The Adventures of Lewis Warth

C1E5 - Mental toaster

Lewis could see the smoke again. More than last this time. He was getting closer. Unfortunately, his arrival would be a little late with the worm attacks and all, so the welcoming ceremony might need to hold off for a while.

Trying to figure out a plan was hard.
Lewis sat for ages, his head just outside that proximity of heat that the ice-berg pulsed so strongly.
Now that his lungs were nice and warm, and his head was in the cool air, he had dragon breath. Dragon breath like the scaled beast in his dream, or had that been a hallucination? Either way, it was all he could really remember. That and a little girl who looked oddly familiar.

Is this nature's way of teasing me? He had thought with a sigh.
Telling me that I'm going to become the next wormy beast?

He peered down at his legs. No progress from the worms, they were just squirming, not biting. If they had been eating away at him for the past 6 hours he wouldn't have feeling in his toes anymore. And he pinched them every five minutes or so, paranoia getting the better of him.

A little while back, when he had started thinking clearly again, (And the bloat with 'the shits' was scolding his crew from far underneath) he had ripped off both of his sleeves, painfully, and tied one around either thigh, putting enough pressure to pinch the skin down.

The 'kids' hopefully wouldn't want to take a field trip anytime soon. Mt Thighs and the Grand Body were closed for construction. Or, like the Great Barrier Reef, starvation would just flake it all away into nothing.

Yes, there were plenty of problems afoot.

So... why not try to tackle them? He felt stupid for not asking himself that before. Although he shouldn't be blamed, there's only so much pain one can endure before wanting death to take them. Being beaten down, again, and again. Waking up, not even knowing what he was, shrapnel arms, the escape pod being enveloped by flame, a freezing walk, twin bites, unexpected children (pity that the child-support was flesh. Now that's committed parenting) and to top it off his stomach felt like a desert in itself.

Sure, a morsel of food would be nice... but a drop of water. God would that be paradise. Some moisture... anything. What he would give to lie on the ground with a cold tap pouring into his mouth. A cocktail, no alcohol, just water and a little ice. So a drink, but in a cocktail glass. Maybe a little gambling as well, if he had the chance. A beautiful girl at his side, a lipstick smear, supple breasts, and keen eyes watching the ice in his glass tink against one another, as he counted cards.

Would he have a Black-Jack? No, look at his dumb face. He doesn't know shit about this game... what about her? Tall, pretty... ooh, she's a human... they're pretty cunning, I'm told.

With immense effort, Lewis snapped himself out of the daydream: those are the kind that ends in a white light... and Lewis sure as hell wasn't in the mood for dying.

It's funny, really. How he hasn't given in to the world.
He doesn't even know who he is - if he died, it wouldn't really matter -, but still he's determined to survive. It could be many reasons. Most likely, it's just the natural urge to keep on livin', maybe that's what motivated to pull himself from the dream.
What would sleeping with that girl be like? Heh... that would be exciting...

I like to think he did it out of narcissism. Out of that narcissistic logic where no one else mattered except for him.
How about a philosophical statement?:

If no one really existed, and Lewis was the only one who mattered (because, well, his life was his)... therefore there is no way that he was meant to die. It simply shouldn't happen. And he would spite nature just to prove he was right.

The young alien stood up. Well, he wasn't that young, he had just turned twenty earth years old around 6 months prior to the crash. The celebration had been okay, he spent it with friends. The kinda friends that you love and hate to be around at the same time - the good friends.
It's a pity they're all dead now. Even more of a pity considering it's all because of him.

He was getting stubble on his jaw. Short, spiky dark grey spikes, so frequent it almost looked like the beginnings of a human beard from a fair distance away. Sorry, I shouldn't be calling them spikes if they bend a little and are pretty flimsy. Their words, not mine.

Okay. Let's think, let's think. What are some necessities?
He didn't even need to blink to figure that one out: finding food, finding water, getting the hell off this iceberg without dying, and maybe getting a new bow tie - he was getting tired of the current one's colour (Teal doesn't contrast well against Lewis-blood, obviously)

What do I actually have?
Surprisingly, he had a lot right now. It depends on how you think of it. You could say 'Aw yeah nah I've just got a bloody iceberg and a ripped up suit and some worms in me' leg'. Or... you could put some passion into it.

He forced a smile as he listed it off. Exactly how a high-school student presented a presentation that they really couldn't give a shit about. But damn did he need those grades.

If it had been other circumstances, this Mexican-ass-wipe of a desert would've been quite beautiful. Rolling untouched red sand spreading as far as the eyes could see. Dunes that made the horizon look like a pool of sleeping red snakes, hibernating in the freezing-sunlight. Icebergs, amazing monstrosities of mother-nature that stuck out in their magnificent blue, curling, ominous, tall ice-cliffs a block or two apart but all united in their vastness. Lewis couldn't care less.

Okey dokey. He looked around a little, patting down on his pockets. Nothing.
Hold your horses; there's a scrunch of paper.
It was in the waist-pocket of his coat, and he quickly took it out. It had been folded four times over, and when it was unraveled he turned around to read it in the sunlight.

————————————————————————

To my dearest Grey, you know where I am. So come and pay us a visit before I find another Crux to fall in love with.

277 Nightler-place, a sharp left before the Milky Way.

Yours truly, Amanda. XOXO

————————————————————————

"Okay then. My name is Grey." Lewis told himself. He put the note back in his pocket before resuming to the list.

"I have fabric, that's in my suit. Two sleeves are tied around my legs, and I'm pretty much paraplegic if I don't get these sorry tossers out of my legs. My stomach is a knot, and the longer I stay here the more moisture is sucked out of me by the iceberg, and the thirstier I get. The iceberg. It expands with moisture." He repeated that in his head a few times. It would be important to get out of this, he already knew it.

"I guess I have the worms as well. They attacked me because I walked on the sand. Shit... how did they know to attack me?"
Movement? No, that wouldn't make sense. I've wriggled around plenty on this iceberg and silence has been bliss.

"Bare skin?"
Bullshit, I was wearing boots.
"The only thing they aren't attacking are the iceber-"

Ding!

That sound was an idea that had sprung into Lewis's brain. It was a metal puzzle with impossible pieces that finally slid into place.
The 'ding' was what Lewis associated with success, the sound of an opening cash-register. The sound you heard when you turned your chips in after a good night's gamble.

He shot a glance at the smoke, flailing towards the heavens, a dull grey crack in the sky; knowing that he would be there shortly.