"The Belt Around His Thigh":
We’d been camped for a few days, hiking through these woods. In the late morning light, Emily, Marcus, and I decided to follow a steep trail up toward a ridge. I was feeling confident. Marcus is a strong guy – he led the way, swinging his walking stick, joking to keep the mood light.
"Are you sure you don't want to swap boots?" Marcus teased when he saw me struggling with tight laces. "You’ll break your neck on these roots."
I laughed. "I'll be fine," I said, shouldering my pack. The forest was quiet, and we felt invincible. It was just another day of adventure, nothing terrifying in sight.
Halfway up a rocky incline, Marcus slipped on a loose stone. He yelled as he lost his balance, flailing for support. We both gasped, but Marcus’s fall was brutal. He tumbled sideways and landed hard on his leg with a wet, sickening sound.
I ran to his side. Marcus was on his back, one leg twisted at an awful angle. His face contorted in pain. Beneath his torn pants, blood soaked through the dirt on the ground. A jagged piece of rock had sliced into his thigh, and a thick, bright stream of blood pulsed with each heartbeat.
“Marcus!” I shouted, panic in my voice. Emily dropped down next to him. He was still conscious, breathing hard. “Stay with us!” she yelled. His eyes were glassy as he nodded.
My hands shook as I touched his leg. The wound was deep, muscle visible. I felt bile rise in my throat. “Oh no…” Emily whispered. She tore the sleeve from her shirt and pressed it to the gash. Marcus moaned and leaned up, clutching at the blood-soaked cloth. “Tight,” he rasped.
I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out the first aid kit. Inside were clean gauze pads, tape, a small pair of scissors. There was a tourniquet strap too – I blinked at it, remembering a training video that recommended using one in emergencies. I grabbed gauze and started wrapping Marcus’s thigh.
“It’s not enough!” Marcus gasped. The cloth was already wet with blood. He pressed harder against Emily’s hand, eyes wide. The bleeding hadn’t slowed.
“We have to use the tourniquet,” I said urgently. “We need it!” Emily agreed. She helped me slip off her belt.
Marcus looked frightened. “Be careful…” he managed.
I placed Emily’s belt around his upper thigh, above the wound. My hands trembled as I twisted it tight. It was clumsy – I used a short stick as a lever to turn the buckle tighter. Marcus screamed as the belt dug into his flesh, purple bruises forming under the strap. Slowly the bleeding slowed to a trickle.
“Okay, it stopped,” Marcus whispered, relief and fear in his eyes.
Emily and I exhaled. But the relief was weak. Marcus’s foot below the belt was already turning a strange pale color. “Check his pulse,” Emily said softly. She felt for it at his ankle. “It’s faint, but still there,” she whispered. Marcus managed a weak smile. “Feels numb,” he said. “Like pins and needles.”
My heart sank. The tourniquet was cutting off circulation. His leg was going to sleep – maybe forever. If I loosened it, he could bleed out. If I left it, I could lose his leg. I felt sick.
“Sorry, Marcus,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision. “We’re doing everything we can. Help is coming.”
He nodded slightly and closed his eyes. Emily draped her jacket over his shoulders carefully, protecting him as best as she could. “Keep him warm,” she said.
Minutes passed like hours. We alternated pressing on the makeshift bandage. Each breath he took shook more blood into it.
I pulled out my phone again, hoping somehow for a signal. Nothing. “No service,” I murmured. We’d known this was possible out here. The doctor back in town warned us – but I never imagined it would matter.
“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Emily said quietly, brushing a strand of hair from Marcus’s face. “We need to get him out of here.”
I nodded helplessly. If only I could carry him. But even moving Marcus would tear the wound open more.
Suddenly, Marcus coughed and a rush of blood bubbled from his lips. Emily turned him carefully to his side so he wouldn’t choke. He lay there vomiting blood, eyes tearing up.
“No, no,” he groaned. “I’m gonna pass out.”
The metallic smell of his blood made me gag. I cleared his mouth with my fingers. “Stay awake, Marcus,” I pleaded. “Hold on just a bit longer.”
He mumbled something about dinner plans, blinking furiously. Then the snap of a branch in the darkness made us both jump.
“Did you hear that?” Emily whispered, voice trembling.
I forced myself to focus. “It's probably just an animal. We’re okay. Keep holding him.”
Night had fallen completely. The forest around us was pitch black except for our flashlight beams. It was eerily silent, the kind of silence that made my own heartbeat thunder in my ears.
