Days blurred together.
Or maybe it was weeks. Jake had lost track. Time was weird when you didn't sleep. When you didn't eat. When you just... existed.
The horde marched north. Always north. Through endless ice fields and frozen valleys. Past skeletal forests where trees stood like frozen corpses themselves. The wind never stopped howling.
And Jake shambled with them, one wight among fifty.
"Okay. So. Day three? Day four? Does it matter?"
His thoughts were still foggy. Still hard to hold onto. But that 0.2% control meant he could at least think in sentences now. Sort of.
"Need to figure out the situation. Take stock. That's what you do when a server crashes. Assess the damage."
He tried to look around without moving his head too obviously. Kazhor was ahead, leading. Silent as always. The White Walker never spoke. Never made a sound except for the faint crunch of his footsteps on snow.
The other wights shuffled around Jake. Fifty of them, all moving in the same shambling rhythm. And as Jake watched them over the hours, one thing became crystal clear.
They were completely mindless.
Not like him. Not even close.
A wight to his left walked straight into an ice boulder. Just walked right into it. Bounced off. Kept walking in the same direction until Kazhor's command redirected it. No attempt to go around. No awareness of the obstacle at all.
Another wight had a bird land on its head. The bird sat there for an hour, pecking at frozen flesh. The wight didn't react. Didn't try to brush it off. Just kept walking with a bird on its head until the bird flew away.
"They're... they're just robots. Meat robots. No one's home."
The realization was both terrifying and comforting.
Terrifying because: "That's what I'm supposed to be. That's what Kazhor thinks I am."
Comforting because: "Which means I can hide. As long as I act like them, he won't notice."
Jake tested it. Tried to mimic their movements. The blank shamble. The empty stare. No reaction to anything.
It was surprisingly easy. His body wanted to move that way anyway. He just had to... let go. Stop fighting. Be a puppet.
"This is my life now. Pretending to be a mindless zombie so the ice demon doesn't notice I'm conscious."
His thoughts scattered. What was he thinking about? Right. The other wights. They were mindless. He wasn't. Good. Keep that secret.
On what Jake thought might be day five, the horde stopped.
Kazhor stood motionless, head tilted slightly. Listening to something. Or sensing something. Jake didn't know how White Walkers worked.
Then Jake heard it too. Small sounds. Movement in the snow.
MOVE. KILL.
The command hit like a hammer. The horde surged forward. Jake's body moved with them, no choice in the matter.
They crested a small rise and Jake saw them: Arctic foxes. Three of them, small and white, digging in the snow for something. Probably looking for frozen prey themselves.
The foxes looked up. Saw fifty wights shambling toward them. Their ears flattened.
They ran.
But the horde was already spreading out, cutting off escape routes. The wights moved with terrifying coordination. Not because they were smart. Because Kazhor was directing them like a conductor directing an orchestra.
Jake's body veered left, following two other wights toward the nearest fox.
The fox was fast. Way faster than the shambling wights. But it made a mistake. Ran toward an ice wall, probably thinking it could climb or hide. It couldn't. The ice was too smooth.
It turned, hissing, back against the wall.
Jake's body didn't slow down. Neither did the other wights. They just kept coming.
The fox lunged at the closest wight, teeth bared. Bit into the wight's leg. The wight didn't react. Just kept walking forward, dragging the fox with it.
Jake's hands grabbed. One hand caught fur. The fox twisted, trying to bite him too. Fast little thing. Vicious.
Another wight grabbed the fox's hind legs. The fox yelped, pulled in two directions. A third wight grabbed its neck.
The fox fought. Scratched. Bit. Drew black blood from frozen flesh.
It didn't matter.
Too many hands. Too much weight. The fox went down under the pile of wights. Its snarls turned to whimpers, then to silence.
[+2 EP]
[Total: 4/1,000]
Jake's foggy mind processed the notification.
"Two more points. Same as the wolf. So... foxes are worth the same? Or maybe it varies?"
He tried to remember if the wolf had been bigger or smaller than the fox. Hard to tell. Hard to remember. Thoughts kept slipping away.
The wights reassembled. The ones who'd been damaged didn't seem to care. One had lost an eye to the fox. It just kept walking, black blood frozen on its face.
