Cylus 8 721
Goku slept past noon again. All the physical labor and exertion of the last several days had taken a lot out of him so he had slept so much. He still had a lot longer to sleep before he could get totally caught up but after noon he was woken from his deep sleep by the sounds of something hitting his roof. He jolted awake thinking that something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He looked to see that there were multiple holes in his roof and the latest one had bounced off a piece of wood sending some residual flakes of ice onto his face. They tickled his nose and caused him to sneeze into the air. The tiny droplets of water slowly dispersed into the air and caused an awful smell of morning breath to linger in the air.
“Gross.” The hybrid said with disgust. He wiped his face and got to his feet. He looked up to try assessing the damage. If one had gotten through the roof he had to assume that others had too but in the darkness he could not see very much at all. He squinted his eyes and tried changing his position but he could not detect any other holes in his roof without better lighting. “I wonder what that was?” he mused just as he stepped onto some ice with his socked foot. “Really? Ice? This is going to be so expensive to fix.” Goku groaned with despair. He walked around his home and felt that his floor was wet in multiple places. The thundering hail did not stop either. It continued strong. Goku opened his door and peeked outside to see that the hail’s destruction had no mercy. The streets were completely clear of people and it was easy to spot damaged property because there was so much of it.
“I feel bad for anyone that got stuck out there,” he said. The door slammed shut. Goku thought about all the exercises he owed because he had slept so long. He should have done them all but he felt so tired and he already felt as though the whole day had been ruined by the hail. He had little motivation to do the self appointed punishment so he found it easy to cheat.
“What can I even do then?” He tried to figure. “I can’t go outside, I can’t hardly see anything, and I’m tired. This is a total wash of a day. Still sleepy though so I might as well try to sleep again.”
Goku wiped off his wet feet with some dry fabric and laid down on his bed. He wanted to block out the sounds of the hail and sleep but doing so was harder than he thought it would be. His ears couldn’t hear anything BUT the hail now and it was not a peaceful sound like rain. The jarring sound kept his senses alert so despite doing his best to clear his mind and focus on sleep he was unable to do so. By then he was willing to do quite literally anything else to make the noise stop. He pressed his hands over his ears which helped a little but that only drew attention to the low rumble from the entire house shaking from the storm.
The hybrid yelled in frustration but it wasn’t all bad. At least he hadn’t gotten caught outside during the storm. Also, now that he thought about it, there were probably plenty of animals outside that were suffering, not that he could do anything about it. He changed his angle so that he could see outside of his still in tact window into his back yard. He saw the horse had run off which was a good sign. Goku had no shelter for it built so he hoped it had gone off and found some kind of safety.
Goku let out another frustrated yell and tried to find some kind of light in this horrible day. What he needed to do was get the fire started again because it was getting extra cold with the added holes to the building. His neighbor had helped him get the fire started the previous night because Goku didn’t know how to do it in the first place. The neighbor had struck Goku’s flint and knife together to create sparks so Goku had an idea of how it worked in theory but had never tried it himself. “I bet this will be real fun with how wet it’s become,” he growled. He grabbed the flint and knife that he bought for the sole purpose of making the sparks. He thought that he knew to do it by brute forcing the tools together until sparks flew. He brought the tools together and failed to even create a spark. “Of course these are wet too. Nothing can go right today can it?” He tried again by striking even harder and ended up slipping the stone and hitting his floor instead. He wiped the stone and knife off on his shirt to try drying them a little but that did not help either. Goku tried another three times and that was all he could stand to try. If he could barely get a fire started when conditions were perfect there was no way he was going to get it done like this.
“Can’t just sit here and freeze to death. If I can’t start a fire I have to go somewhere warm and risk getting hit by the hail. I suppose that my options are slim.” Goku changed into his driest clothes and put on his boots. He also brought his pillow with him. He held the pillow over his head and hoped for the best as he took his first step out of his house. The door swung shut behind him and he was off to find someone to pester for some shelter. He supposed in the end he was no better off than a horse stuck outside in the storm.
“There!” he thought. It was not difficult at all to spot the glow of fire in the darkness so Goku had several options to choose from. He went with the closest one which was only a short jog away. If he had to count the steps necessary to get there it was probably under twenty but each step felt like a mile as the hail pounded on top of his pillow with every step. He just barely got half way when hail landed on his right hand’s fingers and made him drop the pillow altogether. “OUCH!” he shouted but he could not stop and lick his wounds there. Goku made a break for it, slipping and tripping on the wet ground while getting pounded by a few more chunks of ice that pelted his wings. He threw himself against the door of the neighbor’s home and banged on it. “Is anyone here? If so, please let me in!” he shouted until someone came to the door.
“Oh Goku, I figured you would come by some time. Come on in!” He offered an arm and helped Goku inside and sat him down by the fire along with the rest of the family members. The neighbor did not need any persuading at all since Goku was a well liked person in the neighborhood and had always helped if asked.
Goku was out of breath and was way too winded to speak for several minutes. It did not help that every breath drew attention to the injuries he had sustained. When he finally calmed down enough he explained what had happened. “I woke up a while ago to find that the hail went through my roof. I couldn’t get a fire started either so I knew I had to find a home with a fire. I was getting very cold.”
“Isn’t that right? I knew there was no way you were going to last the storm so I sent someone over but nobody answered the door. What were you doing the whole time? Don’t tell me you were sleeping?” When he stopped talking his kids laughed.
Goku averted his eyes and shrugged, “yeah I was sleeping. Thanks for letting me in by the way.”
“No problem at all. Now that I’ve got you here I can at least help you avoid this situation in the future.” The neighbor handed Goku some flint and a knife similar to his own set except they looked a lot more worn because they were actually used. “strike the two together onto something very dry, preferably the underside of some bark. It needs to be dry or it won’t work so that’s why it’s important to have some dry wood tucked away where it won’t get wet even if something bad like this happens.”
Goku tried it out and was able to get sparks nearly every time that he didn’t miss so that wasn’t his main problem. His problem was the dry wood bit. He practiced a bit on some wood that the neighbor provided and was able to get a small fire started after many tries. He stopped shortly after though since his fingers were starting to show signs of bruising. He’d have to take it easy for a while.
