Greenstick

Chris's last post seems pretty apt, in light of what I'm about to post. This one is called Greenstick, and it follows Mr. Card's rule pretty sharply. Also, I'll warn you right now that I've been having myself a very Stephen King weekend, so I may have absorbed some of his tics as a result. Also, specifically I want criticism on how it all ties together for y'all. Like the ending, hate the ending, want more from the ending? Throw it at me.

Anyway, here you go.

He awoke with a startled gasp, feeling the crushing weight of all that earth and stone pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe in the too close confines of... of...

He thought for a moment, trying to remember anything about where, or even who, he was. Panic settled in, and he started to buck and kick, but he realized that he couldn't feel his legs. He should have been able to feel his legs, especially in this tiny stone coffin that he was trapped in, but there was just a horrible emptiness down there, a very pronounced feeling of no feeling whatsoever. His breathing increased until it sounded like God was in there with him; an out of shape God who had just run up twenty flights of stairs, and he forced himself to calm down, to slow his breathing. After a moment, he was no longer hyperventilating.

He continued pacing his breathing, even when a horrible thought (have to conserve my air don't know how much is left) flashed through his brain and threatened to bring the panic back for a curtain call.

Okay, first things first. Inventory. He moved and twisted as much as he could, testing what still worked and what didn't, and in doing so, found that he wasn't as firmly trapped as he'd originally thought. Although the shaft or whatever he was in was certainly small, there was enough room that he could prop himself up on his elbows and still have an inch or two between his forehead and the rough rock ceiling.

He tried to pull himself back a few inches, and suddenly he could feel his legs again, a hundred different pains shooting through his legs and accompanied by a million pins and needles rushing through them. He screamed involuntarily, but he didn't mind the pain, not really. The pain was good, in this case, infinitely preferable to that horrible blankness. The pain meant that his legs might work again, someday. Assuming that he could get out of here, that is.

He tried again, pulling himself a few more inches, and this time he pulled his legs free. He looked down at his legs, wanting to see what sort of damage had been done, and he looked away almost as quickly, immediately wishing that he hadn't.

He remembered, dimly, a medical term that someone had once told him for what had happened to his leg -green stick- and he'd laughed, thinking that it couldn't possibly be a term that doctors actually used. There weren't enough syllables in it, he'd said.

But now, he could easily see how it applied. The broken ends of the bone peeking through the torn skin on his right leg had a raw, splintered look to it. It was certainly easy to imagine it as a sapling branch, roughly snapped in half and showing its tender green insides. He felt his stomach starting to revolt, and at the same time he felt the world swimming away from him, swirling away as though he were watching water drain out of a pool a hundred feet below him.

This way, Paul.

For a moment, he looked around, confusedly, as though someone had actually spoken the words aloud. They repeated, and this time he recognized them for what they were, a memory. And then, as if his acknowledgment was all it took, the memory unreeled itself in his mind's projection room, and he watched, rapt.

...up the mountain now almost to the top stephanie running as easily as though it were level ground but he wasn't running he was dragging his feet breathing hard sweat pouring down his face and she turned around and laughed and said it again this way paul...

And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun. Paul, then. His name was Paul. Paul what, though? He didn't know, and with his shin bone sticking out, he didn't think it mattered much if he was Paul Simon or Pauly Shore. Who? His mind asked, and he let the question slide by unanswered. The better question was what, as in, what was he going to do to get himself out of here?

He tried to drag himself forward, but now that he knew what he'd done to his leg, he could feel it in intimate detail, could feel the broken, raw edges of his bone grating together. Even worse was the sound, a nails-on-slate shriek that was almost certainly only in his head, but horribly loud despite this. In the depths of his pain, there was nothing else in the world but that shriek, his bones screaming as they rasped together like a metal file on prison bars.

The pain was enormous, huge, and he started to black out again. He forced himself to stay conscious, gritting his teeth against it.

The pain slowly relinquished its grip on him, and the world began to cautiously approach him again, like a nervous teenager at his first dance. Sweat poured off of him in sheets.

He looked around for something to splint it with, nearly giving up until he saw a backpack a few feet away. Had the backpack always been there, or was Stephanie...

(this way, Paul)

...helping him out somehow?

For that matter, where was she? If she'd been with him on this trip, then it stood to reason that she should be around somewhere, didn't it? Of course it did. Maybe she isn't hurt, he thought suddenly. Maybe I fell down here because I wasn't paying attention, and maybe she didn't fall in here with me, and maybe right now there's a search party coming out here to find me, with helicopters and policemen and bloodhounds and...

