So they fled. Stumbling, bleeding, withdrawing into themselves due to emotional and physical shock. The usual first-day syndrome. Near-death syndrome. Death-still-not-out-of-the-question syndrome. No, the shadow of the group’s mortality seemed only to lengthen as the sun dipped lower in the sky and the forest-- dark as it had seemed before-- only grew darker.

Matteo’s desperation to stop and rest-- anything but this grueling pace with no clear direction-- was still second to his desperation to survive, however. [i]If we stop now... well, that monster might still catch up to us.[/i] He was painfully used to the dark after his training, fortunately, so the fading visibility was at least a lesser handicap compared to his other addled senses. As dusk encroached, the Thief became attuned to the forest sounds around them. It felt almost like paranoia-- for every warning trill or distant cry, Matteo’s head shot up reflexively and he felt his world spin and stomach lurch, the throbbing behind his eyeballs growing stronger. Pain tolerance he’d been taught, but pain endurance? [i]Ugh...[/i]

He was in bad shape and he knew it, but they had to keep going. If he stopped now, he was as good as giving up the will to live. [i]And don’t think it’s not on my mind.[/i]  He trusted Ash to get them through the forest even in the dark, and if she couldn’t… well, even as injured as he was, he was reasonably sure he could hide himself if it came down to it. 

So barring any directional sense-- or sense at all, in his current injured/befuddled state of mind-- Matteo began to talk. [b]“They were a lot… harder than I thought. It would be. Don’t you agree?”[/b] He trudged along, cradling the arm in which the broken arrowhead was still buried. [b]“We certainly got one, but more… how do people [i]do[/i] it?” [/b]All that talk about cannon fodder and insurance, and in their wounded state… well, Matteo didn’t feel like they were ready at all. [b]“I don’t… know where we are anymore. But all rivers lead to the sea, don’t they?”[/b] Was that really true? It seemed right.[b] “Maybe if we follow the stream, it’ll lead back to Andeave. Or at least we’ll know we’re not going in circles.” [/b]

Circles or not, he still felt loopy.