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Chapter 30 - Down The River
🕑 Added 2024-10-13 21:00:06 +0000 UTCWhen Katherine decided to jump, she knew there was no other option. Even so, she imagined there might be some chance of survival.
As soon as her body touched the water, she deactivated any remaining parts of her armor. At least that way, she wouldn't be dragged to the bottom of the river. Finally, her body made contact with the icy water.
Until then, she hadn't realized how fast the river was, especially in the deeper parts. The girl was thrown against every curve in the river's path, her arms and legs too weak to pull her to the surface. Her lungs begged to breathe; her body craved for a fresh air. But the rest of her consciousness fought against it. With each passing second, the pressure in her chest increased.
Until she finally gave in. In a single deep breath, her lungs filled with water. She no longer felt panic or the urge to fight. Her consciousness finally stopped.
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‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ It was the only thing going through the boy's mind.
Oliver jumped into the water right after Katherine, and she wasn't far ahead of him. Sometimes, he could vaguely see the girl's golden hair when he came up to the surface. However, getting close or even grabbing her in the turbulent waters was hard.
He had already pushed his arms and legs to their limits, trying not to drown or at least to get a bit more air. His muscles were burning, but he needed a little more from them. In the distance, he saw that the river was about to make a sharp turn, and the boy thought it would be an excellent chance to try to grab the girl and drag them both to the riverbank.
He began swimming with the current, using whatever energy he had left, just enough to get close to the girl. She seemed unconscious, but he didn’t have enough time to check her condition. Oliver wrapped his left arm around Katherine's neck and waited. A few seconds later, both were thrown against one of the banks.
With his right arm, Oliver tried to grab the bank, using all his strength to dig his fingers into the earth and compress his hand, trying to pull them both out of the river. Gaining some confidence in his grip, he began to use his other arm to drag the girl, pushing her body out of the water.
After nearly tossing Katherine over the bank of the river, it was now his turn. Without the weight of another person, he managed to use his arms to pull himself up onto the bank.
“Cough! Cough!” Oliver tried to cough up and spit out all the water that had entered his throat along the way. His legs wanted to give out so he could finally rest, but he recalled he had seen Katherine unconscious.
Oliver crawled over to Katherine, trying to understand the girl's condition. He turned the girl over and saw that she was unconscious, but the worst part was that he couldn’t see her chest moving. The boy got even closer and couldn’t feel her breathing. Panic started to take over Oliver.
“What should I do? Think! Think…” Oliver spoke, trying to rush into a solution. "If she has water in her lungs, I need to help expel it. Is that it? I should have paid more attention to medical series. Here we go."
He left the girl lying on the ground, crossed his hands, and pressed down on her chest.
“One, two, three, four, five!”
Using all his weight, he began pressing down on the girl’s chest, hoping he wasn’t doing something wrong.
“One, two, three, four, five!”
He kept pressing, but there was still no reaction from the girl.
“Do I need to blow air into her mouth?”
The boy didn’t know if it was while pressing or later, but just as he was about to apply more pressure, finally, there was a reaction.
“Cough! Cough!” Katherine turned her face and expelled water from her mouth and nose. Still, with blurry vision, she tried to open her eyes and see her surroundings. She could make out the soaked boy but didn’t have the strength to speak. She stretched out her arm, trying to crawl, but only managed to touch one of the trees before closing her eyes again, this time to sleep.
Oliver smiled slightly, seeing that the girl seemed okay and, most importantly, was breathing.
“But now... what do I do?” The boy questioned himself.
They had drifted down the river and were on the other bank. To make matters worse, he didn’t know if there were Crabits on this side. His luck was that they hadn’t been attacked as soon as they got out of the water.
His first idea was to try and communicate with the group.
“CHAT!”
No response.
“MAP!”
Also, there was no response.
“Status Page!”
| Status Page
| User: Oliver [Nameless]
| Level: 2 [Pawn]
| Experience: [118/200]
|
| Stats
| Strength: 6 [Pawn]
| Agility: 14 [Knight]
| Constitution: 5 [Pawn]
| Energy: 14 [Knight]
‘This still works. Maybe it doesn’t need a connection?’ the boy thought as he tried to think of alternatives.
It was still early in the day, so there should be plenty of sunlight left. However, their clothes were soaked, and the cold wind wasn’t helping. Hypothermia might be their biggest challenge at the moment.
He removed his uniform shirt and tried to wring it out to remove as much water as possible, but it was still wet. He put the shirt back on anyway, thinking it would be better to have some protection while walking through the trees, even if it was just his uniform.
The trees around him were quite different from the ones on the other side of the river. They were larger and more spaced apart, with more vibrant leaves.
‘Perhaps… not having so many monsters eating everything around them allowed the trees to grow more?’ Oliver questioned. ‘How will I find her if I leave to explore? Do I only have questions and no answers?’
He had trained in combat, but survival training wasn’t yet part of his curriculum at the Academy. Still, he thought finding his way out of the forest would be impossible if he got lost.
‘I’ll just walk along the river; there’s no way to get lost.’ Oliver rationalized.
He walked for about 10 minutes, heading upstream, trying to find someone or something that could help them. Luckily, he didn’t encounter any monsters. Not wanting to waste more energy, he returned to where he had left Katherine.
She didn’t look much better. But looking at her bluish hands, it was clear she was freezing. Her fingers, wrinkled from the water, were trembling.
‘If I don't do something, she'll freeze to death,’ Oliver thought.
He dragged the sleeping girl closer to a tree further into the forest, a small change that helped avoid much of the wind coming from the river.
‘Hummm, let’s also get some leaves and branches. Maybe this will work.’ Oliver looked around and searched for each of the items. The boy had an idea, more of a gamble, on how to solve the problem for both of them.
He began making a small circle with the stones and throwing leaves and branches inside until he had enough to start a fire. But that was the biggest problem; he didn’t know how to light it. Still, he had an idea.
[Activate]
His armor once again covered his body. He pulled out his Energy Pistol and aimed at the firewood. He wanted to use the minimum amount of energy possible to start the fire but, above all, avoid exploding everything in front of him.
Oliver concentrated and channeled the feeling he had during the last fight. He tried to reduce his energy even more, then slid his finger over the pistol's trigger. A small, barely visible shot was fired into the center of the stones.
"Puff!"
Although it caused an explosion, it was small, lighting the fire and scattering the branches.
“Phew!” Oliver was relieved. It wasn’t perfect, but at least there wasn’t a wildfire in his hands.
Now came the second tricky part. Keeping wet clothes on was foolish. He needed them to dry while also drying his own body. He started with the easy parts, taking off his boots and shirt.
He grabbed some of the branches and laid his clothes on top of them so they could dry near the fire. He looked at his pants, his face turning completely red. It was the first time he would be practically naked in front of a girl, even though she was asleep.
Oliver jumped up and down a bit, trying to warm up and gather confidence before taking off his pants. For the first time, he noticed how much his body had changed. Of course, he had bulked up a lot after working with Wave Disposal, especially since it was such a manual task. But the army training had toned his body.
In one swift motion, he closed his eyes and removed the rest of his uniform. He stood next to the fire before taking the next step.
‘This one might be the riskiest. Dear god… please protect me.’ Oliver prayed.
He removed Katherine’s boots and socks.
‘Here we go! Here we go!’ He gave himself two slaps on the face for courage.
This was the final step; he had to remove her shirt or pants from her uniform.
‘Ahhhh!’ he screamed inside his head.
