For several minutes, Adrian stayed exactly where he was.
One hand against the tree.
Rain running through his hair.
Breathing.
Listening.
Nothing followed him.
No distant impact.
No gunfire.
No claws dragging across concrete.
Only rain.
Adrian slowly let his head fall back against the trunk.
He was out.
He had made it.
The thought should have brought relief.
Instead, his legs began to shake.
It started somewhere around his knees and spread upward until keeping himself against the tree required effort.
His arms followed.
His breathing changed.
Adrian closed his eyes.
In.
Out.
Again.
Pay attention.
The words came automatically.
Pay attention to what's around you. Then decide what you're going to do.
His father's voice.
Adrian opened his eyes.
Forest.
Rain.
No immediate threat.
He needed shelter.
People.
A phone.
He needed to know where he was.
Simple.
One thing at a time.
Adrian pushed away from the tree.
His knees almost gave out.
Both hands hit the ground.
Pain shot through his right palm.
He sucked in a breath and stared at it.
The skin below his thumb was split. Not deeply, but more than he'd realized. Rainwater ran through the cut and carried diluted blood across his wrist.
There were smaller cuts across his fingers.
His other hand wasn't much better.
Adrian sat back.
For the first time since leaving the facility, he actually took stock of the damage.
The lab coat had stopped being white.
Mud covered the lower half. One side was torn nearly to his hip. Dark stains marked the front and one sleeve, some washed pale by the rain and others still visible beneath it.
His knees were scraped.
A narrow cut ran along one shin.
There was another along his forearm, deeper than the others. Not dangerous, probably, but still bleeding whenever he flexed his hand.
His right shoulder hurt when he lifted the arm.
Adrian pressed carefully against his side.
Pain answered immediately.
He stopped.
He took a deeper breath.
The same spot beneath his ribs pulled sharply enough to make him release it again.
Probably bruised.
Hopefully bruised.
There had been enough falls to choose from.
He couldn't remember which one had done it.
Adrian lowered his hand.
Some of the blood on the coat belonged to other people.
More of it belonged to him than he'd hoped.
And now that he had stopped moving, his body seemed determined to report every injury individually.
His ankle throbbed.
Both palms burned.
His knees hurt.
His shoulder hurt.
His side hurt every time he breathed too deeply.
Cold had worked its way through the wet coat until he couldn't tell whether the shaking came from exhaustion or temperature anymore.
Probably both.
He felt terrible.
Not dying.
He didn't think.
Just thoroughly, comprehensively terrible.
Adrian leaned back against the tree.
Hours.
How many?
The last thing he could place with certainty was leaving work.
Then the van.
The laboratory.
The procedures.
Stasis.
Seventy-two hours.
They had said seventy-two hours.
Had they actually kept him under that long?
Longer?
Less?
What day was it?
Adrian looked into the forest.
He had no idea.
No idea what day it was.
No idea where he was.
No idea how far they'd taken him.
His breathing shortened.
Pay attention.
He tried.
Wet leaves.
Rocks.
Trees.
Water somewhere nearby.
Pay attention.
His hands were shaking harder.
Adrian curled his fingers into the ruined coat.
He needed to move.
That was the answer.
Find people.
Find a phone.
Call—
Mom.
The thought arrived without warning.
Adrian went still.
His mother would know he was missing.
Wouldn't she?
Work would have noticed.
Jonas might have tried to message him.
Mara.
Sunday lunch.
Had Sunday already happened?
Had his mother waited for him?
Had Mara called?
His apartment.
Someone would have gone there eventually.
His car would still be—
Adrian pressed his eyes shut.
Stop.
One thing at a time.
He needed a phone.
That was all.
A phone.
Then he could call them.
Except he didn't know what he would say.
Adrian opened his eyes again.
His hand was still clenched in the front of the coat.
He forced it open.
Call home.
Tell them he was alive.
Tell them—
That he'd been kidnapped?
That someone had spent days doing things to him he still didn't understand?
That he was somewhere in a forest and didn't know where?
And then what?
Come get me?
His throat tightened.
Adrian swallowed.
It didn't help.
If his mother saw him now—
He stopped there.
He didn't need to finish the thought.
His eyes burned.
Adrian wiped at his face.
His fingers came away wet.
Rain.
Except it wasn't all rain.
“No.”
The voice that came out still startled him.
That made it worse.
He covered his face.
For a while, Adrian simply sat beneath the tree.
His shoulders shook.
He tried to stop them.
That only made his breathing worse.
There was no single thought behind it anymore.
The van.
The restraints.
The woman with the gun.
The thing in the corridor.
His mother's kitchen.
Jonas asking about Friday.
Mara waiting for him on Sunday.
His apartment.
His bed.
A game he'd barely started.
The frozen pizza he'd been planning to buy.
That one hurt for reasons Adrian couldn't explain.
He had been going home.
That was all.
He had been tired.
He had wanted food and a shower and a few hours where nobody expected anything from him.
Then a van had stopped.
Adrian dragged in a breath.
Another.
His chest hurt.
His side hurt.
Everything hurt.
“I’m Adrian Voss.”
The forest didn't answer.
The name sounded unfamiliar in the voice that said it.
Adrian's face tightened again.
“I’m Adrian Voss.”
He said it more firmly.
As if volume could make it easier.
It didn't.
For the first time since waking in the chamber, there wasn't an immediate problem large enough to push everything else aside.
No door to reach.
No creature to escape.
No corridor to follow.
Nothing trying to kill him.
Just Adrian.
And everything that had happened to him.
He cried.
There wasn't any dignity to it.
No dramatic release.
He sat in the mud with his back against a tree and cried until his breathing hurt and there was no point wiping his face because rain and tears replaced each other faster than he could clear either away.
Adrian didn't know whether he'd ever cried like this before.
