Hidden in the Depths

Chapter 6

Despite his exhaustion, Techno barely slept at first.

He remained propped up against the wall, nodding off every now and again, but never for more than 20 minutes at a time. His hand remained tightly curled around Toby's, pressing his thumb up against his pulse point whenever he jerked out of a light sleep. His body was complaining with every movement, muscles aching from the lack of rest, but he remained stubborn until his body physically just gave out.

Fit was dealing with the whole situation a lot better than Techno. While the younger was a nervous wreck shaking with exhaustion but refusing to sleep, he maintained some sort of schedule and tried to keep himself busy. He would check on the burns every couple hours to make sure nothing was infected or opening up, coaxed some water into the unconscious boy to make sure his body stays hydrated and continued to fiddle with the radio for a while.

But he didn't just care for Toby, but for Techno as well. Hours after the rescue, when the sun was already up again, he had to practically force feed the younger with what was left of their rations, both food and water. Techno didn't have the energy to protest after the third attempt and just accepted defeat.

When the younger did end up sleeping a bit longer, body just shutting down entirely, Fit did his best to cover the lights of the pod and not disturb him. He nodded off soon after, despite his plan to have some sort of guard schedule where at least one of them would be awake in case Toby ended up waking up.

Which didn't happen for quite some time.

Both men lost count of how much time was passing, even with the attempts of scratching little marks into the metal of the pod. Their sleep was too irregular in length and frequency to know if they only slept an hour or from one night to the next. Techno, once he fully passed out, slept for at least 12 hours.

Eventually, with their rations empty, Fit decided to try and catch one of the fish, the only real source of food they had, unless they want to live on a diet entirely made of dried kelp or some shit, if this planet even had edible plants (for humans). On top of that, they need to start figuring out a way to gather clean water too, those rations as good as gone as well. Just one problem after the other...

Fit left the pod with his spear contraption, contemplating on where he should try and hunt. While they haven't seen any large predators just yet, he also doesn't want to risk spilling blood near the pod, where it could possibly attract danger. In the end he decided on a little valley a good distance away, covered in little corals and anemone like plants.

While he went on his hunt, Techno took care of checking and rewrapping the bandages. With the at least decently long sleep his shaking had stopped just enough to give him some confidence in not hurting the boy. He still felt like shit, but not as bad as before.

Toby whined a little as the older worked, the pain reliever long since losing their effectiveness on the wounds. He never truly woke up, but he reacted to things around him, loud sounds or touches to his healing, painful wounds. Techno murmured soft apologies as he worked, cringing when he saw one of the wounds developing large blisters.

"Those are good... they help healing... don't let them pop..." Fleeting memories of first aid classes and biology lessons float by, only a small help in making sure that whatever they are trying to do to help might actually be working. He also remembers something about salt water, but he can't remember if it was a good or a bad thing for a burn.

The possibility of broken bones or some other internal injury was still there, but those were things that neither Fit nor Techno knew how to take care of it. He prayed that Toby was alright outside of the obvious burns...

Techno froze in his movement when a deep rumbling noise echoed through the small space. Something that definitely did not come from inside the pod. He stayed still, carefully listening for any more sounds. For a second, he debated whether or not he should quickly comm Fit and warn him, but making a noise right now seemed like a terrible idea.