Maybe she's dead. The thought came out of nowhere, startling him as effectively as a bucket of ice water in the face would have done, and his breath sped up again. No, he thought. Don't think that, don't you dare think that, if you think it then it might come true. He knew that this train of thought was irrational, but nevertheless he shied away from the subject.

"Don't you dare think that," he repeated, aloud this time. His voice came out louder than he expected, echoing off the confines of the cave. He felt a little better, stronger, as though his voice had healing powers that he hadn't suspected before now.

So he said it again.

He pulled himself up into an invalid's sitting posture, legs straight, body forming a gradual slope upwards, elbows underneath him. He pulled the backpack close to him and began looking through it.

He found a bag of trail mix inside, and at that his hunger came rushing back, and he had devoured half of the bag before a single thought of conservation had even crossed his mind. A sense of disquiet went through him as he realized that he had no idea whether or not the hypothetical rescue team was on the way or not, and if they weren't then he had to get out of here on his own.

But Stephanie is bringing them back.

But what if she isn't?

He shook his head as if to dispel the very idea, and he continued looking through the bag. He found a water bottle and allowed himself only a few drops, only enough to awaken his thirst, really. A few guide books, and none of the titles meant anything to him. He wondered if he'd done some sort of brain damage that had ruined his ability to read, and he picked up a guidebook at random. Underground Utah, he read, and laughed aloud. He couldn't exactly remember where Utah was right now, but he was sure as shit underground now, wasn't he?

Next to the guidebooks was a flashlight. He flicked it on, and it gave a weak light that solidified into a white glare that stung his eyes after a few brisk whacks to the side.

Other than that, there were just a few shirts, and then underneath that...

At the bottom of the pack was a medical kit, and he grabbed at it greedily, unzipping it and taking in its contents. He didn't even see the burn creams, the band-aids. Instead, his eyes immediately found three small packets of aspirin, and he pulled them out and started ripping the first package open before his mind had even finished forming the word aspirin.

As soon as it was open he tossed back the pills and crunched it down immediately, not wanting to waste any water on the pills. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that his sips would turn to gulps, and then the bottle would be empty before he knew it.

He didn't think that the aspirin would take away all the pain, but he hoped it would at least take the edge off. He went back to the medical kit, his eyes seeing a pair of scissors but not really registering them yet. His eyes wandered over to the backpack again, seeing the metal support struts and yet not seeing them.

These two things triggered a third word in his mind -splint- and he was grabbing for the backpack again, dumping the contents on the ground before he pulled the struts out of the bag.

He didn't know that it would do any good, but he felt good, felt as though he was accomplishing something while he cut up two of the T-shirts and looped them around his leg, the metal struts getting tighter and tighter with each pass. When he got close to the exposed bone (compound fracture, not a greenstick- greensticks only happen to kids, and the bone doesn't poke out, it bends and splinters, but it doesn't break, his mind chimed in), he paused for a moment, grabbing for the backpack. He clenched one of the straps tightly in his teeth as he continued winding the strips around his leg, biting down so hard his jaw ached as the strips forced the bones into something at least closer to their original positions.

When he was done, he had sweated through his shirt, and he took it off and used it to wipe his forehead before tossing it aside in favor of the last shirt in his pack.

He waited for a few minutes before he started moving again, hoping to give the aspirin time to kick in, or the splint to force the bones back into place somehow so they could begin the tedious process of knitting back together, or for Jesus himself to come down and show him the door that had been here all along, but mostly just waiting because he was sick of the pain for a moment. Ever since he'd woken up, the pain had been here with him, and he was enjoying its absence, however brief it may turn out to be.

Finally, Paul began to move.

There was light sifting through a jumble of rocks near where he'd been laying, faint but enough to suggest that there was freedom just on the other side of those rocks. He'd spent a few minutes trying to shift the rocks, but they were too heavy, or he was too weak right now, or both, and he gave up when the pain got too intense.

This way, Paul.

The pain was still there, but it wasn't as bad as it had been. It was still bad, still making sweat pour down Paul's face in rivers and streams, but it wasn't as bad as it had been. He made progress, slowly but surely, pulling himself maybe twenty feet that first hour.

