Pain. Everything was just pain. From the simple ache of muscle worked far beyond their ability, to the bruises and chunks ripped from his skin. In this moment that threatened to stretch into eternity there was simply nothing but pain. He wanted to scream but didn’t have the energy and just settled on a low, continuous groan.

“Yeah that sounds about right.” Ray came into view looking hatefully chipper. Spears of sunlight pierced down into their hole in dappled rays behind him. And more than that, there was bird song in the air, and a strong scent of cinnamon. “Come on get up. We have to get moving, and trust me, you’ll feel better after you can get your blood flowing a bit.” The old man looked over the hasty bandages with a glint of pity in his eyes. “Probably.”

Chris groaned again, “I don’t have a choice do I.”

“Not really.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuck.” Chris slowly worked his way to his feet, and was almost immediately bowled over by an overwhelming sense of vertigo. The world spun around him like a top that some cruel god had stuffed him inside. He didn’t puke, but it was a very close thing. He clutched at the nearest wall and waited for it to pass. It didn’t. But it did die down enough to let him walk at least.

Ray led the way up out of their hole in the ground. He scanned the area around them this time paying extra attention to the world above them. Chris was close enough to see that Ray had his own set of injuries, jagged cuts that passed in and out of his own rough bandages. The coast was clear and they began to walk, tuning their eyes and ears to any hint of water.

The forest was beautiful at this time of day. A thin mist hung between the branches like ribbons of grey silk. Thick enough to provide a ghost ambiance to the sky, but thin enough that like still pierced through in rays that stood like pillars up to heaven. The lichen that coated the ground was also at its softest, its spores having just settled down from their nightly dispersion and those same spores gave the forest its cinnamon scent. Unfortunately Chris could hardly bring himself to enjoy it. Every step had him teetering, his body determined to let him know to never exert himself again. Even worse his perception of the world closed in like he was in some horrible fog, each disparate part of his body moving almost autonomously while his conscious mind fought to keep his eyelids open while pondering if this is what it felt like to die.

When Ray’s hand tapping, softly and insistently on his shoulder caused him to break from his stupor he had no idea how long they’d been walking, and could recall nothing of the path they had taken. “There’s a river just ahead of us, the incline is steep though, we won’t be able to make it down without a lot of noise.”

Chris' head was full of a complete lack of anything to add to the conversation. He understood of course the basic logic behind why this was a problem, but beyond complaining about how that was unfair after walking this far he had nothing. Ray was looking at him though, waiting for something. “That’s a problem.”

There was a twist to Ray’s face, just a brief one. He was holding back laughter. Another person, or perhaps just a different set of circumstances would have let Chris laugh it off with him. But to him as he was here and now, it cut. Ray’s opinion of him meant more than Chris could possibly realise. He just knew that it hurt.

So he turned and started walking along the crest of the incline without another word. He heard Ray emit the start of a word, swiftly cut off, knowing something was wrong without knowing what it was. Which could hardly be held against him, since Chris didn’t know either. This didn’t stop him from deriving his own vindictive pleasure from his one and only friend’s discomfort.

They found a path down in silence and descended without words. And when the river they had heard lay before them they faced it with breathless quiescence. It rushed with a power and fury that could be felt in the air and seen in the silver crests of roiling waters where it had worn away the softer dirts of its bed that could not survive it. It was an awe inspiring forward, endless rush to destinations unknown. It was far too quiet as well. For all that it raged and battered against the soils that bordered it, the river made only a whisper, nay hardly a breath; the hanging caesura between inhalation and exhalation.

The pair of men knelt, almost unthinking, before it. They felt small, as men always had before the greatest works of nature. Chris was the first to break from the spell, his ignorance dampening the meaning and majesty of the river before him, and he lay down to drink his fill. His hand drew water to bring to his lips. Even this he found to be a challenge. The river fought him, the force of its passage threatening to drag him away if his will was lesser than what it demanded. His arm ached as he brought his prize, a pittance that disappeared down his throat with a whisper even less than the river that had fathered it. He cried.

“What’s wrong son?” Ray spoke.

“Why does everything have to be so hard?” Chris sobbed. He was too dehydrated for tears to truly come, and that made everything worse, his eyes just growing sore and dry as his pudgy fingers rubbed at the slits of his eyelids.

He heard a deep splash and opened his eyes to find a wide brimmed hat with a feather in its crown, filled to spill with beautiful water. “That’s cause you’ve been alone son.” Chris turned, his vision clear to look as an old face, battered and bruised just as his own must be. A smiled tucked itself into the creases of that kindly face, that owed him nothing and would give him everything. “And you lack the most important accessory a man can have.”

“What?”

Ray chuckled and tapped his nose conspiratorially. “A really cool hat.”