Tian didn’t have much understanding of eagles. He had heard Grandpa use the word, but generally there wasn’t anything in the dump that was worth their attention. These birds, however, felt that Tian was worth not only their attention, he was worth their interest.
The family of eagles swooped in and ripped at him with their long claws. Wide wings the color of bronze and earth drove huge gusts of wind into his eyes. Worst of all, he didn’t dare let go of the cliff. If he took even one hand off to fight, how would his remaining fingers and precariously perched toes hold on? He reached for the seam Grandpa told him about, trying to work his left hand in. An eagle clawed at his head. Tian jerked away and in that moment,
He slipped.
And fell.
The eagles didn’t let him off.
They swooped in, pecking at him, trying to rip off strips of flesh or even hook his thin body with their talons. They had carried away mountain rams. What trouble could a little beast like him present?
Quite a lot, it turned out. In the few seconds of his fall, Tian managed to get a foot up and around, whipping into one eagles’ head. Another eagle had its strong talons caught by a weak hand that managed to grab it above the ankle. It was enough to yank the eagle down for a few seconds before Tian’s hand slipped off. It also had the happy effect of slowing his fall. He hit the water before the eagles could regroup for another attack.
Tian had never taken a bath before. The closest he came to completely submerging in water was monsoon season. The river was very deep, and very cold.
He couldn’t breathe. He thrashed in the water, the shock hitting his body like hammers. He waved his arms, clawing for the air, but he slid under the water. The swift river carried him forward, along the base of the cliff. His toe touched something and he kicked up, breaching the surface for one breath, then under again. The water was chaotic, dark, tossing and spinning him. He lost track of up and down.
His back hit a rock, knocking what little breath he had out of his lungs. He scrabbled up, eyes going dim, and managed to suck in a breath of air. Then another breath. Then a wave smacked him off the slippery river-rock and back into the thrashing flood.
The water slipped through his ruined fingers and slid around his feet. Tian could feel the weight of the water, feel the solidness of it, but when his legs kicked down, it was as though he pushed against nothing at all. Like the water was only solid enough to hurt him. To smother him. To blind him. No matter how much he thrashed, he couldn’t climb out of the water.
Fear sank its claws into him. Like the eagles, the fear had found a helpless moment and struck then. The water choked him, but the fear stuffed up his mind, muting his thoughts. Reducing him to vermin. He thrashed and scrabbled, desperate to find anything, anything. Not understanding that his panic was costing him precious heartbeats and irreplaceable oxygen.
He came up once, twice, a third time… then was under, and Tian knew in his heart that he was dead. That there was no fourth breath for him. A mad thought trickled through his terror-locked mind. “If I can’t go up, what happens if I go down?”
Tian stopped fighting the water. He was already dead, and he wasn’t hurting too badly. He could feel his lungs tightening already and his heart struggling, but he wasn’t in too much pain. It was endurable. Since he was already dead, there was no need for panic. He opened his eyes properly, and looked around.
He could see. He was shocked at how well he could see. Even with the rushing water all around him, shapes were clear and close. It was almost disorienting. He had been staring at the cliff face before, and hadn’t understood what “fixing his eyes” really meant. Apparently it meant there was a lot more going on in the world than he had realized. For example, there was that big rock coming up fast on the right.
He tried clawing his way towards the rock, but didn’t achieve anything. Tian forced himself to be still. Once there was hope, there was fear. He forced himself to be still, and waited. The rock rushed closer, and as it did, Tian’s thin body drifted down towards the river bottom.
His lungs were hurting now. Squeezed by some giant hand. His blood thundered in his ears and his newly sharp eyes were going dim again. He forced himself to be still. His toes drifted across the sandy bottom. He stretched them out. Let them drag him down. Then with the last of his strength, pushed hard for the rock!
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His guts froze. His desperate, all out, leap barely shifted him. The water was solid, but only when it could hurt him.
He hopped a little closer to the rock. But not close enough. His toes brushed the ground again, but it wouldn’t matter. He was too far, too far and too weak. He didn’t know what part of him gave him the strength to kick again. It was a weak little thing this time, barely a nudge against the sandy bottom. And to his disbelieving eyes, the blue-grey rock got closer.
The river seemed to conspire with him this time, carrying him right to the rock. He spread his arms wide, and like a drowning lizard, climbed his way up. The river did its part, pressing him to the big rock and lifting him up. In the seconds before he started convulsing, he managed to get his head above the water and pulled in big gasping breaths. He scrambled up onto the top of the rock- barely a foot square and inches above the water, but he loved it with every scrap of his being.
