Two people could be seen walking, in the nascent evening downpour.

At least Vic thought it was evening, it could’ve been morning and for all he knew perhaps they didn’t even have normal day cycles over here.

Regardless, here Vic was, still walking with the old man who he knew as Cutt.

“you can just call me Cutt though.” Vic heard him say earlier, when he began to steadily lift himself off the bed all groggy. The sleepiness mixed with the almost unbearable pain causing him blink rapidly and diffuse the urge to shout in frustration.

Vic didn’t have any idea how the shoddily applied bandages covering him could stop him from bleeding for any period of time and he was curious… but he didn’t have time for that though.

“need a hand” the guy offered.

It seemed that the old man had finally gotten bored of watching Vic sit listlessly on the bed and thus Vic tentatively brought his left hand forward to meet Cutt’s ironclad grip. He clamped onto Vic’s wrist and pulling him up with considerable strength, onto his unstable legs.

After a good moment gripping onto the man’s sleeve, Vic immediately set off on a wordless trudge towards his shirt all while trying to supress the sound of chattering teeth that filled the small wooden cabin.

It was obvious that he couldn’t go out into the rain half-naked, so he wore his previously white shirt. The article of clothing had a few buttons left but Vic wasn’t really bothered to button the ones left with his bandaged fingers and just stuck his left arm through the intact sleeve and wrapped the shirt around him to tuck the other ( more destroyed) sleeve under his sling.

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It’s not great but it’ll have to do

…that’s at least what he thought but when the spiteful rain picked up again. After which Vic found he felt his rags wouldn’t really get him through that. In the first place he didn’t know how long it would take to get to this ‘healing item’.

Hearing the sudden increase in rain and seeing Vic yet to move, Cutt felt a bit bad.

“you can have my cloak I suppose”

“…” It was all that Vic said to reply as he grabbed the cloth from the old man without hesitation .

Well, he was still glad he took the cloak. Even though it didn’t do much to warm him up, at least it stopped the bandages on his shoulder from getting wet; something he found saved him a lot of pain when he stuck his bandaged hand out into the rain.

Vic was looking down as he walked, he wanted to reduce the water getting into his eyes- you see. Vic supposed he had already begun to trust this complete stranger if he was already walking behind him, eyes down.

He did save my life… I mean I trust him more than I trust myself. What would I do if I was attacked again?

Vic supposed he would lay over and die. He huffed released a peal of white condensate from his mouth. He certainly felt like death.

Vic looked up, so that meant he brought his eyes just in time to see Cutt stop walking right in front of him. For a moment, Vic just looked at the guy's back, wondering, but as he walked forward he realised that the old man was looking at something up ahead.

Vic and Cuttison were walking by a small hill at that point. It wasn’t a green hill, torrential rain had torn at the dirt causing large chunks of the soil to spill outward, it wasn't green. It looked as if the mud collapsed under its own weight making a sort of mud landslide: like a brown tide that swept the blade of grass that could be just barely be seen beneath ruined landscape.

Except there was something other than worms and more dirt under that muddy destruction.

Is that a person?