Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

He needs a hospital.

Peeling open his left eyelid, I observed his blank stare. His pupil constricted, but that was it. No other sign of alertness.

Brain damage?

Concussion?

What would cause him not to wake?

“Hey...you....” I grimaced.

Hey you?

God, I’d never been so annoyingly frustrated not to know someone’s name. How had I spent a week—has it been a week?—in his company and still not know his damn name?

Give him a nickname.

Something to call him by.

Something to shout when he starts to fade.

Tapping his cheek, I snapped firmly, “Time to wake up...douche bag.”

Maybe something not so derogatory?

“Monster?”

Something that’s actually true and not you trying to convince yourself he is?

“Robert, Charles, Jon freaking Snow?”

Doubt George R.R. Martin would appreciate you plagiarizing one of his most iconic characters.

Placing my hand on his forehead, I paused and quieted the panic in my blood. I had to accept that he most likely wouldn’t make it. My only task now was standing vigil beside him so he wasn’t so alone as he passed away.

Fresh tears cascaded down my face.

I’m so sorry.

I was responsible.

In some sick way, I’d been the cause of all of this.

I was the one who’d trespassed. I was the one who derailed his simple life. I was the one who’d jumped on him while he stood so close to a cliff edge.

“I’m so sorry...whoever you are.” I cried harder. “I wish I knew your name. I wish I could apologize for everything I’ve caused.”

God, what is his name?!

He’d been forgotten by society, hidden from kindness, denied love and connection. He was anonymous to happiness as well as freedom.

Anonymous.

He was forgotten to everyone.

Everyone but me.

The online group that’d posted the boulder I’d been hunting was called Climber’s Anon. They’d brought me here. If only to destroy this man’s final sanity and to hold his hand as he died.

Anon.

That will do.

Cradling his cheek, I bent over him. “Can you open your eyes...Anon? Just give me some sign you can hear me.”

I waited.

I shivered.

Nothing.

“Come on. Just open your eyes, and I’ll do whatever you need. I don’t know how to help you if you don’t tell me.”

Silence.

Stillness.

A forest empty of his existence.

“Anon, please...”

Nothing.

An hour passed while I kneeled beside him and hoped.

I spoke to him often. I checked his pulse and assessed his bruised body. I thanked the thunderstorm the night before for softening the ground and turning hard dirt into squishy mud.

I racked my brain on what I could do to make him wake, going over my basic first-aid training and coming up blank. I had a simple kit of needles, surgical twine, an EpiPen (not that I was allergic), antiseptics, a ten-day course of antibiotics, gauzes, bandages, and painkillers.

None of those things would help with a head injury.

You can’t stay here all night, Gem.

I looked up, noticing for the first time how dark the world had become.

The sun had quietly gone to bed, letting darkness creep shadowy fingers out of the trees toward us.

Twilight made everything seem so much worse.

If he hadn’t died by now, perhaps...

Hope flared.

Fear crushed it.

I was paralyzed.

I didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t carry him back up the cliff to civilization.

I had no way of going for help that wouldn’t take days.

He needed treatment immediately, but I didn’t know how.

All I could offer was comfort.

Take him home.

How?

Brushing aside my tears, I let my mind cling to the task. I’d always been a doer instead of a worrier. If I could somehow figure out how to get Anon inside his home, then I could problem solve other things along the way.

Glancing down at him, I ran my hands over his cooling skin. More bruises had appeared, mottling his old scars. His breathing seemed to be stronger, even if he hadn’t opened his eyes.

The fact remained he was still too big and heavy for me to carry him.

I’ll have to—

My head whipped up and darted toward the trees.

An idea sprang to mind. A trick I’d watched some bush-bashing hikers post on YouTube.

Pushing off my knees, I opened my bag’s side flap and reached for my emergency tools. A Swiss Army knife, hunting blade, and a hacksaw.

I selected the hacksaw and stood.

With dusk came exhaustion, but I ignored my stumble and marched toward the gangly saplings that’d sprouted from seeds above. Keeping my eyes off the man lying like the dead, I dragged my blade forward and back, forward and back, sawing into a flexible tree until it cracked and fell.

I repeated the task, selecting an equally malleable sapling, turning it from vertical to horizontal. Their trunks only measured seven inches in diameter or so, but they’d be strong. They’d work and not be too heavy.

Hacking the off-shoots and ensuring they were smooth, I carried them back to him.

Still asleep.

Still trying to die.

Placing the two trunks side by side, I measured out his size, then used my climbing rope to create a stretcher. Tying the two trees together, I formed a small hammock between them.