Micro Monday - January 27, 2025
The Wind on the Mountain
Happy Monday! Your weekly microfiction is slightly longer this week. I entered a 250-word short story contest back in November where each group is assigned a genre, an action, and a specific word that must appear within the story. You get 48 hours to write and submit the thing, at which point you’re judged against everyone else in your group. The top ten stories in each group advance to the second round.
This was my entry for the first round of the contest. Happily, it earned me a place in the second round. I’ll find out the results for round two on March 5th, but until then, I hope you enjoy this one.
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The Wind on the Mountain
Anna followed the trail around the overhang and found the source of the black smoke. Not a campfire, as she’d hoped, but a crashed search and rescue helicopter, which filled her with dread. No one else would come, after this. When the rescue teams started dying, they stopped sending rescue teams.
She forced herself to focus. Despair wouldn’t save them, but the supplies onboard the helicopter might. She found a stretcher and started loading it. Rope, flashlights, first aid kits. As she opened a case of MREs, something moved in her peripheral vision. She glanced at the cockpit and saw a bloodied hand resting on the air speed gauge.
Please be dead, she thought.
They’d been drinking snowmelt for days, but Matt’s broken leg wasn’t going to heal if he didn’t eat. Twenty MREs meant five days of food - enough time to reinforce his splint and make a little progress down the mountain. Enough to try, at least.
If they had to split the food three ways…
“Help,” someone whispered.
Anna told herself it was the wind.
“Please.”
Her legs carried her to the cockpit, where the pilot’s mangled hand struggled with his seatbelt. His chest looked sunken; his breath came in short gasps. Anna pulled his hand away and laid it in his lap. He blinked at her, not understanding.
“I came… to help…”
“You did,” she whispered. “You are.”
Outside, snow flurries landed on the windshield and stuck there. The wind fell silent, having nothing left to say.
Great work. Good luck!
Loved this. Great twist!