Death around the corner

A boy was sitting in a dark cave next to the dead body of an old man.

The old man looked like a blue mummy, he was so skinny that you could count his bones and he was as blue and dark as the sea. This was because of the extreme cold, the man's blood had frozen which made him solid like obsidian.

The boy next to the body had his eyes closed. His clothes were full of holes and he had blood all over his broken skin. He was breathing raggedly and erratically as if he had just ran a whole marathon while holding his breath. The boy opened his eyes and smiled while a red tear of blood ran down his cheek. 

"How long will I be able to last in this shithole" 

The boy stood up and went to the frozen corpse of the old man. Then he grabbed one of his dark blue skinny arms that were cold as ice and snapped it in two like a cracker. Taking the frozen arm he went to one of the cave walls and started grinding the arm against the cave wall until it was bone dust. He did this with the whole corpse of the old man until there was nothing left except a big pile of bone dust. This process took him countless hours all the while his breathing got even more erratic.

He then put his hand on the pile while closing his eyes and clenching his teeth while a drop of blood went down his lip. There rushed a wave of pain so intense through his body that he fell on his knees against the stone cold rocks. Suddenly a spark came out of his hand and ignited the bone dust.

The boy laughed and cried at the same time. He quickly threw the grey army uniform clothes of the old man on the fire and sat down and went to sleep after 5 days of staying awake. Not even minding using the cold rocks as a pillow.

He dreamt of the past, back when he was just a little kid in a small village of around 40 people. Back then life was easy, it consisted of helping mom and dad on the farm and playing around with the other kids.

Oh how simple life was back then. You truly don't realize how great life is until it isn't anymore. Before he had to find shelter in this shitty cave with that old weirdo. 

"But I had no choice, if he wasn't there I would've been dead long ago."

I learnt from him the basics of blood magic which allowed me to burn my life force to not freeze to death.

The act of burning life force is very foolish, but what can you do when dying is around the corner. Burning life force is very painful, it's kind of like burning alive which is why I was fully covered in my own blood.  I had been awake for the last 5 days, I had to stay awake constantly burning life force, otherwise I'd freeze to death. That's why I made that fire, just to get a little sleep without dying. 

After what seemed like an eternity of sleeping I finally woke up to see the fire barely flickering. It was time to go deeper inside the cave, I had to do something, I couldn't make another fire which meant that it would be over if I fall asleep again. It was pitch black inside the cave so I had to constantly feel in front of me as to not bump my head against the stone cold walls. The ceiling was also very low, somethime you'd need to crawl on your knees while not seeing anything in front of you.

He went deeper and deeper for so long that he forgot what his actual goal was, death was nearby. He was growing desperate, what if this stupid cave is just empty all the way through, until he finally saw a green light below him through a small hole which his arm barely fit through.

He couldn't see what it was but he didn't care either way, everything was better than dying in the same cave as that old creep.

He was shocked to see it was a glowing mushroom. He was contemplating what to do, he was scared that it might be poisonous, but at the same time he wanted to eat it. A single meal could save him a lot of life force, the last few days he had maintained himself only using his life force which caused him to age by at least a decade, in fact calling him a boy would be pretty generous.

"Hopefully I won't die of old age by the time that I manage to get out of here."

As he came closer he felt a comforting warmth that penetrated his skin coming of the mushroom.

He touched the mushroom only to feel a strong life force inside of it. This made him smile from ear to ear.