midnightwriter

So this is one of my recent works and it's a decent size story so I am going to to break it up into 2 separate posts. I hope you all enjoy it and feel free to give criticism as to what you think of it.


By then our group of five people had been reduced to only three, and the tropical disease that had lead to the demise of our tour guides was quickly making its way through my body, if not the others' as well. Keaton turned to me as we hopped across the stones along the river bank; the look he gave me was one of pure unspoken fear. Not one of us wanted to admit that we knew we were all going to die there in that jungle. Whether we withered away from disease or simply collapsed from exhaustion and starved to death, the idea of impending doom was firmly planted in each of our minds.

"Alex," Jonathon called to me, "There is an incline up ahead; I think I see something up there. We better go check it out." I shielded my eyes from the morning sun and looked over at Jonathon as he took hold of the earth and began scaling the steep, muddy hill that not one of us was sure would lead to anything significant to our survival, but we forged on, some primitive instinct to stay alive driving us. I could feel the sickness in my stomach, the first symptom that presented on all of the others before they died. It was only a matter of time before I began experiencing the high fever the others had, then hallucinations, severe vomiting, blackouts, and eventually death.

"Whose idea was this trip anyway?" Keaton grumbled as he caught up with Jonathon and me.
"Mine", I admitted, even though the answer was obvious. It had been my idea in the first place to take the trip to Puerto Rico and explore its vast expanse of natural untouched land. Every day for several weeks before we had boarded the plane I spoke of nothing else, so enthusiastic to see for myself what I had only seen in pictures and in stories described to me by friends. What we were carving our way through was beyond the borders of any tourist area, we were in no mans land.

A storm was rolling in, and it was obvious when you looked up at the sky; the threatening darkness of cumulonimbus clouds that hung over the entire jungle, watching us, waiting for one us to fall down or give in. It was as if God himself were in those clouds, testing us, testing our will for survival.

"Why are we climbing all the way up there?" Keaton yelled as he followed behind, making awkward little attempts at getting his placing in the dirt so he could lift himself up to climb with the rest of us.

"There could be something up there, like food or maybe even a town." Jonathon continued to climb, not once looking down or pausing, just pushing his body forward up that slippery slope of land, feeling the cold breeze the wind brought down our spines.

"A town? We haven't seen anyone or anything for days. What makes you think there'll be anything on the other side?"
"Just keep climbing, Keaton." I said solemnly, trying to keep my faculties together. The first thing you learn about staying alive in a situation such as this is remaining calm and collected, even if your circumstances give you no reason to do so.
Keaton's expression and the tone in his voice told me he wasn't too far from giving up the ghost, but I believed that Jonathon and I had enough strength for him.

As time passed we climbed on, feeling the beginning of what was to be a terrible tropical hurricane. Rain began to pour down from the sky and soak into our tattered clothes, through our greasy skin and down into our tired bones. As the rain came down harder and harder it made it difficult to climb up the hill; Keaton kept slipping and I could hear bits and pieces of his cursing through the sound of the down-pour. The wind whipped against our backs and it sounded like a wounded animal howling somewhere in the distance. In order to continue living, we had to imagine something beautiful at the top of that incline, some over-the-top rescue device or town full of welcoming strangers, a bond fire and maybe even a Marriot Hotel with fresh towels and a bell hop to greet us as we trudged in, muddy, worn and beaten.

"Heads up!" Jonathon called down to Keaton and I. Rocks the size of beach balls began to fall down from what seemed like nowhere. They struck the sides of the miniature mountain, bouncing around us; as if to warn us as to what we were in for if we kept climbing upwards.
"Dammit!" Keaton yelled out as a rock flew past him harmlessly, but none the less too close for comfort.
"This thing is full of loose rocks and boulders, so be careful guys" Jonathon warned us, his voice becoming a distant beacon of hope from above. I had to slow my pace so Keaton didn't fall too far behind or just give up entirely and try to find another not-so-strenuous way to the top, which I wouldn't have put past him at that point.

