The next time they stopped, she’d need to fashion a pad or wrap to protect her heel. Until then, she’d have to ignore the annoying sting and focus on the distant sound of rushing water. The trees had thinned and the cloud-filtered sunlight illuminated their path, but the wet, mossy rock was still slippery and treacherous. One wrong foot placement, and you’d go tumbling down.
Although fit, Alex was obviously not used to traversing this type of terrain. Lily winced in sympathy when her poor friend’s leg slipped and scraped against rock yet again.
“I think we should stop and take a break,” she called down to Alex, who had paused while gripping a rock face in an awkward position.
“But the river sounds so close! No, I’m—” Alex lost her footing and slid the rest of the way down the rock to a patch of mud below. Blood trickled from an abrasion on her cheek.
Drops of water began to fall from the sky, and Lily had to stifle a laugh. From this position, Alex looked so pitiful sitting sprawled in muck and glaring at the sky through squinted eyes.
“Just stay there,” Lily called through her grin. She made her way down the rock face.
When she finally reached the bottom, Alex was back on her feet and glaring. “How did you do that so easily? You aren’t even wearing real shoes, and you’re carrying the bag!”
Lily gave a quick shrug and grinned.
Alex attempted to wipe the dirt off her faded blue shirt but only succeeded in smearing the mud and coating her hands. She held her palms up toward the drizzling rain. The small droplets bounced off the thick clay. “Fucking alien mud,” she cursed under her breath.
They continued forward, their soles growing heavy from the accumulating sticky mud clinging to their heels.
“It sounds like the river must be just up ahead,” Alex said, following a patch of relatively dry ground around a large rock face.
Lily followed behind but stopped to inspect a path of trampled vegetation. This could be a game trail. Hope and anxiety made her pulse quicken. A game trail meant animals that could be trapped and eaten, but it also meant alien fauna. Lily scanned the damp ground, looking for tracks. She’d come across a few tracks over the past week but hadn’t had any luck catching anything.
A piercing shriek rang through the silence, and Lily’s body erupted in pins and needles. She sprinted around the corner to the source of the scream. Her stomach plummeted.
Alex was hanging over a ledge, scraping at the mud for purchase. Without any roots to cling to, she was slipping away quickly. Lily dove, gripping Alex’s wrists just as she was about to fall. She held on with both hands and pulled, digging her elbows into the thick mud. Through gritted teeth, she said, “What the hell happened?”
“The ground gave out under me!” Alex kicked at the wall of dirt before her, trying to find a foothold, but she only managed to pull Lily through the mud until her head hung over the edge and Alex was dangling from her wrists. Tremors wracked Lily’s body, and her mind blanked for an instant as if wanting to retreat.
She tried to lift Alex’s weight, but the ground was too slippery. The earth below her torso sagged. They were going to fall. The weight of Alex was slowly dragging Lily over the edge, and she had nothing to brace against. She forced herself to calm and assess the situation like her mother had taught her.
Alex’s eyes were wide and panicked. “Don’t let go!”
Lily turned her focus to the river below and swallowed. Rapids. “Alex, look at me.” Alex’s wide eyes kept searching around her for something to grab onto. “Alex!” Lily shouted, drawing her attention. “I need you to listen carefully.”
Alex nodded, and tears leaked from her brown eyes.
Lily tried to keep her voice even and calm, but it trembled all the same. “We’re going in the river. There’s no way out of it.”
Alex released a quick sob but kept listening.
“When we hit the water, you need to flip on your back and float. Make sure your feet point downstream. Do you understand? If we get separated, don’t wait for me. Remember what I taught you and find a town. Keep heading downriver.” The ground below them dropped a few feet, and Lily yelled, “Don’t try to stand up or swim! If you go under, try to float on your back until you surface again! I won’t let go of you! Don’t—”
Before she could finish, the ground gave out and they were falling.
After they hit the water, everything was a blur. The ice-cold rapids sucked them under and buffeted them around. Lily managed to keep hold of Alex’s hand for longer than she’d have thought, but then they were rammed into a boulder and Alex was wrenched away from her. The sudden lightness on her shoulder told her she’d lost her bag as well. Lily stifled the urge to kick upward and instead rolled until her body was flat. Eventually she felt air on her face and gulped in a deep breath before being sucked under again. Each time she surfaced, she tried to tilt her head and look for Alex.
At last she spotted her a little farther upstream, floating on her back. Relief made Lily cry out just as she was sucked back under. When she emerged again, she lifted her head a fraction and spotted a large downed tree jutting into the river about half a mile downstream right after a relatively calm stretch of river.
Each time her face emerged above water, she screamed and pointed
