Chapter 7: The lonely girl on the mountain
[April 2373 AD – POV Timotheus Mellark – District Twelve]
As part of my spring vacation, I was in the mountains near Mount Mitchell in the Appalachians all alone, just with my dog, and on the way back to my camp on one nice and sunny day I had observed and heard a small plane, powered by an old-fashioned piston engine, judged by the noise. The aircraft's engine had apparently malfunctioned, and the pilot had attempted an emergency landing on a sloped meadow. The plane had failed to come to a stop, though, and it had crashed into large rocks, which must have severely damaged it, likely killing all people in it. However, I had seen something or somebody get out just before the collision with the rocks, or at least it had looked like that when I had watched the scene through my field glasses.
If we had been close to a city, I could have used my tricorder to call for help, but this far into the mountains there was no mobile network at all, and the integrated wireless radio transmitter for direct short distance communication also did not have the range. After deliberating the situation for a minute or two I decided that the best I could do was to hike towards the crash site and see if there was anything or anybody I could find. Most likely, I'd find corpses only, and I could report that to the police when I was back in the city.
"Rex, let's go!" I told my dog, grabbed my backpack, and started to get moving. It only took me about twenty minutes to get to the crash site, which was slightly downhill from my position. My dog and I had to follow a small and almost invisible path down the hill I was on, cross a narrow ravine with a creek rushing downhill, and step up to the grass area the pilot had attempted to land the plane on. After carefully navigating around the larger rocks I got to the plane first, and it was obvious that nobody could be alive in there. The collision with the rocks had done major damage, as I had already suspected; the gear was completely torn off, the wings were bent at unnatural angles, and the cabin itself was badly smashed and compressed, like I had observed before through my field glasses; anybody in there would have been crushed to death, and I did not even waste my time trying to get in and double check; that time and effort would have been for nothing.
Walking uphill from there I tried to find the area where something or someone had dropped out from the plane, and this has been outside of the area with the big rocks, as I had observed. After a few minutes of searching I heard Rex barking; getting in his direction I soon heard some groaning. Following the sound I encountered an adult person and a child lying in the grass, with Rex sitting between them. While the child did not show any serious injuries at first glance, the adult person, a middle aged man with very dark skin, had a bad and bloody head wound, so that I wondered how he was still alive. He opened one eye, saw me, and mumbled something like:
"Help Rue, please! Take care of Rue!".
He repeated his words a few times, the last one barely understandable, and before I could even unpack my first aid kit, his head dropped back to the ground; when I checked, he had stopped breathing. I did open his shirt to see if I might be able to apply CPR, but his chest was also badly injured, and I realized that there was probably nothing I could do; only something like a mobile ER with an emergency physician could have saved him, I suspected. Nevertheless I ran my advanced tricorder over his body quickly, but the readings just confirmed my opinion. I assumed that he had had bad luck and had hit some rocks with his head and body when jumping our of the plane; maybe he had also attempted to protect the other person with his own body.
As there was nothing I could do for the man, unfortunately, I now turned towards the child, and I saw a young girl, with moderately dark skin, not real ebony dark, as the man was, but more like milk chocolate, and she seemed to be about eight or nine years old, just like my youngest sister Ruth, judged by size and looks. Something looked very odd on her, and I noticed that her eyes seemed to be larger than normal, and her ears were much longer and more pointed than normal human ears; instead of showing bare skin, the ears were mostly fur covered. For now, I did not have the time to worry about that; the girl was either sleeping or unconscious, and I quickly checked her vitals to make sure that she was breathing and that her heart was beating. For some reason she was not dressed appropriately for the weather at all; she was only clad in a white tee shirt and bright pink shorts, with short socks and sneakers on her feet; despite the sun shining down on the meadow, many goosebumps showed on her bare arms, and she was visibly shivering. The temperature was only a few degrees above zero, and the girl was likely to freeze to death if I did not intervene; it was very unlikely that another person might come around on this day. Once the sun started to hide behind the hills, the wind chill would cool her down like nothing, and there was no way she'd survive the night like this. Maybe that was Rue the man had talked about, and maybe he had been her father? I did and could not know, but that was not critically important right now. I tried to wake the girl up, but she was apparently too far down, possibly in shock; at least she was still breathing, though, and there was some occasional moaning and shivering.
