Groundlings

The dead man woke to the sun shining in his eyes, something soft under his head, and pain in his entire body. The light seemed to split his head, pulling it apart as the blood rushing in his ears pounded his heartbeat.
He took a deep and ragged breath, wheezing. His throat felt like it was covered in three years’ worth of dust, like a house long empty, its inhabitants long dead. He really needed water.
Water came trickling gently into his mouth, but he could not react fast enough. It went down his windpipe and he coughed, a loud rattling cough that seemed to shake loose every organ in his body. He convulsed, a large glob of phlegm shooting into his mouth, then straight out. He had no idea where it landed.
He was so, so out of breath. He leaned back again, tried to relax as much as he could and feebly stretched his arms out. They did not reach very far. They ached.
But not as much as his leg. It felt like it had been dipped in a forge fire, melting into nothingness. It was so, so hot. He couldn’t move his foot at all, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t even feel the damn thing past the heat that shot up his leg. It was burning him up with a fever he didn’t know he would survive.
But no. He had help now. He would not die like this. He would not go gently. He would fight with whatever small might he had left in him. He would not die this easily.
His eyes opened a crack and he tried to speak, but his lips would not move. All that left his mouth was a feeble wheeze, a cheap imitation of human communication. Two pairs of hands far stronger than his own pulled him into a sitting position, one of them remaining to hold him there.
“He’s awake!” someone shouted from a few feet away. He didn’t know the voice at all, but as his ears adjusted, he thought he could hear the telltale sound of people milling about. People? On the ground? It was completely insane.
And the small amount of him that had the strength for it raged. Where the hell had they been when he’d first been stranded out here? Where the hell had they been when he had starved for months, dragging his slowly deteriorating body on and on in a hopeless search for any semblance of sustenance?
And why the hell were they here now?
Moreover, who the hell were they? He figured, distantly, that since they had given him a bed and water, they were likely not enemies. Why nurse a man back to health if you were just going to kill him? Well, that was presuming they could. He was no doctor, but he was pretty sure he was in bad shape. But he was alone, a beggar and a wretch among total strangers. He was completely in their power, just as he had been in the grip of nature itself.
He was still a caged bird, waiting for some higher power to have mercy on him. He was still on his own in the world. The only difference was that, for a change, the world did not seem turned completely against him. But would it help him to his feet and then sweep the rug from under them again? Would they release him into the wild once he was healthy again?
Healthy. That was a thought so strange he almost couldn’t think it. He’d lived in such poor conditions that it had always seemed he would never return to that youthful, glowing state he had been in before the forest sank its teeth into him. Quite literally, if he remembered right. What had happened?
The dead man groaned feebly and raised his head, struggling to keep it held straight. A greasy and brittle lock of hair fell into his face, but he opened his eyes despite it. The world around him was too bright to look at it. His vision fuzzed and he recognized the vague shapes and colors of people bustling around him. He had difficulty telling where the faces were. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to concentrate through the haze, and opened them again.
Lines sharpened, and the people around him came truly into his vision. They were unfamiliar, and while most of them seemed to be going about their own daily business-- cooking, eating, laughing-- there were more than a handful crowded around him, watching him with concern or awe in their strange faces.
His eyes wandered to what he was propped up on. It seemed to him to be some kind of large wooden stretcher, where he had been given a few old blankets in a sad attempt to make it comfortable for him. He appreciated the gesture in the back of his mind. The cup of water that he had choked on earlier stood within his own reach, next to a small plate with fruits and a small piece of meat on it. Food, he dimly realized. For him. Food.
Food!
In a small burst of strength he didn’t even know he had in him, he snatched the plate in his hands, holding on to it as tight as he could. Someone could take it away from him. He’d rather die. He would not let go. His fingers shook as he picked up a slice of something and shoved the entire thing into his mouth. It was juicy and crisp and fresh, and moreover it was tangible. It was his to eat. He would desperately gnaw on sticks no more, not as long as he had these kind strangers to look over him. It brought tears to his eyes as he picked up another piece of fruit. It exploded in his mouth, ripe and juicy and luxurious.
