody was thrown slightly off balance as Lani began to hop on her foot. He held on to Lani tighter, making sure he didn't fall over. Despite being the fairer sex, the engineer was of heavier build than usual and should take his reasonably lightweight body fairly well. As he predicted, it was as such and they carried on normally.

 

He focused his attention back on Karrin. "As far as I know, that red bird has never been discovered before. The spiders seemed way larger than the largest recorded spider, so I'd assume they're new too." He winced slightly as he put too much pressure on his injured limb. "Although, I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination. I may be majoring in biodiversity, but there's still so much I don't know."

 

He gave Lani a slight squeeze, and she let him go. Cody took the opportunity to kneel down onto the ground and pick a fern from the ground. He handed the specimen to Karrin. "In order to classify this, you need to follow seven steps. First, you need the kingdom, which is either plants, animals, fungi, or bacteria. Clearly, it's a plant. It belongs to the fern species, so the next step down makes it belong to fern-like plants, the division of the kingdom."

 

Cody leaned on his good leg, giving his injured one a rest as he continued. "You must then go down into the class, order, family, genus, and species, which requires either a field guide or a humongous knowledge of classes in order to determine. But...we can narrow it down based on location: a tropical rainforest." He gestured around him, as though to indicate where they were, and gave a slight sigh. "I've studied as many plants and animals from here as I could, and never before have I seen a leaf structure like this. I know all the ferns that grow here according to scientists, and that isn't one of them." He pointed at the fern as though giving a ceremonial inauguration. "That is an undiscovered species."

 

Cody gestured around once more, pointing at various plants and animals. "That tree, that bird, those mushrooms, nobody has seen them before. We're surrounded by things that have never been documented. The Amazon Rainforest is an undiscovered treasure trove of biodiversity."

 

Cody finally gave a smile. "Yet, as I said, I'm no expert. I must've missed a million things for every one I've pointed out. This is why I find the Amazon to be so unbelievably exciting."

[Mistress of Whispers]

Karrin nodded as Cody explained how determination worked. Of course she lacked the knowledge to judge the outcome of his assessment, but his method was correct. With his lucidity 'proven' in this case, that left an absolutely deplorable sense of time and the inability to read a compass - hardly enough to say that someone was losing it. She was still determined to check for a concussion or other physical injury later, but for now, she was reassured.

 

"Is everyone taking care to drink enough?" she inquired of the group, "It's easy to become dehydrated in this heat." Of course, the bottled water they carried was hardly enough to sustain them for more than a day, but she was fervently hoping that they'd find another source of water before they made camp.

 

Karrin picked up a fallen branch as she walked. Actually, she thought, it looked more like a young tree. Almost perfectly straight, it was taller than she was yet slender enough to wrap her hand around. Several small branches and young leaves were growing from the main branch and she begang to snap them off. Later she might ask Derek or Lani to help her fashion a proper staff from it, but she though she could do the 'legwork' by prepping it at least.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Mistress of Whispers

[Shyrus]

Feli dug into her pack back and searched its contents. She still had the rubbing alcohol, and some band-aids. The rest of her items were of no use. A couple pieces of paper and pencils, along with some money. Some clothes, a toothbrush, blah blah blah. Did that other guy’s backpack have anything? Feli opened it and pulled out the canteen. That’s right, there was a bit of water in here. “Hey just so you all know, I still have this canteen. It’s about half full so I’m guessing it has three, maybe four cups of water in here.”

Feli took a small sip from it- realizing she hadn’t had any water aside from whatever amount she had from the rain.

 

[Rarek]

Lani realized just how little she had to drink when Karrin made a mention of it. "I don't think I have much, if anything." She dug through her pack, trying to find any indication of water at all. She couldn't find one.

 

Lani sighed. "We should find some sort of river soon."

 

Cody looked back at Lani with a concerned gaze. "We can't trust water around here before it's boiled and filtered. Remember that this is the Amazon, the water will be teeming with bugs and bacteria. We'll have to..."

 

Cody's words slurred to a halt before he began staring blankly into a tree trunk, as one might do to daydream. He shook his head vigorously before continuing. "Sorry, my brain decided to get ahead of my mouth. We'll need a campfire and a bunch of rocks rolled in leaves for our water." When he was finished speaking, he resumed his blank gaze, staring into a more distant tree this time as they continued their walk forward.

