Thunder Dome the mountains are calling

Set on 21 July, all welcome. :)

By some miracle, two weeks had passed since Ico's desertion of Ursus. He'd got himself thoroughly lost in the mountains before realising there was no reason why he could not just plant himself here for a while, high above the problems he'd now abandoned. The Summer had grown hot, but he caught ample breeze at the high altitude, and enjoyed cool water fresh from mountain springs. Ico had finally learned to hunt in the past few months, which was serving him well as grey squirrels and rats darted from scarce tree to cliffside hideaway. Somehow, and quite against his own expectations, the traumatised boy was doing well.

Until one evening, as the sun set behind the mountain zenith behind him, Ico had hopped from a plateau in search of a shortcut and found himself stuck on an extremely steep slope. If he scrambled upward, scree slipped perilously beneath his paws. He gazed down and realised there was no way he could descend that way either — the slope ended in a dramatic plunge into the valley below. Ico was stuck.

Why do I keep getting myself in such pickles, he muttered with exasperation, cringing as he raked his mind for solutions and found exactly nothing.