Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME (don’t write about the song) (06/04/15)
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TITLE: Second Chance | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hannah Gaudette
06/11/15 -
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We plunged headlong into the deep snows before rising again into the frosty January air. The dogs were wild with excitement. Our first trek out in the open since Christmas. The first time with their old leader, Chance. How I'd missed that little mutt when he was gone!
“Haw, Aspen!” I called to the navigator to turn left. “Haw, Chance!”
The whole team followed their trusted leaders and we veered off the trail and onto the road less traveled. The dogs loved this route more than any other because they got to run without the limitations of the snowmobile path.
Chance, my malamute/husky cross lead dog, the dog I would've trusted with my life any day, was running like he'd never run before. His muscles rippled under his thick black and gray fur. He'd been staying with my daughter and son-in-law, also Alaskan mushers, for a few weeks while he recovered from an injury to the leg.
First getting him back, I worried that he would be stunted as a lead dog. But he wasn't. Today he was proving that with the same life, zest, and power I'd always seen in him.
We raced into the trees, the sled sinking in the feathery snows. Small flakes from the snow-laden tree canopy fell upon us. The forest grew more dense here, as the pines closed in and underbrush thickened. My six-dog team slowed slightly to accommodate the winding trail which had grown in some since our last run out here.
Suddenly, I thought I heard a voice. But I couldn't have; not above the rush of the sled on twigs and the pawing of the dogs on snow. But there it was again.
Stop running, it seemed to say. Stay where you are.
Now I can officially say my dogs obeyed commands better than me. I didn't listen to that voice because it made no sense whatsoever. I kept running the team, not seeing the 'Snowmobile Crossing' sign which had never been there before. We came to a bit of a clearing and heard a loud noise.
An engine. The team stopped automatically, directly in the cleared path. Even if we'd kept going, we couldn't have avoided it. There was a blind corner and the three people on the snowmobiles didn't see us. The first one crashed through my sled, sending me flying into the deep snows, sending the dogs running forward.
Wild yelps, engines roaring, shards of pain in my leg . . . all was a horrifying blur as I stayed buried alive in snow. I was suffocating from panic and my leg throbbed.
Cold seized me. I was suddenly blind and deaf. The dogs' pleas were no more. The deafening mutter of the snowmobiles was gone. And I had this horrible feeling like I would die here, before my husband could figure out what had happened.
“God,” I prayed silently, “why did You let this happen?”
I gave you a warning, the answer came.
If I'd had the strength to cry – no, sob, actually – I would have. My life flashed before me. The kind of person I was was embarrassing. The mistakes I'd made humiliating. The times I wasn't there for my daughter. The times I'd put her off until later. When I'd made my own life more important . . .
“God, give me one more chance!” I begged inside. “Just one!”
Suddenly I felt pain from something other than my leg. It was my foot. It felt like it was being pulled on. Hard. Harder. Harder. I could hear something now. Like . . . snow being shoveled without any delay in between shovelfuls.
I could see sunlight. I could breath anew. My lungs filled with air and took huge breaths.
Then I saw him: Chance. I'd heard sweet stories of sled dogs saving their owners before, but it had never happened to me. He'd unburied me, saved me, rescued me. But he hadn't been alone. God must have enlisted the angels to give him a hand. Because in that moment, I felt more free, more alive, than ever before. The angels had been right there with me.
God had given me a second chance through my dog, Chance.
He just sat there, panting, content. As though there was nothing heroic about him. But he was an angel in disguise. I had a second chance.
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My red ink is minor. I noticed several incomplete sentences. They work in the part after the crash, showing the intensity of the MC's thought and how they were just flashes in her head. The earlier ones distracted me just a bit. Also make sure you use a comma with conjunctions (like and, but, or) that connect two independent clauses.
Your ending was perfect. It left me with a sense of peace. God is always with us, even when we stubbornly ignore his voice. (I hate to admit how much I can relate to that. :) ) I liked the way you sprinkled the topic throughout the entire story. It was a delightful read from beginning to end.
Your story was riveting from beginning to end. I felt like I was right there with your team!