Cassius woke with his fist already closed around the shiv.
He didn't remember grabbing it. He never did anymore.
His eyes swept the island before his thoughts caught up — the lake, the roots, the tree line, the sky that never changed. Nothing moved. Nothing ever moved here. He exhaled slowly and loosened his grip, one finger at a time.
He looked back at the throne.
The roots had pulled away again. The stone sat quiet, patient, indifferent. He stared at it a moment longer than he meant to, something unresolved turning over behind his eyes something that felt too much like dependency.
His gaze hardened. He looked toward the forest.
"I need that axe."
He moved slowly, checking each step before he committed to it. The path across the roots, the tree line, the open sand beyond. Every shadow got a second look.
He knew that nothing was there. He looked anyway. He couldn't stop looking.
The battlefield was as he'd left it. Bodies stiff, the sand dark in patches, the axe where it had fallen. He pulled it free, felt the weight settle into his palm, and stood still for a moment, just holding it.
"Think. How do I survive?"
He began to move through the motions.
"First — leg." He walked it out, step by step, the exact ground. "Then throat. I fell —" he marked the root with his foot, "— here."
thud
"They aimed for the throat, then the side."
He stood up straight.
"Then I run. Third one comes from —" he turned, pointed, "— there. I push."
He put his back to the tree.
And then came the pain.
Not the memory of it. The pain itself, vivid and total, as if his body had been waiting for him to stop moving so it could finish what it had started.
His stomach erupted in a white-hot cascade that dropped the axe from his hands before he'd decided to let go. He folded, both arms wrapping around his midsection, sliding down the trunk until he was on the ground.
"Why. Why why why does this hurt so much."
He pressed his forehead to his knees and rode it. There was nothing else to do. The pain crested, peaked and sat there.
He wanted to cry.
He couldn't.
"Someone," he murmured into the space between his knees, barely a sound at all. "Please. Someone help me."
The words landed in silence and dissolved.
Then a noise.
He was on his feet before the thought formed. Axe in hand, shiv in the other, eyes moving fast across the tree line. His heart was already at a full sprint, the pain gone like it had never existed.
Nothing came.
The trees stood still. The sand held no tracks. The air gave him nothing.
He stayed ready for a long moment. Then another.
"Not again." The words came out ragged, almost a plea. "Not again, please, why, just — why."
He moved toward where he thought the sound had come from, axe raised, steps careful. His eyes kept jumping to shadows, to the spaces between trunks, to patches of ground that looked disturbed and weren't.
"It was somewhere here." He stopped. Looked around. "Right?"
He wasn't sure anymore.
Then a sharp, close, directional sound came and he spun toward it. Something launched from the corner of the eye, all pale skin and open jaws, already at his throat, already inside his guard!
He felt the teeth close.
He felt himself fall.
He heard the wet tearing sound and opened his mouth to scream.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"
Yet he was still standing, unable to see the it.
Pain still there yet nothing was causing it
Instantly his hands went to check his throat.
It should have been there. There should have been blood. He checked again.
A small sound left him, not quite a laugh but too broken to be relief.
His legs were shaking.
"There was nothing," he said aloud.
He laughed again, brief and strange.
Then he turned and drove his fist into the tree trunk.
"Why."
The bark split against his knuckles.
"W...agh!...hy!"
Again.
"WHY !!!"
Did the question hold any meaning?
"Wuuu?"
It continued and continued until no real words were coming out.
"...g...u...a...g...h.....?!"
Then he stopped.
Grabbed his head with both hands.
His nails found his scalp and pressed in, just enough to feel something real and specific, something that was definitely happening, definitely now.
He sat down where he was.
Head between his knees. Back against the ruined bark. The shiv somewhere in the sand nearby, the axe beside it.
The forest offered nothing. It never did. It just watched, the way it always watched, patient and completely without interest in whether he made it or not.
"Will this nightmare ever end..."
It wasn't a question anymore.
He sat there.
After a while, he picked up the axe.