Extend the Story - Add a Room

Clutching your walking stick, you shake your head at your own foolishness. You can barely walk right now; why should you be able to climb? You do have some arm strength, but not nearly enough to navigate rocks relying on your hands alone.

Leaning more heavily than before, tired and sore, you continue down the path toward the clearing. You swear you can smell the wet mud that speaks of a lake or a bog, and although the thought of the latter worries you--would you know the danger before you began to sink?--the former is tantalizing. Water, and likely a hut of some kind if you're as close to civilization as you believe.

It's only a day's ride from your family's home to Montreal, and this you think must be closer. After all, you walked the distance--apparently in one day, though your lack of recollection makes you in no way sure. Everything about your location, you realize, is pure conjecture.

Sure enough, you have reached the shores of a small lake. Crouching gratefully at its bank, you wash your face and hands, then drink your fill from its still-pure waters. Even if it is not the best water, you think, you would drink it anyway at your level of thirst.

Those more immediate needs dealt with, you sit back heavily on the bank. You think about removing your boot and letting your ankle dangle in the cool water, but think better of it. You'd never get the shoe back on if you took it off.

Just rest. It's been a long trip and still will be, but at least you have water now.