After two hours, the ceiling began to cut away sharply, heading up and up so abruptly that Paul could have stood with plenty of clearance, if he'd been able to stand. Even so, it was a relief to have that open space above him instead of the ceiling pressing down on him.

He stopped to take a drink

(let's rest here)

and another memory began to play as he drank in small sips.

...he and stephanie are sitting down now sitting on two rocks that seem to be custom made for the purpose nature's laz-e-boy he says and stephanie laughs perhaps harder than it deserves but they're tired and it's getting late in fact it's late enough and they're tired enough that they've reached that place where everything is funny not just funny but hilarious sidesplitting and when they're done laughing she stands up and starts to walk away and she says it again this way paul and he stands to follow her when he hears something start up underneath his feet a low rumbling sound that he feels more than hears...

The memory came up short, and for a brief moment he felt cheated.

No time to waste, he thought, looking at the bottle of water, just over half full, with a sense of growing dismay.

He continued his slow progress, the pills starting to wear off, and he stopped just long enough to crunch another two down before hitching himself backwards again.

He didn't know how long he'd been moving when he realized that it was getting lighter in the cave.

He looked around for an exit, and saw that the light was coming from a hole in the ceiling. It wasn't terribly bright, and as Paul pulled himself over, he saw that it wasn't sunlight but the bone-white gleam of the moon shining down on him.

There was a pile of rocks in the center of the room, directly under the site of the cave-in, and two words flashed through his mind -burial mound- before he could stop them. No, he thought. She got out.

He had no sooner thought this than he noticed something sticking out from under the pile of rocks. He edged closer to it, knowing already what it was and not wanting to know, but having to know.

A hand. A hand wearing an engagement ring. And as he sat looking at the hand, everything came back all at once, displaying itself in high definition in his mind's eye.

...this way paul and he stands to follow her when he hears something start up underneath his feet a low rumbling sound that he feels more than hears and stephanie is frozen up ahead looking more confused than scared she still looks confused even as the ground below her starts to break apart and she disappears into the hole so quickly that it would be comical if paul weren't shit scared right now and all that's going through his mind right now is two words the two words she'd spoken to him last night in the tent that had filled him with equal parts anxiety and joy and then they'd made love and lain together afterwards talking about their future together and now here he was watching the future the future was here and now her slipping down this hole and the hole getting wider and wider and she's still not screaming and all he can hear is those two words again but now its more than those two words now he hears her say paul we need to talk i've got some good news you see...

Paul grabbed her hand, tears streaming down his face, and he sat there crying even as the memory continued, playing now on every screen, no escaping it now, and he hears her say again

...paul we need to talk i've got some good news you see i'm pregnant...

Paul barked a harsh sob at this, willing the memory to stop; crying harder when the memory continued on inexorably.

...he jumps down the hole after her and he can't see her down there and jesus he's been falling for too long and he sees that he's falling towards a mound of rocks sharp jagged rocks and he tries to adjust his descent but it's too late and as he lands he hears a sharp crack and sees the bone shoot out of his leg like a battering ram knocking down the doors to a castle in a medieval epic sees all this in horrible clarity and then he is rolling and then he is crawling away from that mound away from the hand that he sees jutting out from underneath the mound and after a while he finds light but there is another rockfall in the way and he lays his head down and cries and sometime while he is crying he falls asleep and when he wakes up he can't feel his leg...

Paul sat for a long time, holding her hand in his, not caring that it was cold and stiff in his hand.

I'm going to die in here, he thought. Don't you dare think that, he thought immediately afterward. Don't think that, don't you dare think that, if you think it then it might come true.

He hauled himself up to his elbows, setting Stephanie's hand down gently after giving it a single, soft, goodbye kiss.

It was faster to get back to the rockfall than it had been to get to Stephanie, but once there he was out of ideas. He just wanted to sleep, maybe drink some water and finish the trail mix before he fell asleep, but he realized that he'd left both of those back by the cave-in. No way he was going back there. In fact, the only thing he had left was his splint, and somehow he'd managed to keep the medical pack in his pocket, but what was the point in taking the last set of pills when there was no way he could shift the rocks unless he had some sort of excavator or at least a lever of some sort?

He sat up again, his eyes focusing on the splint again. The struts he'd used to make his splint had felt fairly sturdy, but how sturdy were they, he wondered. Would they shift the rocks?

It's worth a shot, he thought, and he crunched the last two pills down in anticipation for the work to come.