Timeless Hero Without a Goal

32nd Tick: The First Town 5

Rose looked at the child Thomas, trying to concentrate. She Continued to concentrate for a full minute, her head started to hurt and she started to lose feeling in her arms. She managed to slightly read the mind of Thomas, just a few words. She snapped out of it, disappointed. She had expected her idea to lead somewhere, but it was no use, Thomas was a child again.

‘Dad’, ‘Mute’, ‘Food’. She had only managed to get those three words from Thomas’ head. She got up shakily, wanting to be on the move. Her physical condition would not last, she was already getting thirsty for water, thankfully, she had lost her appetite, so hunger was not much of an issue. She walked around, desperately trying to find a source of water, anything to possibly sustain her and Thomas. She looked around and used her sixth sense, walking in one directions, letting herself walk where her instincts told her to walk. Her magic may be weak, but it was still useful in some scenarios.

At some point, after walking for a few hours, her legs gave out. Rose knelt on the ground, her knees bleeding and staining the grass red. The sun was lowering, it was about to become night soon. She wondered, the day before the terrain had been a desert, would it change again the next day? She pushed those thoughts out, the only thing in her mind was how to get water.

Rose’s throat burned and she was unable to speak. Her head was light, her lips cracked and bleeding. She had lost too much water from her body due to the heat of the forest. She fell down sideways, still holding Thomas in her arms. She looked at him, wondering what he did that reverted him to that state. Thomas may have given her some kind of protection against the creatures of the forest, but water and food was on her. She needed to survive, going back to Heaven might make her unable to return to the human world.

Thomas opened his eyes, struggling slightly against Rose’s hands. Without the energy to hold on to him, Thomas managed to break free, standing up. He looked at Rose, his pocket watch still in his hands. He poked her nose and started laughing lightly, the noise he produced slightly weird. Rose just gave him an annoyed look, Thomas backing off. He had a look in his eyes, something like familiarity or even fear. What had happened to him when he was a child?

Thomas turned around playfully, hopping away from Rose. She tried reaching out for him, but the child was too far away. Thomas scourged somewhere nearby, finding nothing. He visibly puffed and started running clumsily towards a direction. Rose painfully got up, her breath starting to get rouged. She chased after him, not wanting to be separate from him in case of emergency. She broke past the wall of trees, and in front of her laid a magnificent view.

A clear pond, the surface still. There was an open space in the forest, a pond in that space. She squatted down beside the water where Thomas was smacking with his hand, playing around. Rose approached it, reaching out, scooping water and drinking a mouthful. She breathed a sigh of relief, drinking as much as she could until she felt bloated. She sat down beside Thomas who was pulling the grass around him. Rose looked at herself in the pond, her reflection staring back.

Rose saw herself, her red hair messy and dirty, her skin covered with a layer of dirt. She looked terrible and felt it. She scooped some water and started to wipe her arm with the water, the water washing off the dirt. She ran some more through her hair, washing it to an extent. She would have loved to jump in, but she feared for any creatures that lived in the water.

Rose made do with what she had, she had a water source, but the issue would be whether she could maintain the water. She had no bottle or container, nothing on her. She looked around, nothing could help her, she was bound to go thirsty eventually. She helped Thomas drink some water just in case.

She then just sat down, the sun setting. She wanted to rest after what had happened that day. She wiped herself down and washed her wounds, so she was just feeling the stinging pain on her wounds. She inspected her left arm, there was a long gash, from her elbow to halfway up her forearm. Her right arm was not that bad, only a few scraps mostly on her elbow. Her knees had uneven injuries, some deeper than others.

She dared not wrap her injuries with leaves in fear that they may be poisonous. Instead, she ripped off her sleeve, the ends of her pants and parts of her shirt to wrap her injuries tightly.

Thomas continued playing with the water, looking at it with his big black eyes. Rose watched him, then muttered, “Don’t you ever talk?”

Thomas looked back at her, then gave her a smile before playing with the water again.

“I guess not.”

When it got dark, Rose brought Thomas closer to herself, worried that she might lose sight of him. There were growls in the background, two pairs of yellow lights shone at the bottom of the water. She looked up, birds circling her, each bigger than herself. Rose hugged Thomas who was just playing around.

She tried to get up, taking care not to reopen any of her injuries. Something burst out of the water, a reptilian creature with four shining yellow eyes snapped at her. Rose did not try to run away, instead, just watched. From what she had seen, none of the creatures are able to harm her. As she thought, the reptilian creature paused when it was a certain distance from her. A clock appeared on its head, the hour hand pointing at the number eleven. The creature shattered, leaving nothing. Rose carried Thomas on her shoulders, he patted her head, looking around at the higher view point. She needed to find the town, before she starved.