Sam's Forest Exile - Pullups [800 Word Short]

The forest was steaming under the relentless summer sun. Insects screeched from their hidden perches while the birds that were normally singing this time of day were oddly quiet, likely taking rest in the shade - as any sane creature would during this brutal heat wave.

The clothes that Sam had brought here with her years ago  were now scraps that clung onto the last of her modesty. Even as close to naked as she was, however, she was dripping with sweat - and today's training had barely started. She had been on the move since dawn. Hunting, collecting water - though pointedly not allowing herself any yet. The general day to day tasks of maintanence that ensured her survival. So the rest of the day... she could do this -

A suitable tree branch was easy to find some way away from her camp - many of the closer ones had broken or worn down from her daily training, the forest itself unable to stand ro her, but this one was fresh. There was no warm up or stretch, no pause or analysis. Sam was walking, and then she bad lept up to the tree several feet over her. Her thick legs were hypertrophied to the extreme, skin wrapping around them as they coiled before launching all six feet of her skyward. Her calloused fingers grabbed the branch hard enough to crack the bark and she was moving up and down. The pull-ups looked effortless. They were effortless.

Sam grimaced. She had always preferred the snow over the heat. In the cold, she could warm herself up by training as hard as she could. In the heat - well, resting wasn't an option. Her heat tolerance, the way she burned instead of tanned, the way the heat drained her - these were the exact reasons that she refused to work in the shade.

Her glorious lats swelled with each lift, her back had grown so much that the remnants of her shirt creaked. Her round, muscle-capped shoulders shuffled with sinew, and the feathers of her lower back were so deep that the sweat dripping down her trailed along them before sinking to her glutes. She was lean. Too lean. More so than a girl putting herself through this kind of treatment should be. Sam knew that. But she also knew that she had the strength to keep going. To go further, get bigger and harder. So when her biceps looked and felt ready to rupture through her skin she didn't stop or slow down.

She rarely planned workouts or counted reps. Order was a ghost of her old life. This was instinct. Grit. Work. Her only sign of progress was the sun shifting over her as the peak of the days heat passed. Sam was gasping through reps, gritted teeth, head back. They were coming slow now, her fingers bleeding into the splintered branch. Her muscles were gutting through by sheer stubbornness. As she panted only hot air filled her lungs, sweat cascading down her undulating abs, mixing with dirt along the bruised, jagged musculature.

Grunting gave way to growling, and then shouts unheard by anything but the local wildlife. Evidence that this beast was in fact something human only in the way she yelled with effort and pain. Nobody would ever count whatever dozen world records she had broken, not least herself.

Eventually, she was hanging for a minute or two between reps, and taking a near minute of full, sustained effort for each pull-up. But she still hadn't given in. Every rep took her high enough for her rock solid pec muscles to push against the bark - equal in their lined definition. It hurt, and it had been hurting for hours.

For a moment, Sam wanted to stop, to rest. That was all it took. Sam fell, hard and right on her back. The air was forced from her and she let out a guttural wheeze. The pain flaired through her spine and ribs. The hot earth scorched her back and the world blurred around her. She made a move to sit up but groaned and fell back. Her shoulders and arms felt like they were being shocked. Twitching and vascular, in complete protest of what she had put them through.

Sam lay there for a while.

It was too hot. She could feel the sweat pooling in her navel and abs but her lips were cracked and dry. She gripped the earth and sat up with a groan, then looked at her hands. They were torn up, but she had seen much worse. She should have been able to hold.

With little more hesitation, she turned to the tree and slapped it, open palmed so hard that it knocked loose leaves above. Then the other hand, and again. She did it until the bark broke into splinters in her palms, and she felt tears in her eyes.

Finally, as before, up to the branch. Another rep. There was still weakness to burn out.