Julie's POV:
Looking at the rope bridge connecting these cliffs, I think this day can’t get any better. I thrive on adventure, and today it’s just been one adventure after another. The view is breathtaking, and the breeze is refreshing up here. If there is a damper, it’s that I have to experience this with Andy, but even that has a silver lining. His leering eyes are vexing, but it’s not like I haven’t learned to deal with lingering gazes from the opposite sex, and at least in Andy’s case there’s real concern for my well-being. In his own odd way, he’s sort of a sweetheart.

Putting this theory to the test, I lean out over the bridge and let gravity take me. I scream in terror, which isn’t hard to do with the hundreds of feet of empty space stretched out beneath me, and catch hold of the hand grips at the last possible second. Picking myself back up, I turn around to see Andy stricken with fear. I’m slightly disappointed he didn’t try to catch me, but one look at his face tells me the poor kid was frozen in panic.

His frightened expression is one of the most comical things I’ve seen all day and I cackle gleefully. When he calls me a fucking bitch I nearly lose it, laughing so hard I feel tears in the corners of my eyes. Once I regain my composure I test the fortitude of the bridge, gently applying pressure with my left foot. “It feels pretty sturdy,” I tell Andy, and soon the bridge is supporting my full one hundred forty pounds of weight. I bounce up and down once or twice, thinking if it’s going to give out it’s better if it happens near the edge. “Yup, it’s sturdy.”

The ropes are tight and in remarkably fresh condition. There’s no noticeable wear or rot, meaning this bridge was put up fairly recently. I scamper across with ease, and when I reach the other side and turn around, I see Andy practically crawling across at a snail’s pace. I giggle again, thinking he’d make a poor explorer, and wait patiently as he edges out over the chasm.

I decide to offer some words of encouragement, although I can’t help but allow a bit of a teasing intonation into my voice. I’m a jokester at heart, what can I say? “Come on, Andy, you got this!” I call to him, laughing, and when he looks at me I laugh some more. He wants so badly to impress me, but he’s just not cut out to play the role of the the brave, bold hero. Poor guy. He’s nearly halfway across when I notice movement on the far side of the bridge. People seem to have materialized from the side of the mountain.

My heart beat triples when I see that these newcomers are armed, and they don’t look friendly. I remember what I said about being chased by cave mutants, and I immediately regret it. “Andy, run!” I tell him, trying to keep my voice controlled as to not cause too much alarm, but firm enough to invoke a sense of urgency.

Fucking Andy. He can’t help himself, he looks around and sees the kids, yes, kids, and panics. He doesn’t take more than a single step before his foot gets tangled in the ropes and he falls right through the bridge. I scream, thinking I’m going to watch this poor bastard plummet to his gruesome demise, but by some dumb luck his tangled foot keeps him aloft.

One of the little shits fires an arrow at him, but her aim isn’t the greatest and it whizzes past his head. Still, it’s too close to comfort, and I know if don’t act quickly Andy’s a dead man. There’s a small part of me screaming at me to run, to just get the fuck out of there and leave the silly bastard to his fate, but I pushed him into this. It wouldn’t be right to abandon him now; it would haunt me forever. Besides, I wanted adventure. I wanted stories to tell. What better story than the time I saved my poor, dumb admirer from a band of savages in the Arizona desert mountains.

I bolt forward, and the kids on the rocks take note. I see all of them turn their weapons on me, and I actually manage to dodge the first shot they take at me, twisting sideways as the arrow whips past me. The second shot takes me in the left arm, but it’s not serious. It’s a dull, almost numbing sensation, and I yank the shaft from my flesh and toss it aside without breaking stride. I can’t let it distract me from what needs to be done. A third arrow is fired but it’s off the mark, and then I’m there, standing above this terrified man-child.

“Give me your hand!” I shout at him, as he doesn’t seem to even notice he’s being rescued. I think I can smell urine, and as I grapple with his tangled foot I feel the wetness in his pants. Poor kid pissed himself. He finally sees me, and the look he gives me is gold. I guess it’s how someone might look when the governor calls with a pardon as they’re sitting on the electric chair, waiting to fry.

Thankfully he has enough presence of mind to take my hand, and it makes it exponentially easier to lift the fucker back onto the bridge. Once he’s on his feet, standing toe to toe with me, he looks into my eyes and I can literally feel his affection, like a physical, palpable presence. He tells me I’ve been shot, as if I hadn’t noticed, so I nod without making a big production out of it.

