Chapter Text
Senkuu unwinds the bandages from his leg, examining the wound underneath-
It's reddened, with pus oozing out of the bite marks, and it's noticeably warmer to the touch by the surrounding flesh by a good margin. It's showing no sign of healing up properly, and if it hasn't gotten any better in the past few days-
Senkuu can't help but chuckle darkly to himself. "There's a good chance I'm doomed."
If he gets sick enough he can't provide for himself, that's a game over scenario right there. And even if Taiju did wake up right now, even if reaching a point where he can't handle food, water, and hygiene all on his own was no longer a death sentence, there's substantial odds the infection could be fatal all on its own no matter what Taiju does.
Depending on how fast it advances, he might have a few days to a week before it becomes impossible to keep up with everything. The excursions to check and reset his traps, walking all over the area to collect fruits and mushrooms, and processing all the food he obtained- those will all start to falter and fail first. Not much longer from there before the walks down to the river to get water and the firewood to boil it so he can drink it safely is more effort than he can manage. And from that point, he's pretty much completely fucked.
So. New priorities.
Abandon all plans of advancement, right now priority number one is stockpiling food, water, and firewood before that becomes too difficult. Priority number two is going to be fleshing out the notes he'd already prepared for Taiju, on the off chance a bad fall or predator attack got him suddenly. Now there's a much higher chance those notes will be Taiju's only lifeline, so he has to polish them up.
He washes out the wound as best he can - no proper soap, no antibiotics, all he can do is hope his immune system manages to figure this out and handle it before it incapacitates or kills him. He wraps it up- he doesn't have enough bandages to use clean ones every time, which certainly doesn't improve his odds, but he cleans them as best he can, and it's better than leaving them uncovered and risking dirt and insects getting in and making the whole problem worse.
He allows himself a moment, to rest his head in his hands and despair, to feel the press of death bearing down on him, before he shoves himself back to his feet.
He's not dead yet. There's still hope he might make it - or barring that, still more he can do to give Taiju better odds when he wakes up from the stone.
Time to get to work.
It gets worse.
It gets so, so much worse.
He'd stockpiled as much food and water as he could manage, cooked the food, boiled the water, brought it all up to the treehouse with him, as the fever started to set in, as it started to get hard to think, to plan, to move-
(it's not enough.)
It hurts. His leg throbs in agony, agony that radiates out to his aching joints, out to every inch of him. He's so cold, even curled up under blankets, even with the heat of late summer.
It hurts. He's cold. He's scared. He can't even think properly. He's going to die. He's going to die here, alone and cold and scared, and he wants Byakuya, he wants Taiju, he wants Yuzuriha, Dr.X, someone, anyone, he doesn't want to die alone-
He ran out of food a day ago- maybe a day? Maybe more? He thinks it was a day, but time is thick and syrupy and wrong and he can't keep focus and he can't count and his immune system is cooking his brain and he's scared and he doesn't want to die!
There's still water, not enough to keep himself clean, not enough to wash off the fever sweat and pus and infection even if he could convince himself to do so when he's going to die soon anyways but there is enough to drink, enough to stave off death a few hours more, though it's still so close he can feel it breathing down his neck -
It hurts.
He's so cold.
If he had antibiotics- if he had an IV drip of antipyretics- if his brain wasn't cooking in his skull quite so badly- there's ways to survive this but he can't think and he can barely move and he can't get any of them, he can't-
he can't think-
it hurts-
he wants his dad-
he doesn't want to die alone-
he doesn't want to be alone he wants to call his dad he wants to text taiju he wants to send an email to dr.x he wants yuzuriha to message him he wants someone to be here he wants someone to hear him
there's a note for taiju
he just wants-
he doesn't want to die alone-
he'd left the ink nearby- just ash, just charcoal, mixed with some binder he can't remember the name of because the fever is cooking his brain until it breaks and dies and he dies and he doesn't want to die but he's going to die-
he grabs the note and spills the ink on his hand and flips the note over and scrawls something on the back
some desperate plea to not be alone
to not die
his brain is cooking and he doesn't know what he wrote
he curls up in the pile of pelts and waits for death to take him
he wants his dad back
he doesn't want to be alone-