It felt like the best meal he’d ever had in his whole entire life. It was filling and big and wonderful and nowhere near rotten at all, and he had barely even started the plate. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the people watching him exchanging worried glances, but they didn’t matter. They weren’t real, only he and his hunger and his food were. He cared about nothing else so long as they let him eat.
They did. Miraculously, none of them tried to take his food for themselves. None tried to pry it from his hands. None hated him or saw him as an obstacle to their own survival. They weren’t going to kill him or hurt him or anything. He was safe. He was safe at last.
A few new people had arrived, carrying boxes and tools that they set down gently on the wood by his foot. In his foot? On his foot? No, he was sure he would have felt that. Something about the perspective seemed wrong though. Very wrong, though he could not place his finger on it. Everything hurt too much to think so hard.
Would he have actually felt it if the box was on his foot? In the state he was in, he admitted to himself, he might not have. But then… Would it sit as straight and steady through all his pained twitching? No. No, it would not. None of this added up. He was far too tired for this.
The people with the tools spoke to each other in hushed, hurried tones. He couldn’t make out much of what they were saying. Something about bandages and cauterization, and something else about his hair. He watched as one of them picked up some kind of instrument and poked at his leg.
He cried out, convulsing from the unbearable pain. He fought hard to keep from throwing up everything that he had just eaten. It was far too precious, far too valuable to waste like that. His entire body felt burning hot, hot like he had been shoved directly into one of the many campfires around and was simply laying sizzling on the coals. It was almost too much to bear, and his vision fogged black for a few seconds. But as always, he fought against it and drove it away. Not today, blackness, he thought grimly. Today I am stronger than you.
Someone shoved a small solid something into his mouth and raised the cup of water. He drank as deeply and hastily as he could, easily swallowing the pill he had been given. The water was clearer than anything he had ever dug up from the ground, and there was no sediment to filter in vain through his teeth. He drank it all down, reveling in the cold flow and how it briefly soothed his scratchy throat. He wanted more. He wanted so much more.
He took a deep breath and coughed, a large glob of slime loosening in his chest. He coughed again and it flew out of his mouth to hit the edge of the wooden cart bed. Breathe, he thought. Come on, breathe.
“More,” he finally managed to croak. That single word was more than he had spoken in months, and his voice sounded strange and unfamiliar to his own ears. It was all gritty from disuse, and weak and quiet from the illness he had subject to for God knew how long. But blessedly, the person standing by heard and rushed to refill his cup from a barrel that stood nearby.
He drank again, greedily and quickly. He couldn’t shake the feeling this was the last water he would be given in a long time. He closed his eyes against the brightness of the sun overhead and leaned his head back again, breathing as deep as he could. His thin chest rattled with every rise and fall and he coughed more than he would’ve cared to, but he felt as peaceful as one could in a situation as his. Sick, close to death and far from home, but surrounded by strangers who, at least for the moment, would care for him.
It wasn’t too bad a place to be.
And then something tugged at his leg, at the very skin of it. His head snapped up and he stared wide eyed and open mouthed as he watched the medic unwrap it. There were layers upon layers of blood crusted bandages, slowly peeling away from another as he winced and hissed in pain, revealing what lay underneath.
Or rather, he was stunned to realize, what didn’t.
As the last layer pulled away all sticky and red, the dead man finally understood why he could no longer feel his foot-- he no longer had it. Instead, there was empty space and above that an angry red wound where his leg simply ended, as abrupt and clear as the sound of a chime.
And still he didn’t comprehend. He felt as if he was dreaming, watching himself from a glass bubble in the sky, reaching out and screaming and yet unable to do anything. He couldn’t make himself move, couldn’t make himself speak. He couldn’t even close his eyes. He just sat there and stared in horror, barely even seeing what played out before him.

This time when they smeared ointments on it and the blackness came, he didn’t fight against it.