[Shyrus]

"Oh no. He's acting like my computer..." Feli muttered. "It lags a bit, and then a bit more... and then freezes... and crashes. Stupid fifteen-year-old computer…. Anyways, I think we need to stop again. I don't think Cody's doing so hot."

Feli handed Lani the Canteen. "I know there's not a lot but we have to make sure we all get some. Pass it to someone else when you're done."

 

[Mistress of Whispers]

Just when Karrin thought that Cody might be alright, he had his mini-meltdown. Opening her backpack, she retrieved half a bottle of water - her *last* water but the others didn't need to know that - took a sip and gave the bottle to Cody.

 

"Drink this," she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

 

"When we find water, we'll worry about filtering it." Her travelling pack had held water cleansing tablets, but those were now lost in the jungle along with the rest of her belongings.

 

"For now, let's just focus on *finding* water. And maybe there are trees whose sap we can drink?"

 

[Rarek]

Lani nodded at Feliceia in thanks for her water, taking a good swig of it from the canteen. She handed the canteen off to Derek to make sure he gets some as well. "There's nothing quite like a good drink of water."

 

Cody gave a brief look at Karrin, as though trying to read through her features. Hopefully she wasn't hiding anything about this water. He took a good long drink, finishing about three quarters of the water in the bottle before handing it back to Karrin.

 

"Thank you, but make sure you use the rest of that for yourself. We're going to need our doctor if we're out here longer than we should be." He shifted his weight to better support himself on Lani's shoulder, closing his eyes as he continued walking, his head drooped towards the ground.

[Shyrus]

Feli walked along with the others and silently listened to their conversation. She agreed with what they were saying- especially water. She had been trying to find some this whole time. However, she was being stupid, not taking care of other things first and all. Water wasn’t going to last. Feli knew there had to be water nearby. “Uh, hey. I have an idea. But it can only work if we have a plastic resalable bag or something. See, if we can get one of those and seal it around some grass or leaves over night, the water from the plant will evaporate when the sun comes up. Well, maybe not from the plant but—Urgh I’m going off track again. I saw it in a magazine once. I’m not sure if it will work but it’s worth a try…”

Of course, Feli was no scientist of any kind. She didn’t know if something like that would even work. But she was desperate and as a result was willing to try anything.

 

[SkullKrusher]

"That sounds good enough, but we'll need water right now and not tomorrow. My throat is dried up already," Derek spoke and took the canteen, lifting it up to his lips and thirstily gulping down half of the remaining amount of water. What was left was less than 200 ml on the bottom of the canister, and he stopped himself and passed it on to Karrin.

"Though it may take us more time to find what I'll propose, it will practically offer us the freshest water we'll get in the whole jungle before straight purified water. There are a couple types of plants in the jungle that hold water in large quanities. One of those types is old bamboo. It holds fresh water that condenses down it's hollow inside through the softer tissue on the upper part, which collects itself right in the tube-like bamboo. Since the tissue itself actually acts like a great filter, the water is rid of any contaminats or salt and that makes the bamboo water a valuable source of water. I can easily extract the water, we just need to look around for bigger, older bamboo trees." Derek said, then turned around to answer Karrin's words.

"Well, it's not exactly 'free'. There is still a bit of paying involved, but that is only what the guard himself requests from the client monthly and no payment to the company itself. Usually, a guard takes less than 100 dollars for a whole year - as in, twelve full months - and he only takes half of the sum if he deems the year safe. But I could easily work for free, and the only costs that are left then from the customer's side are mainly food, water and shelter costs for the client and the guard. Some restaurants and motels also offer free rooms or meals for guards. Practically, if planned correctly, a client could have a guard for five years and spend less than 250 dollars in total."

[Rarek]

Lani mumbled something under her breath when Derek mentioned his bodyguarding, sounding kind of like "would've been useful a month ago". She turned her head towards Derek and nodded gently.

