Troy felt cold. Likely because he was cold. The man was not too sure on that aspect. His skin had stopped giving him any responses, turning into a dull void of feeling. Maybe it could have been called hot? Foreign perhaps? It did not matter.
He knew he was cold because his muscles were weak. Each step was harder than the last. It felt like he was walking through water up to his knees. Small movements were easy, but anything that moved his true mass was harder than it should have been. It would have been all too easy to just lie down in the gathering snow. But, that was not something he could do.
The trek had barely started. If Troy looked back, he might even have been able to see some part of the river he had come from. He didn't. Too much energy to use. It was too hard to move now. Wasting it on something as vain as looking around would be stupid of him.
Still… maybe it would have brought him something that would distract his muscles. If they forgot to resist for a few seconds, Troy could build up momentum. He could force his body into a run, make himself move faster than the wind, and get to their hiding place within the next few minutes. He would be able to feel the warmth again. Honestly, he would have been fine with feeling the cold as well. Troy just wanted to feel something, anything that would make him pull away. There was hardly any energy to do it.
Energy… he needed energy. His body was working hard to stop him from falling over, but even it needed to sustain itself somehow. The heat required a price, and there would soon be no currency to pay with. Troy had run on fumes for so long, and even those strips would go into the void soon enough.
Yet, therein lied the problem. To move, he needed to get energy. To get energy, he needed to get food. To get food, he needed to move. It was all a circle of requirements that could never truly be filled. It was self-sustaining, as the only thing in the vicinity. If somebody had one part, they could get it all. If they had none, it would stay that way no matter what. How sad a truth, made by a young man not able to twist his own neck too much.
His arms were in contact with his main body, doing their best to keep some part of his skin warm. They were wet, but so was everything on him as well, so it did not really matter. There was no chance of him becoming dry outside. He needed the security of a roof for such a thing.
Another part of the problem circle, ready to be added anywhere that was pleasing. How long could people survive out in the cold? With the proper equipment, the answer would be in the count of days. With wet clothes on? Probably half an hour. The water was doing nothing to stop the freezing temperatures. In fact, it likely worsened it by more than Troy would ever desire.
Were his legs shaking? Looking down, they did indeed seem to have such a quality to them. Troy could not personally feel it, nor could he see it when walking, but his limbs were beginning to convulse. The muscles were not appreciating the coldness inside and were rebelling in their own little special way. That way was traditionally called being extremely annoying.
Oh… there it was. The feeling of nearly losing balance. The left leg had gone cold a moment before the right, causing a slight delay in the balancing. Troy did not fall to the ground per se, but neither did he stay on the path. A tree was at his side, luckily, allowing him to stand upright and assess the situation.
His vision was worsening with time, his limbs were heavy, and he was cold enough to not feel it. Everything pointed to him having a generally terrible day. But, no changes had occurred at the last minute. While he was in bad health, nothing had worsened. He could still continue, even if he felt terrible. There were no excuses.
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‘Look down at the ground where you stand,’ Adam sent, giving Troy a much-needed excuse. His legs did need some amount of rest, after all, so indulging the AI in his fantasies was not the worst of actions to take.
Such a comment was taken back pretty quickly though. As instructed, the young man looked down at what his feet stood on. His expectance had been to see wet dirt, ready to show just how much dirt he would be forced to clean in the morning. Instead… there was something else on display.
It was a carcass of some sort. Troy could not tell the species, and neither could he really say how big it originally was. The outside had come off through time and scavengers, yet it could not have laid there for more than the day. Troy had certainly not seen it on his last journey on the path.
The head… What was that? Having glided his eyes along with the corpse, Troy was unsure of what he saw at the top. All the wounds had been done in scratches until then, showing evidence that it had all been done by animals both small and big. The head was different in that regard.
It seemed as if the front had caved in somehow. From the presumed nose, a pit began, nearly going through the entire head. It had been an instant kill. Could… was there an animal that could have done that? No, that did not make any sense. Something else was afoot.
Troy could not understand it. An animal eaten by animals but killed by something else. If it had been close to the city, he could have attributed it to the police having been sent to exterminate it, yet with how far out they were… nobody in their right mind would have gone out where he was. And certainly not anyone with the needed tools. He felt the need to question the AI immediately, yet Adam seemingly had other ideas.
‘We will need to report this to the others. For now, you must hurry. Your body is shutting down more quickly than expected,’ Adam said, his words just about as nice to hear as a rusty nail on a board. Troy had only such a thing once, yet he could firmly state his hate for it.
Part of that hate-filled the start of his movement. A few steps were needed to get back onto the down-trodden path, but it then allowed him to walk further. The thirty seconds of pause had given him temporary relief, even if it came back two-fold after that time.
Troy did not stop walking, however. Trees passed by him, a few birds fought to the side, and a couple of rocks had to be walked around. But he did not care for such things, only looking forward, going as fast as his incredibly tired body could muster. Then again, his body might just have been too tired to realise that things were around him. Troy did not know, for he did not think about it. He only walked forward, and nothing more than that. The body was too weak to do anything else.
No thoughts regarding failure came forth. Not once did Troy think he would fail to get to the hide-out. Such thoughts were reserved for his dead-bed, and even then it would only be if he remembered to do it. Remembering currently was hard for him, leaving chances for such a thought to be close to zero.
One step forward and another step forward. Not the most catchy of tunes to have, but it worked well for the man. Only the rhythm carried him. Though… that rhythm was becoming a bit uneven. One step would get two quick follow-ups, and then have the man be balanced on one foot for upwards of two whole seconds. It was as if his brain was having a hard time keeping up with present events.
‘Troy, you need to move.’
Troy would have done well as a ballerina. His current actions were proof of that. Balancing for anything more than an instant was a righteous fool’s dream. While his other foot might not land on the ground, it certainly did its best to move the main body, even if that meant making it twirl. It was disorienting to experience, but it hardly worsened the experience.
… Forget that last part. Troy certainly had, his legs falling together in a heaping pile. His rear had firmly planted itself on the path. That was not good. He was cold. His legs were not responding. The young man tried to glide his finger across his left leg, but he couldn't figure out if he actually touched it. The sensation in his finger had disappeared. That couldn't be good… had he thought that before?
‘You need to get up, Troy. You will freeze.’
That was true. Or was it? Troy was feeling rather hot, actually. If he had the ability to really move his fingers, he would have taken off his clothes. Instead, he just tried to be still. No movement equalled no heat generated right? He had too much of it right now… it was tiring.
‘Troy. Get up.’
Troy couldn't hear him. Even if the young man had been shouted at, he would not have heard it. With an empty stomach, wounds all over, and left in a cold area for too long, should there have been any other expectation?
Footsteps came close and closer. Adam was the only one to hear them, as the young man had gone cold everywhere but deep inside.