Embrace Your Inner Ginger

Holly stared at Matt’s body for a second; rapidly going over everything she had learned that related to first aid, not allowing herself to think what would happen if none of it worked.

She quickly rolled him onto his back, tearing off her coat and tucking it around his torso before pressing her fingers against the side of his throat: a faint pulse fluttered against them. She breathed a sigh of relief at this sign of hope then tried to remember what her instructor and told her about CPR.
What was it again…? What if she couldn’t remember? Fuck, no, can’t think about that-HAH GOT IT!
CALL BLOW PUMP. She smiled to herself at the ridiculous words, deciding not to tell David unless he giggled himself into unconsciousness as well.

Right: CALL. No point in that, she didn’t even know where she was, no chance of emergency services finding them.

BLOW: She grinned despite herself, and then concentrated on remembering the instructions “Tilt the head back and listen for breathing.” She did so and after listening hard for a second heard a faint rasping. Much better than the initial arghhe’snotbreathingatallaaaargh. Okay, okay, what was next? “If not breathing normally, pinch nose and cover the mouth with yours and blow until you see the chest rise. Give 2 breaths. Each breath should take 1 second.” She carefully did so, lingering a little longer than she should have over Matt’s mouth as she remembered the next part, listening to his breathing, which was definitely stronger, but still weaker than it should have been

PUMP: She gave a little giggle, making David look up at her with a curious look before he went back to clearing the snow from around Matt’s body. After see Holly’s determined effort with the kiss-of-life, he had left her to it, letting his thoughts wander back to Julia while he busied himself with his menial task. Holly carefully placed the heel of her hands over Matt’s sternum, not thinking about the stories of ribs cracking under the necessary pressure of the life-saving action. She steeled herself and pushed down. There was a sudden yelp of pain, startling Holly who stumbled backwards into David, shoving him into his carefully build pile of snow. David made various noises of protestation, grappling around behind him until he found a handhold with which to pull himself out of the snow. Succeeding, he sat down heavily, shaking the snow out his hair and giving an enormous grin to Matt, who had now sat up and was in danger of being rendered unconscious again by the tight hug being given to him by Holly, sitting on his lap. Matt gave a shaky smile in response and wrapped his arms around his beloved Holly.

“How bloody confusing is this thing MEANT to be?! It’s like it was designed NOT to be used!” Jess kicked the offending camping stove and flopped back down again on the ground.
“It’s sodding impossible to get a flame on that thing! I mean what the fuck… stupid pile of crap… Einstein couldn’t figure the bloody thing out…” The sentence tailed off into muttered profanities as Sam got up to try his luck at turning the thing on and the group lapsed back into its various conversations. Abi and Tom, sitting with Tom’s arm around Abi’s shoulders were discussing with Julian various ideas of getting Matt, David and Holly back to the main camping. The ideas were getting sillier and sillier with as they slipped into the comforting assumption that it would all turn out for the best and the lost three would eventually find their way back. The discussion was becoming more and more animated as Tom expounded on the advantages to be gained from sending in the gigantic Eagles of the Lord of the Rings world to find them. Abi had tired of Tom and had started a much more practical conversation with Zoe over Tom’s shoulder about what would be had for tea when she was hit on the side of the head by a spatula. Jess was throwing things at Sam who had succeeded in lighting the camping stove and characteristically missing her intended target.

Holly trudged through the snow, her hand clutching Matt’s as she peered through the trees. She could’ve sworn that she had just seen a glow peeping from behind the dense mass of the trees about a hundred metres ahead of where they were now, a glow that had not been there a moment before.
“Oi, you two. Can you see that over there?” She raised her hand to point at it, pulling Matt’s warm hand up along with it.
“Oh yeah… Hey, d’you think…” David turned to Holly with a hopeful expression.
“That it’s the others? Yeah, could be,” Holly grinned then looked up towards Matt who was squinting into the distance, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Ramen ramen I love you, ramen ramen you come in flavour chicken stew, ramen ramen additive goodness, ramen ramen do you love me toooooo,” Zoe was happily tucking into her Pot Noodle, giggling out her made-up song as the rest of her friends slurped up their portions and joining in for the prolonged tooooooo until they all broke off into loud laughter.
“Fucking hell, that smells goo-” David’s sentence was cut off as Zoe leapt on him, squeezing him whilst shouting, “THANKGODYOU’RESAFEWE’VEBEENSOWORRIED!” Matt and Holly ducked inside that tent and were similarly besieged by Abi, Tom, Jess, Lizzie and everyone else, all crowding round to see the three, and enormous group hug forming around them, the yelled greeting creating a noisy and joyous cacophony over the scene.