Lost Creek Hollow the light was weak and carnivorous

If the present was a cliff Baal was only barely clinging to it. Everything else was below him stretched a hellish abyss with inky muzzles each parted with razor sheep teeth snapping as the hell hounds leap from their pit threatening to grab ahold of his fumbling legs as claws scraped uselessly against the bedrock to pull himself up onto solid ground. It took energy that he simply didn’t have and he slips inch by inch, claws digging into the clay and pebbled earth in attempt to find purchase. This is what he feels, how he would give vision to the struggle of his mind. Baal does not even he’s disassociated until she speaks and it sounds to him as if she is speaking through a long tunnel. The words don’t immediately make sense again. This time, it’s the touch of her nose and the journey it takes along the length of his abdomen that shocks him from it. He flinches but not in hostility. For a wild second, he flinches in terror. She’s so close to vital organs. She could have killed him if that’s what she had a mind to do. She’s helping. You agreed to let her help. He reminds himself. “S-sorry.” He fumbles over the word, his tongue tripping on the start of the apology. Baal does not speak with a stutter but he might as well because his tongue always feels so heavy as if his tongue is refusing to cooperate with his brain. He does as she asks then, drawing a deep inhale of the frigid air and letting it out in a slow exhale.

While she leaves him to do …whatever it is she intends to do he worries that she is angry with him. It is, perhaps, an unfounded worry, really, she gave no indication that she was angered by his violent flinch but that does not cease the guilt that threatens to drown him. She’s only trying to help and all he can do is flinch. There’s nothing she can do to him that hasn’t already been done to him, that is any worse than what he suffers through. Physical ailments heal but the mental ones? Those scars linger. He looks up timidly as he hears her returning, and averts his gaze when he glimpses her. He watches, repentant, as she digs the shallow hole. He feels like he should be doing that for her but his strength has deserted him. His stomach screams for what he denies it and he tries not to think about it for too long. He’s in no state to hunt anything let alone anyone but that does not mean he does not fear that the nightmare will find a way. Desperation and aching hunger was an unearthly motivator when pushed to the absolute extreme. He moves towards the hole and bows his head, lapping at the small bit of water that she has carried back for him. His tongue is as dry as the desert sands and the water tastes like heaven in the coppery and acidic aftertaste of his sick.

“I can walk,” He assures her. “I can walk to the water.” Baal reiterates still trying to help himself, still hesitant to rely entirely upon her and her charity regardless of that she offers it. “I’m thirsty.” Suddenly, he is very thirsty; so much so that it's the only thought that momentarily consumes him. It is a temporary reprieve from everything else and greedily Baal latches onto it with a ferocity, wanting nothing more to drink until the dryness of his mouth goes away, until his thirst is sated.