5 Exploring

After drinking and rolling in this puddle of water mixed with dust, it could be called mud if someone did see it, but Alix didn't notice the dust taste when he drank it, too occupied to fulfill his thirst. "If I survived, perhaps this grey creature survived too, after all, Elder Gur called them abyss creature so they must come from here... Oh, did this mean I'm not alone here? No, it can't be, my luck can't be this bad right?" Alix was suddenly aware of his frail existence, trying to pierce the darkness wrapping him to see if there was movement around him.

He could not see or hear anything so it didn't improve anything. "What should I do? I must not go too far from this puddle, nothing says I will find another one and it should be difficult just to retrace my path if I want to retrieve it... But I can't live here all my life, and I have nothing to eat, I began to have an incredibly hard ache at my stomach."

It was now three days from their departure and they didn't eat anything with fear that stopping would mean death, and it was a truth that Alix know all too well, after all, if he didn't stop at the edge of the cliff... "Well, better not think of that! I will make small circles around the puddle, see if I can find something."

And his exploration began, small walks around the puddle, finding little joy in the act of walking on hard soil now that he was at the bottom of the cliff. He was advancing step after step, his hand in front of him, trying to touch everything that could be. Two hours after, a small mind map was beginning to appear in his head.

"So the puddle is at the bottom of the cliff, there is the mountain of dust next to it, where I have to climb up for thirty minutes if I want to find the over side of the wall. In the opposite direction, there is the other wall just a minute from the puddle. And the other directions seem unlimited in length. The good news is that I found another small puddle not far to the right so they didn't seem as sparse as I thought" He mused for some time before continuing his walk, this time taking the wall next to the puddle as a mark and maintaining his hand on the wall to walk along with it.

A hundred meters or so from it, he encountered something strange. An obstacle on his walk. Trying to make sense of it with its hand, he touches the thing, a rough fur was wrapping it. "Of for f*ck sake, it's the grey creature, I hope it's dead, I hope it's dead" he repeated in his mind.

The creature didn't seem to move at all, no breathing, no spasms. Touching more, he appreciates the dimension, a meter and a half approximately, with two big eyes on the front, he remembered these two green eyes that seem to pierce his defense. Four big claws terminated each of its limb, their dimension a little frightening now that he could touch them. One claw made approximately the length of his forearm.

"This is good news, to kill two birds with one stone as we say, I have food and a weapon now !!" You could easily forgive Alix for his morbid joy, things seem to end relatively better than he thought, after all, he already lost hope to survive, each little victory was like a new life for him.

Beginning to tear out the claws, he put all his strength to pull it out, turning it in all direction, finally collapsing beside the beast an hour later, laughing out with a claw in his hand "Yeah, the first step, done !"

The follow-up steps were much easier, the claw was particularly sharp, allowing him to extract the fifteen other claws with relative ease. Following up he cut a limb of the beast and walk to the nearest puddle of water with it.

Seating beside the puddle, taking off the furred skin of the creature he was in a relatively good mood "Things are not so bad finally, I'm alive, with food and water! I can't see and can't hear a thing, and I'm not sure if I will one day return to the surface, but for the moment, I'm alive, and I will rest a little." Eating the raw limb as if a chicken leg, he started to devour it without care.

He didn't have the strength to find and take back the other parts of the creature, he would have to do it after resting. Finally full, he lied down and slept even before touching the ground.

During his sleep, big pair of green eyes could be seen surrounding Alix, sniffing around it to finally began to munch the grey-furred creature carcass not too far from here. It probably saves Alix life without any of the two knowing it, the first one sleeping like his life depends on it, the second, dead.

When the morning came, or more precisely, Alix woke because there was not any difference within the surrounding obscurity, these beasts had disappeared, probably sated with what they had to eat. The first thing that Alix did was to return to the place where the grey-furred carcass was, only to discover when touching it that it was just a pile of bones now.

"Ok, stay calm, you're not alone in here, and you just escape a terrible death in your sleep, I must not sleep like this in the open anymore." Thinking that his luck was undoubtedly good in his misfortune, he didn't know what to do, and so his exploring of this new landscape continued. Each time he moves further and further from his little place composed of bones and a puddle. He had stripped the claws in the clothes that were not too destroyed in his fall, namely his pants, so he was barred chested with fourteen claw around his waist, and two more in each hand.

