Being told there's no way out of mindfuck village and seeing it are two different things, and reality isn't quite setting in, drifting between staring at the ceiling of his small room and working on his sleep deficit--whether he wants to or not. The hard bottom of the fountain has several body lengths of freezing water to dissuade exploration, but he's managed to dry out his new clothes and layer them all into one black and grey blob of an outfit and find the river.
Maybe this place isn't a grid, but even Kira can't get lost on the bank. He eyes the sun in the glaring winter sky and--has no idea what time it is, so that's fucked. He's definitely not leaving the river path any time soon.
He turns to the left and walks, hands stuffed in his pockets against the cold, fingers wrapped around the only other object he woke up with--an pair of glasses with slim frames. He hasn't bothered with a pair in years, but someone out there knows him a little too well. The way they cut into his palm is starting to help the stories match up with the feeling in his gut. He isn't optimistic about what he might find along this path.
Not that he'll be finding it today: it's half a mile before he's on his ass, soaking up the cold of a wide rock through denim and scrubs, his aching breath pluming from his mouth. Maybe it was the brush with hypothermia on his first night, or maybe the last of the fight went out of him when he left Manhattan, but he's already exhausted when he senses someone else coming up the bank.
Senses, not hears, and even that comes so late he's seeing a shadow in his periphery before he follows it to the owner. "Jesus," he huffs, almost conversationally: "Make a little noise before you give someone a heart attack."
iii
Maybe this place isn't a grid, but even Kira can't get lost on the bank. He eyes the sun in the glaring winter sky and--has no idea what time it is, so that's fucked. He's definitely not leaving the river path any time soon.
He turns to the left and walks, hands stuffed in his pockets against the cold, fingers wrapped around the only other object he woke up with--an pair of glasses with slim frames. He hasn't bothered with a pair in years, but someone out there knows him a little too well. The way they cut into his palm is starting to help the stories match up with the feeling in his gut. He isn't optimistic about what he might find along this path.
Not that he'll be finding it today: it's half a mile before he's on his ass, soaking up the cold of a wide rock through denim and scrubs, his aching breath pluming from his mouth. Maybe it was the brush with hypothermia on his first night, or maybe the last of the fight went out of him when he left Manhattan, but he's already exhausted when he senses someone else coming up the bank.
Senses, not hears, and even that comes so late he's seeing a shadow in his periphery before he follows it to the owner. "Jesus," he huffs, almost conversationally: "Make a little noise before you give someone a heart attack."