 

"Bamboo sounds like a good idea, but I'd imagine it'd be hard to find amongst all this green. You'd have to have a sharp eye to spot them, or an extensive knowledge like Cody's. But..." Lani turned Cody's head and let it drop. He didn't open his eyes, nor inquire about her reasoning for doing so, just kept walking. Lani looked at the other three with a concerned expression. "He's fading fast. I think he has a temperature. We can't rely on his knowledge any further."

 

Lani became so concerned in fact, she stopped to put him down. She looked around at the others with still no response from Cody. "Any water left? Or food maybe?"

[Shyrus]

Feli opened the pack that they found. Maybe there was something else in it. She searched but most of the contents must have been thrown out when the plane crashed. Feli felt something along the side.

“A zipper?”

She opened the zipper and felt inside. There was a bag of some sort. She pulled it out and smiled. “Hey guess what I just found?” Feli held a bag of salted nuts. “Although this is useful it’s salted; which will make us thirsty. There are bits of dried fruit in here from the looks of it. Besides that there’s nothing in here. The water we have will deplete in just a minute. If there’s any left Cody can have that but besides that all we have a moldy sandwich that would make anyone sick; that’s the last thing we need. We still have that tin mug if we find water from a stream or something so we can boil all the impurities out. I can scout for water or bamboo but after what happened with whatever that animal was following us, I would prefer if someone came along with me.”

Edited November 30, 2013 by Shyrus

[Mistress of Whispers]

"I still have water," Karrin offered as she handed the very bottle that Cody had just given her, back to him - in his current state, he wasn't likely to notice anyway.

 

"If we wash the salt off, I can inject the saltwater into our veins," she proposed as Feli held up the packet of nuts.

 

"We're losing a lot of salt through our sweat and by injecting it that should negate some of the thirst that would come from consuming the salt orally. Of course, I can't do that for anyone who's allergic to nuts."

 

"As for the water trap around a plant - that makes sense, but it would require us to remain stationary and with the recent helicopter crash drawing in unwanted attention, we need to keep moving. We should keep your plan in mind for later though."

 

Lastly, to Feli's request that someone come with her, she nodded. "Agreed, especially since we've already encountered hostile wildlife and we now have militia around. Derek, could you go with her? You have the most hands-on experience in finding water and food."

 

 

 

 

[Rarek]

THREE DAYS LATER: DAY FIVE

 

Since the events of the second day, the intrepid group of castaways continued their search for civilization and basic sustaining elements.

 

Their continued concern for the militia has not abated, although signs of them have become less and less common. Frighteningly so however, wild animals have become equally more common as the militia threat lessened. All too often they happen across animal tracks of considerable size, and of unknown origin.

 

Food has not been of concern, due to the large amounts of game. Lani and Derek were both instrumental in the capture and preparation of food, due to their respective backgrounds. With the help of Karrin's medical expertise, Feliceia discovered a fairly common berry which was determined to be non-toxic. While not a large source of fluid, the berries were packed with nutrients which helped sustain the group with the aid of captured game.

 

Water has still been scarce. An unusual dry spell had hit the rainforest, and as a result no rain had fallen at all. The terrain also seemed to rise and fall no matter which direction the travelers went, and finding low ground where water collected proved difficult. Even river beds seemed dry. So far, the largest reliable source of water has been bamboo shoots interspersed among the jungle. It required a lot of work to get however, and the group needed to eat food more frequently after a bamboo collection.

 

The conditions of the travelers vary. Derek, with the most survival experience and hardiest build, is best off. Karrin and Feliceia are both dehydrated, but stable and mobile.

 

Cody's condition turned worse as time went on, in the worst state of dehydration. This was determined to be due to an infection which was undetected until the fourth day, which spread rapidly through his leg. A small patch of discoloured veins surrounded the slashed area of his wounded leg. Lani was of similar condition to Feliceia and Karrin, but is slightly more tired from having to continuously support her own weight as well as the fading Cody.

 

The adventurers find themselves with slightly more tattered clothes, Derek with a ripped shirt but unbroken skin from a small porcupine-like creature with sharp claws. Water is the highest priority, and the adventurers find themselves just beginning to hear the sound of a distant rushing waterfall...

