Sequoia Coast Let's Burn All The Bridges

You're not dead?

His lips parted, taking a shallow breath of the hot, summer air, his mind a fog as he tried to figure out what exactly was going on. He could taste blood in his mouth, and his lungs burned. Right, he was supposed to be breathing. Frank let his jaw hang open as he took very small breaths, unable to gulp down the air like he wanted to. It hurt too much, everything hurt too much. The dark creature's eyes closed, he slipped back into the darkness.

You should be dead.

His eyes opened again, the sun blinding him. He took another breath, the pain stabbing him in his chest. The fisher coughed, sending ripples of discomfort through his broken body. He felt more aware this time, patches of what had just happened coming back to him. Above him was a tree, old and tall and broken, a line of broken branches forming the path to which he'd fallen. Some twigs and leaves clung to his pelt, he could feel some of the splinters digging into his fur. He continued to take slow, shallow breaths as he managed to roll over. He brought a paw up to grab at a twig that had lodged itself into his shoulder, and pulled at it. He had plenty of twigs like that, and pulled at a few more before finally just laying down.

He had given up, simple as that. A few scratches, he could live with. But he'd seen his leg, twisted and gnarled and painful. He was better off dead.