෴Raz෴
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Will to Live
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Raz gripped the edge of the cliff, shaking the sand out of his face as he carefully stabilized himself on the thin edge.
I should have learned to fly.
He reached up past the edge, feeling around for another handhold. Suddenly the tiny rock handhold broke off. In slow time, he scrambled for another handhold, feeling his fingers slip off the edge as gravity took him.
*** *** ***
[W̵͓̞̆̉̿ā̴̞̟̀k̸̜͈̀e̴̮̟̔ ̵̞͗́͜ụ̶̣́̚p̶̩͇̓̈́̂.]
A series of colorful and distorted alien symbols flowed past his view. The words ‘Active Recovery’ repeated in his mind several times. Raz did his best to ignore it all and stay asleep.
[Wake up now!]
Raz didn’t want to wake up. He got rid of the prompt and drifted back into a hazy warmth. A haze laced with a deep, growing ache.
[Alert. Intracranial pressure increasing.]
Like a troublesome snooze button, Raz mentally swiped at this message to go back to sleep. It wouldn’t go away. Then another one popped up along with it. Both messages flashed a bright red and white light in his eyes.
[If you don’t wake up, you’ll die. You’re going into shock.]
He tried to ignore them and go back to sleep. Then Bee added strobing lights and a loud whining, buzzing sound.
Alright, I’m up. What?
He started to doze back off.
[Wake up or die!]
After the prompt finally woke him, grit in his eyes and gut-wrenching waves of pain from the rest of his body were the first things to assault his senses. The starlight shone on the ground around him, reflecting off the glittering sand. Nothing moved as far as he could see.
I’m really hurting. I gotta get back on my feet and get out of here.
He was pretty sure he was lying on his back. Looking at the cloudless blue sky. Someone’s leg was under his arm. The leg was a mystery until he cleared more of the pain fog from his head and realized what the leg wearing his utility boot probably meant.
Oh, no. That’s my leg. I’m folded in half the wrong way!
As he thought it, his mind shied away from that idea hard enough that he tried to shake his head no.
Trying to move his head even just slightly was a terrible, agonizing, mistake. Stabbing blades of pain shot up and down his spine, the sensation dying abruptly at the bottom of his back. When he gasped in pain, the movement of taking more than the most shallow of breaths felt as though knives were stabbing into his lungs.
He stared upward at the cliff that his HUD claimed was only 35 meters up. 117 feet sounded worse.
I wonder if falling in metric is better than imperial.
Raz realized his mind was drifting and tried to yank himself back on track.
Bee, I can't feel my legs. How messed up am I?
[Very. No nerve impulses received from below the L5 vertebrae. Extensive peripheral nerve damage in the immediate area. From the angle of your leg under your arm, your pelvis is probably shattered, along with who knows how many other bones down there.]
[I regret to say that paralysis is probably not your biggest problem. The fall cost you all 3 MHP, and you’re still dying. As far as I can tell, multiple organs are failing or are already in a state of failure, including your liver and renal system, judging by the buildup of waste in your blood.]
[Critical Alert: Intracranial pressure nearing fatal level.]
My head actually feels fine.
[You have no nerve endings in your brain. Diagnostic senses are the only way I can tell. You’ll lose consciousness soon, and then die not long after.]
Feeling the urgency, Raz dove into himself, locating several small burst blood vessels and sealing them off.
That wasn’t so bad. Not sure how to get rid of all the extra blood in there. Maybe if I...
He slipped back into himself and attempted to use Somatic Restoration to persuade the blood cells to absorb into the blood vessels at a faster rate. It was slow and difficult going, like juggling eels with one hand without letting them bite him. His imperfect recollection of what he’d learned about his body told him he didn’t need to get all the blood out, just enough to relieve the pressure.
Once he’d finished with the intracranial pressure, a host of minor head injuries presented themselves. After several rest breaks, he finally ran a Diagnose pulse through his own head and got nothing back.
Ok, that wasn’t so bad. I got this.
[I regret to say this, but while that injury was very severe due to its proximity with your brain as an intracranial injury, it was physically minor compared to the rest of you.]
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
[I mentioned it because most of your pain receptors are currently disabled to allow you to function. I’ll have to let more of it through for you to use Diagnose anywhere else.]
Well, that sucks.
