Before the relaxed fox and robot went out into the woods to eat, Fink had requested a few more minutes in the pool before they left. While his eyes were closed and cherished what remained of the heat, their little escapade would soon be cut short. As he exhaled another relieved sigh, the wavy sea level slowly began to rise over the stony barrier and overflow into the pool nearby.
Little droplets of water from the ocean seeped into the basin, and before he knew it, the tides rose higher, and a strong, cold wave splashed onto his drenched face. He immediately sat up in a cold sweat and glared at the sitting robot angrily, who stared back at him with puzzlement.
"Roz!"
"That wasn't me," she raised her hands defensively.
He was about to continue quarreling when a low rumble vibrated the pool with little circular ripples forming in the water. Fink instinctively hopped out of the trembling pool in fear before the limestone wall cracked open, flooding the overfilled pool with more seawater. He scurried up her slippery body and perched on her shoulder tightly with deadly fright.
"Roz? What's going on?" he whimpered, digging his claws deeper into her shoulder.
Her metal stripes suddenly glowed red with a loud, blaring warning within her voice box.
"I think it's time for us to leave," she strongly suggested, raising her voice over the ever-growing waves.
"Great idea!" he exclaimed.
But, in the blink of an eye, the water rose knee-deep, and Roz got a brief sense of déjà vu back when she first crash-landed on this island as a package. After doing a quick scan of the ocean from her Rozzum vision, she instantly mapped out how they would both escape the deep waters.
"Fink, you'll need to trust me!" she yelled with worry.
"What do you mean?" he shouted inquisitively, ducking his head from the heavy spatters of the ocean.
"We need to climb up that cliff!" she pointed to the edge of the closest rocky ledge.
"What?! Are you crazy?!" Fink replied, flabbergasted by her outrageous proposal. "No, no, no! There's no way I'm gonna…"
Right at that moment, he stopped himself when he noticed the water suddenly draining away quickly until the sandy ocean floor was slightly exposed. He whooped with joy and hopped on his feet in response. "Look! The tide's clearing out! Now's our chance!"
The quick-thinking fox took this as an opportunity to run back to where they came from, but Roz had the total opposite reaction to the sudden shift in the tide. Unlike Fink, she knew that receding water was a sign of an incoming tsunami.
Meanwhile, he dashed far away from her as quickly as possible, parallel to the rocky walls. He occasionally turned his back, perplexed why she wasn't trying to follow him out of the coastal zone. From here, it usually only took a couple of miles to get from sea to land.
Eventually, he hesitated and skidded to a stop, hoping that she had caught back up to him by now. But once he looked up, the gleam in his eyes faded, and his wide jaws dropped at the sight of a large tidal wave approaching the cliff wall. Soon, Roz grabbed him by surprise and hoisted him right back onto her shoulder. Then, they faced each other, her metal eyelids lowering slightly as if she were saying, "I told you so."
"I'm assuming you have the better plan?" he muttered sheepishly, shuddering nervously.
She nodded slightly and then loudly warned him, "Hang on tight!"
Fink tilted his head for a second with a faint chirp which quickly transitioned to gripping onto her neck tightly for dear life when she suddenly pinched her fingers and began to crab walk up the cliff. Fink whimpered constantly while narrowly avoiding the high tides that crashed against the rocky walls. The splashes from the waves left little droplets remaining on his frizzled whiskers.
At one point, he nearly lost his grip on the wet, slippery metal and wrapped his arms tighter until they reached the top of the cliffside. Once they reached the top, Fink released his grip and belly-flopped on the grassy surface with his fur standing on end. His chest expanded in and out with heavy pants, and he looked up to Roz, who was slightly amused by his leftover fright.
Throughout the cold afternoon, the cumulus clouds darkened to a charcoal gray as they both made their way to the nearest river. On the way, they had a little chat about the little garden that she grew before it got snowed over with Fink perched on her shoulder as usual.
"Ooh, I always loved those fresh berries that you harvested," Fink's mouth watered.
"Why, thank you," Roz said with a hand over her chest. "I also saved plenty of greens for the winter."
"Ugh, those things?" he gagged, sticking out his tongue in disgust.
