It didn’t take too long until Angelica was able to sway her body over in the bottle of water’s direction, having to guide it to specific pieces of trash along the way so that it would eventually be the closest. As expected, it counted, and her arm immediately attempted to skewer the container. But that would have been problematic if she wasn’t precise. Her aim took a bit of fighting, the hand wanting to just get it over with and move on, but she eventually got it to cooperate. After purposely knocking the bottle over, she pierced at a slight angle along the bottom rim so that the poker was flush with the inner wall.
Now came the tricky part. Her body would automatically try to put the bottle into the trash bag she was holding in her other hand. However, she had at least some range of movement, as long as she didn’t directly interfere with the process. So Angelica pulled the bag back behind her as far as it would allow. Then, she bent her body, leaning her weight over the holding arm so she was ducking toward that side. And last, she hoisted the poker upward so that the bottle would have to take an awkward path, over her head to reach its destination.
The water rained down on her face while she held the bottle above herself for as long as she could. Her mouth was open wide, lapping up as much as possible, guzzling the gracious gift. Most of it missed entirely, running into her hair, down her neck, soaking her clothes, but she didn’t care. What did make it into her mouth was likely tainted by the poker’s tip in the water, contaminated with nearly a thousand pieces of various rubbish, but SHE. DID. NOT. CARE. Every drop she drank felt like a blessing from Vissiem herself, and the water covering her skin was only hiding the tears of relief.
With the bottle added to her current bag of trash, she once more felt reinvigorated, since at the very least, she wouldn’t pass out from dehydration. However, as was the case with many of her choices over the past few years, there were unexpected consequences. The sun was gone, it was still winter, and she had just doused herself in liquid.
Frits, it’s cold! She mentally whined a mere few minutes after her quick water break. Cold, cold, cold! While she doubted hypothermia was in her future, since it wasn’t quite that cold, there was still definitely a good chance her clothes would become frosty before they had the chance to dry. She tried breathing hot air down at the front of her tracksuit and the shirt underneath, but it did little, if anything, besides winding herself. After one more shiver that rattled Angelica down to her bones, her mind thought for itself once more.
[Passive Skill: Cold Resistance Lv.1 unlocked]
[Vigor increased]
[Glacial Attunement unlocked]
Well, that was certainly a little better. Angelica was still pretty dang cold, but it had curbed the icy nip. And on top of that, the rest of her body felt a little better too, the stabbing aches tapered just ever so slightly, as they had before, the last time her subconscious mentioned Vigor. What was the whole Glacial Attunement thing? If she was resisting cold, wouldn’t that be the opposite of attuning? Whatever. Such random musings were unimportant for her current predicament.
Able to focus a bit more, the trash-collector recouped her sensibilities and pushed forward. She hadn’t checked in a while, but had to be getting close, hopefully no more than fifty. Angelica really didn’t want to check, afraid it’d break her if it didn’t meet her expectations. While the improvements to her situation had provided a boost to morale, they came with a caveat.
Since she was no longer purely honed in on the possibility of freezing solid, her woes shifted gears to her other major debilitation. She was starving. Not in the way that someone who had a bit of a grumbly tummy would say they were starving; actually, literally starving. The amount of calories she’d burned from her efforts had certainly exceeded the single meal she’d had that day. Now she was severely regretting and chastising herself for her earlier pride, wishing desperately she had taken the offer of a double portion that morning.
Her intake the previous day had been pathetic as well. While she’d become scrawny since her days as an athlete and didn’t require nearly as many calories as a burly person to function, an amount was still required, and she’d definitely gone into a deficit. Every time her belly beast roared, it felt like her stomach was scraping its own walls, settling for her flesh if it couldn’t have anything else. Angelica became so ravenous that she even looked down at the collar of her track suit, debating if she could bend her neck enough to grab it with her teeth and carve off a piece.
[Passive Skill: Hunger Resistance Lv.1 unlocked]
[Vigor increased]
[Famine Attunement unlocked]
In her desperate hour, help came again. She was still certainly hungry, so very hungry. Any source of food placed in front of her would be at risk of being devoured no matter the type or how it was obtained. But at the very least, she could stave off the urge to become a jacket eater, glad she got to avoid that shame that would come back to haunt her right as she was about to fall asleep for the rest of her life.
Despite her better judgment, wanting to ride the high of this new saving grace, she checked her progress again. Close. She was damn close. A fire lit up within her, further staving off the cold—metaphorically at least. With every ounce of energy, she moved forward, one foot in front of the other. Surely, this nightmare would be over soon.
◆◆◆
“How many left?” Angelica asked the open air.
[Current Contract: Pick up trash without stopping (995/1,000)]
“How ‘bout now?”
[995 / 1,000]
“Now?”
[995 / 1,000]
“And now?”