He took a breath to try to ready himself. “Let’s do—” He choked on his words as the pain closed in on him.
If moving was sharp, crystallized agony. Speaking was swallowing razor blades and broken glass. Breathing, slow and shallow, was the least painful option. Breathing was slamming his lungs against sharp splintering bone spikes. He swallowed the chunks of sandy dried blood his attempt had knocked loose and resolved to keep as still as possible.
Let's see where I’m at now.
Unable to move at all without the sickening feeling of splintered bones rubbing up against other splintered bones, Raz froze, mentally gritted his teeth, and activated Somatic Restoration and Diagnose 2 on himself. Several Diagnose pulses later, a long list of injuries sorted from most to least serious popped up in a side window. Lightheaded and nauseous with the waves of pain, he decided to take a break.
Turn it off, turn it back off now! His thoughts were unfocused and desperate.
The crushing pain receded to a dull, achy feeling at the edge of his awareness.
[Unidentified absorbable resource detected. Absorb?]
Is it something that would help?
[Unknown. It is unidentified.]
Is it safe to absorb?
[Unknown. It is unidentified.]
Raz mentally swiped the alert off to the side to join his growing and extensive list of ignored and unread HUD messages.
With my luck, it’ll turn out to be poisonous. Whatever it is, I can’t risk it right now.
He started to dig into the injury list. Several precious minutes later, he realized this research was just putting off the real work.
Ok, this is going to suck. Bee, I need you to help me stay on task. It’s bad with the pain on. I need you to make me stay on task even if I start trying to avoid it, or tell you to turn it back off.
[Do you wish to allow yourself short breaks?]
Yeah. But not too many, and keep them short until I’ve done what I can with the wounds that will kill me the quickest.
Bee didn’t need to acknowledge the order. Raz barely suppressed a shocked gasp when the pain came back.
Ok, first priority? More bleeding?
He worked on the bleeding, closing wounds quickly, with little regard for finesse. As he ran across them, dozens of fresh infection sites were also expelled and cleansed. Allowing himself to stay deep within the tissues helped him hide from the crushing, suffocating pain.
That wasn’t too bad, much easier than the septic infection Higgs had. Hmm, closing wounds, and cleansing the infection around it. I wonder if Incursions can, or should, be treated like infected wounds on the world as a whole? Or would it be the whole rea—
[You’re allowing your mind to wander to hide from the pain.]
What felt like a very long time later, he’d managed to repair all the internal and external bleeding. It seemed a miracle that all his bones were still sheathed in flesh and skin.
[Fortunate indeed. You’re already in no shape to set the bones you’ll need to set, but any compound fractures would radically worsen the situation and require even more difficult bone setting.]
Working on his injuries in slow time meant spending hours in pain for every few minutes of real-time. Somewhere along the way, the idea of giving up and just letting himself die started to sound appealing. As the morning wore on, he felt he’d been in unbearable pain trying to repair a condemned structure for weeks. As he started to consider just giving up and dying a preferable option, a slow, groggy, half-formed thought occurred to him.
Can you help with the pain again? I need a break.
The pain receded. Several areas across his body now simply felt unresponsive and cold, like dead or dying flesh.
[This has its own dangers, but I can give you some respite while you take a short breather.]
He used the short break from the pain to regain his will to live. All too soon, the pain was back, and he got working on his upper body. Even deep within the slow time, the damage felt like it took forever to repair. More and more, he just wanted to let it all fade away and sleep for a while.
[No! If you fall asleep, you’re dead.]
Yeah yeah. I’m working on it. Ok, let's check the list, what’s next.
[Alert: Blood toxicity reaching critical levels.]
Right. Organs.
Another round of diagnostics gave him a refreshed list that had to be shorter than the first one, but didn’t seem to be any shorter at all. Raz sorted internal organ damage. A long list of bruises and lacerations to internal organs appeared. Thinking back to what Bee had said, he zeroed in on his renal system. Left kidney, contusion, ruptured ureter. Right Kidney, minor contusion.
That doesn’t sound so bad.
He dove into himself and quickly realized the problem. The bruised organs were barely functional, and once they started working at full capacity, he’d be effectively peeing into his abdominal cavity through the tear in his ureter. Multiple diagnostic pulses didn’t give him any easy solutions to fixing the kidney function.