[Rarek]

Lani wheezed slightly as she unceremoniously dumped Cody onto the ground. "I have to rest, it's been too long." She leaned against a tree, panting and closing her eyes. She turned in Derek's general direction, eyes still closed. "How much of our last bamboo run is left? Do we need to forage for more?" She already began to scan the general area. Lani may have been tired, but she was no quitter. Picking up Cody and placing him against her tree, she browsed the underbrush briefly before returning soon after with a few meager stems of bamboo.

 

Lani began the arduous task of shucking the bamboo, something that seemed automatic now after doing it so often. "Why have we found no water? This is a rainforest!" She looked then at Karrin, who had been checking her now very much smaller medicine bag. "This should be an impossibility, shouldn't it? So many dried up beds? All the water has to go somewhere!" She continued preparing the bamboo with a renewed vigor, her frustration catching up to her.

[Shyrus]

Feli slumped against a rock and ran her fingers through her oily and messy hair. She was tired- not to say the rest of the group wasn’t as well. “By this point I would give my arm, kidney, and my left eye for a tall glass of water.” Sadly, she wasn’t joking. Her legs ached and her head swirled, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. She just needed a breather was all. “How many days have we been out here? A week? A week and a half?” she judged poorly. A single insect buzzed around Feli and landed on her arm. She somewhat hissed at the bug and squished it. “We don’t have much. If there’s any bamboo left over we need to prepare give me a shoot or two.”

Feli’s appearance within the last few days had changed. Her hair had become oily sweaty, and in some parts caked with mud. Her fingers had become dirty, tough and callused. Dirt was under each fingernail with a mix of blood from wounds and animals. Everywhere else was covered in blood, mud, or dirt.

She looked at herself, and the others in the group. “Look at us all. We’re not going to make it long, are we? We’re a group of people who don’t have a chance of getting to any civilization. The whole thought of being able to make it, the chances of us getting somewhere, it’s crooked.” Crooked.

Feli smiled remembering the old nursery rhyme.

“There was once a crooked man,

And he walked a crooked mile,

He found a crooked sixpence,

Upon a crooked stile.

He brought a crooked cat,

Which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a crooked little house.”

Feli loved that rhyme. Funny how something so silly could still find its way to her in a time of such trial. She smiled to herself, realizing how weird it must be for someone to think like that in this siduation.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Shyrus

[SkullKrusher]

Derek coughed slightly as they moved along, his throat feeling slightly sore from the lack of actual water he had consumed in this whole day. He had only managed to get around a 200 mg cup of water from some bamboo, and now he felt like his throat was being scratched inside out. The whole group had only a half-filled 500 mg bottle of water and that was making everyone depressed and desperate. It was a miracle how nobody had gone psychobonkers and slashed someone's throat open to get the bottle.

 

He soon shifted his gaze toward Lani, who went and quickly came back with bamboo stems. The water they got from those was meager in amount, but it gave them enough energy to survive until the next drink. In reality, Derek knew that there was a whole lot of water under the larger chutes, but nobody of the group could reach it with the only machete they had. It would take quadruple the times of energy that the water would give. Desperately, Derek watched as Feli too sang a nursery rhyme, feeling how hopeless their situation was.

"Guys, calm down, we'll be fine..." He spoke out, attempting to raise morale but instead just going into a coughing fit after his few words because of the pain in his throat. At least his shoulder was doing better - it felt sore but didn't hurt, and thankfully the flesh was properly mending.

 

As Derek quietly stopped coughing and leaned on a tree to gain the lost air back, he shut his eyes and decided to take a moment. Maybe the heat would kill him off here and now, and he would at least escape this madness. Then, suddenly, the rustling of foilage and animal sounds slightly cleared out, and the bodyguard picked up a strange sound. Immediately, he rose up and started walking around in a circle, attempting to find the exact direction that he had heard the noise from. He didn't say anything, and he seemed slightly dazed and crazed in his hypnotic circling.

[Mistress of Whispers]

Now that the group was resting, Karrin did what she had been doing since they set out into the jungle: checking everybody's wounds for infections. She has been especially after Cody's infection had began to spread, but so far the others' wounds were healing nicely.

 

She handed Cody the remaining bottle of water, encouraging him to drink - he didn't need to get dehydrated (anymore than he already was) on top of the sepsis.

