44 CHAPTER 44: Getting Off My Ass

*CRACK*

*POP*

Alex gritted his teeth in intense concentration as with a final crackle his rib snapped back into place.

A feeling of relief swept over Alex as soon as he heard that sound, since that rib had been the final one that needed to be healed. However, immediately afterwards he remembered that this was only the first section of his body and he still had many more injuries to be healed.

This realization caused the fleeting sense of relief that had momentarily consumed Alex to dissipate as if the feeling of solace had never been there, only to be replaced by a deep soul-crushing weariness.

'How much longer will I be here?' Alex thought with despair as the understanding of how little progress he had made enveloped his mind.

With a long drawn-out sigh Alex pushed the despair away and lowered his head into the pool of blood, then gulped down a large amount.

*GURGLE*

*COUGH*

Suddenly Alex started hacking as he felt his stomach revolt and had to fight to keep the thick, nauseating blood down.

'Not this again.' Alex's face twisted into a grimace as he thought irritably. 'This stupid body of mine should just cooperate.'

After repressing the distasteful puke that threatened to come up, and ignoring the worrisome sounds coming from his stomach, Alex sighed regretfully then resumed his thoughts on how useless his body was.

'If only I could use my voice, then at least I wouldn't feel like a psychopath that's always talking to himself in his head.'

Alex's voice had long been damaged and even after so much time had passed he still couldn't make any sound that required him to use his voice box.

Alex once again sighed then he resumed circulating his Hani.

After a few minutes, Alex had moved his Hani in the fashion specified in the Segrio healing Stance and now had to decide which injury to work on first, his badly patchworked skin, or either of his immobile arms.

'Next is my arms.' Alex finally decided. He then proceeded to direct his Hani toward the arm that had been dislocated.

Several hours later Alex finally finished healing his arm and shakily raised it to examine it.

As stared at his skeletal hand with a feeling of slight disbelief as he slowly opened and closed it.

'Finally,' Alex thought as tiny tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. 'I'm now almost done.'

Now that Alex had healed that arm, he was nearly at the end of this long and emotional one and a half months. He had already healed the minor exterior injuries, so the final thing he had to do was to heal his other arm. After that, he would start thinking of how to escape this lightless void and return to the world.

Although the Hani in Alex's body had long since reached a sufficient enough level that he should have theoretically been able to move around and get off the ground, his malnourished and severely injured body had prevented him from doing so.

However, now that his body had mostly recovered, he could once again attempt standing up.

'Still...' Alex slightly lowered his arm and frowned. 'I have a vague feeling of worry about my other arm.'

His attention then shifted to the arm he had stabbed the beast' eye with. But strangely enough, no matter how much he focused on that arm, he couldn't feel anything coming from it.

No pain, no feeling, no agitation, nothing. In a confusing way, it was almost like there was nothing there, and his arm didn't exist.

Alex had noticed this strange and unusual occurrence a little while after he had started healing his formerly dislocated arm. At first he hadn't thought much about it when he stopped feeling any pain coming from that arm, in fact he had felt relieved and had some feelings of joy. But soon afterward he realized that it wasn't only the pain that had disappeared, all feelings in that arm, from the sensation of the beast's inky blood beneath his body to the kinesthesia in his muscles, all were gone.

That was when the potential seriousness of his arm dawned on him. This brought a lot of panic, but after a few hours of self reflection, Alex came to the conclusion that even if his arm was badly injured and it was beyond the capabilities of Segrio healing Stance, as long as he escaped from this nightmare, he could make it back to Freestone and even if it was ridiculously expensive, he would have it fixed.

This conclusion calmed Alex down and gave him the peace of mind to resume healing his body.

Alex shook his head to clear his mind of those memories and refocused on what he currently had to do.

'Time to get up.' Alex pushed away his feelings of concern and started mentally preparing himself to attempt sitting up.

*HUFF, HUFF, HUFF*

Alex put his skinny arm into the pool of the beast's inky-black blood.

*SQUELCH*

Alex's bony hand sank into the thick cold liquid and moments later it reached the bottom and his finger closed around the muddy sand.

'Here we go.' Alex clenched his jaw, then using his gaunt hand's palm as a support, he began pushing his body out of the blood.

Every inch moved was a struggle to Alex's frail and debilitated body. But with sheer grit and perseverance, he eventually found himself sitting with his back off the ground.

However, the moment Alex's back left the blood and became erect, he found that his eyes became blurry and everything around him began spinning.

'I feel sick.' Alex thought queasily. He felt the vomit he had repressed earlier come back with a vengeance.

To avoid throwing up, Alex closed his eyes once again.

That helped somewhat, however Alex still felt nauseous so he kept his eyes closed for a couple more minutes until everything had calmed down.

'Everything's stopped moving.' Thought Alex with relief. 'Still, I should probably wait a little longer before I try opening my eyes again.'

'Although, now that I'm waiting...' Alex moved his legs closer to his body and started trying to move from the sitting position he was in into a standing one. 'I might as well loosen and stretch out my body.'

The muscles in Alex's legs began to spasm and tremble as he pulled them toward himself, which caused the pool of blood to ripple and splash around more than necessary. From that it was evident how weak and frail Alex's legs had become over the long month he had been trapped in this nightmare.

*PLOP*

'Ok,' Alex thought in satisfaction as one of his feet descended into the inky blood with a loud plop, disappearing beneath its dark and dreary surface.

The sensation of having a body part penetrate and push through the thick oozing blood was a very strange and discomforting feeling that provoked emotions of repulsion in Alex, and in an odd way made him wish to return to ingesting it.

Those feelings were of no practical help so Alex buried them and focused on planting his foot firmly in the muddy black sand beneath himself.

Alex's foot shifted around in the blood, leaving disturbances in the form of waves. After several moments, the pool became still and serene.

'Got it.' A slight smile appeared on Alex's face as his foot finally found purchase on the slippery sand.

In most normal cases that smile would have been nothing of note, and for no reason whatsoever would have any sane, reasonable person given it a second glance. But, with the thin, gaunt shape of Alex's face and how badly burnt it was, the 'slight' smile morphed Alex's face and transformed him into a hideous and grotesque looking creature that seemed to have been plucked from the depths of hell.

However, Alex couldn't see the way his face currently looked, so apart from some soreness and discomfort that he felt on his face, everything felt normal to him.

Anyway, Alex planted his feet on the muddy ground, and with a loud grunt, he positioned his shaky body upright

*SLIP*

'SHIT!'

*SPLASH*

As soon as Alex had straightened up his back and tried to gain his balance both his feet went out from under him, and with a loud splash that echoed around the oasis, Alex landed in the pool, effectively soaking himself in the inky-black blood.

*GASP*

*COUGH, COUGH*

A combination of Alex being shocked and surprised, and the blood entering his open mouth as he was getting up caused Alex to start choking and coughing.

'Shit! And I was almost there,' Alex sighed and clenched his fists in frustration as he lay face up on the pool of blood.. 'Now I'll have to get up all over again,'

Alex set his jaw then after getting himself under control, he gritted his teeth and once again tried to stand up.

This time it took him longer than before, but Alex eventually found himself standing on his own two feet, and no matter how frail and moments away from collapsing both of his legs looked, that was still a significant accomplishment.

Alex let out a huge breath of relief and used his arm to wipe his forehead.

'You're almost there Alex, just a little more.'

His eyes flickered, and then, almost inconspicuously, Alex's eyes slowly opened.