"Eating three servings of veggies daily is the key to staying healthy and maintaining a balanced diet," she recited a blue chart in her vision, ironically, a food pyramid meant for humans.
Fink shook his head with an alarmed side eye, weirded out by whatever technical jargon she just spat out. "I think I'll just stick with mice."
"What do you have against eating green food?" Roz questioned, scratching her head with one finger.
"Well, when I was a little kit, my mom always told me to eat my greens," Fink muttered softly. "Every time I refused, she forced me to spend the night outside the den."
"Oh."
"It's nothing to worry about," Fink shrugged nonchalantly with his paw. "We've all been there at some point."
"Oh," Roz repeated, raising her tone in understanding.
"Look! We're here!" Fink pointed up ahead.
They both finally returned to the frozen waters where a good chunk of the fish were still frozen underwater. Through a glance from her headlights, there wasn't much mobility left for the little fishies. Even so, fishing in the water would be a difficult task…at least for Fink. Roz on the other hand…
"Care to do the honors?" Fink gestured to the icy waters.
She adjusted her curved eyelids accordingly to emphasize an invisible smile and raised her scorching orange flame in the air as a gesture of approval.
The final amount wasn't much to write home about since Roz only managed to obtain three fishes, all encased in solid ice blocks. Only their eyeballs could barely move as she sliced the first ice cube and cracked it open with a little poke. Fink didn't hesitate to chow down on the salmon before it could flop back to the current.
With a wild growl, he gobbled down the fish only in seconds, which she was taken aback by and covered where her mouth would've been.
"Oh, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this meal," Fink sloppily chewed with his mouth open with plenty of fish scraps stuck to his lips.
Once he finished the first fish, he scratched the next one impatiently with an annoyed grunt, which made Roz snap out of her trance and ignite her flaming torch. She repeated the same process, slicing the ice in half, and he dug into the gray halibut, eating all of its contents, including the bones.
Soon enough, Fink waited for the final fish, and Roz wasted no time shooting the last chunk of ice. This time, she used a different method, aiming it right in the center of the ice, which would presumably melt it from the top instead. But, instead, it instantly disintegrated the ice into slush and shot directly at the fish. It screamed a faint death cry as it got roasted to death, emitting a tiny plume of smoke.
Roz, realizing the error of her ways, shut off her flame and looked down at what remained with her thermal imaging. The fishy shape glowed bright orange, but a figure with a green outline blocked her view and opened its mouth to complain.
"Aw, it's burnt," Fink whined with his ears drooped, swatting the grilled remains with his claws.
"No, it's just a bit…charred," Roz assured him. "It should still be edible."
"You call this edible?" he pointed to the blackened spot left behind the now crispy fish.
"Precisely," she nodded. "It's only burnt around the edges."
Fink hesitantly eyed the darkened herring with a furrowed brow and took a whiff before turning his head away in disgust from the putrid, smoky stench. But on the other hand, his growling stomach still compelled him to dig in anyway. He took one more sniff before finally biting off a tiny piece of pink flesh and slowly chewed, already anticipating the worst.
He squinted his eyes at first, but they quickly widened once he got a taste of what freshly made seafood had to offer. Soon enough, he took another bite, chewing it even slower just so he could savor the flavor as long as possible. Roz carefully observed this distinct behavior, and her camera lens zoomed in on Fink's watery eyes.
"Are you…crying?" Roz leaned her head closer.
"No, it's not that," Fink blubbered through streams of tears. "It's so juicy!"
"So, you like it?" she asked.
"Mmm-hmm!" he nodded sharply, his jaws crunching from the crispy skin. "Why haven't I tried something like this sooner?"
"A happy cry. That's a new one." Roz muttered to herself, saving that little detail in her database of emotional wavelengths. "Phase two is now complete."
After waiting for quite a while for Fink to finish his meal, he smacked his lips, fully satisfied with his meal, yet there was something else on his mind. He couldn't stop picturing Brightbill sitting beside them eating worms, which also reminded him of his avian enemies.
"You know, I haven't had geese in a looooong time," he smirked with a conniving smile.
"Fink," Roz sighed in annoyance. "We've talked about this."