Tian didn’t hear anything except the rushing river and the thunder of his own heartbeats. The gasping sound of his breath as he pulled in lungful after lungful of sweet air. He wasn’t aware of anything except the visceral need to breathe for ten whole minutes.
When he raised his eyes, he found himself sitting at the mouth of the river, where it emptied into a wide, more still expanse of water. He couldn’t see the far edge of it, but what he could see was ringed with trees and narrow beaches.
“Grandpa, what is this?” His voice sounded wrong. He coughed. “What do you call a river that’s wide and still?”
Depending on how big it is, and if the water is fresh? A pond or a lake. This is big enough to be a lake.
Tian sat on the rock and watched the river spill into the lake. It had been rushing so quickly, and it calmed again so quickly. The lake was so vast, but it didn’t seem big enough to hold all the water coming in from the river. Did the water evaporate, like the glazed jars with water in them back in the junkyard? Or did it sink away, like the puddles on the ground?
He shivered. It seemed to be very cold here.
You nearly drowned. You used all your strength and energy climbing and fighting the river, not to mention undergoing a bit of bodily reconstruction. Your body is cold because you are covered in water and no longer have the food burning inside your belly to warm you. In a manner of speaking.
“Is that how that works?”
Kinda. It’s complicated. What you need to know is wet equals cold and cold equals dead. So you want to go dry off as best you can and warm up. You will also need to hunt some food, or forage some, but that’s nothing too terrible. Always plenty of prey near lakes and other bodies of water.
Tian nodded, carefully remembering. Staying warm was hard in the rainy season. It must have been because he was all wet. He smiled slightly. He could make fire now. It would take time, but he could do it. Then the smile ran away from his face. There was one small but crucial problem. He was on a rock in the mouth of the river, and he couldn’t swim. The shore was at least ten yards away.
“Grandpa? How am I supposed to get to shore?”
Use your eyes.
“I can’t swim with my eyeballs, Grandpa.”
Not with that attitude you can’t. But I mean more literally. Look around. Specifically between you and the shore.
Tian looked down. The water was dark, but if he squinted he could just about see… gravel? Little rocks and sand? He kept looking, following the line to shore. He couldn’t see all the way, but it looked like it just about connected the shore to the rock.
“I can walk to shore?”
It’s going to be chest high on you or a little higher, I’d guess. But yes. Congratulations, Tian!
“For what?”
Surviving your first treasure hunt. It’s a bigger deal than you might think. Go on. Nothing good on this rock. Head for the shore, and dinner.
It turned out that it was hard to wade through chest high water, even if it was just for thirty feet. He was freezing and ravenous by the time he got to shore.
Your luck is decent. You see that bush over there? It looks like animals eat the berries off of it. You shouldn’t eat them, but you could set snares around the game trails. Might get lucky sooner rather than later.
The forest was surprisingly full of good things. Some roots could be eaten, or leaves if they were cooked. There were reeds that could be cut down with a bit of sharp rock that would make an amazing nest to warm up in. Especially since he found a couple of big rocks to hide the nest under. He should be safe from predators this way.
Grandpa was right about the bush too- it barely took a few hours before they found a squirrel hug dead on a snare. All that was left was gathering firewood, finding a concealed place to make the fire, and settling in for the rest of the day.
Pile those reeds deep, Tian. Remember- knee high in a pinch, waist high is best. Remember how much the leaves crunched down when you lay on them? Then you build your nest around the pile. Grab big bunches and lean them together against the rocks, like a little wall. It won’t hold up in the wind, but it’s pretty still today. Just keep the fire well back.
Tian soon had a little fire going. He had dried off after all the running around, but he had progressed from hungry to actually starving and was desperate to start roasting the things they found. He quickly skinned the squirrel with a bit of chipped rock, roughly cleaned it, rinsed it in the lake, and got it roasting. He alternated between bites of charred squirrel and foraged roots. It wasn’t as delicious as the truffle, but at the moment, he could hardly imagine anything better.
“Grandpa?”
Yes, Tian?
“What are we going to do once my body is all better? I know you said save the world, but…” The little boy waved his hand at the lake, and by extension the whole of existence. “I’m not even sure we can save me.”
We will. Never doubt that. But let me ask you this. Assume you were completely healthy. You could cultivate. Your… everything… was fixed. You have nothing but your strong body, your good mind and me. Absolutely nothing holding you back. If you could do anything at all, have anything at all, what would you do?