A thick sheen of sweat coated Caspian’s skin, white dust covering his upper body. Each swing made his arms feel as if they were engulfed in flame, muscles screaming in pain and protest. Despite that, his mechanical movements continued, the rockface slowly ceding ground. The first few swings had been the worst, the movement sending hot oxygen-rich blood coursing through his body. His hands itched like crazy, both from the blood and the reverberation of his blows. It had felt like there were millions of ants crawling under his skin, their little legs irritating him.
He didn’t know how long he’d been out here already, but Rich hadn’t returned yet. It couldn’t have been too long, but despite that, he felt like hours had ticked by. The one glaring thing telling him he was wrong was the rockface. No matter how sore his arms felt, the evidence was clear. Maybe a metre high had been dug away, but the damage was shallow.
His breathing heavy, Caspian brought the pickaxe high. More stone crumbled beneath his blow, dust and debris showering him. “This. Is. Awful.” he managed to utter in between gasps. He didn’t know why he was trying so hard, there was no reason to. Rich had even mentioned that this was more of an endurance task than any. Despite that, he couldn’t help but throw himself at the task.
He didn’t stop until the sound of boots crunching on gravel approached. Whipping his forehead of sweat, he turned to see Rich strolling over without a care in the world. In his hands, he held a large cooler and a fold-out chair. A god's damn chair. Annoyance coursed through him at the site of that. What was he going to do, lounge about?
“Jeez Caspian you look like shit,” he grinned. “It’s only been 30 minutes and you’re this tired already. Ya ain’t got no endurance.” Shaking his head with mock disappointment, he unfolded the chair and threw himself in it. “Take a break, I got some snacks.”
Letting the pickaxe slip to the floor, he flinched as it rubbed along his hands. Holding them up, his skin seems loose as if it had been pulled on. It was especially noticeable along the top of his palm, the skin a blood red. Tentatively prodding resulted in a dull ache, barely noticeable in his already worn state. Putting it out of mind, he looked over to Rich who was currently rummaging through the cooler.
“Whaddya want?” Rich asked pulling out an apple. Taking a huge bite, juice spilled out of his mouth. “I managed to scrooge up some sandwich. Got some jerky too, and fruit.” It was difficult to understand the man’s words, with his mouth full of apple, but Caspian got the general gist.
“Jerky,” he said hoarsely, coughing a bit. Some dust must have gotten into his throat, seeing as how dry and chalky his mouth was.
“Here drink this,” Rich said tossing him a bottle of water from the cooler.
“Thanks,” Caspian managed to croak. Gulping down half the bottle in a single go, he instantly felt more refreshed. Going a step further, he poured some onto his face in an attempt to cool himself down. Water cascaded off of him, wetting the ground around his feet. “Ahhh that's nice,” he thought.
“Whoa whoa whoa, what are you doing?” Rich said tilting his head.
“Huh?” Caspian said confused. “What do you mean? Just trying to cool off.”
“That’s completely unacceptable,” Rich said frowning. “You seriously see no issue with what you just did?”
“Uhh.” At this point Caspian was baffled, what had he just done to annoy Rich? Trying to think back, he couldn’t come up with anything. “Um, I genuinely don’t know what you mean. I’m sorry for whatever it was that I did.”
Shaking his head, Rich's face seemed to swap from disappointed and annoyed. In the end, he just let out a sigh. “You just wasted like half a bottle of water. That’s what.”
Looking down at the empty bottle in his hand, Caspian frowned. “What do you mean? You’ve got more, don’t you? I just needed to cool off a bit I was boiling,” he said. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you wasted it and don’t see it as an issue,” Rich said sitting back. “That bottle you just splashed on the floor was enough to keep someone going for half a day at least out there. Wastefulness has zero tolerated.”
“Look I didn’t think about it,” Caspian said trying to plead his case.
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“And that’s just not good enough,” Rich said frowning. “You kids have no clue, do you? You’ve never run out of water, watched men’s bodies wither because you ran out. That’s a cruel fate to befall someone, and what you did is tantamount to sacrilege. The only, and I mean only time you ever do something like that is at an oasis or well.”
“Jeez, I didn’t think it’d be a problem,” Caspian said. “It’s not really an issue in the city, with the underground river so I guess it was a blindspot.”