Marcus’s breathing was shallow, each inhale ragged. He tried to squeeze my hand but my thumb pressed too tightly. “Sorry,” I muttered, releasing it.
“Hang in there,” I said, not really sure who I was telling – him or myself.
Then, through the silence, we heard footsteps. A distant crunching on the forest floor. Emily and I both froze. Two lights bobbed through the trees.
“Hey! Over here!” I shouted into the night.
Two hikers appeared out of the pines, their beams illuminating us. A man and a woman had heard our cries. The woman dropped to her knees beside Marcus, the man pulled his phone from his pack.
“Someone’s hurt?” the man asked, breathless as he approached.
“Yes! My friend – he’s bleeding bad,” I gasped. “We need an ambulance!”
“There’s service here,” the man said. Relief flooded me.
The woman looked at Marcus’s leg. “Tourniquet’s loose. Let me tighten it,” she said. Determination edged her voice. She moved the strap slightly higher, sliding it up toward his hip, and twisted a small metal dial tighter. The bleeding stopped. Marcus groaned loudly at the new pressure.
“Are you okay?” she asked him gently.
Marcus could only nod weakly, eyes fluttering. “Yeah,” he whispered.
The man on the phone confirmed, “Ambulance is ten minutes away. I’ve given them your location.”
Sirens began to wail in the distance. We had been found.
Paramedics arrived quickly. They carried Marcus out on a stretcher as if he were made of glass. I ran with them until they stopped me at the ambulance door.
Inside the back of the ambulance, Marcus lay pale and quiet, monitors beeping. I held one of his hands. “You’re gonna be okay,” I told him, though I was scared all over again.
“Did I… did I lose it?” he whispered, voice hoarse from pain.
“You’re here,” I said. “We got to you. You’ll make it.”
He tried to smile as the medic inserted an IV. The paramedic said quietly, “He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s stable. We’ll get him to the hospital.”
At the hospital, we waited outside the emergency bay. The minutes felt like hours. Finally, a doctor came out. She told us Marcus had lost almost two liters of blood but he would live. She gave us a tired smile and said he would need surgeries, but he had made it.
We were allowed to see him then. Marcus was pale and weak, leg in a cast, arms draped in bandages. He looked up at me and managed a small smile.
“Don’t scare me like that again,” I said softly. I hugged him, still afraid it might break somehow.
“I almost… almost didn’t see you again,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. “Thank you.”
“No… thank you,” I said, voice catching. “I thought I was going to lose you.”
He squeezed my hand and closed his eyes.
In the days that followed, Marcus recovered. He walks with a limp now and sometimes rubs his leg, still feeling pain. We still go hiking together, but we’re never as carefree as before.
Every time I pass that rocky trail where he fell, I remember the blood. The forest is beautiful, but I see it differently now. Now when I walk among the trees, I think about how close we came to losing something real and precious.
The scariest part of all? It wasn’t the woods themselves. There were no monsters lurking in the darkness – just us, one mistake, and how quickly it almost cost a life. I’ll never forget how silent it was around us that night when we were alone, trying to keep a friend alive. That silence was more terrifying than anything else could ever be.
For nights after, I lay awake haunted by that silence and those footsteps in my mind. Now, each time I step into the woods, I feel that fear again — grateful for the ground beneath my feet, but aware it all could end in a moment. Life is fragile. I learned that here, under these very trees.
"The Cut That Nearly Killed Her":
We were deep in the San Juan Mountains, somewhere near a trail loop Kevin had hiked before. It was supposed to be a simple four-day trip—just the two of us, our packs, and the kind of quiet you only get that far out. It was our second night, and we’d just set up camp along a creek, tucked in the trees with just enough light left to cook.
I’d brought this little fold-out stove, and I was heating up a small skillet to fry some sausages. I’d done this dozens of times before. I wasn’t rushing, but I wasn’t being careful either. I turned too fast to grab a spoon from my bag, caught the pan wrong, and it slid. I tried to catch it—dumb instinct—and the corner of the hot handle pressed straight into the base of my thumb. It wasn’t even on the flame anymore, but it had been long enough to leave a mark.
I dropped it instantly, flinching back. The metal clattered on the rocks.
Kevin looked over from his seat. “You burn yourself?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound like it was nothing. “Just caught the edge of the pan.”
He stood up and walked over. “Let me see.”
I held my hand out. The burn was already turning white at the center and red around the edge, maybe the size of a quarter. It stung deep, like the pain was layered.
Kevin frowned. “That’s gonna blister. We should clean it.”
