Chapter 121: Ch159. Sickness - 14 (Surviving)
Kurt ran through the forest, calculatingly avoiding specific points in his path.
And no matter how fast the creature was, it was not able to detect the traps that the little boy had planted throughout the forest’s earthy terrain.
Kurt knew he wasn’t capable of surviving a direct confrontation with that thing, so he had chosen, the moment he was able to dodge, even if unintentionally, the withering attack of that monstrosity, to run with all his strength, and try hard. to slow the progress of that thing.
As much as I could.
Even if it would only delay his death.
So Kurt did so.
And the minutes turned into hours.
The hours turned into days.
And around that forest, with the reddish fog seeming taller and denser every day, Kurt managed to escape by steps, meters, and sometimes even by a hair’s breadth, from the powerful attacks of that monstrosity.
***
In the infirmary room, Doctor Lee listened attentively to Evellyn’s report, along with Toshinori, Rodrick, Nikolai, and others who arrived there.
Whether they were members of Hana no Nagame, or Kurt’s irregular associates, everyone stopped there and listened attentively, almost hypnotized, to the girl’s words.
Until Evellyn’s eyes returned to their usual greenish tone, and the golden glow, characteristic of her power, disappeared, and Evellyn released her arms from the chair where she was sitting.
Her knuckles were white, and her fingers were numb.
Evellyn had no idea how long she spent there, telling everyone what she was seeing.
But she knew that whatever time it was, Kurt was going through a much larger flow of time than they were experiencing there.
Wherever he was...
"And that’s why, children..." Doctor Lee said, confidence in her voice. "That he is the only person capable of preventing each of you from suffering the fate you have already suffered... In each of the other echoes of this world..."
A dead silence fell over the room, until Rodrick looked at Evellyn, wanting to ask.
The girl nodded at him, knowing that everyone there wanted to ask the same thing.
But she didn’t want to be the first person to give evidence that she didn’t know something.
In fact, Evellyn already had an idea of what the doctor was saying, since, when she had been cured by Kurt, she had witnessed not only what he had experienced in K’s world.
But also what had happened in several other Echoes.
It was from that moment on, that her ability had intensified, become stronger.
And exactly for that reason, she simply didn’t want to leave any room for the doctor to believe she was capable of manipulating someone there.
She needed to be the centerpiece of that game, and always be one step ahead, even though the existence before her, which could only be disguised as a human doctor named Amara Lee, was a complete unknown to her.
"What do you mean by that?" Rodrick asked.
A creeping smile slid across the doctor’s lips, and she began to respond.
"Well... You must know that the Great Calamity didn’t just change the people of the world, giving rise to the wielders, right...?"
***
Kurt felt time passing, and he also felt his body growing, getting stronger, even if he felt like something was missing there.
He felt faster, and he also felt like dodging the blows of that thing that had been chasing him for god knows how long was becoming easier.
The Sun was already heading towards the horizon, showing its last rays of light in the sky, and Kurt was hiding in a stone alcove he had found near a clearing in the forest.
He felt, somehow, that he was close to the meteor crater, but still, he couldn’t just go there.
Kurt’s breathing was regular, and his muscles, contracted from the position in which he waited for his prey to fall into the trap, had strangely stopped hurting a while ago.
His clothes were no longer in a condition to be called clothes. They were just old rags, worn on various parts of his body, and barely covering specific parts of his body.
But Kurt didn’t move an inch.
It was as if he were just another of the shadows that darkened that stone alcove, in the half light of dusk.
’Not yet...’ Kurt thought, controlling his breathing.
Making it as shallow as possible so as not to make any unnecessary noise.
His body was crouched so close to the ground, Kurt couldn’t help but breathe in that strange mist.
But luckily for him, as he had discovered months earlier, the reddish alien smoke was not poisonous.
Otherwise, he would no longer be among the living.
Silently, he continued waiting.
’Not yet...’
Until, finally, he heard the sound of dry leaves breaking under the light footsteps of something.
’Now!’
Kurt saw, in the shadow of twilight, a white hare jump very close to the alcove where he was hiding.
His body moved almost like a predator lunging at its prey.
Armed with a pair of daggers that he had made from two obsidian stones that he had found nearby, Kurt threw himself at the hare, abnormally large, probably due to breathing that red mist for a long time, and with an extremely Precisely, he opened a gash on the animal’s neck.
’Sorry, dinner, but I need your vitality more than you do...’
Kurt smiled a wide smile, almost like a bestial grimace, as he lit a fire to cook his dinner.
He had learned, after much trial and error, that the monster chasing him could not pass through areas of the forest where the fog was very high or dense.
So, he decided that he would map those points, and make them his hiding places.
No matter how much he felt that creature’s two pairs of eyes on him, from a distance.
***
After eating, Kurt lay down on his back on the stone floor of the alcove, and immediately began snoring like a cat.
And the more time passed, the more Kurt grew, and the stronger he became.
Whenever he could, he returned to that same alcove, where he had made inscriptions on the stone wall, with his obsidian daggers.
These inscriptions were nothing more than scratches and scribbles, counting how many days he had spent there, without being able to go anywhere else.
Unable to overcome the monstrosity that relentlessly pursued him.
When Kurt opened his eyes, however, with the first light of morning shining in the sky, he felt something different in the air.
Something different about yourself.
It wasn’t like he was stronger than before.
Not like I was more confident or anything like that.
It was more like...
He knew where he should go.