A deadly fog began to settle around us, limiting our field of vision greatly. I looked over and couldn't even see Keaton, who was climbing approximately six feet or so from me. As Jonathon spoke to us we could no longer see him; he became this sort of disembodied voice calling to us from up top. A half an hour after the fog had settled is when my hallucinations began. After a while, Jonathon's voice became the voice of God, commanding me to continue onward, to not stop or give up. Climbing was all I could do; it was the only function besides breathing I would let my body perform.

The storm was getting worse and no one could see a thing. All I could hear was the sound of Keaton’s feet and hands digging their way through the mud and lifting himself up. Occasionally he'd start breathing heavily, but I began to worry when I couldn't hear anything at all anymore. "Keaton?" I called to him.
No answer. "Keaton!" I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth. Still nothing but the sound of rain.
"Jonathon!" I yelled to him. "Keaton isn't answering, I think something's wrong!"
"I'm coming down!" Jon yelled. I heard the sound of his frantic footsteps as he made his way back down towards us.
"Keaton!" We yelled at the same time, but heard nothing.
"I think I see him!" I stretched my body into the most awkward position ever as I made an attempt at grabbing on to a branch on the side of the hill to swing over to where Keaton was.
"Is it him?" Jonathon demanded, anxious and fearful, two emotions he rarely displayed openly. He was the strong survivor of the group, always a stone-cold expression in the face of crisis and danger.
Through the fog I saw him passed out on the side of the hill, his feet and arms still gripped into place. I hoped to God it was just a hallucination, but I knew I couldn't afford to not take it seriously, so I leaped into action. I reached across to grab on to him and discovered that he had a gaping wound on the top of his head, most likely from one of the rocks that came tumbling down. "He's hurt!" I called to Jonathon.
"Grab hold of him and hand him up to me"
Keaton was a good thirty or forty pounds heavier than Jonathon, but as I mentioned before, he was an incredibly strong person, physically and mentally. I knew he was up to it and I trusted him completely with the safety of my friend.
"I got you" I half-whispered to Keaton as I wrapped my arms around him and took hold of his body, heaving him up with all of my strength. Jonathon was right above me, even though I couldn't see him, I knew he was there. Keaton's body seemed to levitate on its own, rising up through the fog and gently into Jonathon's hands. It could have just been the disease ravaging my body, but I swear I felt the strength of some supreme being assisting me in carrying Keaton's body up to Jonathon on that hill. For a brief moment the throbbing pain in my gut and the dizziness in my head seized and I was completely uplifted by this invisible force.
"We need to get him off this hill" Jonathon said to me, looking down but not seeing me.
"How?" I said, wiping my forehead with my sleeve, squinting through the fog and the rain and blurriness that spread out into a thin film over my eyes.
"There is a ledge, over on the other side of the hill. There might be a place where we can keep him dry and out of this rain."
"Ok, let's go." I didn't have any choice. Keaton's blood was all over my hands and I knew we couldn't keep climbing, we had to help him.

To this day I don't know how he did it, but Jonathon totted Keaton from one side of the hill to the other, never once taking a break or expressing any sort of weariness. We ended up on what we thought was the west side of the hill, even though we had no clue where we were, it felt good to imagine our coordinates as being not completely unknown. There was a small opening on the side of the hill, not even a cave, just an opening that could barely fit two people, but somehow we managed to maneuver our way into fitting all three of us. Jonathon laid Keaton down on the hard dirty ground and reached over his shoulder to remove the backpack he had brought with him on the trip which he refused to leave behind, even when the extra weight seemed unbearable.

“What are we going to do about his wound?” I looked at Keaton laying on the ground unconscious, his head still leaking blood onto the ground beneath him.
“I have some medical supplies I brought with me,” Jonathon quickly reached back into his pack and pulled out a roll of medical bandage, “This should stop or at least slow the bleeding”.
I watched in silence from the ledge of the hole in the side of the hill as Jonathon lifted Keaton’s head off the ground slightly and began carefully dressing his wound, making sure to cover the entire area.