Kazhor led them onward.
And Jake had an idea. A small one, barely formed, but an idea nonetheless.
"The foxes. The wolf. Kazhor sends us to kill them. But what if... what if I could kill one on my own? When he's not looking?"
The thought was exciting. Then terrifying. Then it faded into the fog.
"Hard to think. Need more points. More control. Then I can plan better."
Another day passed. Or two days. Jake wasn't sure.
The horde made camp. Did wights camp? They didn't sleep. But Kazhor stopped moving, so they stopped moving. They just... stood there. In the snow. Waiting for the next command.
Jake stood with them.
But his mind was working. Slowly. Painfully. But working.
"Okay. Four points total. That's 0.4% control. I can... I can twitch my fingers. That's it. Not enough to hunt. Not enough to do anything."
He tried to move his hand. Concentrated hard. His fingers twitched. Barely visible.
"Progress. Slow progress. But progress."
He looked around without moving his head. The other wights stood like statues. Empty. Mindless.
Kazhor stood apart, thirty feet away, looking north. Always north. Toward... something. Jake didn't know what.
"Ice-boss has a destination. Wonder where we're going. Deeper north? There's got to be a center to this frozen hellscape. Maybe that's where the boss monster lives."
The thought scattered. What was he thinking about? Right. Kazhor. Destination. North.
"Need to focus. Can't let thoughts slip away."
But it was so hard. Like trying to hold onto smoke.
On day seven, or maybe day nine, Jake saw something that made his dead heart jump.
Well, if his heart could still jump.
The horde was moving through a narrow valley between ice cliffs. And there, off to the left, maybe twenty yards away, Jake saw movement.
A rabbit.
White fur, almost invisible against the snow. But Jake's dead eyes caught it. Saw it hopping through the snow, looking for whatever frozen rabbits looked for.
It was alone. Away from the horde's path. And Kazhor was ahead, not looking back.
"Can I... can I try?"
Jake tried to move his leg. Tried to step toward the rabbit.
Nothing. His body kept following the horde. Kept marching forward with the others.
"Come on. Come ON. Just one step. Just..."
His leg twitched. But didn't step. He had 0.4% control. That was enough to twitch fingers. Not enough to walk independently.
"Not enough. Not enough yet."
The rabbit hopped away, disappearing behind an ice formation.
Jake's body marched on with the horde.
"Soon. I need more points. More control. Then I can hunt. Then I can grind. Then I can get out of this frozen hell."
The thought kept him going. Gave him something to focus on through the fog.
"One point at a time."
The horde stopped again.
But this time, something was different.
Jake felt it before he saw it. A change in the air. A tension. Kazhor's posture shifted slightly. Alert.
Then Jake saw why.
Another figure was approaching from the north. Tall. Impossibly thin. Ice armor gleaming.
Another White Walker.
"Oh no."
The new White Walker moved with that same liquid grace they all seemed to have. Silent. Deadly. It approached Kazhor, and the two stood facing each other.
They didn't speak. Not out loud. But Jake got the sense they were communicating somehow. Some kind of silent exchange with head movement.
The new White Walker's eyes swept over the wight horde. Cold. Analytical. Assessing.
Jake forced himself to stand perfectly still. Empty stare. Slack jaw. Mindless.
"Don't notice me. Don't notice me. I'm just a tool. Just a broken puppet. Nothing special."
The White Walker's gaze passed over him.
Kept moving.
Moved on to the next wight.
Jake didn't let himself relax. Couldn't relax. But internally, a tiny voice said: "Safe. For now."
The two White Walkers continued their silent communication. Then the new one turned and walked away, disappearing back into the northern ice.
Kazhor stood still for a long moment. Then: MARCH.
The horde moved.
And Jake shuffled with them, his foggy mind racing.
"There are more of them. More White Walkers. Of course there are. This isn't just Kazhor. There's a whole... army? Organization? Whatever."
The thought was terrifying.
"And if one of them figures out I'm conscious..."
He didn't want to finish that thought.
"Need to be more careful. Need to get stronger. Need those points."
The frozen wasteland stretched endlessly ahead.
And Jake Morrison, one wight among fifty, kept marching.