 

Rummaging through her bag, she did a quick inventory of her medical supplies. She had enough antibiotics for one round of treatments. Given the high risk of infection in the jungle, she had hoped to save it for later, but Cody's leg was reaching a critical point.

 

"You're not allergic to antibiotics, right?" she asked him. She knew that she had asked before, when she'd originally treated him, but her heat-wracked water-deprived brain was struggling to recall the answer.

[Rarek]

Cody had to bring himself into a state where he could listen before he understood Karrin's words. He reached out a shaky hand and accepted the bottle of water, his bloodshot eyes scanning the bottle as if to make sense of what it was. Even after finishing the bottle, his voice rasped heavily when he spoke.

 

"I'm just allergic to painkillers, that's right." Cody proceeded to give a grinding, dry cough as he turned to the side. He was running on fumes.

 

Lani was watching Derek as he wandered in circles. "I think Derek has gone crazy now," she spoke bluntly. She watched as he made motions as if trying to hear. "What could you possibly be hearing that's making you like this? Don't tell me it's another animal, I barely shook off the last one."

 

Turning an ear, she tried listening for whatever it was, but nothing jumped out as out of the ordinary. She sighed heavily and continued preparing bamboo.

[Shyrus]

Feli has prepared a small wooden stake about a day ago in case of danger. It wasn’t much but she could use it to defend herself. Derek’s sudden cautiousness made Feli feel somewhat uneasy- what was he worried about?

She continued working on the bamboo after she made sure her wooden stake was at her side.

Cody in the meantime wasn’t doing so well, the wound had been infected of course and it was spreading. Overall the thing they needed most was more water.

 

[SkullKrusher]

Derek went on with this hypnotic circling for over three minutes, wondering what the heck he had managed to pick up just for a few seconds. He didn't really get what it is, but suddenly the sound came back, and now quite audible to his experienced ears. At first, he stood in one place thinking how the others would react to what he managed to pick up. Then, he smirked, and suddenly smiled. He then burst out laughing with tears of pure joy leaking out from his tired eyes. It had been three days since he had actualy felt water on his face. He wiped his eyes slightly and turned, raising his hands so he took the group's attention.

"Everybody, I swear by the trust that we have from our time together that I heard a waterfall. I swear I heard it, even if you don't want to believe it - and maybe add that it is my crazed brain clinging to hope in these hard moments - but I honestly believe that if we head out in this direction we will find a waterfall with fresh water." Derek spoke out, then raised his right hand and pointed in an almost random direction. Even if they didn't believe him now, he'd go himself and bring water back. He had to - even with him being the toughest of the group, he had drank more of the water than Cody and Karrin had used so much of their supplies both on him and Cody until they were better.

Edited January 14, 2014 by SkullKrusher

[Rarek]

Lani looked at Derek suspiciously. "You really expect us to believe, that after all this time where we've been searching endlessly for water, finding only dry river beds and streams with no rain whatsoever, that we're miraculously going to stumble on a waterfall in our absolute greatest time of need? Think about what you're saying Derek!" She put the bamboo down for a minute, looking straight at him. "We've been wandering for days, and we're all half crazed by now, including you! What makes you think you're not hearing things?!" She scoffed and went back to her bamboo. Lani probably shouldn't have been that abrasive with Derek, but she too was at her wit's end and likely couldn't help but be skeptical and a bit rough. After days and days without something to drink, she didn't need Derek dangling hope in front of her face just because he's hearing things that might be just the thing that seemed impossible to find.

[Shyrus]

Feli coughed violently before speaking once more. “A waterfall, hu?”

She stood up anxiously ignoring Lani’s input. Even if she was right Feli wasn’t about to pass up water. It was better to check then to be sorry. There was nothing to lose, right? But the engineer did have a point, they where all crazy by now. For all Feli knew some of these people could be dead and she could just be hallucinating their presence. It sounded like another twilight zone episode. Had she said that before? Eh, it didn’t matter.

Picking up both backpacks that she had, she rummaged through to find the tin mug she had found a couple days before along with the broken canteen. “I’m going. I’m not passing up the chance of water,” she said with her raspy voice. She gave a small smile. “For all I know we’re all already dead so what’s the harm in looking?”

She grabbed the wooden stake for defense and started walking off in the direction that Derek had pointed.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Shyrus