The second Number, dexterity, is the prized attribute for most athletes. Dexterity has been found to be relatively proportional to muscle plasticity, fine motor control, and the efficiency of some fast-twitch muscle groups. The most commonly accepted sub-attributes of dexterity are speed, flexibility, and balance.
- Excerpt from “The Five Numbers, 5th Edition”
The blood seems to be everywhere.
I had just circled around to the far side of the shed, and it suddenly seems like my whole world is painted in shades of red, my nose inundated with the scent of copper. I have never seen so much blood in one place ever before, and never outside of cleanly packaged bags in a hospital.
The blood spreads over the side of the shed, and the gravel surrounding is anything but clean. Splattered in a seemingly random pattern, the entire area looks as if a body had spontaneously exploded to cover everything in a fifteen foot radius. As I continue to stare, I start to notice stringy bits mixed up with the blood that can only be described as "body parts," and not be identified beyond that.
With a sudden heave, I turn away and puke the small amount of liquid I have in my stomach onto the ground. My thoughts spin around me, and I suddenly can't seem to catch my breath. What...no...who could have made all of that blood? I realize that just in the corner of my eye, I can see a finger laying on the ground. Animals, at least none that I know, have fingers like that. That was...a person? One of my classmates?
With another heave, I fall to my knees. What is happening? What could have possibly happened here?
The cabin burning down, I can understand. My Numbers being reset to zero, I can at the very least comprehend.
This amount of violence, the sight, the smell, and now the taste of my puke on my tongue all combine to create a situation so outside of my realm of experience, I will not, can not accept it. I need to leave, to run away to anywhere but here.
Some part of my mind knows I'm not thinking straight. I have always heard doctor shows mention the word shock to describe patients after experiencing traumatic events, but my conscious mind thinks nothing of this, and simply screams at me to run, go, LEAVE!
And that is exactly what I do.
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Thirty minutes later, I seem to awake again, huddled in a ball behind a rock in the woods, although I had never truly been asleep. The panic that controlled my mind for that time has finally subsided, and I am starting to think straight again. Sure, my breathing may still be a bit fast and my eyes are wider than they have ever been before, but I at least once again am in conscious control of my actions. With intentionally slow breaths in and out, I relax the muscles that I only now realize had been locked tense.
After another thirty minutes of laying there, simply staring at the rocks beside me, some better part of my mind realizes that the sun is well and truly on its way to disappearing for the night, and if I am to find any sort of shelter before sleeping, it will have to be within the next fifteen minutes, at which point looking for shelter will be more likely to get me hurt and lost than it will provide any more security.
And what a desire for security I have. The prospect of sleeping in the woods, such a desirable outcome during the daylight hours earlier, seems like one of the worst possible decisions I can ever make. Flashes of red fly through my mind, and thoughts of what...thing...could cause that much destruction to a person. I can't sleep like this in the open.
But what other options do I have? My first thought is to climb a tree, but even trying to sit up right now causes my muscles to groan more than they ever have before, even after some of the brutal school workouts. I look to my arm, and realize my strength has risen by four during my frantic sprint away from the bloody shed and the following tense shivering. Bodies with strength numbers of twenty-seven are not meant to sprint. Heck, they are barely meant to walk. Any option that requires more than basic cooperation from my body is completely out of the question.
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I consider my remaining option. This spot is fairly comfortable, I'm sheltered from the wind by the rock at my back; I could do for worse spots to spend the night. After all, if I am not able to climb a tree or get lucky finding a cave, sleeping in the open is the only remaining possibility.
My mind, my body, my entire being outright rejects what some part of me whispers as another option. I will not go back to the cabin. At least not yet. This spot is fine. I am fine.
After a few hours of whispering that to myself, I finally start to believe it, and fall into an exhausted, yet restless, sleep.
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The sun is well above the horizon when I finally wake up. To my dismay, I don't immediately hear the sound of helicopter blades in the sky, but that had always been a naive hope.
My mouth feels like someone shoved twenty cotton balls into it before I fell asleep, and my stomach makes unnatural rumbling noises when I roll over. My hands, knees, and elbows are covered in scratches, and my head feels like I went ten rounds in a boxing ring. I need food, water, and hopefully some medicine, and sooner is better than later.
I know my only course of action. I have to return to the cabin. I have no idea how to survive in the wild for longer than a few hours, and I've already been "surviving" for almost a full day. I need to be in a place rescuers can find me and I need to have the ability to live until then. Even with the terrifying finds of yesterday, I still have no idea why people from civilization haven't come to my rescue yet. I'm starting to realize that my worst case situation needs to be re-evaluated, even more than it was after yesterday’s most terrifying event.
As much as I don't want to return to the shed, the abject terror from seeing the scene yesterday has faded somewhat through the miracle of sleep and daylight, and, as reluctantly as is possible for a human to do and still follow through, I stand up to begin the trek back.
As I rise to get my bearings, I find that I can easily still see the slight trail of smoke in the sky, much closer than I was expecting. In only a few minutes, I walk within sight distance of the cabin and realize my mad scramble yesterday was either much shorter or significantly less direct than I remember. Most likely a combination of both.
At about twenty yards away from what used to be the front entrance of the cabin, I turn to look at the shed. I'm still not comfortable entering the cabin, as it looks terribly unstable. The odds of anything useful surviving the fire are low, and the odds of being able to access anything that survived are even lower. I'll have to stick with the shed.
The bloody side of the shed was opposite from the front entrance -- I had just circled around the back of the cabin when I first went to examine the shed, and had decided to explore around it for any other entrances before trying the front. What this means for me now is that I should be able to get to the front door without having to re-examine the gory scene from yesterday. I breathe a sigh of relief. I think I would probably be able to see the gore again without losing my mind in a crazy sprint to escape if it meant surviving, but if at all possible I don't want to test that theory.
I carefully walk the thirty yards separating the cabin from the shed, pointedly not examining my surroundings, focusing only on the door in front of me. Unfortunately, line of sight does not block out smell, and the same coppery scent from yesterday permeates the air, and breathing through my mouth only seems to allow me to taste it as well.
I finally arrive at the shed entrance, and with a groan I look at the keypad next to the handles. I need a pass-code to get in. What are the odds of the pass-code being the same as the pass-code for the cabin? I guess it can't hurt to try.
I struggle for half a second to remember the pass-code I was told yesterday. Less than twenty-four hours ago I was told the code, but it feels like years. With a sigh of relief, I recall the code, and feel a sudden rush of affection for my teacher Mr. James. It would take more than a series of therapy inducing tragedies and an intelligence score of twenty-one to forget his corny jokes
"...you clean reaver's spears? You run them through the..."
W-A-S-H, I type into the keypad, followed by enter, as a tiny smile comes to the edge of my face as the doors click and open.
I enter the shed.
S: 26 (+4)
D: 21 (+1)
W: 23 (+2)
I: 22
C: 1
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