Page 85 of Cursed Shadows 4

Not just seafood poisoning I would be at risk of, but parasitic contamination and contagious infections, too.

The fish must be cooked.

But I can’t get a fucking flame out of the flint rocks. The sparks just aren’t taking to the cold, damp kindling.

The mere thought of giving up strikes my gut with a sudden growl. It’s a deep, rumbling sensation that singes my insides with a burn of nausea.

Bile.

My stomach is churning through the lining—and soon, I’ll be doubled over with bile vomit.

My lips flutter with a sigh.

I snatch the flint rocks and position them at the root of my stacked kindling, right where the cold tufts are tucked.

I strike.

And strike.

And strike.

And strike.

My face twists with the threat of tears.

But I keep striking.

All I manage are sparks. No flames ignite.

I don’t stop trying. The fatigue isn’t wearing me down to the bone. The sleep I’ve had, it helps.

Rest and black powder are the only reason I’m still standing. It’s the stress that I feel frosting my bones, a cold sort of tingling sensation knitting through me.

I’m agitated from it, a burst of tense energy that fuels my body, but not my mind. Beyond determination, my mind is frazzled, it’s slow and disconnected.

I’m less concerned about starvation in the face of my frazzled mind—because I’m more at risk of making mistakes now than any other moment since I landed.

I worry about that.

One stupid, slow-minded mistake that could end my life. Stumbling over an exposed tree root and falling the way the dark fae did in the blood bog. Just cracking my head—and then it’s all over.

Truthfully, I’m not even sure he died after hitting his head. Makes more sense that he was simply knocked out or stunned—and then the bog finished the job.

I snap.

Maybe it’s the ruminating thoughts of a pathetic death or it’s the frustration rising in me over these useless flint rocks, or the hunger and the fatigue, the death and the blood, I don’t know, but whatever it is—

I just snap.

“Fucking, fuck-fuck-fuuuuuuck,” the groan finishes with gritted teeth. I smack the flint rock on the ground over and over. “Fuck you, fuck you,fuck all of you.”

I fling it with as much strength as I can muster.

It spears over the failed fire, then cracks into the trunk of a tree. The flint splits down the middle. Severed, it falls as two chunks of rock and hits the frosted floor.

For a long while, I stare at it, two glossy pieces, two lumps of polished opaque black.

I slump on my knees.

---