He continues to stare at me, completely and utterly infatuated, and I realize his crush on me probably just grew tenfold now that I’ve saved his life. I wonder if it’s even possible he truly loves me, and I have to say something to break up the awkwardness, so I blurt out, “Hills Have Eyes shit, huh?” I laugh a goofy laugh, hoping he’ll snap out of it, and it seems to work. He tears his eyes away from mine, looks at something behind me, and squeezes me tight.

That’s when it all goes horribly south. I feel the impact in my back and buttock - three projectiles in quick succession. I study Andy’s face and I can see from his expression that it’s not good, and it occurs to me that he’s just used me as a human shield. Looking over my right shoulder I think I can see the tail feathers of one of these fucking shafts embedded in my flesh, and I reach for it. I’m not sure what I hope to accomplish by doing this, but I don’t like having arrows sticking out of me, and I think I can feel the arrowhead tearing at my lung with each breath I take.

I’m still pursuing this fool’s errand when Andy spins back around and throws himself low on the bridge. That’s when I remember the kids in front of us, and suddenly four more arrows come thudding into my torso. Three in my gut and one in my chest.

“Fuck me sideways,” I mutter. The pain is immediate and intense. Fuck fuck fucking fuck. I stare at the shafts protruding from my gut, wondering if they are real. I cup two of them with my hands, feeling the warm blood spilling through my palms. Am I dying? Can I really be dying?

Then I glare at Andy as he’s proving suddenly capable of navigating the bridge with a newfound grace and agility, and he rushes to the far cave without even looking back. He could have pushed me aside or pulled me out of the way, but he did neither of those things. Instead he left me to absorb all the damage and scurried off to safety.

I hope to appeal to his sense of heroism and romance, and I say, "Lois Lane sure could use some help from Clark Kent right abouuuhhh.” I’m cut off by another arrow in my back, and it feels like it pierced something important. Might be my liver maybe. I’m contemplating the odds are of surviving an arrow in my liver, an arrow in my lung, and a few more arrows in my intestines, when I’m shot in my left hamstring.

The pain is steadily mounting and starting to overwhelm me, but I can’t afford to lose my balance. A fall from this height would be the end of me, so I struggle to support myself on my wounded leg, holding the handrails and hobbling clumsily, until another arrow comes from the little shits in front of me and pierces deep into my right thigh. With both legs wounded, I lower myself to my knees but keep a tight grip on the ropes serving as handrails. I’m thinking about how I’m going to get off this bridge, through the caves, back to Fernie’s Jeep, and back to town so I can receive medical treatment with all these fucking arrows in me, and it is daunting to say the least.

"Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Fucking fucking fuck," I scream, letting my emotions get the better of me, and my last fuck is followed by the thud of another arrow in my abdomen. This one slides through the flesh a couple inches above my navel, where my solar plexus is located, and the pain is debilitating. I’m allowed almost no time to get acclimated to the arrowhead buried in this ball of nerves and vital organs before another arrow stabs into my chest, up near my left shoulder, and another pierces my right tit.

I grunt as I’m shot, then moan in agony and stare wide eyed at this shaft that appears to have sprouted from my right nipple. It reminds me of the movie scene we were discussing earlier, when I was still hungry for adventure, and I tell Andy, “Shot through the tit. Hills Have Eyes shit.”

Without missing a beat Andy corrects me, “Wrong Turn 3,” and I remember Ashley had corrected my same error earlier. I guess some things I never learn. In spite of all the pain and the fear of dying, this forces a smile to my lips. I decide I’m going to watch that movie when I recover from all this, and I’m going to laugh my ass off at that silly blonde bitch with an arrow sticking out of her big, fake boob.

Summoning all my energy, all my strength, I focus on one leg at a time, shutting out the pain, and I lift myself up until I’m standing again. Now I just need to cross about twelve feet of bridge and I’m in the cave. I take the first step, and I don’t plummet to my death. Nice. Good. Perhaps there’s hope?

Before I can take my next step another arrow thumps into my back. I think it may have gotten my left kidney. Another quickly follows, near my left shoulder blade, and I feel like my lungs are collapsing. I’m promptly shot again, just above my ass. Maybe that got my bladder or ovaries or something? How many vital organs have been punctured now?

Moving with all these arrows in me is excruciating. I can feel them tearing at my insides with even the slightest twist or turn, and I consider trying to pull one out. There’s really no time for that though, and this thought is punctuated by yet another arrow piercing my gut, and then another. I grunt softly with each new wound. Another arrow finds my right breast, so now I can say I’ve been shot twice through the tit, and yet another stabs into my right hip.

