Chapter 10: Run

After she closed her eyes, the world around Addie lit up, all of her surroundings suddenly becoming ‘obvious’. Instead of just seeing in front of herself, like with her eyes, she could see most of the forest around her for more than a meter. She easily detected the closest hanging branch in her way and quickly dodged around it.

“I’m doing it, Squishy!” she shouted in hope.

“Do not slow down. The wolf is still in pursuit.”

No response was needed. Squishy knew Addie had no intent to slow down. He was just trying to encourage her. So, Addie focused more on paying attention to her surroundings.

A rock stood out in her way, and Addie easily stepped ever so slightly to the right to avoid landing on it. A moment later, a patch of pinecones attached to a hanging branch threatened to wack into her head. She weaved just enough to avoid it, trying not to waste any of her movements. A twig underneath a patch of dead leaves she never would have been able to see with her eyes became as obvious as something right in front of her face. She stepped over it and continued running.

“I’m really doing it!” Hope filled Addie up. Or maybe that was just the adrenaline.

The wolf, snarling, pounced again, this time aiming to finish things. She could almost feel how wrathful it was, leaping at her with its mouth bared. It was the beast’s stance, its outstretched claws. The way it looked at Addie as if she were an annoying piece of food that just wouldn’t give up. Mostly, it was the wolf’s raised hackles and bared teeth. The wolf seemed to be saying, ‘How dare my dinner fight back’. Or at least, that’s what Addie imagined he was saying.

Addie got ready to dodge, or in the worst case, jump into Realmspace to save herself.

Protective fury flared up through the bond, but she knew it wasn’t coming from her. Squishy abruptly skidded to a stop while turning his body around. Then with a powerful flexing of his muscles, he leaped into the air, past Addie’s head, and jumped directly into the wolf’s way. She sensed his jaw wrap around the wolf’s throat, and his teeth tore away chunks of red flesh with a splattering of blood.

He didn’t get a free hit in though, the Aurwolf yelped and whimpered as it reflexively twisted its head around and used its paw to thunk right into Squishy. He hit the ground hard and rolled, his black scales getting mud all over.

“Squishy!” Addie cried, her voice cracking into a high-pitched scream. She stopped her mad dash and turned around to grab Squishy behind her. She tried to pick him up, only to drop him again right away as his body was slick with blood. Hopefully not his own blood.

In a final act of desperation, Addie hunched over Squishy, protecting him with her body. She curled around him right there in the dirt. She already lost too much family; she couldn’t lose the other half of her soul, too.

Addie braced herself, waiting for the final blow from the wolf as she tightly shut her eyes.

“It’s alright. I appear mostly unharmed, though I suspect I will sport a rather nasty bruise in the morning.” He started wiggling within her hug, he felt like a slippery eel with how dirty his black scales were from mud and blood.

Addie ignored him and continued to brace, how could he be joking right now?

“You can let me go now, I can walk properly myself.” He wiggled some more, even putting a paw on Addie’s arm.

Addie scrunched up her face in confusion, but then she relaxed her body in relief a moment later. The wolf lay unmoving behind her, its eyes revealing only the stagnancy of death.

“Oh, we won,” Addie realized, her mind mostly blank in surprise.

“Surely, you knew this? You just started using your spatial sense effectively, did you not?” Squishy’s ears flicked until they faced Addie.

There was no stopping it. Addie laughed and rubbed the tears from her eyes. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying. “I guess I still haven’t practiced enough,” she mumbled.

The chortling sound Squishy sometimes made joined her as the two bonded laughed.

Unfortunately, the night wasn’t over. They had survived this Aurwolf, which were luckily solitary predators. But, if they didn’t hurry, another one could pop up at any moment. More than that, now that Addie was lying down in the dirt with Squishy, she didn’t think she could get back up.

The adrenaline crashed out of her system, only reminding Addie of how thirsty she was. All of a sudden, the dirt felt so comfortable, and she couldn’t even think about getting up. Her lips were cracked and dry, her throat felt scratchy, and her mouth barely even had any spit anymore.

Squishy perked up from within her lap, finally wiggling his way out from her arms. “Bide your time, my lady. I shall acquire the location of a stream or river with my senses. I ought to find something quickly.” He stopped looking at Addie, moving his gaze further toward the forest. “Then I will guide you to it. Please wait for me here.”

“Okay,” Addie agreed easily. To be honest, she barely understood what her Squishy was even saying at this point. She had a brief urge to warn him about using too much power using magic, but the warning slipped away from her mind before she could even say it. Her body wouldn’t listen, her head suddenly on the ground as she tried not to fall asleep. Her eyes began drooping, but she kept forcing them to blink herself awake.

It could have been five minutes or five hours; time morphed into a blur as Addie’s mind drifted in and out of darkness. Eventually, Squishy returned. He poked his wet nose into her face until she stood up. In a fugue, Addie followed Squishy as best she could. By the end of it, Addie could hardly stand, but, somehow, she had made it. If asked how far she needed to walk to reach this small stream, she would not have been able to come close to a semblance of an answer.

Addie practically fell on her face straight into the deliciously cool stream. Vague recollections of her father telling her never to drink untreated water surfaced in Addie’s mind, but she ignored those completely as she took gulp after gulp of water. Eventually, Addie stopped, the water sloshing around in her stomach.

