Eventually, someone pointed at me and told me that I should go clean myself up. That there was water down a narrow ravine. They were correct, if I was going to comfort people I needed to look the part and not remind them of the horror.
So I made my way down. It was steep and at times I had to resort to climbing down. There was a time not so long ago when this would have made me fearful but no longer. I had been through too much.
After a few minutes, I finally made it down to what was a large pond with a sand embankment. I went to get in but then froze in fear remembering a program about Earth and its crocodiles. If I remember correctly, it stated that some of its species had been around since the dinosaurs. They could be in this pond.
I scanned my eyes over the water but there was no movement. A wall of rock lay on the other side. Slowly, I took steps towards the water before taking off my top, and then trousers and dipped them into it. Slowly the blood came out. Then I splashed some on my face. It felt nice to the skin and had no foul odor. Feeling parched, I knew I needed to drink. Fortunately, I had figured out that it wasn’t stagnant water. It was dripping into the pond in a mini waterfall through a crack on the opposite wall and draining slowly away somewhere underneath. It was never going to be perfect, I just had to risk it. I lurched forward on his hands and knees and sipped voraciously.
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