Flow of Existence

Kes stretched and yawned as he woke up for yet another day within the Stinky Cave, or well if it could even be called that anymore. 

Rain had been continuously falling ever since yesterday, the melodic dripping of the water droplets had been a very soothing sound to fall asleep to. 

Because of the rain and the water that had found its way into the cave it started to smell a lot better. It had washed away all the filthy liquids that still remained lingering within the cave, giving it a thorough rinse of sorts. 

Water had now accumulated within the cave, but this was definitely no drinkable water. So Kes had decided that today would be a good day to dig a small well in the cave. 

He got into a better position and decided to take a good look at the small cave he found himself in.

'Rock here, rock there, not really very interesting for the Stinky Cave.'

He really needed to dig the miniscule well while it was still raining, securing water for the next couple of days was crucial, he did not want to lose his mind again like yesterday. Even though he was incredibly hungry, water still took priority.

Speaking about his hunger, there was another problem. He couldn't explore outside of the cave anymore, there was a big brown monster there.

He hadn't noticed it yesterday because he was slowly going crazy from thirst but he could sense the big brown beast clearly right now, lurking close to the cave ready to pounce on him the second Kes made a wrong move.

This was really troublesome, if the bear didn't leave soon Kes would eventually die of hunger. Kes was quite sure a bear could go without food for a lot longer than he could, so the beast could last out there for a lot longer.

But it would be even more troublesome if he didn't have a small water supply. Kes needed to save as much water as he could right now. That was why he was constructing the small well within the cave, he was trying to outlast the bear with his water supply.

When the bear went to get something to drink Kes would quickly make a break for it and leave Stinky Cave behind forever, relocating to a new hideout.

'It seems like a well thought out enough plan, but well, the well construction really needs to go well for the plan to go well.'

Kes laughed for a bit and then looked at both of his hands.

'And for that I need to dig through this rock with my bare hands. And I also need to make it not collapse in on itself.'

Kes let out a heavy and long sigh. He did not know if he was strong enough to do so, breaking rock with bare hands was quite difficult after all. But he had a piece of broken rock with him, it should serve him as a tool well enough.

Despite the difficulty of building the small well, Kes was surprisingly quite looking forward to it. He needed something to do while sitting within the cave. He couldn't just let his thoughts run rampant all the time or he might risk going crazy all over again.

Yesterday had served as a nice reminder of what to avoid, now Kes had to work his hardest to make that happen.

Kes took off his tattered robes as he began smashing his rock against the hard rock floor of the Stinky cave near the entrance, exactly where the water was slowly streaming in. He first blocked the water stream with another bigger, but less pointed, piece of rock so that the water wouldn't fill the well while he was busy digging it.

He managed to nick the rock floor a little but he wasn't making great progress, but a couple of smashes that took all his power later a small gap had formed.

Kes continuously kept vigilant for the bear lurking outside the cave, the dripping sounds of the rain muffled the other sound coming from outside making it hard to hear movement of anything. This worked both in his favor and against it, both him and the bear would have to rely mostly on their Flow to sense the other party. 

Even though Kes was pretty much safe within the cave he still had to keep up his guard. He expected the bear could really smash in the cave walls if it exerted all of his strength. Luckily he hadn't done that last time, but maybe the bear would do so if he sensed Kes close to the entrance, or if it got incredibly desperate and impatient. Kes wasn't necessarily scared of the bear getting to him, more so the fact that the cave could collapse in on itself if the bear exerted enough strength.

In that case it would be a lose lose scenario, the bear wouldn't get his prey and Kes would be dead. Kes would be the one taking the bigger loss by far, though. 

So despite his hard work on the small well that was taking shape, he was continuously having to sense if the bear was nearby, it was quite exhausting.

But, much to Kes' delight, the bear wasn't showing its face, it seemingly kept calm all throughout the construction process. He wasn't distracted and slowly but surely managed to form a small hole.

But it wasn't enough yet, the hole needed to be a lot deeper if he wanted to survive without rain for at least a week. Not that he would like to sit in the cave for that long but Kes estimated it would take about that long for the bear to get thirsty itself and stop guarding the cave to find water of its own.

So the mining was back on, Kes was quite enjoying smashing and destroying the hard rock that hurt him every night while he was sleeping. 

He threw the scraps of rock that were removed from the ground into the back of the cave, you could never know when they would come in handy again. He had to replace his rock smashing rock quite a couple of times throughout the whole process.

But after almost a whole day of digging quite a sizable hole had formed in the ground. Luckily it was still raining. 

It had been raining for around a day now, it was one of the longest bouts of rainfall Kes had experienced in his whole life. Quite a lot of water had accumulated behind the water stopping rock that Kes had placed earlier too, so he decided to remove it as he was satisfied with his well for now. He would have to make due with this, he didn't want to risk the rain suddenly stopping and not having anything to drink for ages and going crazy again.

Of course he could still drink the water mixed with his own puke, piss and blood that had accumulated at the back of the Stinky Cave but Kes prayed he would never need to do so.

Looking at the well slowly but surely filling up Kes couldn't help but think how much easier the well building would have been if he had formed his innate element, or if he was much more proficient at using his Flow. It would have saved him a lot of time.

But as he looked at the water slowly but surely accumulating within the hole he had dug out himself he was still incredibly satisfied with the results of his own hard labor. He was happy he would have something to drink for the upcoming future.

Now it was all about outlasting the bear and not dying from the nagging hunger, or going completely crazy in the meantime.

Even though the hunger was nagging deep within his body, Kes couldn't help but be more scared of the second option. Since he was spending so much time all by himself in a small cramped cave how could he stay sane. Especially when he had just gone through so much. 

So he had to keep himself busy within the cave, the question was just how he would do that. He didn't have any people to talk to and he couldn't really do anything fun, so his only two options really were to meditate and work out.

Kes was more inclined towards meditating, he felt like he had really made a breakthrough yesterday. The state of having complete control over his mind while in meditation was something he wanted to reach again and learn more about. Since going crazy and losing his mind was his greatest concern, it seemed like the right thing to do right now.

He wanted to learn how to guide his mind towards only a single chain of thought focusing completely on that, he was sure it would be helpful in combat. And with more meditation it seemed to be possible to reach.

So with the small well built and with the Stinky Cave being more or less smell free, Kes decided to spend the rest of his days waiting for the bear to go away while meditating.