The sun was barely a rumor on the horizon when Theron's heavy boot found Alex's ribs. It was a gruff, careless prod, but enough to send a knife of pain through Elian's starved, fragile body.
"Up, boy! The well doesn't fill itself. No time for dreams." Theron grunted, already pulling on his rough woolen tunic near the hearth. He was vast and imposing even in the gloom.
Alex scrambled up, the effort immediately plunging him into a dizzy, nauseous spiral. His vision swam. This is not fatigue, he thought, gripping the edge of the cot. This is cellular debt. Acute caloric deficiency is hijacking the entire system. Alex, the accountant, knew the ledger was deep in the red. He had to eat, or his brilliant, modern mind would be reduced to a panicked, hungry animal.
He quickly secured the black rabbit corpus beneath his tunic. The small, preserved body provided the only anchor in his sensory overload—a persistent, internal focused chill that pushed back against the general, nauseating cold pressure that clung to him.
"The bucket," Theron commanded, tossing a heavy, iron-hooped wooden pail at him. Alex caught it clumsily, the sudden weight staggering him. "And don't take all morning. I need the leather soaked before the sun is high."
Alex left the shack, gripping the pail handle until his knuckles were white. The air was frigid, cutting through his thin clothes, but it was nothing compared to the internal chill. Oakhaven was a collection of muddy paths and timber-and-thatch shacks, smelling of woodsmoke, pig-filth, and damp earth. His main objective was simple: reach the well, draw the water, and return without drawing Theron's attention.
As he walked, his mind, desperate for distraction from the gnawing hunger, tried to categorize the anomaly.
The rabbit is an island of extreme thermodynamic stillness. It's resisting decay, but not through biological or known chemical means. Elian's body attracts the generalized 'cold pressure,' and the rabbit focuses it.
He considered the focused chill a type of localized static energy that only Elian's body could perceive and manipulate. It wasn't magic, not yet. It was physics, albeit physics he didn't understand.
He reached the communal well, standing alone in the center of the muddy village green. The sun was still hidden, and he was alone. The well offered two things: a quiet moment for calculation and a physical impossibility. The bucket, when full, would be impossibly heavy for this weak body.
He carefully placed the pail in the well's mouth and began lowering the rope, his arms shaking immediately from the weight of the rope alone.
I need a proof of concept, he thought, the hunger momentarily forgotten in a spike of adrenaline. If the rabbit focuses the chill, can I direct that focused chill to reduce the required energy output?
He reached inside his tunic and wrapped his hand around the frozen core of the rabbit. The intense focused chill was immediate, pushing back against the general pressure. He pictured the cold, the stillness, flowing out of the rabbit, through his hand, and into the rope, into the heavy, submerged bucket. He wasn't thinking of an incantation; he was thinking of a momentary, directed transfer of inertial stability.
He pulled.
For a split second, the cold pressure around him spiked, becoming agonizingly sharp, like a thousand needles pricking his skin. He felt a profound drain, a sensation far worse than the hunger—it was as if the meager life force supporting his current consciousness was briefly diverted to the rope. His mind flashed with the memory of the rabbit's stillness.
But then, the rope went slack.
The wooden bucket, full to the brim and heavier than he could possibly manage, rose from the well's depths and landed on the stone ledge with startling ease. His arms, normally useless, felt briefly as strong as steel cable.
Alex stared at the full pail, breathing heavily. He had pulled a sixty-pound bucket with the effort of lifting a piece of bread.
He immediately released the rabbit. The dizziness returned, accompanied by a wave of nausea. He had used the power, and it worked, but it had come at a cost. The feeling was not one of physical strain, but of a deep, cellular exhaustion, leaving him weaker and even more vulnerable to the relentless hunger.
The power is an exchange, Alex calculated, shaking uncontrollably. It borrows energy from the process of life and stillness. I gained physical advantage, but I compounded my physical debt. It is a cheat, but an expensive one.
He managed to shoulder the bucket, the weight now almost unbearable. He had confirmed the power, but the cost was too high to use casually. He stumbled back toward the shack, his head pounding. The conclusion was inescapable: magic can wait; calories cannot. He needed a guaranteed source of food, and he needed it now.