Chapter 8: The Body Keeps Score (1)
Zane woke to heat.
Not warmth—
Heat that pressed in from every direction, heavy and suffocating, like the air itself had turned against him. Sweat soaked his shirt until it felt like a wet bandage clinging to every bruise. His throat was sand. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
He tried to breathe deeper.
Pain answered immediately.
A sharp grind bloomed along his ribs, white flashing at the edges of his vision. He forced the inhale smaller—controlled, measured—like sipping air through a crack.
"…Fever," he rasped.
Saying it out loud didn't make it less real.
The leaves above him blurred and doubled. Gaps between branches swam like water. When he blinked, the forest didn't snap back into focus—it drifted sideways, dreamlike, unstable.
He lay still, listening.
No drums.
No goblin chatter.
Only wind through branches… and the distant, steady hush of moving water.
A river. Or a stream.
His body reacted before his mind did. Dry mouth. Craving. Need.
Water meant life.
Water also meant tracks, predators, insects—
Zane swallowed and pushed the thought aside.
First: survive the next hour.
He tried to sit up.
His shoulder screamed. His thigh throbbed in a deep, pulsing way that felt wrong—like the pain had roots now, burrowing deeper. His skin burned to the touch, yet gooseflesh rippled along his arms in waves.
Shock. Infection.
He'd seen it before.
He'd ignored it before.
Because before had resets.
This time didn't.
Zane braced his forearm against the ground and dragged himself out from beneath the tangled roots. Leaves slid off his back. Cold air hit sweat-slick skin and sent a violent shiver through him.
He paused, eyes half-lidded, forcing himself to look at his wounds.
The thigh wrap was stained dark—not gushing, but damp and ugly. The shoulder bandage had dried stiff. The binding around his ribs was tight enough that every breath felt like a decision.
No system.
No potion.
No miracle.
"Manual mode," he whispered, like an oath.
He crawled forward a few feet—then stopped.
The world tilted.
For a heartbeat, the trees weren't trees. They were pillars in a ruined hall, banners hanging from branches, voices chanting a language he almost remembered. A phantom of another life pressed against his senses—
Then vanished.
Zane squeezed his eyes shut until it passed.
Hallucinations, he told himself.
Fever dreams.
Still dangerous.
He needed water. He needed to clean the wounds. He needed something—anything—to push the fever down before it cooked his brain into useless mush.
The sound of water tugged at him again.
He followed it.
Not fast. Not straight.
Zane moved the way he'd learned to move when hunted—broken paths, doubled-back steps, deliberate pauses to listen. Even half-delirious, his body remembered routes and angles, remembered how to survive.
His boots dragged through wet leaves. His thigh protested each step like it wanted to tear itself open again. When his vision blurred, he stopped and counted breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
The hush grew louder.
Then he saw it.
A narrow stream cut through the forest like a vein of silver—shallow but clear. Pale stones rested beneath the surface, water sliding around them with patient indifference.
Zane sank to his knees at the bank.
He didn't drink immediately.
Not because he was careful—
Because his hands were shaking too badly to cup water without spilling it everywhere.
He forced his fingers to unclench, scooped, and brought it to his mouth.
Cold touched his lips.
And his body tried to gulp like it hadn't tasted water in days.
Zane stopped himself.
Slow. Or you vomit.
Slow. Or you cramp.
Slow. Or you pass out face-first in the stream.
He sipped. Swallowed. Sipped again.
Each swallow felt like pouring relief directly into a wound.
When the dizziness eased, he leaned back and scanned the area.
The stream bank was low ground—mud, reeds, insects. A place sickness loved to breed.
But a short distance away, the terrain rose into a shallow ridge. Thick roots knotted through the soil. Stone pushed up through earth. Dry enough not to flood when rain came.
A future place.
Not now.
Not with fever riding him like a parasite.
Zane's gaze lingered on it anyway—on how it could be cleared, how sightlines could be shaped, how wood might become walls if he lived long enough.
"Later," he whispered. "Base later."
For now—
Medicine.