The Grind

I pulled my leg back as a slight groan escaped my lips, the hot spring was a tad bit too hot for my wounded feet, the already sharp temperature only amplified by the sensitive of the sensitive flesh underneath the skin of my feet.

"Ow ow ow ow ow ow"

I repeatedly yelped like a helpless chicken as I plunged my body in all at once to avoid the pain from lowering in slowly.

"OWEHAHAWA"

The hot water seeped into my deep wounds gifted to me by the eagles, the shock from the sudden surge in heat almost made me pass out, do keep in mind that the effects of altitude sickness are still very much present and unpleasant like a stalker that just can't take the hint that it's presence is unwanted.

I deliberated a bit before i decided to get in the hot spring. A few hours have passed since I lit up the fire, I warmed up my body then ventured out towards the surface to gather all the bushes I could find.

I made quite a few trips as I couldn't transport all the shrubs in one go, I got a bunch more stuff then made my way inside the cave for the last time today, the harsh freezing temperatures were not kind on my naked body.

I then warmed my hands and ripped the bark off of the longer section of the branches I hauled in here, it wasn't a pleasent process, my arms stung at the slightest application of pressure, but it was still not as bad as my feet.

Imagine you just ripped off one of those annoying portruding pieces of skin from your thump and now when you touch that area it stings, and when you don't it still stings but less, well that's how my poor abused feet were feeling right about now.

The freezing cold made the skin stiff and unelastic which paired with the abuse that same brittle skin suffered in my multiple scalings of the jagged rock face and just running around on the ground outside led to my current circumstances.

The skin on my feet wasn't thick and durable like the ones on the feet of the prehistoric humans, it would take years of bare footed abuse for them to adapt from their soft modern condition.

Well moving on from my grim condition i decided to plunge myself in the hot spring, most hot springs should be significantly hotter than the human body, I didn't know much about anything really but considering that your body get's a fever to kill invading viruses and bacteria I was hoping the hot water would have the same effect and desinfect my wounds.

Of course still water is notorious for it's unsanitary bacterial abundance but this water was not still, it seemed to be flowing in from somewhere underneath and then the overflow would descend in a nice orderly miniscule river through the narrow continuation of the cave.

We'll let's hope I'll be fine as I've already been in here for 5 minutes, it was so calm relaxing and soothing that i didn't even notice as time left me behind.

I got out, I didn't wanna risk a heat stroke, I then made my way back through the very narrow, very cramped passage way, since unlike when I first entered the cave i wasn't in a desperate hurry I took my time crawling through, making sure that the jagged cramped space wouldn't damage my skin further as it's current condition was appauling enough.

I made my way into, gnashed my teeth and got ready for what was gonna be a less than pleasent healing attempt, but I got stopped in my path and stared at the scene before me.

"heh, that's good little guy, eat and heal up."

The slime was very slowly crawling towards the center of one of the dead birds, it was already over it's head and I could see how the slime was breaking it's food down and just absorbing it with the entirety of it's body, a disturbing red hue mixed with the gelatinous and translucent inside of the slime, it was pretty gross.

I set aside one of the birds to one side of the cave for my future consumption, I took one last look at the handy work I've been keeping myself busy while the moss I've collected dried next to the fire.

Before me in a neat triangular pile stood a lot of branches from all the bushes I've collected, quite a few had bark missing in some places. The pile was pretty big probably containing just shy of 20 kilograms of wood, it was a pain in the ass to get all of it, it took me a solid few hours, but at least with every subsequent run I got more efficient at uprooting them and hauling them back.

It's a wonder i didn't fall off the cliff even once in my many trips but I will attribute that feat to my unecesarry alert and careful state of mind.

In another pile stood the items of a few more hours of labour he spent after retreating in his new base of operation. They were the following, A rough pair of weaved sandels mainly constructed out of bark tho I did my best to weave some grass into it for my feet to have some softer padding. There were also two cylindrical wide bands made out of a strip of particularly touch bark with bundles of feathers tied together with grass on the inside, these were for my palms, I was hoping they'd retain at least some heat.