And when he woke up again, he felt clean. The first thing that hit him was a pleasant smell, like fruits and flowers. His face felt lighter than it had before and he reached up to find that his beard had been trimmed down considerably. A tightness on his scalp told him that his hair had been tied back and out of the way. His hand wandered to the back of his head and there it found a miracle.
It was still as long as it had been all this time. But someone had taken the time to wash and comb all the snarls and mats out of it.
Most of them, at least, he thought as he felt around. He thought he could feel a few tangled places here and there. His hair was far from soft like it used to be, too. These months of malnutrition left it dry and brittle. He was surprised it hadn’t started falling out, too. Yes, whoever had cleaned him up had certainly worked miracles.
And the miracles simply kept coming. After a moment of gathering himself, he found he had the strength to prop himself upright by himself. His arms shook with the effort of it, his back ached sharply, and his leg screamed bloody murder when he dragged it those few inches back over the blankets, but he did it.
Only then did he notice that someone was lying next to him in the cart, curled into a small ball with their knees drawn to their chest. Their calm even breaths told him they were fast asleep but when he pulled himself upwards they stirred curiously and unfolded their legs, stretching like a cat across his lap.
Their head stayed there, nestled on top of his thighs. Lee stared up at him and for the first time in a long time, Starling Anderson remembered his name. Before he could stop himself, he began to cry. Hard.
Lee was a sight for sore eyes if he’d ever seen one. Starling had loved them before, and had given himself up for dead and accepted he would never see them again. He closed his eyes, weeping silently, focusing on that warm, familiar pressure on his legs. Everything was alright now. Everyone else around was friendly, their presence proved it.
And when he opened his eyes again, they were still there, grinning up at him like a damn fool. He had missed that stupid wide smile so much and despite his cracked lips he smiled back. Their smile looked different than it had, and they looked far more tired than he had ever been able to remember, but he wasn’t about to be picky about details. It was Lee Applebottom and that was more than enough for him.
“Hi,” they said. Their voice felt like home.
“Hi,” he rasped back weakly.
“You alive, in case no one told you yet,” they said.
He laughed, but it quickly turned into a wet, hacking cough that shook his entire body. After he recovered, he smiled again. “Yeah,” he said. He could barely remember how to speak, it seemed. He had never been a very outspoken man, and he had always been quiet and unassuming, but this was a whole new level.
Lee seemed to notice. “I ain’t gonna make you talk much,” they said. “You need your rest, spuddy.”
Spuddy was what they’d started to call him one day, completely out of the blue with no context whatsoever. He had loved it and he loved it still. “Thanks,” he said. “Lee.”
“Yeah,” they said, “it’s me. Ain’t that somethin’? You and me sittin’ here, almost like old times.”
It was not like old times. They had both been changed far too greatly. “No,” he said, hoping it was enough. It wasn’t.
They furrowed their eyebrows at him, exaggerating their pout. “No?”
He flailed for words. “Not like old days,” he said and coughed again. “I’m not who I was.”
Lee nodded sagely. “Yeah,” they said quietly. “Me either. Lotsa things happened since you been gone.”
Starling sighed, stifling another cough. “I know.”
They looked at him, those deep brown eyes full of sorrow and pity. “I don’t like seein’ you like this,” they said.
Starling grinned weakly. “I don’t like bein’ like this,” he said.
They laughed, loud and obnoxious as they always did. It had been one of the many reasons he’d fallen in love with them long ago. “I can tell, spuddy,” they said.
“Is… Is anyone else here too?” he asked, then coughed again into his hand. It was hard to force enough breath out before the itch in his throat screamed no more.
Lee nodded. “Yeah. Everyone here’s from home,” they said. “We’re out here bein’ big damn heroes like we always said we would.”
Something about that thought was comfortable, though Starling had no idea what it meant. “Ah,” he said. “I see.”
They rolled over and straightened up, kneeling in front of him, mere inches from his face. “What happened to you, Starling?” they asked. They sounded like they were going to choke up any moment. Lee never cried.
Starling couldn’t answer.