Hello Sunshine

Perfect idea.

The abandoned settlement looks... somewhat... military? There are signs that say there may he unexploded ordinance present... that's....oh boy.

 

...is she going to be allowed to sell these? Corrie's very sure she's not in any kind of restricted area, and this would be one if it overlooked something it would be a problem to have pictures of, right? She's not sure, but hey, memory cards are lightweight and she brought more than she expected to need, so. She'll take those few shots, despite her growing misgivings, and then out comes the superzoom.

 

...besides.

It's not like anyone else knows where she's taking the photos, right?

When she gets the superzoom to work... she sees it. A little boy, peering at her from behind the tree. He looks... he looks hurt.

 

Ah, hell.

Sometimes, out in the wilderness, you rent a satellite phone in case of emergencies. Especially if you're not hiking with a partner. Thing is, that's expensive, and checking in with Lee every night when she goes back to civilized cell phone reception was supposed to be good enough. Small bleeding children were not on the agenda.

What to do now that one's shown up anyway, with calling emergency services off the table? She can either go back to the truck and drive to where she can contact someone- risking the kid wandering off while she's doing that- or she can climb down the escarpment and try to render aid herself. The kid's clearly able to stand, it seems unlikely that it's more than she'd be able to help with...

Rule one is always: don't increase the number of people in need of rescue. If Corrie is going to go down there she'd better be really sure of her route. She stands back up from behind the camera and scans the scarp face for places more slopey than sheer. (( Rolls Wits 3 + Survival 2 = 2 successes ))

 

She manages to find a pathway that looks reasonably safe - with a few scattered shrubs to grab if she does slip, too. It's closer to the tree and the hollow, to boot. Probably knocks ten minutes off of backtracking and going around...

 

Well. Looks like she's going down there.

First she takes down most of her less robust equipment and puts it back in the case for a bit of protection for it- it's the work of less than a minute, and this doesn't seem like a situation where seconds are critical even if minutes might be. She adds the first-aid kit to her pack and, after a moment's deliberation, the lunch bag as well. If the kid doesn't have water, giving him the spare bottle sounds a lot more appealing than sharing the Camelbak's bite valve.

Then she starts down the path. It's not an easy one for someone who didn't prepare for rock climbing, but it is... should be... navigable.

 

The path is less stable than she'd hoped, and her feet slip a bit on the sand and scree. Despite the difficulty, she makes it to more solid - or at least more flat ground.

It shouldn't take too long to reach him. Fifteen minutes, maybe.

 

Corrie makes all deliberate speed toward the tree, bootheels leaving small patterned craters in the dust. It's easier to see things clearly down here, with the canyon walls shielding it from the worst of the glare. At least for now. Nearer noon, hat brims will have to take over that duty.

 

You reach it in good time, but...

There's no boy.

There's no blood.

...and there's no way he got past you into the desert.

There's a cave below, but... the incline is torturously steep.

 

Something in Corrie had been relieved to see the boy. The tree's trunk wasn't thick enough for a grown person to hide behind, but if it was a child... the world made just a little more sense. Now that faint relief vanishes in a moment, leaving a hollow in her gut and a prickle on her neck.

She regards the cave suspiciously. If there is a boy, he probably didn't climb down there. He might have fallen, but... she hasn't heard any outcry.

This is the edge of something, and she doesn't like it. If she wanted creepy bullshit, she wouldn't have sworn off drinking.

 

The prickle on the back of your neck is starting to turn into a full blown feeling like someone dropped ice down the back of your shirt... and you feel a little colder, despite the desert heat.

As you look, you notice a scrap of old, faded fabric, bleached white from the desert sun, caught in a crevice near the cave entrance.

 

Cloth is just cloth. It's not even a particularly damaging form of litter, especially not just one wedged-in scrap of it. Corrie definitely doesn't have any reason to bother with it, never mind the sense of importance that everything in this spot seems to be taking on. She doesn't have to. There's no boy; clearly she was seeing things and should find some shade to rest in for a while before getting back to work. Shade isn't even hard to come by at the bottom of a canyon.

Yes. Rest. Take care of herself. She goes and sits on a boulder and digs out some of those wilderness wipes to clean her hands before breaking out the jerky.

...she definitely chooses a boulder with a very good view of the cave entrance, though. Nothing's going to come out, of course, except maybe some small critters, but she wants to see it not happen.

 

A turkey vulture spirals down to land upon the branches of the dried tree. It looks into the cave, then settles itself more comfortably, watching Corrie.

For a moment, you think you see a small hand upon the edge of the stone, near the scrap of fabric... but you blink, and it's gone.

 

It's nicely close by. Would probably be very photogenic... by vulture standards, anyway... if she hadn't left all her gear back up on the ledge to chase visions like a crazy person.

Between that thought and the hand that definitely isn't there, she's actually somewhat angry now- mostly with herself- and once she's finished the strip of jerky she packs the rest up to begin the trek back. Time to get back to work.

 

The sun has drifted higher in the sky, beating down with a relentless heat, leaving the ground hazy as she walks.

 

Corrie actually kind of likes heat-shimmer, aesthetically speaking. Could do without this much actual heat on her person, but with her water and her hat she can stand it.

In time, she's pretty sure she recognizes the path she came down by. Climbing back up in the increased heat won't be the most fun she's ever had, but it should be doable. (( Rolls Dex 3 + Athletics 1 = no successes ))

 

The path is not quite the same, and...

Oh. Oh.

Oh hell no.

A rock that looked stable jerks free from underfoot and sends her down, hard, tumbling down a the steep face of the hill to slam against a rock with a crunch that sounds...

Not... good.

It feels not good, too. Hell. Hell !

 

Okay. Okay. Stop damning the rock to the lowest of however many circles Hell is supposed to have. Rocks don't care. Take stock.

Good hiking boots have kept her ankles from twisting too much. Nothing's bending in ways it shouldn't, but her left arm, which broke some of her fall, is deeply painful. The term bone-deep comes to mind. So... that's a problem. That's a keeps-you-from-climbing problem.

Does she need to climb? Lee will get people involved if she doesn't check in tonight. Probably the National Guard, knowing Lee. There's still some shade she can make use of down here, probably still will be even at noon. With the water she came down here with, and limited exertion, she would have been able to make it till nighttime, probably fairly dehydrated by then but enough...

...but that thought leads to the other feeling, the one that wasn't as immediately alarming but is even more not good in its creeping, seeping way: moisture between her shoulderblades. After the arm, she twisted around and took the rest of the impact on her backpack. The impact must have popped open the Camelbak. She's leaking.

 

To hell with taking it easy on the arm, she needs to have a look at her water supply now. Never mind that it hurts, Corrie strips out of the shoulder straps faster than she's ever done before. With any luck, it's just the top seal that's come open and it can just be closed... okay. Okay, yeah, an obvious point of failure like that, of course it opened before anything else did. And... under the weight of her body, sloshed out what looks like half the remaining contents already.

She seals it up again, but the huge patch of mud where she landed brings barn doors and horses to mind. It's... numbing. But shade. Gotta find shade. She's not just going to lie down and let herself cook just because she's had a slightly catastrophic setback.

On a morbid impulse, she grabs the much-cheaper, handheld, "spare" camera from one of the vest pockets and snaps the mud patch. Be a nice thing to share afterward- a virtual tour of That Time I Almost Died.

...there was a lot of shade at that cave, wasn't there? Goddammit. She's gotta go back, apparently, and this time she'll be having to ration the water...

 

The big problem is going to be getting there, with a broken limb, in this heat. But... yeah. Yeah!

The area around the cave was colder, too, wasn't it?

Just have to work through the pain. She can do it...