Whipping her head out of the water, Addie paused to catch her breath, her wet hair landing on her back. She barely noticed her cold hair against her back as her stomach began to churn, and the strong urge to puke overwhelmed her.

Thoroughly miserable, and once again thirsty, Addie took a few smaller gulps from the stream, but she could barely stomach more than a couple of handfuls. Now with watery eyes and a bitter taste against her throat, Addie collapsed on the side of the stream bank, panting.

“Ugg, maybe that’s why Dad said not to drink untreated water,” Addie grumbled aloud.

“I fear that you suffered from severe dehydration. Perhaps that is why you couldn’t keep down all of the water at once?” Squishy mused. “Your body may not have been ready to consume so much liquid after being dried out. Best keep it in moderation for now while you recover.” Addie winced slightly at Squishy’s lecturing tone, but she didn’t respond.

Instead, Addie decided to crawl into and the sprawl out her body in the stream. At first glance, she thought it would be deep enough to swim, but once she lay on her back directly in the frigid water, she realized it only came halfway up her torso. For a moment, she shivered at the icy caress of the water, but she was far too tired to grumble out a complaint. She lay down, her back pressed against the water’s surface, her limbs feeling tingly and limp, yet Addie knew she could move them if needed. After a few moments of adjusting to the temperature, she was able to relax even further and enjoy the stream’s current flowing along her body, starting at her head and ending near her feet.

Using her Spatial sense, she knew Squishy was wandering into the stream, too. He waded over to Addie, and then climbed up onto her chest, laying down with his limbs sprawled out in the water. His body felt so unbelievably warm against her chest like this, a furnace on top of her which contrasted sharply against the freezing water around her.

Slowly, all the aches and pains plaguing her body from the last few days drifted away in the stream. Since it was nighttime now, she couldn’t see Squishy’s dark scales with her eyes very well, but her new Spatial sense more than made up for that. She watched as he steadily relaxed, as he stopped treating his back foot so tenderly. She witnessed the scratches on his body close and heal before her very eyes.

Some of the water lapped at the sides of Addie's head, getting some water in her ears, but she didn’t mind. This felt better than any massage.

The relief of the situation finally caught up to Addie. With playfulness, Addie splashed some water on Squishy, causing him to shake his head, getting bits of water all over Addie’s face. Not that it mattered, she was soaked anyway. Her hair was going to take forever to dry, especially since it was night.

“Silly... Cat.” She smiled.

“While I am certain that I am no cat, I am glad you are feeling better. Your state of mind and body had begun to concern me. Though I won’t be surprised if you complain about those wet clothes later,” Squishy remarked, his warm body comforting Addie.

Since the sources of water were known safe zones in the forest, Addie took the opportunity to unwind in the gentle embrace of the stream. Allowing the cool water to cascade over her, she felt the soothing relief seeping into her body. As time stretched lazily before her, Addie’s mind focused on the water dancing around her. From head to foot, she became an observer of the water’s current, as if her very being merged with the stream’s flow. Gradually, she realized she wasn’t just feeling the water’s touch. Lost in this almost meditative state, her perception expanded beyond her own body and sense of touch, ‘seeing’ the water in a radius around her. In the gentle embrace of the flowing waters, all distractions melted away, leaving only Addie and the graceful stream, entwined in an unspoken conversation.

Once goose bumps had begun to pop up on her skin and her teeth started clattering, Addie decided to get out. As she emerged from the stream, Squishy perked up his ears, and hopped off of Addie’s chest, back onto the forest loam. He did a full body stretch, solidifying in Addie's mind the idea that, in some ways, Squishy was truly like a cat.

Feeling much better than earlier, Addie took another drink from the stream. Once she was out, her shivering got worse, the cool night air feeling even colder now that she was out of the water. Her wet hair bunched up uncomfortably against her back, and her sundress clung to her with extra water weight.

“You better not laugh at my wet clothes,” Addie commanded.

“Laugh at my lady? Never,” Squishy responded stoically.

Despite the misery brought on by her wetness, Addie found solace in the fact that without the river, they might not be alive. She reflected on her experience in the stream.

Her newly acquired spatial sense allowed her to actively sense everything around her, to an extent. She could ‘see’ her surroundings beyond the limits of her traditional senses. When centering the sense around herself, a sphere of insight unfolded about her, spanning a radius of perhaps one to two meters. She lost this ability if she tried to focus on any given object around her, though.

Focusing on a single object was weird, and she wasn’t sure exactly what she was seeing, yet. It was like a bunch of tiny little circles were all forced together to make up a whole leaf. Her skin was like that, too. In that sense, the water from the stream made more sense, as she could ‘see’ a bunch of tiny droplets making up the entire flow.

Addie shook her head, she was getting distracted.

“I need to sleep. My brain is all foggy. Let’s make a camp for warmth, though it might be hard with just the two of us.” Addie was hopeful they could get warm.

Squishy sent a feeling of agreement through their bond. “In my admittedly simple past memories, I never once ‘made a camp’ as you say. How shall I help?”

“We need to make a fire,” Addie decided. “My dad always said it would help scare the animals off, and I don’t know how to build a roof over us or anything like that. Without fire, we might freeze to death!” Her teeth chattered loudly, emphasizing her point. Addie didn’t want to survive the Aurwolf just to die of something silly like the cold.