This time he was concentrated and he would not fall for another surprise attack. Walking, he could sense that even if his body aches at each part of it, he was not in a really bad condition, the wound on his shoulder had closed up and he was unprecedentedly clear-headed. You could adapt to approximately anything if you had the will to do it. His Heart was calm, having reached the stats of True Heart without him being aware of it.

In his exploration, he didn't make a discovery, although a better understanding of this canyon was slowly taking form, the soil continues downward on the left, and upward on the right. He chose to prepare for a trip on the right, hoping that it goes up sufficiently to see something or have a better grip to climb. Whatever he find, he would be nearer to the surfaces, even by a small percent. He was indeed aware that a fall of one hour or so, could induce a depth of a thousand or so kilometer, which was a frightening figure to walk, and even more so to climb.

With beast bones, he tried to stock a little bit of water in the cavity inherent for most bones, but strangely, just the bigger in this creature had a hole on it, smaller than on the bones of look-alike creature on the surfaces. Perhaps an adaptation to the deep, but for what utility, Alix didn't know. it explains why it falls this quickly to his death, his density was indeed largely superior to a human being, even the claws could manage to scar the stone walls. With their help, he finally succeeds in stock a liter of water in the four biggest bones that he attaches to his waist.

He was beginning to look like a wish tree where you hang gift on the branch. His look wasn't on the list of his worries, and he began his little trip, run even a little in the blackness. After more than two days, his body was more comfortable with this environment, and even he if couldn't run with all his strength, he was less worried of a fall, after all, if he survived a thousand-kilometer fall, which was there to fear of a small bump on the way.

A running walk was from time to time interrupted by him falling and tripping but he succeeds in covering more than ten kilometer in this day, finding a dozen puddle of water on the way which he began to not fear lacking.

In his run, not once his concentration was broken, having had the lesson of his life to not ever be taken by surprise and so when a new beast jump on him during his walk, the moment it touches him was the moment he slashed ahead of him without seeing anything and tacking a defending position.

The creature was bigger than the one responsible for his fall, but he couldn't see, just two green luminous points had appeared in front of him. Their eyes were giving light, allowing Alix to better aim his attacks.

Slashing, he tried to hurt their eyes, dodging just after, not knowing if it had attacked or not, but he would do his best to survive. Just after his dodge, he could sense wind passing just next to his hip, testimony to a claw that missed.

"SLASH!!"

Without breaking his calm, he succeeds in wounding the creature which emitted a powerful and low pitched growl. He would show them that he was a genius and what occurred before was just him taking it easy. The claw seems truly sharp compared to the spear of Elder Gur on the surfaces that didn't pierce the skin of the other creature. What Alix didn't know was that the one currently in front of him was much more powerful and resistant than the others, a true abyss creature, not the ones that lived at the apex of the canyon.

The fight continues for dozens of minutes, the two of them never retreating, knowing that it was a fight for their lives and that just tiny errors could sound the end of their hope. Alix was disadvantaged because he couldn't see nor hear and was in the territory of a creature used to fight in darkness and which could probably see, its green light eyes proving it.

He was already wounded on his forearms, fortunately, the creature seems to fight by instinct and did not try to cut his leg which he could not have done anything against. The creature was not any better, Alix was dodging and slashing, always aiming for its two eyes, two beacons in the night. Its muzzle was soon bleeding from differents wounds and after fifteen minutes or so of dodging and wounding, Alix succeeds in piercing the left eyes after which the creature emitted a shrieking noise of pain that could have incapacitated Alix if he had still his ears in good health.

Taking advantage of the situation, he aims at where he thought was its throat and with his two hands equipped with claws, plunged on the creature. There was a formidable skin resistance that was finally pierced but not without receiving a furious claw in the stomach and teeth piercing his already wounded shoulder. "What do they have with shoulder, it's already the third time in a week that I was bitten here, well, its seems dead, it doesn't move anymore" Verifying his supposition, he took his two claws out of the throat and tried to slash the remaining green light. It extinguished without much of a noise, a testimony of the creature's death.

Lying on the creature he thought about this fight "I don't think I could have done it better, but it was a big risk to plunged at the end, I suffer grievous wounds, but if I didn't do it, I would have been supplanted by the beast which should have much more stamina than the current me. I don't know if I can survive with a claw traversing my stomach in this region, but I won't die easily!" Saying this last word, his head falls on the ground, unconscious.

A man and a beast where lying mixing with one and other without moving on the ground, in the depth of a dark canyon.