the first thing that registered in his mind when he came to was the smell of burning flesh. (regrettably, it wasn’t an unfamiliar smell, though he wished it was.) a groan escaped his lips then, and his brain kicked in enough to draw a cry of pain from him. the stub of his left arm was still bleeding profusely, and with his adrenaline levels rapidly decreasing, the pain from a sudden amputation grew almost unbearable.
he couldn’t stay there, though, he knew that much.
climbing out of the valley was no easy task, but he had to do it. he had managed to salvage a first aid kit from where he assumed the infirmary once was (pulling half-burned, half-crushed bodies from the wreckage with one arm proved no easy task), succeeding in staving off the bleeding for now. behind him, the previously undisturbed snow was now agitated where he (and, earlier, yona and timmy) had crossed, marred red with stray drops of blood from his amputated limb. step by excruciating step, though, he climbed out of the valley.
whatever he expected when he reached the top, it wasn’t what he saw.
he had expected snow, snow everywhere. white-covered landscapes, the occasional derelict building or tower here and there. he didn’t expect normalcy. he didn’t expect green grass and rivers and trees. especially not a cabin with smoke coming out of it.
thinking himself half-delirious from blood loss, he made his way down the hill, though not before looking back once more at the remains of the train where he had lived for nearly two decades.
had it all been a lie? had it all been for nothing?
despite his best efforts, curtis didn’t quite make it to the cabin. he made it close, though, collapsing a few feet away from it before exhaustion and blood loss made it impossible for him to keep going. he stopped then, letting his knees buckle underneath him, and he rolled over, breathing heavily and letting his eyes fall closed for a brief moment. one, two, three, he counted his breaths, trying to make sense of everything that had happened, trying to stay coherent, stay awake.
stay awake. rest. stay awake. rest. he just needed to close his eyes for a second but he couldn’t. regardless, it wasn’t long before everything went black.
One thing that had always interested him about mountain valleys like this was how well it could block out the harsh weather when it wanted to. A blizzard that could be raging on one side may never touch the other, and he’s more then thankful to find he had constructed his home on the side not being ravaged by the bitter weather. Walking through snow is not as easy as it looks, and despite what everyone back home thinks he did not come all the way out here just to hide in his cabin all day.
He had left only a few moments ago to get water from the river and gather some things he knew would improve the taste of his dinner later. Nothing had been out of the ordinary then, he hadn’t even bothered to lock the cabin door on his way out. There was no one else living around here, no one was going to try and steal what little he had brought with him. He didn’t see anything wrong with leaving the door unlocked.
It wasn’t until he was on his back to the cabin, keeping his steps careful in order to avoid spilling anything out of the full buckets of water he was carrying, that he noticed something new. A man that had not been there before. collapsed on the ground only a few feet from his door. He didn’t seem to be conscious, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Setting his buckets down for now, Bruce crept closer to him as silently as he could. Cautious but curious at the same time.
He looked like he had just crawled out of a bloody hole. One arm missing, and recently removed by the looks of it. His clothes are old and almost in as bad of shape as he is. There’s no weapons on him either, that he can see, no signs of where he had come from.
The mysterious man had simply appeared out of thin air, and quite obviously needed help.
Help was something Bruce could give him, now the assessment of whether he was a threat or not was complete. Closing that little stretch of distance that had been left between them so he could get his arms under him and drag the body inside. Lifting him up once they were closer to the bed so he could lay him down on it.
Throwing one of the thinner blankets over him for now, until he had the time to check for fever and infections, he hurried back outside get to what had been left behind.