Ze Shou could only just watch helplessly as what seemed like water to just disappear in front of him, his throat felt as dry as a dessert. His stomach pained from lack of nutrients, he felt dizzy because of blood loss, his body shaking involuntarily because of the pain that racks his body.

He felt some kind of bugs chew on his decaying flesh they crawled on his skin while some took a liking to the gaping holes on his skin to creep in and start eating away creating a tunnel network.

This was just unexplainable to Ze Shou as he could only just think of the cycle of pain, hunger, thirst, then the next move before the cycle repeats. This went on for hours until the bone in his left arm snapped back into place, jerking him from his least painful position to aggravating every wound again.

Making tear open his partially healed vocal cords. Halfway through his scream, blood came out with bits of bugs and tissue from his vocal cords. Blood foamed from his mouth as he just shuddered a silent cry.

Tears no longer flowed due to dehydration, so he just shuddered as e tried to move very carefully back to a less painful position. With both arms healed, he could now crawl, but due to his partially missing leg, he can't move an inch without issuing a silent scream. Luckily for him, the pain overcame the need for water and food.

Making him more clearheaded on his goals as his injuries are healing, so he started to think back. One he made it to the cave behind the waterfall, two he doesn't know how deep he made it in, three is the water from the stalactites drinkable, four how long till his legs heal, five what to do about the snake.

With a somewhat made-up schedule, he began to wait and let his internal injuries and leg injuries heal, but for how long that will take, he doesn't know, then he made up his mind and decided to crawl his way to the stalactites that seemed to drip the most amount of water.

Each pull forward was excruciating as he cried out in an unrecognizable groan as his legs dragged behind him, leaving blood trails as the wounds and blisters split open from the sharp grains of sand-like crystals. This attracted more bugs that started to eat his flesh and lay on his back with his mouth open and waited for the water.

When the drop of water like substance fell into his mouth after what seemed like hours. It flowed down his throat with a taste like honey, clearing his jumbled head momentarily before feeling like eating a hot piece of coal smoke rose from his mouth. Ze Shou floundered around until a cooling current flowed around his body, it felt like a wild ride of ups and downs.

An experience like jumping off an airplane into a volcano only for it to turn into a frozen tundra before nothing a genuinely wild adventure, but at least it quenched his thirst. So he set himself up and again and waited for a while till the next drop. And then experienced the same wild ride again and repeated for who knows how long until he could barely hobble on one leg.

Now barley able to move while crawling was preferable as he could prop his missing half leg on top of his partially healed leg. When crawling around, he looked like a slug that was sprinkled with salt, it was pitifully terrifying if looked at it from a certain angle. A disfigured man covered in moss, blood, and mud. Missing an eye and half a leg crawling around like a slug to move from point A to point B was oddly indescribable.

Crawling around Ze Shou's hand pricked every time he dug his hands in the sand like substance though irritating the skin, no other condition was noticeable besides the slight wrinkle on Se Shou's head occasionally. After moving every few meters moving through the cave system looking for an exit as his orientation has been skewered. He couldn't risk using 'The Code' as the strain might blow off his forehead, and since ADA forbids him from killing himself. He figured it will probably block him from self-terminating.

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After what crawling through the darkness and coming to a multitude of tunnels after tunnels twist and turns, up, and downs. Resting occasionally, Ze Shou started to have dark lines appearing on his forehead as he was lost hungry in pain, and a multitude of things his patience was beginning to wear thin. Still, he kept crawling forward red dots started to show on his arm. As the crystal sand started to burrow their way into his skin after he regularly used his arms to propel himself forward.

The rash, although causing the skin to be spotty, didn't feel irritating, so it wasn't a problem for now. Still, for Ze Shou considering his past experience, he figured it will create a significant amount of pain in the experience to his body later. His body shuddered, and a frown formed on his face before taking a quick rest and moved forward towards a vast tunnel. Inside the tunnel had a massive incline with a mixture of stalactite and stalagmites surrounding a jagged path.

Climbing to the top and exhausting his remaining strength Ze Shou laid on his back, and his hard-pressed expression turned funny. His amethyst eye that was dull and blotchy with blood gained a little shine as he showed a slight smile, exposing his somewhat once white teeth and little dimples. Reflected on his memorizing pupil was a nebula of colors reflected on the ceiling.

The ceiling contained a multitude of colors that come together to form countless little stars and galaxies that seemed to swirl with the movement of his eye the sight was more breathtaking than anything Ze Shou has ever scene he felt this was true deep down in his aching breathless body. Resting there, he just stared as the swirling stars and galaxies as he recuperated.

Turning over after getting his fill and started to crawl forward but stopped suddenly when noticed a small trident like crystal that had two stars on the outer crystal with a milky white galaxy that seemed to leak into the base of the jewel he reached out a hand grasping it putting it before his eye before it turned dark and then turned to dust.

Ze Shou's face turned black as he continued to crawl over a few hills before he saw the entrance to the cave it was recognizable because it still had his blood and acid marks left by the Cobra attack earlier finally arriving at his destination he decided to rest until it was light outside as it was still dark at the entrance of the cave. If he remembered correctly, Cobras was nocturnal, or at least he hoped so.

Ze Shou sat against the wall with his eyes clothes waiting. His stomach would occasionally alert him that he was still starving, but by now, he used to the hunger pangs. His Half missing leg, although still blistered and bloody with the occasional bug popping out with its mandibles chewing on a piece of skin although painful and the sight would make anyone throw up their meals for the whole day. Ze Shou would just frown pick the bug out with a quick hiss of pain and chuck the little bastard out of him before waiting until the next fucker reared its ugly head.

Until the pestilence got less and less in his leg, he picked one out before pinching it in half. Black like tar with a mixture of blood would leak from the exoskeleton. Ze Shou carefully put some of this tar on the back of his spotty red hand and waited for any effects, but thinking back to it if the insects like things were venomous, he would have felt something when they were eating him from the inside out.

So then he started to capture them and chew on them to sate his hunger. The first one he threw in his mouth made him gag so hard he reopened his wounds on his shot vocal cords, making him throw up more pieces of tissue and black blood.

Ze Shou reeled and squirmed yelling at himself for doing something stupid, but to anyone saw his one-man performance, they would see a mentally ill patient eating flys straight from dogshit. With no other way to secure food, Ze Shou Hardened his already damaged heart and waited for another bug to pop out his leg before throwing it in his mouth coming down a few times before promptly swallowing, a genuinely shitty taste.