Previously on Crumbling Earth:

The Stevenson's farm was a beehive of activity with police cars and many volunteers. The Sheriff asked Mike some questions and he told him about the Cemetery conversation and the incident with Colby. After that the Sheriff started organizing a search and rescue mission.

Mike glanced at the ground, wondering if he could track Emily through farmland and in the rain like he tracked the one nighlok through the forest.

...

Emily had gotten to the far side of the pasture when she looked back again to see floating lights heading in several directions. She frowned, wondering what they could be, everything else was covered in the darkness. The last point was proven when her foot caught in some sort of hole and she fell forward, hitting the ground hard, knocking the breath out of her. She laid there stunned for a second, before trying to get up only to discover that her foot was trapped and she couldn't free it. She started to shiver uncontrollably as she pulled the knife from her pocket, however, she was shivering so hard and her hands were numb from the cold that the knife dropped from her hand.

...

Chapter Ten:

Mike crouched down just off the back porch, the grass was long, Emily hadn't had it mowed in over a month, maybe if he thought of it as a meadow? There, an indent, wet grass had been pressed down into the muddy ground beneath, and there, another one, who ever had made these had been moving really quickly, running by the looks of the tracks, headed towards the pasture.

Mike stood up, hoping that his tracking ability was correct, he never tried tracking anywhere besides the forest before. He looked around no one else had came out the back door, which confused him, why weren't the others trying to track her? Just then the sheriff spoke up behind him, "Ain't no trail to follow, Son, the rain gone wash it away."

Mike almost corrected him, almost pointed out the tracks, but he didn't, he knew what to look for, the sheriff didn't. He ignored the sheriff and headed in the direction the tracks were headed. Soon he came to a place near the fence, there, the indents suggested that she had stopped and turned back briefly before jumping the fence.

He was getting close he could feel it, he just hoped that he wasn't too late. He had to find Emily, soon, and preferably still breathing. He held his flashlight up, and shouted out in the wind, "Emily!"

...

Emily was freezing to death, she knew it the moment her body stopped shivering and she started to feel warm again, and she welcomed it. Not only could she leave Colby and all the grief and pain he had caused behind but she could see her sister again, and her grandmother, and she would be able to meet her parents.

"Emily!" the wind seemed to call her name, "Emily!"They were calling her from the other side, calling her to join them. Just then there was movement above her and a hand that burned like fire was placed on her bare arm.

...

Mike hurried across the field, stopping every once in a while to check the tracks to make sure that he was heading in the correct direction. It was due to a flash of lightning that he caught his first glimpse of something, or someone, laying prone up ahead. His heart skipped a beat was he already too late? He lunged toward the figure calling as loudly as he could into the wind, "Emily, Emily!"

Soon his flashlight allowed him to make out the curly blonde hair that was Emily, "Emily!" he shouted rushing over to her and bending down. He placed a hand on her arm, hoping for a response. He gasped, could someone really be that cold and still be alive, it was like putting his hand on a piece of ice.

Mike leaned over, squinting against the pouring rain, and used his flashlight to check to see if she was still alive, please, he silently pleaded, please. He hadn't even realized that he was holding his breath until he let it go with a relieved sigh, she was still breathing. He crouched down, now was she conscious, if she wasn't she might still die.

"Emily," he shouted only inches from her face, "Are you hurt?" Emily stared at him in confusion, why did he even care.

"Answer Me!" he shouted, his voice breaking as he tried to fight back tears that wanted released right then.

Emily felt threatened at how gruff Mike had sounded and let out a whimper, it was the only thing she had the strength to do, she was so tired.

"Stay awake, and answer me!" Mike ordered, "are you hurt?"

"M...m..my ffffooottt iss stuck," Emily managed to force out from her lips that didn't seem to remember how to work.

Mike lifted his flashlight and shone it on her foot, sure enough it was stuck in some sort of animal hole, "Hold still," Mike instructed, "this might hurt a little bit." with that he tugged gently on her leg to judge just how stuck it really was. It was pretty tightly wedge in there. He stuck his hand and felt around, trying to figure out what to do. His hand brushed against her shoelace and he impulsively untied it, and was able to ease her foot out of it.

"Are you still awake?" he shouted at Emily as he easily removed the shoe.

Emily nodded, deciding that that was all she could do. Her lips just refused to move.

Mike scooped her up, wrapping Emily up in his coat for the second time that day.

...

While the men where out looking for Emily, Sally took control of the kitchen and any wives of the men who showed up to help provide the searcher with warm food and drink when they came in. So while it was busy outside, it was also busy inside. Several people brought stuff to make different types of soups to feed the searchers and Joe had brought his water coolers filled with hot water to make tea, coffee or hot chocolate to warm up with.

Throughout the evening groups of searchers would enter the house, dish up a bowl of soup, help themselves to something to drink and discuss where they had searched and where they need to. When the sheriff showed up shaking his head three hours into the search Sally asked, "You haven't seen that Mike boy, have you? The others have all came in at least once an hour, he hasn't, I'm starting to worry."

The Sheriff groaned, that city slicker probably got himself lost and now he was going to have to tell the others to keep an eye out for him as well, and people were starting to drop off as night started to descend. The weather was getting worst and there wasn't much more they could do until morning.

Just then there was a commotion in the yard and Mike arrived with Emily in his arms, he was shivering dripping wet, but Emily wasn't, even though she looked wetter than Mike, if that was even possible, "Mia," Mike called, only to stop, they weren't at Shiba House, "Someone, she's near frozen through, get her out of her wet clothes and into something warm, wrap her up in a blanket, and put her by the fire." He paused long enough to check to see if Sally, or someone, had started a fire in the empty fireplace in the living room, it was going cheerfully, "But not to close, getting warm to fast will be more harmful then helpful."

The Sheriff was impressed as Sally hurriedly took charge of Emily who was unable to do anything it seem but stare into space, and order Mike to get into some dry clothes and get something to eat before he caught cold. "How did you know how to find her?" he demanded.

"I was the top tracker at school," Mike said, shrugging, "I'm honestly surprised somebody didn't find her before I did. It was hard to track her in the storm, it was slow going, but Men... I mean our teacher always tells me not to just jump in but to think and figure out the best solution."

"What type of school these days teach tracking?" the sheriff asked, he knew several cadets during his time at the police academy from the cities that had no idea what tracking was.

"The type of school that a red ranger randomly shows up at and lets us shoot his blaster," Mike said, remembering the time the Red RPM Ranger had teamed up to fight an invasion from his dimension.

...

A/N: Here you go, please review.