Plum To The Rescue 02/05/2019

Chapter 1 – Ranger

Ranger awoke in complete darkness. His first thought was I must be dead. His second thought was no way I'm dead because death cannot be this painful. He was laying on something smooth, hard, and vey cold. A rock ledge maybe?

He slowly sat up and waited for the dizziness and nausea to pass. His head was pounding. He gingerly touched his hand to his temple and felt a trickle of blood. Probably a concussion, he thought. He had a stabbing pain in his side and felt a large gash near his ribcage. Maybe a couple of cracked ribs. Ok, so far, not terrible.

He felt around on the floor of whatever he was sitting on – no phone, no flashlight, nothing but loose rock. He cautiously felt around the edge of the ledge to find nothing but empty space. He pitched one of the rocks over the ledge and waited, counting the seconds until he heard it hit the bottom. Maybe 100 feet. Not good. He looked up and could see nothing but blackness.

Am I in a cave? A well? What the hell happened? He couldn't remember anything about how he ended up in here. Did someone throw me down here? Did I fall? If only he had a little light he could better assess the situation. There were no sounds and no light. It was very disorienting. Ranger tried to stand and felt a dull ache in his ankle. Felt like a sprain. That was the least of his worries. He didn't want to move around too much for fear of plunging to his death. Best he could tell, the rock ledge was about 7 feet long and 5 feet wide. Not much room for error.

Ranger suddenly felt very tired and very cold. He was wearing his standard Rangeman uniform of black t-shirt, black cargo pants, and black boots. He wished for his windbreaker right about now. It was probably no more than 40 degrees in the cave and he had nothing to block the cold.

He felt himself starting to lose consciousness. The pain in his head was making it difficult to concentrate. Maybe if I just rest for a bit I'll be able to think clearer, he thought. He slid back down into a sitting position and tried to curl up to keep as much heat near his body as possible. He was starting to shiver. His last thought before he passed out was "Ranger, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?"