I quickly ran my tricorder over her body as well, and although the readings were of course not fully reliable, no serious injuries were indicated; her body temperature was shown to be a little bit lower than healthy, which did not surprise me, but she only had a number of bruises and scratches on her body. When the scanner passed her head, though, some irregular and very atypical brain waves were shown, but I lacked the knowledge to interpret this. So, unless some internal injures had been missed by the scan, I'd need to move her and keep her warm, and that could best be achieved in my camp, as I had a place for a campfire and enough firewood. Considering that I would not be able to treat any potential internal injuries anyway, moving the girl to my camp was the only feasible option anyway. Thus I unpacked and unfolded my emergency heat conserving blanket and wrapped the girl in it. Once this was done, I picked her up and found her body to be quite light weight, even less than what I would have expected from an eight or nine year old girl. As I was a healthy and tall young man who also trained his muscles on a regular basis, I should be able to carry her to my camp, and after looking around for a final time to make sure I had not missed anybody or anything, I started to walk, with my backpack on my back and the bundled girl in my arms and Rex walking at my side.
A little less than one hour later, with a few breaks to check that the girl was still alive and to catch my breath – going uphill with a load on my arms was somewhat strenuous after all – I reached my camp, conveniently located under a rock overhang providing protection from precipitation and keeping most of the harsh winds out. Once I had lowered the girl to a large warm blanket on the ground, I relighted the fire, and then I placed the girl as close to the fire as I dared, removing the emergency blanket from around her body. I was not able to judge if her face color was healthy or not, as I did not know what her natural color was supposed to be; at least, though, there was no more shivering, and her body temperature was getting back into the healthy region. For now, all I could do was to prepare some hot broth on my camping stove and wait until she woke up to drink and swallow. I had plenty of concentrate with me for various soups and broths, and as a small creek passed not far from the camp, getting enough water was not an issue. I made sure to place the girl's legs on a rock, higher than her head, to make sure that her brain got enough blood and oxygen; I assumed that she might be in shock after the crash.
Right when the broth was hot enough, I heard some moaning from the girl, and I heard her crying: "Mommy! Daddy!". I suspected that her parents might have perished in the crash, and I tried to comfort her as well as I could. Clumsily I pulled her onto my lap, wrapped my arms around her and made some noises which I hoped might be calming and comforting, occasionally saying something like "You are not alone" or "It's okay; I am here for you". I was not really sure what to do, but I just held her like I would do with one of my sisters when they got injured, were sick or had real bad dreams, hoping that this would be good enough, as I was obviously a stranger for her. She might as well wake up and run away screaming, as far as I knew, but for her own sake I hoped that she would not; I did not think that she had a chance to survive here in the hills on her own. Dressed like she was, she was likely to freeze to death during the night without additional protection.
Nevertheless, my voice seemed to calm her down a little, and when she was kind of awake, I offered the mug with the broth, and she started to drink, from her position on my lap. The girl looked up at me a few times, but there was no sign of alarm visible on her face; maybe she was still dizzy. When I looked into her eyes, I noticed once again that the size of her eyes seemed to be significantly larger than usual, almost like in some comics I had seen. I was quite sure that I had never seen a human being with eyes of her size, and in addition her pupils seemed to be formed like vertical slits rather than being round, although this was hard to see with her very dark brown irises; possibly I just imagined this. She reminded me of a fantasy character, specifically of a Half-Khajiit in the Tamriel world in the 'Elder Scrolls' games. Unless she was wearing make-up to make her eyes appear much larger than they were, had contacts for the pupils, and had very long artificial ears attached as kind of masquerade, something was apparently wrong with her; maybe somebody had done experiments with and on her? Alas, asking her about all that would have to wait. For now, I made sure that she got some of the soup into her, and once she had swallowed about half of the content, she fell asleep again, so that I drank the rest of the broth. While we completed our meal, it was getting dark, and I thought about sleeping accommodations. The nights could get quite cold up here; I had my warm and comfortable weatherproof sleeping bag, but no tent, as I liked to sleep just below the sky. I had set up my camp under an overhang protecting me from potential rain, so that a tent was not really required, but of course, as I was out here just on my own, I had not prepared for visitors and not brought a second bedroll.
Also, the girl did not have warm clothes. The only feasible option seemed to be for us to share the sleeping bag I had, which would also enable me to keep her warm with my own body heat. Technically, that would work, as my sleeping bag was large and wide enough and she was quite small and skinny, but I hesitated at first – after all, I was a young male adult and she was a girl. However, we both needed to survive and stay warm, and improvisation was apparently required; I'd just imagine that she was my little sister, and I had shared a bed with little Ruth much more than once.