"Yeah, once the migration is over, maybe Feather or Honkington could be my next lunch," he licked his lips with delight, oblivious to her pleas.
"You've been saying that every day since the first snow dropped," Roz placed a fist on her chin.
Fink began practicing his pounces on the dirt, lunging at the nearest wilted flower and still ignored her.
"What if they have a change of heart?" she asked wholeheartedly.
Fink stopped in his tracks and popped his head out of the soil. "Then forget it, they're still dead to me, assuming they haven't already drowned him in the nearest ocean,"
"Well, it's been proven to me that some enemies can still become friends," she explained.
"Oh yeah? Like who?" he sat on his haunches and crossed his arms indignantly.
"You," she replied with full confidence, pointing at him.
Fink paused, and his ears perked up. "Really?"
"You've stolen from me, lied to me, took advantage of me," Roz counted with her fingers, "and yet here we are, still bonding together."
"Well, I-I've never thought of it that way," his ears lowered in disbelief.
"And maybe the same could happen once they land back on this island. Maybe they will be cheering for him instead of jeering."
Fink was still very doubtful about that, tapping his jittery paws on the ground. "Uh…yeaaah. I guess I could see that happening."
"So, no more catching geese throughout next spring. Capisce?" Roz held out her large hand.
Fink groaned loudly and held his head down, tapping her fingers with his paw. "I promise."
All of a sudden, he raised his head and sniffed the air, detecting a new scent from afar, a sweet one. He raised a paw, keeping a safe distance away from the water, and asked, "Do you smell that?"
"I don't have a nose," Roz commented, looking up at the sky.
She then looked down, and he had already vanished without a trace. All that she could audibly detect were the quick patter of footsteps of where she thought Fink went. Roz tried scanning for his location, but the abundance of trees made it difficult for her to locate his tracks.
"Fink?" she whispered. "Where are you?"
Suddenly, a low growl echoed through the large thicket of trees, and she turned her back sharply with deadly fright. She wasn't capable of simulating chills up her spine, but her glowing red stripes still indicated a looming sense of danger. There was only one predator who could appear with such a hostile presence.
Roz didn't have much time to search for her friend and dived for the closest branch to hide behind, dimming her lights to attract less attention. Once the dark figure crept out of the shadows, she cowered with fear as Thorn went to the river with heavy footsteps. She watched closely as he attempted to catch some fish in the water, but he roared from the overbearing numbness and gave up quickly once he couldn't feel his front paws much longer. Roz adjusted one eyelid to appear like she raised an eyebrow.
Wasn't he supposed to be hibernating?
Meanwhile, Fink kept his nose on the trail as he sniffed the ground, tracing this wonderful smell that had a hint of stickiness to it. The scent raised his hopes exponentially, and he continued crawling through the large swarm of trees until he finally discovered the source: a large piece of honeycomb. A huge mix of fright and relief washed through him once he realized it resided right in front of the grizzly bear's cave.
Fink briefly second-guessed whether he should stay out of there or not, but he stood his ground with a nervous yip. He took a closer look at the hexagonal pattern which was oozing with sticky honey before peering inside the cave, making sure that it was vacant. He even shouted into the large entrance, which reverberated through the pitch-black tunnel, but there was no response. Finally, he circled the area until he was certain that no one was there to catch him in the act.
"Ooh, don't mind if I do," Fink licked his lips, giving in to his urges.
He bent his head down and munched on some of that sweet beeswax, sucking the golden honey out of the orange hexes. Fink's muzzle dribbled with the sticky substance and spat out the hard wax in the process.
"Oh! Yum, mmm!" Fink's muffled with a mouthful of that sweet nectar.
While he continued slurping some more honey, he was distracted by the emerging threat that tiptoed behind him. Thorn already had a bad day being unable to grab anything from his only available food source but stumbling upon Fink infiltrating his secret honey stash? That was the last straw.
A loud thunderclap echoed from the flashing skies, which startled Fink to his feet, and once he looked up, his irises shrank at the elongated shadow that flashed from the lightning and turned away from Thorn. But, before he could escape, his single-handed grip caught his tail. Fink began to get dragged back and tried pinning his sharp claws to the ground but only left behind a dirt trail. Now, he was held upside down, face to face with Thorn, and he roared with great fury, spraying bits of saliva all over his face.
