"Ok, ok, ok, is she still breathing?" Danielle asked hurriedly. Nick bent down and hovered his ear just above her lips. "Yeah,she is."
"Then she's probably just passed out. From pain, heat of exhaustion most likely." she reasoned.
"Well, she does have this big gash on her side."
"She does?"
"Why didn't you tell me?!" Brian asked, holding up the first aid kit. "I could have taken care of her before it got so serious!"
"I didn't know!" Nick cried, defensively.
"Hey, pin heads!" Danielle exclaimed. "As much as I would love to listen to you ramble on, we don't have time! We need to make Katie better!"
"What do I do?" Nick asked.
Danielle knelt down beside Katie's body. "Well, she's breathing fine, so, I think she'll be all right, as soon as she wakes up." she paused thinking for a moment. "We need to get her into the shade before she gets heat stroke or something."
Brian and Nick hurriedly gathered around Katie.
"Brian, grab her legs, I'll get her head, and we'll carry her into the woods there." Nick ordered, wrapping his arms around her upper torso.
Brian nodded. They lifted her body on three, and quickly carried her body into the shade.
Danielle followed behind carrying the first aid kit Brian had dropped in the sand in order to pick up Katie.
She dropped down beside her, and opened the box up. "I took a first aid course once." she said. "I think I can clean her up pretty good, but I'm gonna need some water."
"There's only a whole ocean a couple of feet away from us. That shouldn't be too hard." Brian said, a sarcastic tone filtering his voice.
"That's salt water! Do you know how much pain she'll be in it we put salt water on her wound?" Danielle began unwrapping a gauze pad.
"Well, there's gotta be fresh water around here somewhere." Nick said.
"There is. Brian and I found the ending of a stream not to far from here. Remember?" she asked Brian.
"Oh, yeah!" he cried. "I'll go back and get some."
He jumped up.
"WAIT!" Danielle cried. She dumped the contents of the First Aid Kit into the grass. "Put the water in here."
Brian grabbed the container, and ran down the beach.
Danielle went to work cleaning up Katie's cut, as best she could.
"Do you really think she'll be all right?" Nick asked.
"Yeah. But, we need to find a place to stay tonight. Look at the sky. It's going to start storming again tonight. We're all wet as it is, but more rain could make us sick. Especially Katie. She's more vulnerable to sickness right now."
"Do you think we should take her clothes off? They're drenched." Nick asked.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Danielle smirked.
"I'm being serious here. If being wet could make her more sick, she shouldn't be in wet clothes."
Before Danielle could agree or disagree, Brian jogged back up to them, the first aid kit full of water in his hand.
He gently set it down in the grass, then sat down next to it.
"Did you see any place that would be a good shelter on your way back?" Nick asked.
Danielle took a cotton swab, dipped it in the water, and swapped up the remaining blood around the wound.
Brian shook his head. "I wasn't paying attention to anything but the water."
Danielle began spreading antibacterial cream to Katie's side, mentally retracing her steps through the woods, looking for anything that could be a shelter.
"Damn." Nick said. "We need something. Man, if only you had crashed the plane on the island we would have some place to stay!"
"Well, excuse me. I was to worried about surviving to think about where to crash my plane." Brian said, snidely.
"Surviving! If you were so worried about surviving you wouldn't have crashed in the first place!"
Brian rolled his eyes. "It's not like I intended to."
"STOP!" Danielle cried. "i have an idea!"
"First time for everything." Brian muttered.
"Go fuck a tree." Danielle remarked.
"At least I can get a tree. Even the trees won't do you."
"STOP!" It was Nick's turn to yell. "What's your idea?"
"Oh yeah. I remembered there was a cave or something made of a pile of rocks not to far from the stream."
"Remember? You said it probably wouldn't be a good idea to go in there because there could be some animal living in there." Brian reminded her.
"Well, we don't have much of a choice, now do we? There's another storm coming soon, and Katie's injured. We need something."
"I don't know. . . " Brian trailed off.
"Well, the least we can do is check it out." Nick suggested.
"Right." Danielle taped the gauze pad over Katie's wound. "Do you think you'll be able to carry Katie over there?"
Nick nodded. "I can try."
Danielle dumped the left over water out and put everything back in the first aid kit, Nick scooped Katie up in his arms, and the three began walking to the cave.
When they got there, Nick set Katie's body down.
"Dude, who's gonna go in there and check it out?" Brian asked.
"I think you should. I need to stay here with Katie." Nick said.
"No, you should I've been doing all the work about here." Brian said.
"You have not!"
"I have, too!"
"No!"
"Fine then, what have you done?"
Danielle snatched a book of matches out of the kit. "I'll go."
Lighting a match to a piece of trash from the kit, she sauntered into the cave.
It was really dark. Even with the mini-fire before her, she could barely see in front of her.
Danielle ran her hand along the wall as she inched her way deeper and deeper into the cave.
I hope there's nothing deadly in he-
A shrill scream escaped from her mouth, echoing through the darkness.