I rinsed it in the cold stream nearby. It hurt worse with the water, like it woke the nerves up. Back at the tent, I grabbed the first aid kit. We had antiseptic wipes and a little tube of antibiotic cream. I rubbed it on, slapped a gauze pad over it, and wrapped it tight.
“You think that’s okay?” I asked.
Kevin nodded. “It’s clean. I’d keep it dry tonight, though. Maybe let it breathe tomorrow.”
That night, I woke up once because the thumb was throbbing, but it wasn’t unbearable. By morning, though, it had started to swell. The skin was puffy and tight, with a faint yellow tinge. I unwrapped it. The burn looked angry—red lines starting to reach toward my wrist.
I showed Kevin. He didn’t say anything for a second.
“We’ll clean it again. Maybe change the dressing.”
We used the last of the wipes and did what we could, but there wasn’t much else in the kit besides gauze and tape. No painkillers, no antibiotics. It looked bad, but I told myself it wasn’t.
We went on with the day. Hiked about six miles to a lake we’d been aiming for. I barely noticed the view. The pain was sharper now, like a needle behind the skin. When I flexed my thumb, it pulled all the way into my palm and wrist. By dinner, I felt cold—not from the outside, but deep in my body. I sat by the fire and didn’t say anything for a long time.
“You look pale,” Kevin said. “You alright?”
“I think I’m just tired.”
“You’ve been sweating all day. I thought it was the hike.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but my arm was starting to hurt too. Not just the skin—like the muscle and bone underneath ached. A deep, sick kind of pain.
That night I didn’t sleep. I kept rolling over, trying to get comfortable, but my whole body felt wrong. I was shivering, even though I was wrapped in my sleeping bag. At some point, I looked down at my hand. The fingers were puffed up like sausages. The burn itself had turned dark—almost gray.
By morning, Kevin looked scared.
“Your hand,” he said. “It’s not just swollen. It’s turning black.”
I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. I was dizzy, nauseated. Every joint hurt. I couldn’t keep down the little food I tried to eat. I looked at Kevin and said, “I think we have to get out of here.”
He nodded. “Now.”
We packed quickly. Kevin took most of my gear. I was moving slow, my head pounding. We only made it two miles before I collapsed against a tree.
“I can’t,” I said. “I don’t feel right.”
He sat me down on a rock and checked my temperature with the back of his hand. “You’re burning up, man.”
“I can’t see straight,” I whispered. My heart was pounding. My legs felt weak. I could barely sit upright.
Kevin pulled out his Garmin inReach—the satellite messenger. He hadn’t used it yet, but now he powered it up, hit the SOS button, and waited.
“Just breathe,” he kept saying. “Help’s coming.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness. I remember dry heaving into the dirt. I remember Kevin pouring a little water on my lips. I remember him saying, over and over, “You’re okay. Just hold on.”
The rescue team got to us that afternoon, maybe four or five hours after the signal went out. I was barely aware of them. I heard zippers, voices, the sound of a helicopter somewhere far away. Then everything went black.
I woke up in a hospital three days later. My mom was there. My legs were under a thick blanket, but I couldn’t feel them. My left hand was wrapped in layers of white.
A nurse came in. “You’re lucky,” she said. “You made it in time.”
I didn’t feel lucky. My thumb was gone—amputated at the joint. Both feet had turned necrotic. The infection had spread through my bloodstream. They’d saved my life, but not without taking pieces of me with it.
Later, the doctor explained: the burn had allowed Strep A bacteria to get in. The heat damage, plus exposure to dirt and delayed care, turned it into sepsis. It happened fast. The pain, the fever, the shock—it was all the infection eating away from the inside.
Kevin visited a few days later. He sat by the window, quiet. He looked hollow, like he hadn’t slept in days.
“You saved my life,” I said.
He shook his head. “I almost didn’t. I thought it was just a burn. We both did.”
We didn’t talk much after that.
I stayed in the hospital for weeks. Skin grafts. Rehab. The worst part wasn’t the pain—it was how fast it all happened. One careless second. One burn. One bad call to keep going.
Now, I check every cut, every scrape, twice. I read labels. I carry more first aid than I used to think was necessary. But I don’t camp the way I used to. I don’t trust the silence out there. Not because of animals or darkness, but because of how easy it is for your body to turn on you when help is too far away.
I still see that moment in my mind: me brushing off Kevin when he offered to help. Telling him it was just a small burn. I think about that night in the tent, the silence, the slow spread of pain like something creeping under my skin.
It’s not the woods I’m afraid of now.
It’s how close I came to dying… without ever knowing I was in danger.