“Come on, work dammit” Jonathon yelled in a whisper as he pulled out a relatively small black phone from his pack, frantically mashing into every button on the device. “This thing is supposed to be a satellite phone, supposed to get reception anywhere around the world!”
“Still nothing?” I glanced over at Jonathon who had given up his manic quest for communication to the civilized world.
“When day breaks, we have to move on without him, whether or not he is awake.”
“Without him? We can’t. Keaton is our friend, he’s your friend, and I won’t do that to him. “
“It’ll only be until we can find someone to help us, then we can send for him later. He’ll be okay in here.”
I didn’t say anything. I just looked over at Jonathon, and for the first time since I had met him, the sense of admiration and pride that I was usually filled with when I looked at him turned to a feeling of resentment and morbid awe. How could he think of leaving him behind, just dumping him in some dark little corner of the earth in the middle of God knows where, miles from anyone or anything, and expect him to be okay.

We had no choice but to sleep on the hard, wet, insect-ridden ground. I watched as Jonathon dozed off into what appeared to be a peaceful sleep, and Keaton still lay unconscious next to him. All I could think about was when and how we were all going to die. Everything I knew about surviving a situation like that told me not to even consider having such thoughts, but it’s inevitable when you’re that close to death. Eventually I laid my head down on the ground and curled up into a ball. The disease had progressed through my body and I was now experiencing that sickly mix of ice-cold chills and a burning feverish temperature. I’m not sure whether or not I started to drift off to sleep or if I was having another hallucination, but everything started to get dark and the world around me faded away.

All three of us were climbing up the hill, pushing our bodies on against all the elements. We were covered in dirt, blood, urine, and every other raw material a human being produces. Finally we reached the top. It was as if the clouds had cleared away and the rainbow at the end of our long and treacherous journey had been revealed. Before our eyes we saw the most beautiful thing in the world. A flourishing village was spread out all across the top of the mountainous hill. Within minutes there was a helicopter hovering above us, shouting out rescue-safety instructions to us through a bull-horn. A light from the helicopter beamed down on us, illuminating the entire area, like some divine light from heaven come to deliver us our salvation and save us from that terrible place.

My eyes began to open, squinting at the light being focused directly into my eyes, and it wasn’t that of a rescue helicopter or even the ever-warming sun.
“I was just making sure you’re alive” I heard Keaton’s voice. The light went off and I saw him put down a flashlight on the ground next to me.
“We weren’t sure you were going to make it.” I mumbled, half asleep.
“I’m still pretty woozy” he said, tumbling back onto the hard ground with a thud.
“Jonathon says we have to keep going, with or without you. I said-”
“It doesn’t matter, none of it. We’re all going to die out here, in this goddamn jungle.”
“Keaton, you can’t think that way, none of us can. We can’t afford to start thinking those things, and we sure as hell can’t afford to give up now.” I urged of him in the quietest whisper I could muster while still sounding as earnest as possible.
“Do you think that some helicopter is going to come down from the sky and rescue us? Are you really that deluded? There’s nothing for probably a hundred miles and you expect to be lifted from the ground and placed gently back into civilization. It’s not going to happen, Alex.”
I looked at him through the darkness, collapsed on the ground, his arms and legs spread apart, all the hope and energy drained from his body. I didn’t want to admit it, but something in me knew that Keaton was going to be the first one of us to go.

Sam Winchester

Nicely done! I have to say, I enjoyed the entire piece. There's nothing really I can point out. You have good grammar, sentence structure, and you have a good grasp of how to move the story along while keeping us informed. Again, well done.

Edit: One thing I might say: 'Come on, work dammit' Jonathon yelled. You need a comma before the last quotation mark. You should always use commas when your next word shows who is saying it. You should use full-stops in the case of this: 'Come on, work dammit.' Jonathan knew it was a piece of crap anyway. This is a new sentence and therefore needs a full-stop before it.

Sam.

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