[995 / 1,000]
She repeatedly asked the question constantly, even when she hadn’t believed anything had actually changed. While before she’d been avoiding the question as much as possible for the sake of her sanity, now it hinged on it. Since she was right at the scuffing end, if something were to happen now, if the variables were to change, if the number were to go down somehow, it would be her undoing. Plus, she was secretly wishing for a miracle that would make it go up. Perhaps some hidden gum would get stuck to the bottom of her shoe, and that would count.
Despite being practically done, the worst had happened. Angelica had run out of trash. There wasn’t a wrapper, or cup, or plastic ring to be found. Not so much as a loose napkin that had flown out of someone’s window. Even now that she was alongside the road, forcing herself to head toward civilization in search of her salvation, the ground was spotless—the least dirty that dirt had ever been.
So all she could do was trudge forward despite being dead on her feet. She couldn’t even feel them anymore. At some point, the pain had stopped entirely with everything below her waist having gone numb. She regularly had to check that her legs were still there and worked, even though she was still moving forward. It was a wonder how they continued to operate. Must have been some lingering training leftover cross country days. It was hard to believe she used to do multi-mile trail runs and even the odd marathon just for fun.
Speaking of her feet, they were her last ditch salvation should things come down to it. If needed, she’d sacrifice her shoes and socks to finish the count. Even if they ended up riddled with holes or became somehow irretrievable, and she had to walk home barefoot, that was a sacrifice she was willing to make. It was something she’d already tested some time ago to ensure it was manageable, having gotten her sock partly off with enough room at the end that she could snag the remainder.
Unfortunately, after that, she was never able to get it situated properly again, and had been stuck with the weirdly bunched garment ever since. Thankfully, at least she could no longer tell. And there was still a problem with her plan. She needed one more piece of trash first. Just one more damn piece. If she found it, and no others were in sight, then she’d make the sacrifice.
But somehow, there was no fritsing garbage anywhere! Eventually, she came across another person, also a night-walker on the other side of the road, taking a casual stroll in the darkness, illuminated every so often by the street lamps. Perhaps they were headed to or from work. It would be right about time for the final shift changes, she assumed, an hour or two before midnight. Not that her body ever let her take out her phone to check the time.
More importantly, they were drinking some sort of hot, steaming beverage in a disposable cup. C’mon, drop it! Angelica mentally pleaded. Drop it! I bet it’s not that good, anyway. Just throw it away. You don’t even want it. It’s fine to litter. It’s really fine! They pay poor shlups like me to pick it up. You’d be creating jobs, stimulating the economy. All you have to do is drop it!
No such luck, and the stranger quickly vanished into the darkness. While she had reached the point where pride wouldn’t have stopped her from begging them, her mouth could physically no longer form the words. Angelica wasn’t too disheartened, though, since it had been a long shot. She felt loneliness more now than any other disparaging emotion. Having someone else there, even if extremely brief, had been nice, like there’d been someone to share her experience.
Though she wasn’t entirely devoid of anyone else’s presence. For the past few minutes, a dog had been barking incessantly, the occasional whimper, almost like a weird mix of excited and scared. That wasn’t too unusual. Dogs were often rowdy late at night, after their owners had gone to bed. There was one somewhere near her apartment that would go bork-crazy in the middle of the night. Since she was usually still up then occasionally, she’d tried to triangulate the noise a few times, but to no avail.
But this one, it sounded pretty close. Probably in the yard of one of the homes nearby or an alley of the current strip-mall she was passing. Such alleys would almost certainly be gold for garbage, but her body hadn’t let her steer that way, much to her chagrin. Don’t know what’s got you riled up, bud. She spoke wordlessly to the invisible mutt. But when this is over, I will find you, and I will pet you!
Angelica doubted that she would actually do that, but it was just another in a long-line of musings to keep herself sane. Maybe if she still heard it when the spell on her was broken, she’d at least go take a look. And that moment came, it actually finally came! Her deliverance literally illuminated her life, the many lights of a convenience store.
There was a twinkle in her eye when she spotted them, the last few pieces she’d need: bottle caps! There was a small cluster of bottle caps in the convenience store parking lot. She counted mentally as she skewered them all onto the end of her poker, like a metal shish kebab. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! And hell, why not, 6! She did one more just because it was there. Since they were all the same brand, it could be easily speculated that someone had cracked open a six-pack and drank them all in the lot, just chilling as people apparently did.
But who cared at this point. She was done! She was free! She was free… right? The lingering dread quickly encapsulated her for just a moment before Angelica was hit with the most euphoric words imaginable, never happier to hear voices in her head.
[Contract complete]
She fell to her knees, her entire body quivering as she was released from the manipulative hold on her. While her entire being ached, the pain was almost pleasurable, proof that she had conquered this insane trial that would have destroyed so many. And that wasn’t the only thing she got for her efforts. Despite the obvious monetary rewards and the weird changes to her body, something new echoed in her mind.