Pissing inside myself sounds both gross and terrible. I do have an idea though. I seem to recall the kidneys aren’t the only filters, just the main ones. I’m going to see if I can buy myself some time.
Raz focussed on his skin. With a small effort he verified that his sweat naturally contained trace amounts of the waste products building up inside him. It was surprisingly easy to tune his body to maximize the amount of wastes cycled out of his blood within his sweat. It was immediately clear that while this was working, it was nowhere near enough to make a difference.
Ok, bad call, maybe I can exhale more.
Repeating the same actions on his lungs turned out to be a more noticeable effect in terms of removing certain wastes, but made little difference overall.
[You’ve gained little or nothing. The time spent on this has not gained us more time than it took to do.]
Raz agreed, but didn’t reply, instead, he dove back into himself with a half-formed idea. With his awareness focussed tightly on a near-continuous wave of Diagnose 2 pings on his kidneys, he activated Recovery and slow time. Nearly an hour of slow time, and several minutes of real-time later he shut it back down.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Ok, I think I see how the body naturally heals this kind of injury. The rupture I can handle by building more of the same material around the hole. The bruising, I should be able to repair all the micro bleeds, then coax the swelling down. That might just let them get back to business.
This time, the diagnostic pulses listed several entire pages regarding acidosis and other internal poisoning errors.
Yeah yeah, I know.
The ureter turned out to be the easy part. The impact trauma and hemorrhages inside his kidneys revealed some of the smallest and most delicate structures he’d ever dealt with directly. Several times, he activated Recovery to watch the accelerated natural healing process for a while to ensure he wasn’t making the problems worse.
[I have good news and bad news.]
Raz sighed. The tiny movement still hurt.
Lay it on me.
[You’re peeing all over yourself.]
Is that the good or bad news?
[Good news. The bad news is a long list of injuries, you’re running low on bodily resources, and when the sun comes up, it’s going to get hot.]
Probably a couple hours at most till sunrise. I guess I better get myself as fixed as I can before then.
A new round of diagnostics revealed a list that still didn’t seem much reduced from when he’d begun. When he sorted by severity, lung lacerations followed by a long list of more severe broken bones came up.
Using the familiar rhythm of Recovery and Somatic Restoration, Raz patched up his lungs easily enough. While simple, the repair cost him increasingly precious time and resources.
This time, he started on his broken bones. First, he sorted the fracture list into bones in his upper body. Further diagnostic pulses allowed him to sort the bone injuries by size, fractures per bone, proximity to joint, overall fracture length. The list of sort methods went on and on.
I need a sort that shows me the cracks and breaks I can just seal up right away.
The list scrolled rapidly, landing on sorting by ‘fracture gap size’.
Perfect.
The next few minutes of real-time crawled by in the slow time as Raz focussed on knitting broken bones back together with fibers of protein and specialized cells for building new bone.
Not sure how to deal with all the bones that need to be set first. I don’t know if it’s just how much this hurts, or if I’m just needing sleep, or running low on fuel, but this is exhausting.
A tiny furtive sound somewhere nearby snapped him to anxious awareness.
He lay there, straining to hear more. Unable to lift or turn his head, the source of the noise was out of his view.
He heard the sound of shifting sand. The sound drew closer.
All senses on high alert, when in doubt, same rules as for White Fire.
The world sprang into greater focus. Every blade of pain and aching part of him sang with renewed agony. Beyond that, he perceived the world around leaping into his external awareness.
A curious shape in the air caught his attention. A vaguely humanoid black cutout against the star-filled sky. More immediately troubling was the creature on the ground edging in his direction. With every sense turned up, the soft padded steps on fine-grained sand showed him a clear path of an advancing creature. With his White Fire sense, the advancing creature was a shifting mosaic of blue and red starbursts and lines. The lines and glow of the creature showed it to be the size of a large dog. The shape in the air above him hadn’t moved.
Raz dove into slow time and checked himself. Lower body in terrible shape, upper body somewhat better. The creature approached from the right. His right arm still had a serious break in the elbow. The olecranon, his ability filled in. His arm wouldn’t be much good until that healed, and it couldn’t naturally heal in any amount of time.
I need a working arm now! Why won’t it heal?
Raz examined the bone and elbow joint. Suddenly it was all so clear. As long as his arm had any muscle tone at all, the ongoing tension would prevent the bone from being in the correct spot to attach.