I also had all of the feathers i was able to rip off from the birds neatly gathered in another pile with the soft fluff from the underfeathers stored in a basket weaved out of the thinner branches, next to the fire there was a round circle of numerous stones proping up moss in order for it to dry out.

Embarassingly enough this was everything I was able to do in about 5 hours of trying to work as hard and fast as possible, the pain and altitude sickness slowed my progress tho the biggest hinderance was my sheer lack of experience when it came to manual work.

In order to hydrate myself i refrained from drinking the eagles blood like in those desperate survival stories we've all heard off, instead on my first trip outside in which i collected moss and shrubs I also got a big ball of snow akin to the ones used on snow men and dropped it on the ledge, it shattered and lost most of it's mass as it fell off the ledge but enough was left for me to be satisfied.

I then gathered the snow and got it inside the cave where I placed it on the largest slightly indented piece of stone i could find and pushed it somewhat close to the fire, it then slowly melted over time and i slurped the water from the stone, I had to refill it a bunch since snow contains way too little water for it's volume but in the end I got myself the moisture needed, not too hygienic but nothing has been hygienic since i got here.

'Well, enough stalling'

I sighed and started moving to administer the treatment I was kin to avoid since I was not too confident it would even work. As the moss dried out next to the fire in the last 5 hours my deep wounds were bleeding, all though slowly, not to mention a few even started excreting gross watery puss, did they get infected this fast?.

With a stick I split in half pre-emptively I picked up a thin long stone I placed on the fire earlier, I positioned it properly with the imrpovised thongs, closed my eyes, and dropped it.

"ARGHHH"

I couldn't hold in my scream of agony, sure this pain was familiar as i felt it once before during the truckening but then I was in a weird semi-pshychotic frenzied state and just ignored it, now tho I barely managed to stop my reflex from thrashing my shoulder around and throwing off the stone.

Eventally most of the heat went into sautarizing the wound after a few minutes of intense face muscle contractions and groans, I placed the rock back inside the fire with the thong and mentally prepared to do this again.

I had no clue if this was gonna work but I was only going to do it twice on the two most visibly infected wounds, the rest seemed fine enough and I wished to minimize the prevelance of scars on my future body if possible, some of these wounds were too deep and would inevitably scar but not as much as the one I just mercilessly singed.

A few minutes passed of me slowly inhaling in and out, I then flung my eyes open and reached for the rock without hezitation, even the slightest flinch of hezitation would cause the pain avoidance instict screaming as me to stop my actions and i doubted i could muster the courage to try again.

I repeated the agonizing process with the wound on the side of my ribs, I then applied the dried moss to the non singed wounds and tied the ones on my shoulder with the strips of bark, I had to frankenstein the strips together in order for them to reach and secure the wounds on my stomach and ribs.

I was hoping the hot tub dip killed most of the bacterias waiting to infect me but i couldn't be sure so I singed the two most worrying wounds and hoped for the best with the rest, undoubtedly they will still get infected but I was too much of a coward to singe all of them.

I'm hoping that the infection mearly causes me to be sick and doesn't turn deadly but at this point I honestly would see that as the most preferable out come that would rescue me from my dire situation.

I huddled in a semi circle shape around the fire and used some of the remaining moss as a pillow and drifted to sleep, I was too exhausted and needed to rest my strained muscles, somehow the traumatizing events that just occured did not shorten the time it took me to drift into the land of dreams.

I couldn't say the same for when i was inside the dreams however, a lot of vivid nightmares woke me up in cold sweat every few hours, this was honestly good as i had time to refuel the dwindling fire periodically and sip some snow water, I even had to grab some more snow from the entrance to refill the drinking fountain after the third nightmare.

This is how I spent my first day in this new inhospitable world, tho the fifth time i awoke the system greated me with a message that my groggy mind took a while to comprehend, and when I finally did I came to regret it.

[<Congratulations User Wěi Jiànguó for fulfilling the conditions for the beginners trial's clearing, appropriate rewards will be dispensed immediately>]