"Wait! Let's talk it over first!" Fink begged, frantically thrashing all four legs.
"I'm done talking," Thorn grumbled with a baritone growl.
Suddenly a small crack popped, and Fink pursed his lips tightly, squeaking loudly in pain as the grip on his tail squeezed tighter.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" he winced.
Back near the river, Roz tried to think like a fox to figure out Fink's whereabouts, but that wouldn't take too long. She eventually heard Fink's screams echo in the air with increased intensity and quickly ran to the rescue, running on all fours for physical agility.
"I'm coming, Fink!" she shouted in desperation.
"That's for stealing my fish!" Thorn roared and poked the red fox's gut.
"What?! That was a long time ago!" Fink cried in puzzlement, his tail still stinging from the sharp pain.
Thorn then struck him across the face with his open claws to shut him up, and Fink winced in pain. He patted his affected cheek but was surprised to find no traces of blood.
"And that's for all the honey you owe me," he snarled, now scratching one claw across Fink's neck. "Next time, I won't be so merciful."
Fink curled his legs with a nervous gulp, his shaky breath remaining overshadowed by the grizzly's monologue.
"I went outside, hungry for food, but I couldn't find any, and wouldn't you know it, you ended up in my sight," his growl deepened.
Fink whimpered once more and tried to cower in fear, but it was hard to do that while hanging upside down.
"Hmm," he exposed his drooling fangs. "I've never tasted a fox before. Wanna be the first?"
Fink's panicked panting only escalated from here with tight, puckered lips, shaking his head in retaliation.
"Why, I oughta eat ya up right now," Thorn opened his mouth wide and raised the dangling, wailing fox above his wide maw.
Suddenly, a high-pitched whir whistled in their direction, and he closed his mouth to turn his head. His eyes widened when one of Roz's hands slingshotted towards him and smacked him upside his right cheek. He roared in pain and covered his face with his paws, dropping Fink in the process. Now was his chance to escape.
"Fink, are you okay?" Roz kneeled to check on his pale face.
"Now's not the time!" he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. "Let's get out of here!"
Roz wasted no time hoisting the limp fox onto her shoulder and made it out of the bear's territory before he could even chase them down.
"We're not through with this yet!" the bear growled at them in the distance, vanishing behind the foggy mist.
Once they reached far enough, Roz came to a stop, carrying him down to the ground. Fink, on the other hand, still wheezed with nervous laughter from the adrenaline.
"Thanks for the boost!" he gasped in relief.
"Appreciate it," Roz checked her surroundings. "Now that the coast is clear, are you ok? You lost a bit of color back there."
"Well, besides almost getting eaten, yes," Fink answered, his voice nearly cracking.
She released a huge, relieved sigh and spoke softly, "Oh, Fink, please don't get out of my sight ever again. I don't want you acting all reckless."
"Me? Reckless?" Fink scoffed with raised eyebrows, pointing to himself. "I've had many previous encounters with Thorn, and I always made it out every time."
"But you almost didn't make it out this time," Roz corrected him, tilting her sphere-shaped head to the side in confusion.
"Uh, yeah, but I'm still alive," Fink shrugged his shoulders like this was an everyday occurrence.
"Are you not the least bit scared of what happened back there?" she pointed back to the large, hazy forest.
"Pfft, scared?" Fink nearly stifled a little chuckle. "I'm not scared of any danger. Danger is my middle name."
"Were you not just…" she facepalmed, pinching where the bridge of her nose would've been. "See? This is what I'm talking about. Do you not realize that if it wasn't for me, you would've been bear chow?"
Fink raised an eyebrow, keeping his cool composure. "Since when did you get so hot-headed?"
"Are you even listening?!" she bickered, not knowing where to begin.
She took a moment to pace herself, doing a quick double-take before sitting down at the nearest log to have a brutally honest heart-to-heart conversation. Fink's response was to instead turn around with his back facing her and sit down, grooming one of his paws with his tongue; typical Fink. Regardless, Roz didn't care whether he listened to her or not and continued lecturing.
