Jacob slowly opened his eyes to the sll of petrichor. Small rain droplets landed on his skin, causing him to flinch and rub his face. He moved his hair out of his face to study his surroundings. He was laying in an open field of grass alongside many of his comrades. They were all still sleeping, their chests slowly rising and falling as they breathed. Jacob rubbed his head when he finally heard a voice sound behind him.
"You’re finally up. I thought I’d have to burry another one."
Harold was looking at Jacob with an anguished expression. There were dark circles around his eyes with wrinkles. It looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Abby looked to be in a similar state. She was currently spoon-feeding water into Luna’s mouth using her hands.
"We made it?"
Harold kept his brown eyes locked on Jacob.
"Most of you. You’re the first person to wake up out of everyone else. To be honest, Abby and I started losing hope."
Jacob’s heart dropped and frantically searched for Maria. He saw her laying down next to Squabee and Lidia. Her skin seed healthy, but her face looked unkempt and hollow.
"Why haven’t they woken up yet? What’s wrong with them?"
Suddenly, Jacob rembered what Harold had told him monts before.
"Who didn’t make it?"
Harold sighed slightly.
"Emma. I don’t what happened, but she randomly stopped breathing as we were desperately trying to tend to you all. I buried her by the tree a little beyond this hill. We’re both trying our best, but without Doc’s help, we can only rely on what we know."
Jacob’s heart ached hearing the loss of another comrade.
"Emma..."
Jacob slapped himself in the face, punched himself in the stomach then started slamming his head into the ground. Harold ran over and held him back.
"Have you lost your damn mind?! I’ll kill you if you think you’re going to hurt yourself after we both tirelessly nursed you back to health."
Jacob groveled on the ground in front of Harold, refusing to et his gaze.
"It’s all my fault. We should have been more prepared. We knew what the landscape was like. We knew but we still risked the journey. We were too eager to free you all from the prison. I never thought beyond what ca after."
Harold kicked Jacob lightly in his side.
"None of us knew anything about this outside world. Yah, we lost our close friends, big deal. Are you really going to let their deaths weigh you down? Do you think they want to burden you with their absence? Huh?"
Jacob looked into Harold’s eyes.
"No."
"Exactly. Death is just another part of life. It took my brother, it took my friends, but I’ll be damned if it takes next. If there’s one thing I know my brother Slade would expect of , it would be to continue living the best life I can. I’m sure all of our friends would want the sa. So, stop pouting and help us."
Abby seed to be much more affected by the death of her friend Emma than Harold was, but she still put on a strong face and continued her work. Suddenly, all of them heard coughing coming from one of the people laying down. It was none other than Doc himself. Harold desperately ran towards him as he sat up and patted his back. Doc looked at Harold, slightly disoriented.
"Get him so food, Jacob. Rember that tree I was talking about? We also left dozens of stacks of fruit we collected there so it wouldn’t get rained on. Bring as much here as you can."
Jacob nodded and sprinted towards the tree as fast as he could. After spotting the stacks of fruit and a makeshift grave with a small rock resting on its dirt mound, Jacob grabbed them and ran back as fast as he could.
’I’ll pay my respects when I can.’
He ran over to Doc and handed him a large variety of berries. Doc looked at the berries and feasted on them like a madman. Harold patted his back as he ate.
"I hope you aren’t too tired. Both of you are going to have a long day ahead of you."
With that, Harold seed to pass out from exhaustion. It didn’t take long for Abby to do the sa. Doc and Jacob were the only ones left awake. Doc looked at Jacob.
"How many?"
Jacob understood the aning behind what he ant and responded after a few seconds of silence.
"Four. Three in the stone terrain and one succumbed to her malnourishnt when we arrived."
Doc exhaled deeply and quickly devoured the remaining food.
"I need you to help . Check everyone’s temperature and start dragging them out of this rain as soon as possible. I overheard there being a tree, correct? If so, that should be plenty of cover for this light rain. We can’t let anyone get sick or we may lose more people."
"How do I check their temperature?"
"Use the back of your hand and place it on their forehead. You will know if it’s too warm or too cold. Trust ."
Jacob nodded and ran towards Maria, Lidia, Slimo, and Squabee. Even though he shouldn’t be prioritizing people, he couldn’t help but feel much close to the friends he travelled with across these dangerous landscapes before the nobles. He put his hand on each of their foreheads and felt how warm it was. All of their temperatures seed to be normal. After that, he balanced Squabee and Slimo on his shoulders while he dragged Maria and Lidia towards the tree. Doc seed to be carrying only two people at a ti so he could save his energy for using his power if need be.
"Is anyone running a fever?"
"Just Luna and Gabriel as far as I can tell. Everyone else should be fine. I can craft a dicine but that can wait for now. What these people need most is food. Especially Maria."
"How can we feed them if they are unconscious?"
"There’s a few ways we can go about it. One way is that we just stick to stew, which will work but it won’t give them a lot of much needed energy."
"What’s the other way?"
"We chop up the food into extrely small pieces and push it down their throat manually. The body will naturally either cough it up or swallow it. What we need to do is pinch their nose when it goes in, so they don’t inhale it by accident. That will hopefully force the body to swallow the food instead of spit it out."
"Hopefully? Have you ever tired it before?"
"Nope! But we are desperate. How about you work on a stew, and I can try my own thod, just in case it doesn’t work out."
"Sounds like a plan."
Jacob gathered a bunch of kindling from surrounding trees and bushes in the area before starting a fire. He saw a massive rock that he chose to try and make a bowl out of himself. Using his elbow, he effortlessly caved in the rock to make a weird-shaped bowl.
’Did I sohow get stronger? Even without the food in my body? How strong will I be when I’m full?’
It took Doc and Jacob around sixteen hours of tireless work before everyone ca back to a stable state. Even though they managed to save those around them, the image of losing his friends to monsters was still burned deep within his mind.
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