Entropy

XVI - Breathe

It felt like the sky had suddenly fallen down and started sliding on him, compressing his insides with a force greater than that of gravity. Nicholas tried to move his fingers but only felt how stiff and numb they were. Where were the nerves that lined his skin? Why couldn't he feel the surface of the ground or the cold of the air? His hands were but large clumsy knobs stuck onto rusted joints at his wrists. Something was wrong.

He reeled his arms inward, towards his chest, and held his hands under his chin. As painful as it was, he struggled to rub them against each other to try to put some warmth into them. After a few minutes, he felt heat moving through his fingers. His nerves began to wake up as his fingers came back to life. He pushed his fingers against his face as warm blood flowed faster through his veins; the only thing on his mind was frostbite. Nervously, he tried to move a finger, and then sighed when he was able to move it just fine.

Overall, wasn't feeling too great. Oddly, his face felt frozen, and his legs were stiff as if he hadn't moved them for a while. It took him a few tries to get himself upright, but he managed to do it. When he tried to look around, suddenly there was a sharp blow of pain in his hand. Instinctively, he hand went up to his head. There was something gooey and wet in his matted hair...blood?

"Wha...?...nrgh...."

Another wave of pain.

...That's right...He was trying to find Dr. Verdi...

He had run away from the building Stella had locked him in. He ran off the campus and into the woods, taking the long way around to Verdi's office. Going through the main campus would've put him at risk into running into Stella or her friends again, and although it would've been safer with all those other students passing by, he still didn't know what they might do. That was the plan.

But he didn't think that he'd run into her in the woods by a chance encounter. She was with some guy, an older man, when he accidentally passed by them. It didn't look like a tryst; it looked more like a deal was being made. It didn't take long for Stella to realize what had happened, and she began pursuing him, with the other man following her.

Nicholas knew that he couldn't lead her towards the lab. What if Dr. Verdi was outside? He didn't know what they would do if they saw him. The lab was just far enough away from main campus and isolated in a thicket of trees that by the time that security got to them, it'd be too late to stop whatever they would do. No, that can't happen. He can't let them win.

He took a detour from the path. Here, the ground led into a steep incline downhill. His footing felt unstable as the soles of his shoes grazed over a rocky surface. Decades of erosion had worn out the face of the cliff side down to crumbling dirt and rocks. The footsteps behind him began to slow down significantly, but he could still hear Stella's furious cry.

"Get back here, now!"

They're worried about slipping!

This was good; if he could make his way down safely, they'll either stop and take the long way down around the hill by the path or they'll follow him slowly enough that the gap between them will grow. Just a little more...

But then his foot slipped. He fell. A blinding pain that roared through his mind. That was all he felt.

The last thing he remembered before he blacked out were the man's words: "Leave him there. He's either dead or unconscious. It's about to rain soon, and it will be too dangerous to go down this hill. We'll have to come back later. Hopefully, nobody will have found him by then."

"Wait, what about the deal?!"

"It's off. I wanted information, not a dead boy....But even dead, he's still useful...We'll just have to cut his hand off with a bone saw, and we'll be able to gain access to the lab directly."