Jesus, this is hopeless. I’m going to die. I’m really going to die. It’s ceasing to become a question and now solidifying into a certainty. I look up at Andy and in the most vulnerable moment of my life I tell him earnestly, “I don’t wanna die.” He doesn’t seem to care. The piece of shit whose life I just saved watches me with a sort of cold indifference, and I understand he never loved me. He never even cared about me.

Three more arrows hit home in my back, one right after another, each one drawing a shriek of agony from me, and while one goes into the flesh on my right shoulder, the other two sink into what is likely my large intestine or stomach or pancreas or something else important. I taste blood in the back of my throat, and it begins to spill over my lower lip and down my chin. In the movies that always means a character is toast.

God, I don’t want to die. I want to live so, so badly. I refocus my attention on the bridge, meaning to take another step forward, but I’m met with another volley. The first of these arrows takes me straight through the center of my left tit, and I’m pretty sure my nipple is gone. The next drives home through the lower curve of my right tit, and for a moment I can’t breathe. The world begins to spin around me, and the next arrow strikes me high in the abdomen, very near the earlier arrow that had found my solar plexus. Oh my God so much pain. It just keeps getting worse. How can it keep getting worse? As if to answer that question, the next arrow stabs into my right thigh and that legs gives out on me.

I’m not even sure how it happened, but I feel myself falling. The bridge is no longer under my feet. I see the ropes passing me by, and I reach for them. I can’t fall. I can’t die. I feel something and close my fingers, and I’ve somehow caught hold of the bridge. That’s the good news. The bad news is I’m now dangling precariously above two hundred feet of nothing, thoroughly perforated with arrows.

I spot Andy up on the ledge, still watching me with morbid curiosity. Fuck, why won’t he fucking help me? “Please,” I manage to tell him. Then I swing forward and grab the foothold in front of me, making a little more progress towards the cave. One of the little cunts behind me doesn’t appreciate this, and lets me know by sending another arrow into my back. I feel it sink in above my right butt cheek.

I look down and see another whizz past below me, and another still stick in my right hamstring. Fuck, how many arrows do these kids fucking have? Maybe they’ll run out. I furrow my brow and take a swing at the next rung. It should be easy. I’ve always taken pride in my athleticism and coordination, but my body is starting to fail me and my fingertips claw uselessly at the rope, I miss and swing back, dangling by only my left hand. As I’m shifting momentum to give it another go I’m shot in the belly again.

I wail in unspeakable anguish and torment, disgusted by the sound I make. It’s more animal than human. If there is a threshold for pain, I’ve gone way past it, and while I want to grab the bridge above me, my right hand instead goes to my tummy, clutching uselessly at the numerous projectiles buried in my flesh there. As if to remind me that I’m fighting for my life, another arrow whizzes into my left breast.

Is that my heart? Could they really have shot me in the heart now? I gasp for air, finding the normally easy to breathe desert atmosphere thick and cloying, and I wave frantically with my right hand, until at last I find purchase on the bridge again. I’m steeling myself to make another go at moving forward when I’m shot through my right bicep, and another arrow immediately follows, stabbing deep into my right armpit. I feel it slicing through my already torn lung, and I think I feel it poking into my heart as well. It feels like my chest is being crushed.

It’s crazy. A few minutes ago I was laughing and teasing Andy, safe and healthy and ready to live another hundred years. How did this happen? Why is this happening? How can this possibly be happening? "Zooooo, I can't believe this is happening," I say aloud, and then I make an attempt for the next rung. I come up pathetically short, and I’m too tired and frustrated and weak to do anything else.

I dangle over hundreds of feet of nothingness, watching my blood spill into the chasm from dozens of wounds, and I realize I’m lost. This is the end of me. All my years of laughing and goofing off and just loving the fuck out of life, it’s all over.

I’ve heard the old saying that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die, and I think I get it. I find myself recalling dolls I played with not so long ago, and the first time I fell off my bike and skinned my knee, and my first kiss, and the day I found out Brian was cheating on me, and how I felt when I thought my parents were splitting up, and my seventh birthday when I got a basketball hoop in the backyard. So many memories welling up at once, the good and the bad. How can it all be ending? So soon. Too soon. I’m much too young to die. I have to keep trying.

I swing forward yet again, and this time my right hand grabs the rope, but as it does and my left hand releases to keep my momentum carrying me ahead, another arrow punches into my gut, where several of my vital organs and nestled. As I swing towards the next rung I’m met with two more arrows, one in my right forearm, weakening my grip on the ropes, and another in my left tit. It’s the final nail in my coffin. I’m done for.

