I looked at the upside-down car. And realized that where the ground had moved was actually an outstretched mud-covered arm. It raised from the ground weakly and I stared at it in horror.
I followed the arm up towards the rest of the body where I could observe the outline of a rather tall dirty man hanging half out of the car. The car was horizontal, the nose of it near where I stood, the driver’s part faced down to earth with the door almost touching the ground and the other surface of the car high into the air. The tail of the vehicle where the small fire burned slowly disconnected from the main part was far from me. I peered behind it to look at what was detaining the car up, knowing that it must have caught on something since it hadn’t slid off the edge and into the ravine, yet.
A large tree was bent over most of it broken, only a sliver of the base keeping it together to the part rooted to the ground, it held the whole vehicle back with its own sheer will to thrive. But I noticed how it moved and creaked and knew it wouldn’t last considerably longer.
I crouched down, kneeling in the dirt, ignoring my sweats.
“Hey, Sir!... Can you hear me?”
“Sir? I will have to stretch on your arms to haul you out. The tree that is holding this car from going over the side won’t remain much longer, and I would prefer that you are out of here before the weight of it sends the whole thing over the cliff. The boundary is only about ten feet away and once the car rolls again, I cannot do anything.” The guy acknowledged with half-lidded understanding.
“Can you tell me if anything, anything at all really hurts anywhere?” I yelled over another loud crash of thunder.
“I need to know if you have broken or punctured anything?” The man just responded as if he were fading in and out of reality.
‘Ah... This isn’t good; he is becoming slightly despondent. But I don’t see any pools of blood anywhere, so he isn’t bleeding out, and I actually need to move him so it should be fine... Right?’
‘But he doesn’t seem very alert... That is disconcerting, and he has a decent-sized gash on his head.’
‘No, you will really have to carry him alone. Because it’s trying to save his life or do nothing and he dies for sure.’
I grabbed his arm, wrapped it around my neck and pulled. The man looked at me with his dark brown eyes unfocused and shaky.
It destroyed the surrounding earth, filled his hair with mud in various spots and his face was filthy too.
I hoisted him up and felt his girth and weight in my arms and instantly I knew I couldn’t lift him out of here in time to save him.
“Are you awake? Can you help?”
“Sir???” I grunted each word out while trying to pull him up and out.
He didn’t respond, and I looked at him with worry.
My toes slid a little in the mud and I was glad I had knelt as my toes might not have done to hold up both our weights without sliding around too much.
I gaped at my foolishness.
‘Why lift and heave when you can shove... You are an idiot! There is more than enough weight to slip him out if you work with the centrifugal force rather than against it.’
I loosened my grip on him setting him down since there was no way to pull him. Then stared at the ground for a moment... ‘I need something to make it easier.’
I looked around me, squinting in the worst conditions and finally, my eyes lit on a large piece of bark that had broken off the huge tree. It wasn’t tall enough for the man’s whole body, but would be sufficient enough to support his head and his upper torso.
The tree creaked alarmingly loud, and I rushed over to grab the husk and raced back moving as quickly as I could in the precarious conditions.
I grabbed the man under the shoulders again and hoisted him a few inches off the ground. Just high enough to wedge the bark under him, then I inched him up, adjusting the angle a few times so he was lying lengthwise on the board his head at the very top. He groaned a few occasions and even mumbled something. I stopped to listen.
“Are you alert now?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice tired.
“Can you follow everything I am saying? If you can’t answer, you can just respond with a nod. I can’t see very well right now, but I can feel your movements on the board I just moved you onto.”
“I will bring you somewhere safe then get us some help. I will talk to you along the way as much as I can. Whenever you can understand me, just nod again and I will feel it. Okay?”
I felt the board shake and sighed with relief. He may have gone unconscious for a bit there, but it would probably be okay. Because the cut on his forehead told me that yes, he had seemingly hit his head, but not sufficient enough to cause loss of understanding. Which was a good outcome, not the greatest, but a safe enough outcome considering the other ways tonight could have went.
I didn’t want to think about it. But I could have found a body… And that would have been unnerving, horrible, and too much on my previously breaking down psyche.
I dragged slowly, and the board moved easily in the muck. Exactly as if it had been a sled in the snow and I gently hauled him forward. It glided across the ground with a squelch that made my skin shiver in disgust, there was a bit of mud going over the sides, but the man was already filthy and so was I. So there was no point in etiquette now.
His legs were almost out of the window when I heard a large crack and the whole tree snapped with a regurgitating sound that sent shivers down my spine and into my frozen toes.
I shivered from the impact, took a deep breath and pulled as hard as I could, knowing that if I didn’t pull faster now for this split moment well, then he was as good as dead.
The car sucked backward shooting away from us at an insane speed. And I panicked as the earth started to follow it in its immense haul down the cliff side, gravity shredding mother nature in its course.
I pulled him as fast as I could to the nearest bunch of bushes and wedged the board into them. The car lurched and disappeared over the rim, the earth behind it followed immediately. The tip of the cliff broke off falling into the abyss from the weight of the car and trees.
It careened with an earth rattling tremble that shook through our bones letting us know just how close we had come.
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