I assumed that Rue, if that was actually her name, needed to relieve herself before getting to sleep for the night, and I managed to get her awake for a few minutes so that she could do that: I pulled her pants down and tried not to look, as much as possible. Once I had also prepared myself, I removed her outer clothes, so that she was dressed in panties and a tank top only, removed my own outer clothes as well, slipped into my sleeping bag and pulled her in as well. She was quite drowsy again and half asleep, and there was no protest from her side. On the contrary, when she was fully inside with me and I had closed the zipper around our bodies, she started to moan a little, in a way to indicate that she liked it, a little bit like purring actually. I had heard similar sounds from my baby sister Ruth when she had been sick and had been comforted by me, and consequently I was reasonably sure that this was a good sign. When I had pulled her in and touched her lower legs and ankles, they had felt very soft, like dense and soft fur, but maybe I had been mistaken.
In order to make sure that I did not obstruct the girl's breathing I was on my back and had her on my chest, and although I had slept alone for many years, except when my youngest sister had claimed me for cuddling, this felt oddly comfortable. She was face down with her chest on mine, and I lazily scratched and caressed her back, like I still did from to time with my youngest sister, and this increased the purring noises I heard from her. Only a few minutes later her soft and calm breathing told me that she was asleep again. Touching some parts of her body assured me that my own body heat was more than sufficient to keep her warm, and the heavy duty outdoor sleeping bag prevented most of that warmth from getting out.
My dog was stretched out not far from us, and I did not have to worry about him; his fur was thick enough to easily keep him warm in anything which wasn't a full blizzard. The camp was outside of the park's core zone, and I had made some signs telling him that he was allowed to hunt. Rex was used to taking care of himself, and he would surely find some small rodents and something to drink. Besides, he was going to watch out and have his ears perked, and in the unlikely event of a bear coming close, Rex would certainly notice that and wake me with his barking.
Fortunately, as her head was right on my upper chest and thus close to my nose, she had a very nice and almost enticing smell on her, specifically emanating from her hair; with pleasant thoughts in my mind I fell asleep quicker than I expected. However, I woke up from the girl squirming in the middle of the night. From her movement, tears and shouts I deducted that she experienced a nightmare, and so I touched her shoulders and tried to wake her up. She called out "Daddy! Mommy!" a few more times, but calmed down quickly when she heard my voice, and I carefully placed my arms around her slim body and slowly rubbed her back to give her some comfort, supplemented by some kisses on her cheeks and forehead, again like I had done to my little sister frequently. Fortunately, my actions were able to comfort her and calm her down, and judged by her steady breathing a few minutes later, I deducted that she was back in normal sleep more again, with hopefully more pleasant dreams.
In the next morning I woke up first, when the sun started to rise, as it was my habit; I could see the first sun rays illuminating hilltops around us. Like my twin cousin, I was an early riser by nature, and I loved to see and hear nature waking up on a new day dawning. At first, I did not realize that I was not alone, but for a moment I wondered if Rex had somehow placed himself on my chest as he sometimes did when he wanted a hug. However, I soon noticed that the weight on me was actually inside my sleeping bag, and the memories from the day before came back quickly now. Before I even noticed, I started to smile, without really understanding why. People had died in the plane crash on the day before, including a man who had probably been the girl's father, and that was clearly not a reason for happiness. For now, though, I'd have to focus on watching a young girl waking up, and indeed it did not take long for Rue, if that was indeed her name, to also start moving. I was more than a little bit concerned about her waking up; she had been very drowsy on the day before, and waking up next to an unknown man might be a serious problem. After all, we were in a sleeping bag together, she had her head resting on my shoulder, and I had my arms wrapped around her. Before I could further ponder the issue and think about a strategy, she opened her eyes, noticed me, and looked very surprised, but not scared, if my interpretation of her facial expression was correct. I started to talk a few words, and my voice seemed to comfort her. She did not show any sign of awkwardness, at least, and her first words were:
"Where am I?"
There was no way avoiding the truth, so that I replied very bluntly:
"We are in the Appalachian mountains, not far from the place where you had a plane crash, and that was yesterday. Do you remember?"
