Thursday, September 07, 2017

Baffin Island: Day 4

Word Count: 24,027

Summary of Events:
Yukon got to thinking about how the fact they were hiking home was his fault because he'd wanted to do the trip. Ben noticed and worked to convince him that nothing of the sort was true. As they were talking Ulloriaq suddenly took off at a run . . .

Excerpt of the Day:
"A sudden horrible thought struck Yukon: Ulloriaq was carrying all the firewood, and it could hinder her abilities to attack or fight, which could lead to her getting injured.
Quickly he picked up into a run after her. He felt like his backpack was slowing him down, but he wasn't sure if it was the best thing just to drop his backpack and hope someone else would pick it up.
The ground suddenly dropped out from under him and he hit the bottom harder than he'd expected. Pain shot through his ribcage, wrist, and ankle, but regardless he scrambled over the top again and pushed himself to keep running despite the pain that shot up his ankle and through his ribcage with every stride and breath.
Ulloriaq was still running, and as fast as he was going, Yukon felt like he was falling behind. He had to catch her before she got hurt. He urged himself to go faster yet, but even still he felt like that wasn't getting him anywhere.
Unfastening his backpack as he ran, Yukon pulled it off. The reduction of weight made him feel almost like he'd just dropped an elephant off his back. He felt like he could fly almost.
But even still, he felt like he was getting nowhere in relation to Ulloriaq, but he refused to let himself give up, he needed to get the firewood off of her before she got hurt or killed by it or because of it.
Yukon thrust his legs at the ground as hard as he could, trying to push himself further and further ahead, trying to gain on Ulloriaq somehow.
Suddenly Ulloriaq came to a halt. Yukon ran for all he was worth to try and gain some ground before she started off again.
When she did start off again Yukon noticed that she was coming back just as fast as she'd left, but he kept running anyways. She'd get to him faster if he worked on getting to her as fast as he could.
Something moved under his foot as he went to push off another stride, and instead of continuing to go forward, Yukon went down face-first, the wrist that he'd hurt before making contact with the ground again and sending a shot of near-blinding pain up through his arm before it buckled and he collapsed to the ground.
His sides heaved in spite of the pain that shot through his left side. He wanted to get up, but he couldn't make himself do anything other than breathe.
He heard the rapid four beats of Ulloriaq's gallop as she got closer. It slowed down, though, until finally she was right beside him, nosing at him and whimpering sadly.
Yukon still hadn't pulled enough air into his lungs to do anything else, so he just kept breathing, even though he wanted to say something to Ulloriaq, much less pull the harness off of her and let her go get whatever she'd run off to bring."

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