Maybe as a child.
Maybe after one of the relationships that had ended badly.
He couldn't remember.
This felt different.
Too immediate.
Too close to the surface.
For one uncomfortable moment, Adrian wondered whether that was another thing they had changed.
Then he hated himself for thinking it.
He had been kidnapped.
Drugged.
Cut off from everyone he knew.
Used as an experiment.
He had watched people die.
He had been chased by something that shouldn't have been alive.
Maybe crying in a forest didn't require a biological explanation.
The thought didn't stop it.
Eventually, exhaustion did.
His breathing slowed.
The shaking remained.
Adrian stayed against the tree until the cold became impossible to ignore.
His teeth had started chattering.
That decided the next problem for him.
Move.
He wiped his face one last time and pushed himself forward.
He didn't try to stand.
There was no reason to.
On all fours, the forest was easier.
Not easy.
His palms hurt every time they touched the ground. His side protested whenever he twisted too sharply. His arms already felt weak.
But he could move.
So he moved.
The terrain sloped gradually downward.
Adrian followed it.
Water travelled downhill.
Roads often followed valleys.
People built near roads.
The reasoning was thin.
It was enough.
After several minutes, his ears picked up running water.
He turned toward it.
The sound led him to a narrow stream cutting through the trees.
Adrian stopped beside it.
The water looked clear.
He knew that didn't mean clean.
He also couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything to drink.
He crouched and scooped water into his hands.
Most of it escaped before reaching his mouth.
The rest was painfully cold.
He drank.
Again.
Then stopped himself.
It wasn't enough.
It would have to be.
His stomach cramped shortly afterward.
Hunger.
Another sensation that had apparently been waiting its turn.
Adrian tried to remember when he'd last eaten.
Before the van?
Had they fed him during the procedures?
Had there been nutrients in the fluids?
He didn't know.
The questions didn't matter.
There was no food here.
He continued downhill.
Time became difficult.
The sky remained grey.
Rain softened into drizzle, but the cold stayed.
His body gradually lost whatever reserve had carried him out of the facility.
The agility was still there.
He could feel it whenever he crossed difficult ground.
His hands found stable places.
His feet adjusted.
But none of it gave him energy he didn't have.
Eventually even moving on all fours became slow.
His arms trembled.
His legs felt heavy.
Adrian tried walking upright for a while to give his hands a break.
He managed better than before.
Not well.
Better.
He used trees for support when he needed them.
Once, he stepped down from a root and pain pulled sharply through his side.
Adrian folded around it and remained against the nearest trunk until he could breathe normally again.
Then he kept going.
He didn't know what else to do.
Some time later, his ears moved.
Adrian stopped.
A sound.
Not water.
Not wind.
He held completely still.
There.
Low.
Distant.
Mechanical.
His heart accelerated.
The sound disappeared.
Adrian waited.
Then it returned.
An engine.
Somewhere beyond the trees.
He straightened.
Pain immediately reminded him not to do it so quickly.
Adrian ignored it.
He listened.
His ears shifted, searching until they settled in roughly the same direction.
Another sound followed.
Tyres moving over wet ground.
A road.
Adrian stared through the trees.
He couldn't see it.
But it was there.
People.
A car meant people.
People meant a phone.
Warmth.
Food.
Home.
Adrian started toward the sound.
He moved faster than he should have.
For several minutes he managed.
Then the engine faded.
“No.”
Adrian stopped and listened.
Nothing.
He continued in the same direction.
His hand slipped.
He caught himself.
Kept going.
The trees blurred together.
He wasn't sure anymore whether he was still following the right direction.
His ears found nothing but rain.
“Come on.”
He moved another few meters.
His arms gave out.
Adrian hit the ground.
Not hard.
There simply wasn't enough strength left for a proper fall.
He lay on wet leaves and breathed.
Get up.
He didn't.
Get up.
His fingers moved against the ground.
His arms didn't follow.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Only for a second.
Cold water struck his cheek.
That helped.
He opened them again.
He couldn't stay here.
He knew that.
Wet.
Cold.
No shelter.
He forced himself onto his elbows.
Then his hands.
His legs followed.
Slowly.
The road was somewhere ahead.
Maybe five hundred meters.
Maybe five kilometres.
It didn't matter.
Adrian wasn't reaching it like this.
He needed somewhere dry.
Just for a little while.
He began looking.
Not for people anymore.
For cover.
A dense group of trees offered almost nothing.
A shallow depression had already filled with water.
Then he found a fallen tree.
The roots had torn a section of earth from the slope when it came down, leaving a dark hollow beneath the exposed root plate.
It wasn't a cave.
It wasn't properly dry.
But the earth beneath it was better than the forest floor.
Adrian crawled inside.
The space was narrow enough that he had to turn sideways at first.
Then he pulled his legs toward himself.
His back found earth.
The sound of the rain softened.
For the first time in what felt like hours, water wasn't falling directly onto his head.
Adrian sat there.
His entire body trembled.
He pulled the remains of the lab coat closer around himself.
It did almost nothing.
His knees came closer to his chest.
Something moved against his legs.
Adrian looked down.
His tail had curled around them.
The wet fur offered little warmth, but it had drawn itself close to his body almost without him noticing.
Adrian considered moving it.
He didn't.
He didn't have the energy.
Instead he curled tighter, forehead resting against his knees, the tail tucked between his legs and the cold air outside.
His ears continued moving occasionally toward sounds beyond the roots.
Rain.
Branches.
Water.
Nothing else.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Five minutes.
That was all.
Five minutes, then he'd get up.
Find the road.
Find someone.
Get a phone.
Call home.
Home.
Adrian's breathing slowed.
His tail tightened slightly around his legs.
Five minutes.
He never felt himself fall asleep.