Chapter 9: The Body Keeps Score (2)
Zane turned back to the stream and got to work.
First: clean.
He peeled back the cloth around his thigh with shaking fingers. The moment air hit the wound, pain flared so sharply he tasted metal. The gash looked angry—red edges, swollen, wet with a shine that made his stomach tighten.
Not good.
He leaned over the stream and let water run over it.
The sting was immediate. Sharp enough to make his hands spasm.
Zane clenched his jaw until it ached.
"Better pain than rot," he muttered.
He rinsed until the water ran clear, picking grit and leaf fragments from the wound with the edge of a cleaner strip of cloth. No soap. No alcohol.
Just water and time.
And not enough of either.
Next, the shoulder.
He loosened the wrap and winced as dried fabric peeled away. The puncture had scabbed unevenly, but the skin around it radiated heat—not fever heat.
Wound heat.
Zane stared at it, then at his trembling hands.
In earlier runs, he would've rolled the dice. Kept moving. Kept fighting.
Respawn if it went bad.
Now he had one body.
One chance.
"Okay," he whispered, as if speaking to something inside himself. "Think."
His memory reached backward—dozens of runs, forests, herbs, survival guides etched into muscle memory. Some of it was game logic.
Some of it was real.
Plants.
Anti-inflammatories.
Astringents.
Fever reducers.
Nothing was guaranteed.
He needed something recognizable. Something low-risk.
Zane crawled along the stream bank, eyes scanning leaves and stems like they were loot drops—except nothing glowed. Nothing labeled itself.
Just green.
A cluster of white flowers—too uncertain.
A vine with glossy berries—no. Poison loved pretty colors.
His head pounded. His stomach churned.
Then he saw it.
Low to the ground. Broad, jagged-edged leaves. When he bruised one between his fingers, a bitter, sharp smell rose immediately.
Not certain.
But familiar.
A plant he'd once used in a run to treat swelling. Crushed leaves pressed into a wrap. Crude.
Effective enough to keep moving.
Zane stared at it like it was a weapon.
"Please," he whispered. "Don't kill me."
He harvested carefully, leaving the roots intact, then rinsed the leaves in the stream until his fingers went numb.
He laid them on a flat stone.
Crushing them was a problem.
No tools.
So he used what he had.
Stone.
Pressure.
Patience.
Zane took a smaller rock and ground the leaves against the stone in slow circles. Green pulp spread into a thick paste. The smell grew sharper—bitter, earthy.
Sweat dripped from his chin. His vision swam.
He kept going.
When the leaves were no longer leaves, he tore a strip from the least-bloody part of his shirt and spread the paste across it.
A crude poultice.
Better than nothing.
He pressed it over the hottest part of the shoulder wound and wrapped it tight.
The cold paste shocked his skin.
His body shuddered violently, teeth clacking. For a moment he thought he might vomit.
Then—
The heat eased.
Not gone.
Not healed.
Just… quieter.
Zane exhaled through his nose.
"Okay," he breathed. "Okay…"
The thigh was harder. He avoided packing the paste into the wound itself, placing it instead along the swollen edges where the heat was worst, then rewrapped everything tight.
It wasn't clean medicine.
It was war medicine.
And war didn't care if survival was pretty.
When he finished, Zane sat back and stared at the stream, breathing like an old man.
His hands shook less—not because he was better, but because exhaustion had crushed him flat. The fever still burned, but the pounding dulled from a hammer to a drum.
A small improvement.
Enough to think.
Enough to plan.
He drank again—slow sips—and splashed water over his face. Cold slapped sense back into him for a few precious seconds.
He looked toward the ridge again.
Higher ground. Dry roots. Stone.
A place to shape—if he lived.
But not today.
"First," he whispered. "Survive the fever."
The forest shifted.
Leaves rustled.
Zane froze, fingers inching toward his dagger.
Nothing emerged.
No goblins. No charge.
Just the forest breathing.
"They know," he murmured. "They tested me. Now they'll wait."
Predators didn't always chase.
Sometimes they followed.
Sometimes they let you weaken first.
Zane forced himself to move.
The ridge wasn't a base today—but the stream wasn't safe either. Too exposed. Too many tracks. Too much scent.
He limped uphill until the ground firmed beneath his boots. Roots rose like natural walls. A fallen tree rested between two trunks, forming a low pocket beneath—dry, shadowed, invisible from the stream unless you knew where to look.
Zane crawled inside and pulled dead leaves and branches across the opening.
Not a home.
A pause.
A bandage for time.
He lay on his side, careful of his ribs, staring through the dim gaps in his cover.
The fever still burned.
But now he had water.
Now he had medicine.
Now he had a place not to be seen.
Small wins.
Fragile wins.
His eyelids grew heavy.
Kay's face flickered behind his eyes—smiling, sad, too far away.
"Just… wait," he whispered. "I'm getting there."
Outside, the stream kept running.
Inside, Zane's body fought a war no one could see.
And somewhere in the trees, something listened.
Not with curiosity.
With patience.
Because if Zane lived—
Tomorrow, he wouldn't just hide.
He would start shaping the world around him.
And the forest would learn what it meant for a man with no resets left…
To finally build something that couldn't be taken in one night.