Sixth Iteration

WHERE: Treetop Village remains, Southwest of 6I
WHEN: May 10 and onward
OPEN TO: Mark Watney
WARNINGS: N/A

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Kira wakes up in increments, a funk clinging worse than a hangover as he decides whether or not to open his eyes. He has aches his shit mattress doesn't usually beat so badly into his body, and it's cold. Mornings have been rough, the sun warming up the village closer to noon. Strange dreams, thankfully devoid of badgers. He's withdrawn lately, acclimating to the retun of his powers--well, power, singular. Some days he's laid in bed, waiting for the right sense of timing. Now is when to roll out of bed. Now is the moment to go out. A sense of beats to hit in the day, but no major disasters.

Just the funk. The sense of something on the horizon, some kind of separation, and nothing they can do about it. Back pain isn't a disaster, but he wishes it got specific enough to warn him about sleeping on his side.

Or waking up in a strange room.

Kira rolls over, in his old scrubs and Ty's parka, slapping an arm down over the side of the bed.

No table. No glasses, no dog. The birds chirping are up close and, when he cracks his eyes open, looking down at him from a branch crossing through the roof. Startled upright, he finds the break, but it's--not a break at all. The window to his left simply allows for the branch to continue though. Coughing, he realizes his movements have lifted a cloud of dust from the decrepit bedding, and when he rolls out of the bed, his sock covered feet skid and catch on worn boards. The bed itself is hanging off a frame, a wide hammock woven over posts and slipped from one.

As he looks around, it's obvious the furnished room isn't one of the houses back home. This isn't a morning of waking up in a stranger's bed, a little too much to drink or smoke the night before. He's alone, no footprints in the dust but his own. Some of the furniture looks similar enough to have been dragged out of the village, but the rest is hand-made, vines and branches woven together into baskets, roofing, even sections of floor.

His next step breaks the morning quiet with a crack, and he surges forward as his foot drops through a worn out board. Grabbing at the window, he catches on the sill, an arm flung out into the cool air. He caughs and catches his breath, dragging himself flush with the wall and waiting for the burn of pain along his calf to run warm with blood or fade into simple scratches. He's too busy staring out at the trees, unfamiliar structures built into branches and walkways strung between.

"Alright," he murmurs, sucking in a breath. "Yeah, this might as well be happening." The pain along his leg starts to lessen, and he tests his weight on it as he leans further out of the window, widening the scope of he doesn't fucking know what.

Keep calm, figure it out. He's smarter than this.

No, not this early he isn't. "HELLO," he calls out into the birdsong and breeze. "IS ANYONE OUT THERE?"