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Duncan’s Purse — Return to Hallow Trail
A First Line Fiction Story — Prompt #30: Part IV
Previous chapters are available here.
Part IV
Jarod leaned on a moss-covered boulder the size of a shed, dropped his jaw to his sweat-soaked chest and panted his thanks for the wall of shade. Having long passed the point of exertion, his quads and calves yowled at him from the burn of lactic acid. While his compass and Google Earth map provided him with coordinates, they failed to detail the topography of his route. Seemingly endless slopes, either straight up or vertically plunging, had him on the edge of surrender.
Halfway up this slope, he’d sucked out the last drops from the built-in water bladder in his backpack, and the wineskin bladder, a gift from his father, was nearly in the same state. Back in Thailand, he could have gathered fresh water from any number of the broad-leaf plants or bamboo shoots, but in this boreal landscape, despite the cloud of greenery all around him, there wasn’t a bead of moisture to be found.