Ok, new plan. If it doesn’t work… Not thinking about that.
Unsure if it would actually work, Raz used Somatic recovery to unlink all nerve signals going out to his right arm. He could still feel it, and the feeling of his arm going limp and dead was disconcerting at best. The group of muscles commonly known as the triceps relaxed and finally flopped loose enough within their envelope of fascia to allow the bone fragment still attached to the tendon to settle near where it needed to be attached to his ulna.
Somatic Recovery allowed him to slowly, ever so slowly, move the bone fragment close to the break point at the end of his ulna. He wasn’t sure how this even worked, but moving the body parts with nothing but his ability was apparently possible, if slow and very energy-intensive.
I guess I don’t care how it works, as long as it does. Dial back the pain a bit as soon as I’m done, this could get ugly.
The instant the bone was close enough, he started laying down strands of collagen across the gap, binding it in place as fast as he could. As soon as the collagen net was woven he started pushing osteoblasts into the gap as fast as he could while new ones formed as fast as he could make them. In the slow time, rebuilding the bone felt deathly slow. Knowing it was vastly accelerated healing didn’t help how sluggish the whole process felt.
When the last of the bone cells locked into place around the matrix of protein strands, the last calcium phosphate structure locked in, he allowed himself to completely disengage from using Somatic Recovery. As he did this, a new world of sensations popped into being within his sensoria. Raz couldn't tell if this sense was just far more intuitive, or if his greater practice with Somatic Recovery just made it easier to understand.
The creature advancing on him with a growing lack of caution was one of those lizard rabbits. The image was far less useful at this range, and there was none of the detail that using Diagnose would provide. Nonetheless, he could tell what it was along with some useless bits of trivia about its physiology. He suddenly knew it was female, of breeding age, but unpartnered. The figure above him was a human encased in something, but he couldn’t tell if he was seeing a very unusual human, or if his senses simply didn’t work at that range the way he thought they should. He could tell this human male was quite old.
The lizard-rabbit sniffed at his arm. It was nerve-wracking being unable to turn his head to look at it. He felt it open its mouth, the venomous fangs unfolding. It thrust its head forward at his arm.
Waiting for his moment deep in the ponderous world of slow time, Raz abruptly struck the creature in the nose. Nothing happened. His arm lay there dead. Instantly, he realized his mistake. With no time to restore the nerve input even with slow time, he did the only other thing he could do.
Ground Control on the target, then White Fire raged around him, an abrupt snapping sound accompanied by blinding light and the sudden scent of cooked meat and burned hair. The lizard-rabbit collapsed onto his arm, still twitching.
As soon as he could tell the still twitching creature was dead, Raz dared take the time to restore movement to his arm.
As ready as he could be, he called out into the dark. “Hey floater, if you’re not hostile, or a seriously niche sort of voyeur, I could use some help.”
“That was quite impressive how you dealt with the scaled rabbit. I didn’t think you knew I was here,” the figure replied, his voice sounded vaguely familiar.
“So, are you here to help? Or are you one of them?” Still unsure of what it actually did, Raz activated Ground Control on the floating figure. The ability flickered then failed.
The figure touched down on the sand a few paces away from him. A tiny pulse of White Fire flowed out of his feet into the sand below and vanished. The ground control marker appeared on the figure.
“I’m not with them. I’m not hostile,” the familiar voice sounded vaguely apologetic, “But I also can’t help you.”
“Can’t or won—” he coughed up a wad of dry, sandy phlegm.
The figure stepped closer. The styling was very different, but the floating man wore a suit of armor very much like Midnight’s. The surface was adorned with countless shapes and symbols that somehow resonated with a deep part of Raz, where he and his abilities intersected.
The armor flowed away, revealing a withered old man with an eyepatch that looked like he belonged in a rest home or puttering away his days with great-grandkids and tending his garden, not floating in a suit of armor amidst the endless desert.
As the armor moved, the entire suit lit up in a chaotic light show visible only to his sense of White Fire. The moment the armor stopped moving, it returned to an empty black form.
Something about him was familiar. Raz couldn't help but look at the wizened old man and try to place him. His weathered face reminded Raz of a picture he’d once seen of his great grandfather in a nursing home shortly before his death.
Don’t overthink it. The eye patch is throwing you off. Really old people kind of all look the same.
