Title: Scumbag Billionaire
Author: Harper Kingsley
Story Landing Page: https://kimichee.com/novel-scumbag-billionaire
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CHAPTER TWO
He was still alive a day later. He didn’t know how he had managed such a miracle, but his sheer determination and refusal to die had seen him through the night.
Parched and miserable. Sunburnt and feverish. He’d crawled for what felt like years to reach the shade. Then he’d begun to dig with his aching hands and feet, writhing against the sand until he created a groove for his body to rest.
In his mind, he had imagined that if he didn’t survive he would have dug his own grave. If anyone ever came and found him, they’d have a neatly arranged skeleton to deal with.
He wondered if museums existed in this world he’d found himself in. Imagined his remains pinned to a frame and displayed in a glass case. Idly wondered what the information plaque would say.
Ames fell into a delusion-rich state. Not quite unconsciousness, but nothing that could be described as consciousness either. He drifted in his own mind and he let it happen, relieved to escape from the screaming pain of his own skin.
The sun went down, bringing cool relief. He’d shivered through the dawn to lick the underside of nearby leaves. Ignored the pain of his tongue as he desperately consumed as much dew as he could find, dragging his body from broad-leaved plant to broad-leaved plant.
He survived the night.
Then he fought to survive his second day. Naked and without supplies. Possessing only minimal survival skills. But refusing to give up, not when he’d been given a miraculous second chance at life.
His skin was hot and tight. his lips were dry and crusty, feeling as though they would split and bleed at any moment.
Every bit of him was aching and sore. The thirst was a torture he couldn’t escape. A doctor would have immediately put him on an IV drip. He worried dehydration would incapacitate him, but he couldn’t allow himself to stop and rest. Not if he wanted to live.
Ames found a stick to use as a staff and went in search of fresh water or fruit or anything he could use to get water.
Hunger might kill him, but thirst would get him first.
He walked around the greenest plants, hoping to find a pool of water, but there was none. Finally he used his stick to poke and dig at the ground.
He wanted to yell out in success when he reached wet dirt, but his throat hurt too much. Instead he focused on digging to expose the moist soil.
Then he sat for a while to think, trying to figure out how he was going to get the water out.
He didn’t have a plastic bag or a mug. He had nothing. The closest thing he had to a tool was a stick.
I’m going to die, he thought. And it wasn’t hopeless or despairing; it felt like a simple truth.
TBC…
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