“Yeah well, maybe you ought to start thinking about it. All that easy to acquire water is going to be far from us soon, and all we’ll have is what we can carry,” Rich said crossing his arms. “You’re still thinking like a city lad, but you’re an explorer now. You can’t be doing things like this without thinking. Hell if Duke caught you doing that out there, he’d be livid.”
“Duke would?”
“Oh yeah, seen it a few times myself. The man hates waste, had water troubles even before the world had to shit I think,” Rich said. “He don’t talk about it too much, so don’t go mentioning it. But phew, when that man gets going he is a force of nature like you would not believe.”
“I think I can imagine it,” Caspian said smiling. “Look Rich I’m sorry about the water, I’ll avoid it in the future.”
“Hey, that’s all I can ask. Of course, if you don’t it’s your funeral, but that's neither here nor there amiright,” he said chuckling.
Caspian let out a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been expecting that, but he was happy it happened now than out in the desert. Reflecting, he had to admit that Rich was a tiny bit right. Years of living without having to think about his next meal had made him complacent. It would take a while to change his practices but he vowed to himself that he would. As loath as it was to think of, city living did have its upsides.
“That doesn’t change anything,” he told himself firmly. “It’s still a horrible place to live and I’m making the only choice I can. My destiny is out there under the sky.”
“So how’d your digging go?” Rich asked munching on a sandwich, snapping Caspian out of his thoughts. “Look’s like you’ve barely even started hehe.”
“Huh, no I haven’t. I was going hard at it,” he protested. Looking back at the rockface, his spirits dropped substantially. He didn’t know if it had been his mind playing tricks on him or what, but the cavernous hole he thought he had dug out was gone. In actuality, a small divot had been cut out. Barely 30 centimetres deep.
“I’m just messin' with ya Kid,” Rich said. “Feel free to keep going though, don’t let an audience get to you.”
“I just need a quick break, give me a few minutes,” Caspian said straining his jaw on a piece of jerky. The dried salted camel was more akin to leather than food, just the way he liked it. A long silence filled the air, one he didn’t know how to fill. So he didn’t, happily munching on his snack.
Rich was the one who broke it first, licking his fingers of sauce. “So Caspian, excited to be going on an expedition?”
“Is that a rhetorical question? Of course, I am,” he said. What a silly thing to ask, he wouldn’t be joining the expedition otherwise. Leaving was the whole point.
“That’s good, the first one’s always special,” he said nodding. “Can’t forget mine, although the payday only lasted me a week before I blew through it all. Managed to find an abandoned steel mill, on what used to be the coast. Of course, it’s all just land these days, but back in the day it would have been a hub for ships all along the West Coast.” Rich seemed to be reminiscing, looking off into the distance with a fond look on his face.
“Really? What was in it, anything usable?” Caspian asked.
“Aye was one of the more intact buildings we’ve come across. Course the fact that it was only a few years after the flood helped with how damaged it all was,” he said. “Plenty of the machinery was still usable, in fact, the steel mill we got here uses a lot of what we salvaged.”
“How did you move it all back? It must have weighed a ton.”
“Lucky for us we didn’t have to,” Rich said chuckling. “Thank god for that. No that task fell to the transportation guy, and let me tell you those fellas didn’t let me hear the end of it for months. Always moaning on about it. Used them big trucks they have, us poor camel folk wouldn’t have managed.”
“What was the group like back then?” Caspian asked interested. “Was it always you six?”
“No no, Chef was a later addition thank god. If he quit I don’t know what I’d do. Too many lukewarm oatmeals for breakfast does terrible things to a man,” Rich said shuddering. But we’ve had others join up, but they never really stuck around long.” Something seemed off in his tone, but Caspian couldn’t quite place it.
The silence continued for a few moments, Rich staring off into the distance before he shook his head. Clapping his hands, he turned to Caspian. “Ain’t it bout time you got back to work, that’s enough loafin around getting me to waffle on. You’re supposed to be learning.”
“Of course, Rich,” Caspian said dusting off his hands. Rolling his eyes as he walked away he picked up the pickaxe again, looking at the wall he was charged with hitting.
“Hey don’t you roll your eyes at me,” he said mockingly. “I’ll have you out here till nightfall if you ain’t careful.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Caspian smiled. Rich’s cheekiness was rubbing off on him it seemed. Lifting his weapon high over his head, he brought it down hard sending stone flying.