“You kind of look like Doktor Midnight, but you’re obviously not him. Who are you?” he spoke carefully, mindful of a few remaining sharp broken ribs stabbing at him when he breathed.
With a smile, the old man nodded. “Names. You want names. Everyone wants a name for me. People are so hung up about names.”
Raz waited until it was clear he wasn’t going to say more. “Yeah, I’m weird that way. If you won’t help, and you can't even have a normal conversation, excuse me while I keep trying to survive here.” he tried to inject sarcasm into his tone, but struggled with so little breath.
The old man looked up toward the sky for a moment. “If it makes it easier, call me Ancient One. It sure fits what I see in the mirror these days. Also, you’re right, he’s not me. Not the first time I’ve heard the comparison.”
Really? You’re going to go with a title, as your name? This guy’s missing a screw or two.
Raz waited for the old man to answer his second question while he kept sealing up fractures as fast as he could. Finally, he realized the man wasn’t going to say more. With nothing to say he got back to work on his splintered bones.
A few minutes that felt like hours later, Raz needed another break. “Ok, so you say you can’t help me. What do you want then? You might have noticed I’m having a bit of a tough day.” he said to the old man who had simply watched him the whole time.
Ancient One chuckled, “Ah yes, that gift for understatement,” he pinched the chest of his armor and pulled out a strand of metal that flowed like taffy. Once again his armor lit up with a bright blue inner light as it reformed into a new shape. The metal flattened out and like he was performing some kind of magic trick, he kept pulling forth a long rectangular sheet of metal that could not possibly have fit inside the armor out into his hand.
Reinforcing Raz’s feeling of watching street magic, the sheet in Ancient One’s hand became two, then three rigid sheets of thin metal. Embossed symbols appeared on the sheets. “I need you to read these and learn the information.”
Raz would have laughed if he’d dared. “Yeah. No. You won’t tell me who you are, you want something from me but won't or supposedly can't help me. If you can’t help me with my actual situation, I don’t care about whatever you need. I’ve got to get back to trying to stay alive.”
Raz didn’t spare the old man another look and went back to the delicate process of repairing his ribs. Diagnose made it clear that taking deep agonizing breaths and repairing one small fracture per was his best available method. Rotating Recovery and Somatic Restoration allowed him to figure out what it needed and fast-track the process.
Slow time made the process feel even slower, but objectively, it went fast enough that he wasn’t surprised that the man was still there when he opened his eyes.
Each use of Somatic Restoration seemed to be taking more energy, but also more mental effort. Each formation of new tissue or bonding old tissue back together became more and more difficult.
Why is it getting harder?
[You’re running out of resources to form new tissue with.]
Ancient One was now sitting on the sand next to him, appearing to be endowed with infinite patience as he watched Raz struggle to live. Raz pointedly ignored him and his offered sheets of metal.
Finally, his upper body was free of all but the most minor of injuries. He’d just managed to start on the crush injuries in his pelvis and legs when he ran up against the problem of needing to align his body before proceeding.
Raz was beyond exhausted. Despite Bee clamoring against it, he allowed himself to relax. Without realizing it, he slipped into an uneasy sleep.
*** *** ***
“He’s just wasting his life away up there!” Burke shouted, his voice clearly pitched to reach Raz as he turned up the volume on his headphones and ignored the discussion about him, going on directly below him.
Suddenly he was on his bed, His father sitting across the room from him on his desk chair.
“Raz, I don’t know how to reach you anymore. Don’t you want anything out of life? It’s hard for me to believe that you’re satisfied with this life of struggling for mediocrity.” His father repeated the same old arguments he’d heard so many times before.
Raz mumbled something under his breath, looking anywhere but at Burke.
“You’ll have to speak up son, I can’t hear you when you mumble,” Burke replied.
Raz pursed his lips and didn’t say anything for several minutes. Burke sat there patiently, waiting him out. Finally, Raz couldn’t take the tension.
“Well, what if I don’t want to do great things! What if this is my potential!” he blurted out, still not making eye contact.
Burke shook his head sadly. “If I thought for a second that you were doing the best you could, I’d support you all the way, and do everything I could to help you improve your potential and live your best life.”
He let out a dismissive snort. “But, self-deception is the worst kind. Let’s keep this an honest discussion. You’re coasting. Your two worst flaws are your inability or unwillingness to temper your intellect with wisdom, and your lazy willingness to just go with the flow. Especially when the flow isn’t even taking you where you should go.”