She closed her eyes again and shouted: "Mommy! Daddy!", followed by some sobbing; as she was still on top of me, I could feel a few of her tears dropping on my chin, cheek, and neck. A few minutes later she said: "Yes, I think that I remember that. I had hoped that it might have been a bad dream, but I guess that it wasn't. I recall that Dad pushed me out before the plane hit the rocks, and then I do not know what happened. But I have heard your voice a few times, and you made me feel warm again, after I had been so cold before."
For a moment she showed a nice smile when looking at me; bright white teeth formed an endearing contrast against her medium dark skin, and she actually looked comfortable lying on my chest. When I saw her teeth, there was something odd about them, and it took me some time to realize what it was. Most kids her age had, according to what I knew and what I had observed with my two sisters, some gaps in their teeth, with the first baby teeth dropping out to make room for the adult teeth. Rue had no gaps, and it actually looked like she still had her full rows of baby teeth. There was something else different about her teeth, too; when she opened her mouth wide and yawned, I noticed that her canines were longer than anything I had seen before, at least twice as long as the other teeth around; somehow her large mouth even seemed to extend forward from the head a little, almost like a rudimentary snout. That probably explained why her voice sounded slightly off, a little bit like lisping, but in a very cute way. Together with the longer ears and the slit pupils that gave her an almost feline look. I sure would want to ask her about that, but for now I suddenly noticed that I was probably supposed to explain some more:
"Yes, I had to make sure to get and keep you warm, you know. For some reason, you had only a tee shirt and shorts on you, and for the night, the warm sleeping bag and sharing body heat was the best option, I believe."
She lifted her head and looked around, and she seemed to notice the environment for the first time:
"Oh, we are not in a house, right?"
"No, we are not. The plane crashed in the middle of the wilderness, and this is my camp close to Mount Mitchell. There are no buildings around I'm aware of, and we are actually quite far from the next settlement. By the way, is your name Rue?"
"Yes, it is – how would you know?"
"I am very sorry to mention that, but a man, with darker skin than yours, was still alive from the plane crash yesterday. He died a few minutes after I had arrived, and there was nothing I could do, as he was badly injured, but he asked me a few times to take care of Rue. Maybe he was your father?"
Rue closed her eyes again and shuddered, and her face showed a mournful expression. Of course, her father was now dead; maybe I should not have told her about that right here and now? But she would have to learn about it sooner or later anyway, and I had a habit to blurt out facts without thinking much at times. A few tears ran down her cheeks, and eventually the girl replied, looking very sad:
"My father and my sister were in the plane with me, together with the pilot, and one of my friends was with me, too. Yes, this probably was my father. I guess that I lost my entire family. I have got nobody left."
She started to cry again and buried her head between my shoulder and neck. I slowly moved one of my hands up and down her back, and the skin under her shirt felt very soft for some reason, softer than I expected. I spent many minutes like this, just holding her and, hopefully, comforting her. 'Time heals all wounds' a proverb stated, but her mental wound had just happened, and losing two members of her family would need some time to recover from. I gave her some time to calm down, and eventually I asked:
"What about your mother? Did she stay at home?"
She slowly shook her head: "No, she died a couple of years ago already, but I still miss her so much. I really don't have anybody left at all now."
What? This did imply that she was a full orphan now, right? I so hoped that she might at least have a few other relatives who could take care of her! We stayed silent for some time, and with her tightly hugged by me, I thought that quite a few people had some mental load to carry. My very own twin cousin, Timotheus Sinterguth, also had a dark and sad period in his past, though of a very different kind, and I also thought about him and his burden for some time.
[Author's Notes: I am not sure if my way to describe Rue, with her medium dark skin color, is fully appropriate. If I go wrong somewhere, like using words which are not suitable, I apologize for that; English is not my native language, and the view of proper and respectful terms to use have changed in the last few decades, too. You will see later that Rue will turn out to be both lovable and smart, a little bit like the original Rue in the 74th Hunger Games. Of course, my way of writing about her will never even come close to what Suzanne Collins did in her books.
The reference to a Half-Khajiit is from the 'Elder Scrolls' computer games, and most specifically Rue's eyes and ears look somewhat like M'rissi in the 'M'rissi's Tails of Troubles SE' mod for Skyrim; this can be found on NexusMods.
Disclaimer: Please do not take Tim's way of handling the girl as guideline for treating medical situations and such. While I assume that his actions mostly make sense, considering his situation and very limited options, I am neither a physician nor a nurse or so and thus in no way qualified to provide correct advice.]