I unleash another of those inhuman wailing noises, and I make eye contact with Andy as my fingers slip off the bridge. I can’t believe he’s there and I’m here. If he could have just walked across the bridge like a normal person, or if his stupid foot hadn’t gotten stuck and he’d just fallen cleanly to his death, I’d be safe. I’d be fine. He wouldn’t risk his life to save mine, but I didn’t hesitate to risk mine for his. And he’s rewarded with a long life while I die a horrible death. Only the good die young, I guess.

“Goodbye, Andy,” I tell him, and then I’m falling again, this time with no bridge to grab onto. I feel the wind rushing past me, but then I feel impact much sooner than I’d expect. A jutting rock connects with my left hip, sending me spinning and tumbling and splintering my ilium.

As I continue my trajectory a particularly ambitious mesquite tree finds my belly with one of its branches, raking across my tender flesh, tugging on a few of the arrows embedded there and ripping me wide open. Loops of entrails that it managed to snag go trailing through the air behind me as I continue downward, until I finally hit bottom, bouncing a few feet in the air, snapping a dozen more arrow shafts, driving some of them deeper and even through my body in some places, and breaking who knows how many more bones.

Amazingly, I’m still alive. I’ve just fallen hundreds of feet, been shot with countless arrows, been disemboweled by a tree, but I’m alive. So what do I do now? Andy’s going to go back to the Jeep and tell Fernie I’m dead and he’s being chased by savage children armed with bows and arrows. There’s no way they’ll come looking for me or stick around waiting for me to drag my sorry ass back there, so I’ll be left all alone out here in the middle of nowhere.

There’s really nothing left to do but lay here and wait for the buzzards and coyotes to come pick the meat off my bones, but that’s an unpleasant thought, so I start crawling. It’s not even really crawling, but rather pulling my broken body through the dirt and gravel. I don’t know where I’m going, but fuck it. I guess it doesn’t matter. I know it’s all for naught. There’s no way I can drag myself forty miles back to the highway, then be picked up and taken to a hospital and patched up. That would take days, and I’ve got maybe seconds, maybe minutes.

I focus on moving. As long as I’m moving I can’t die. Fuck I don’t wanna die. I really really really want to live. God, how can I be dying? My life was just beginning. I’m majoring in business at ASU, and last semester I got a 3.8 GPA. I’m smart, I’m good looking, I’m charming, I’m happy, I’ve friends and family who love me.

Why did those kids do this to me? I’ve never met them. They don’t know me. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. It’s all so fucking fucked up.

I feel a jarring sensation amidst the constant agony that now abides in my belly, and looking back I see my intestines have caught on some brush. Each tug forward pulls more of my bowels from my body, so I roll onto my back and grab my plumbing and give it a yank. The little weed holds fast to my guts, and after a few pulls I relent.

I’ve just lost a game of tug of war with my own innards to a little fucking plant. This thought cracks me up, and although it feels like I’m ripping myself apart, I actually laugh. Maybe I’m delirious. I look at my body, which was once a source of pride for me, and see the sad state it’s now in. The gaping, ragged hole in my belly, stretching from a couple inches to the left of my belly button all the way to my right side, and the literal dozens and dozens of arrows poking out of me every fucking where. And my intestines. I’m actually holding my intestines in my hands, and more than ten feet of the fucking things are spread out in the dirt behind me.

I sigh and lay my head back and look up at the sky. It’s a beautiful day. The sun hangs high, as it’s early afternoon, and everywhere you look you see the most perfect shade of blue. People used to say my eyes reminded them of the sky. Soon my eyes will be rotting in the ground. That is if the authorities come back and find my body. I see a buzzard circling, and another. Motherfuckers don’t waste any time, do they?

I try to think of the happy times I’ve had. My first orgasm, when I found out rubbing a certain spot in my snatch and picturing that guy from Vampire Diaries whose name escapes me at the moment could bring such immaculate pleasure. The day Monica and I went to Six Flags in the rain, and there were no lines for any of the rides. All the Christmases of my childhood. That magical excitement of waking up and running to see what Santa had brought me. So many good times, but my mind keeps returning to the cold inevitable fact that I’m dying. All those memories will soon gone forever. I’ll be gone forever.

Fuck. Oh fuck. Fucking fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckity fucking fuck fuck fuck. I can’t feel my fingers. I can’t feel my fucking legs. I want to live. I don’t wanna die. I fucking don’t wanna die. Fucking shitting fuck. Where’s my mommy? She was always able to fix things when I was little. Maybe she can help? I wanna go home. I want my mommy. I don’t wanna die. I’m so fucking scared. Fuck. I…