His father waited for a reply, and sighed when none came. “I’m sure you’d agree that we’ve talked about the differences between being smart and wise more than enough over the years.”
Raz nodded.
Burked smiled at the nod. “Being lazy can be a great weakness, or a great strength if you leverage it right. Going along with the flow, there’s a time and place for that, but usually, that just tends to lead you down a path of least resistance. That’s an area you need to improve on.”
Raz looked out the window past his father. “Well, what if I can't? How do you know this isn’t me living my best life.”
Burke shook his head and started to reply and then an older Raz was sitting on the grass, bright sunlight illuminating his father’s headstone.
“Hey, dad. Long time no see. I’ve been super busy lately, but I think you’d approve. I just got the senior manager spot at work, Clint says if I keep it up I’m pretty much made in the shade for a director position next year when some retirements kick in. I keep hearing rumors about those new abilities being required for upper management jobs, but I made a promise to you, so I’ve got some alternate plans if that happens.”
Raz looked out across the cemetery at the city skyline in the distance. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, at this point, we’re just one bad news day away from catalyst being illegal.”
Raz paused and ran his fingers over the smooth white granite headstone. “Mom’s doing a lot better. It was pretty bad there for a while. I think she finally got her head back on straight. She’s living life again, instead of trying to drink it away.”
“Hmm, what else is news?” He turned around and sat back against the sun-warmed headstone.
“I’ve been seeing a girl I met a while back. Don’t laugh, but I actually met her in a bar—well, a pool hall with a bar. She seems really cool. I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl who likes so many of the same things as I do. She’s—uh, what do I tell you about her? She’s pretty awesome, damn good shot, and I think she likes to camp more than you did. Hard to believe she’s a city girl.”
He ran his fingers through the rich green grass, “And yes, I know what you’re wondering as you sit there judging me. Yes, she’s totally hot, let’s just leave it at that. She’s fun to be with, and low drama, honestly, even if she wasn’t good-looking, I’d probably still be with her,” he smiled rakishly, “That she’s drop dead gorgeous is just a very nice bonus.”
Raz glanced up at the white-streaked cloudy blue sky and tried to think about what else to say. He rested one hand against the warm sundrenched stone, and leaned his head against his other hand, pinching the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes in thought.
“Dad? I’m sorry about everything I said. I didn’t—I didn’t mean it. I was just… I was just being a stupid kid. I just wish I could change things. Anything to keep you from being there at work that day.”
Tears gathered hot in his eyes, glistening as they fell in the afternoon sun. “I—” he swallowed hard, choking up and trying to regain control of himself. “I didn’t know what to get you, or do for you, for your birthday. Mom says you’re in a better place, but I’m not even sure she believes it. But she said you’d want to hear how I’m doing, so I hope she’s right. I don’t know what you get someone when they’re—” he choked again, unable to continue.
A few minutes later, Raz got to his feet, kissed his hand before pressing it to the smooth, warm headstone. “I’ll see you again soon.” he started to walk away as the image faded to white.
*** *** ***
Raz woke to the scent of seared meat. Next to his hand was a rectangular metal plate covered with a large pile of neatly sliced cooked meat that was still steaming in the cool night air. Next to the plate, a large canteen and a small flask were both stuck halfway into the sand. Only after taking these details in did he notice the old man, Ancient One, he mentally corrected himself, was gone. When he reached for the food he noticed he wasn’t half laying on his leg anymore.
He froze. Didn’t dare even look. A moment of growing panic ensued before a self-targeted Diagnose showed him his legs were still attached. Only then did he dare glance down.
Ok. Still have two legs. Don’t freak out.
Finally, Raz realized that somehow he’d been moved and laid out straight. Whoever he was, the Ancient One had known enough to set his leg and pelvic bones to leave him in a good position to finish healing himself.
I guess he could help after all.
Without wasting any more time to question a stroke of fortune, Raz started to eat. The taste of warm fatty meat was ambrosia in his mouth. The amazing flavor bursting from the plain seared meat was a testament to how much his body needed food.
The large canteen held water, sweet, sweet water. He barely managed to control himself and took in a few mouthfuls before capping it off and going back to healing himself.
Dawn is coming, and I’ve still got a lot of work to do.