Day 150 of living in the cave.
I opened my eyes.
The uneven cave ceiling greeted me, the exact same sight as the seventy-four mornings prior. The torchlight flickered weakly, on the verge of dying, casting long, limping shadows across the stone walls.
Awake. Silence.
I disliked sleeping. Sleep was nothing but a failed simulation of death. You lose consciousness, enjoy a brief moment of nothingness, and then are forcibly dragged back into reality without your consent.
I rose from the bed of piled fur and dried hides. The air inside the cave was heavy and damp, smelling of wet earth mixed with the remnants of burnt charcoal. In the corner of the room, empty crystals lay scattered like the bones of dead light. The snake's crystal orb was now nothing more than cloudy glass, its energy depleted, naturally absorbed into my starved veins.
Bone weapons leaned silently against the wall. A spear, a knife, a chest plate. Inanimate objects waiting for their turn to kill living ones.
I dragged my feet to the cave wall. Picking up a sharp stone, I carved a new vertical line next to the others. The sharp scrape of stone grinding against stone rang loud in the morning stillness. A long sigh escaped my lips, forming a thin mist in the cold air. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it with the dying embers of the torch.
"Haa..."
The tobacco smoke mixed with the cave's musty scent. The nicotine stung my lungs—the only dull sensation telling me that time was moving, not standing still. The bats on the ceiling squirmed in their sleep. Their numbers had dwindled drastically. Most of them had ended up in my stomach.
I walked toward the crude wooden gate covering the cave entrance. I pushed it. Heavy. The wood scraped against the dirt, creating a harsh, grating sound that hurt the ears. Sunlight pierced through. Stabbing my retinas. Judging the darkness I had harbored.
Outside, the world was too loud. The shameless chirping of birds, the wind rustling through leaves, the breathing of the livestock—forest cows, wild goats, rabbits—that I kept in makeshift pens. They lived only to prolong my life. A meaningless cycle. I stepped outside. I closed the gate behind me. Shutting away my comfortable coffin.
Grrrrr...
A low growl vibrated in the air. A wolf stood at the edge of the clearing. Its muscles tensed beneath coarse fur, saliva dripping from yellow fangs. Its gaze was hungry, predatory.
I stared back. Empty. There was no spike of adrenaline. No fear. Only an ancient sense of exhaustion.
"Hm... try to entertain me."
The wolf lunged. Its body suspended in the air, claws aimed at my throat.
Slow. Too slow.
Smack.
My hand moved almost subconsciously, slapping its snout mid-air. The crisp sound of bone cracking was the only honest sound this morning. The wolf's body was thrown back, rolling through the dusty dirt before falling still. Dead. I didn't look back. I stepped past it as if it were nothing but a broken twig on the path. A boring routine.
The sun crawled higher, now sitting directly overhead. Its heat stung my skin, but I barely broke a sweat. This body had adapted, or perhaps, it had simply stopped caring about temperature.
I walked to the edge of the cliff. I sat down.
Below, a boundless expanse of green stretched out. A sea of trees hiding thousands of ways to die. A massive river carved through the forest like a gleaming silver wound. In the distance, a colossal tree towered over everything, dominating the horizon. The world was vast. And I was nothing but a speck of dirt within it.