EXISTENCE: Recovery

CHAPTER 15: The Glacier

"Hey, Juan! Look at this!"

"Hm? What is that?"

"I don't know! But it looks like...a mountain...of ice...in water?"

"Don't hurt yourself, Adam. It's a glacier."

"Glay...sure?"

"Yeah. They're tough things, and they look really cool. Look, that picture in the book even has a caption."

"Uhm, it says, a glacier is made up of fallen snow that, over many years, compresses into large, thickened ice masses."

"That's what I'll be."

"What? Fallen snow?"

"No, you dummy! A glacier! If Gabe is a wall of rocks, then I'll be a glacier, tough and thick, and get hit by anything and still survive!"

"Hm...I don't know, Juan."

"W-what?!"

"You don't like to stay in one place all the time. You rest, sure, but you wanna keep things going. You're not like the Boss. He's not going anywhere, just like a real wall."

"What are you two doing?"

"Oh, Gabe! Adam just showed me a picture of a glacier, and we started talking about it."

"I showed it to you because there's something that it reminds me of, about you!"

"And what's that?"

"That it looks as strong and cool as you do!"

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Juan looked at himself in the mirror, giving himself a thorough once-over. His hair had grown longer, almost to his shoulders. The bangs were beginning to reach his eyes. He looked at his arm, which was covered in bandages, and could only think back to the last fight, of how Eve looked the moment she cut it off, the moment leading up to Juan freezing his own heart, and the looks of shock on Gabriel and Adam's faces.

What exactly is happening? How did Gabe...

"Juan! You almost ready?"

Juan snapped out of his thought process. "Yeah... yeah, I'll be out in a moment." He looked over to his side and saw the clothes that had been laid out for him; a number of Tarek's loose robes, some skintight shorts, and what seemed to look like a sash of some sort. He reached out for the robe and slipped it on, immediately noticing the looseness. He lifted the hem of his robe, holding it up with his teeth, and slowly started easing himself into his shorts. He took the sash and draped it around his neck, exiting the door. There, out in the living room, stood Taylor and Tarek.

Tarek noticed the sash that lay around Juan's neck. "What, you're not gonna wrap that around your waist?"

Juan shook his head, running his one hand through his hair. "Too soon, man." Tarek walked over and tightened the sash around Juan's waist, looking satisfied with his handiwork before stepping back.

Taylor looked from Tarek to Juan. "Well at least this way, nobody will notice he's missing an arm."

Juan looked at his outfit. "You have a point. I'm suprised how loose and long these sleeves are. This is a common outfit here?"

Taylor nodded. "I have my own, but I use it more for prayer than anything else."

Tarek laughed. "It's a real cop-out solution if you can't find anything else too. Nobody makes fun of you for wearing a qamees, after all."