"I know that it's in your nature to do…foxy things, but you don't need to keep up this facade of yours."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Fink turned back his head slightly, growing increasingly agitated.
"I'm referring to your 'foxy' behavior, this cunning, trickster personality of yours. I know that deep down, you're scared, and that's okay. It's perfectly natural in a scenario like this."
"I already told you, I wasn't scared," Fink repeated, raising his voice slightly with an annoyed tone.
"Don't lie to me," Roz warned him with a stern tone, wagging a finger at him. "I just scanned your vitals, and it says that your stress levels have stayed elevated since that bear attack."
Fink froze mid-groom, offended by her blatant invasion of privacy, and turned to glare at her with a faint glimmer of rage in his eyes. "What's with this need to always watch me like a hawk?
"Because I care, Fink!" her vocal intonation rose to new heights. "I just want to make sure you stay safe, to survive!"
"Look, Roz, I don't need you butting in, telling me how I should survive," he argued assertively with an aggressive swish of his tail.
"And I don't need you acting like a jerkface every time I try to assist you!" she yelled before immediately covering her mouth area.
Fink's jaws dropped slightly at her sudden outburst, and Roz reeled back slightly, remorseful of her harsh choice of words. His eyebrows then lowered slightly, and her Rozzum vision highlighted them red, indicating that Fink was livid! She lowered her neck and closed her eyes slightly, bracing for an equally loud response from the loud-mouthed fox.
"I've heard enough," he grumbled quietly.
Roz raised her head and was left puzzled by how his hushed reaction correlated with his internalized anger. She detected high aggression levels from Fink's body heat, yet his voice still sounded calm and collected. He stood up from his sitting position and began his slow strut away from her. Roz got up from the log and tried staying close with Fink noticeably keeping a farther distance every time she got on his tail.
"Fink, wait! I didn't mean to say it like that!" Roz attempted to explain herself, now fast-walking side-by-side with him.
"So, what then?" he scoffed, speeding up the pace. "Let me guess, that wasn't part of your programming?"
"No, w-what I meant to say was…" she stuttered.
"Say what? Another one of your insults like the rest of them have?" Fink retorted with a heavy, flustered breath.
Roz was at a loss of words, nearly stopping in her tracks. "Fink, I'm just trying to help you."
"That's fine," he sighed deeply. "I just need some alone time."
"But where will you go?" she finally came to a stop, holding out her circular palms.
"Anywhere but here!" Fink's voice boomed through the large forest.
Once his loud shout took her aback, there was this sudden itching feeling that returned, something that she wished she had kept forgotten.
"You don't understand anything!"
Oh, no, not this again. That entire time she spent sheltering Brightbill from what she deemed as uneventful led to all his walls of innocence crumbling apart once the truth was revealed. The heartbreak that she felt, at least what she thought was her true feelings, was something that she didn't want a repeat of, especially with Fink now distancing himself.
Not this time.
Without thinking, she sped up, dashing ahead of Fink's path, and stood in front of him.
"Roz, get out of the way!" he shooed her away with a flick of his wrist.
"Fink, I implore you," she blocked his way. "Will you please just listen to me for one second?"
"No, I said leave me alone!" Fink sidestepped to the left, which she imitated, and then tried the other way, which she also obstructed.
"We still need to finish our final task!"
"Forget your tasks! You should've let Thorn eat me!"
Roz froze, this new revelation cutting through the silenced air. "What?"
"You heard me," he raised a cocked eyebrow. "You don't have to keep saving me. I decide how long I'll keep on surviving."
"Fink, please don't say these self-deprecating thoughts."
"Don't tell me what to do! You're not my mother!"
"You're not my mom."
All these intrusive thoughts echoed and made her metal head spin as she held it between both her hands. As Fink tried to find a way through, he finally seized an opportunity when her legs spread apart and snuck out between them. Roz paid no heed to his warning signs and grabbed him quickly by the scruff of his neck by lengthening her arm. And just like that, Fink went feral and swiped with his paws, gnawing at her index finger, and Roz shrieked in terror.
Roz released him, and he came to his senses once he landed on the ground. Fink gritted his sharp teeth from the sore pain after tasting metal and then gasped in horror when he looked up at where he bit her. Fink slouched his back in shame with drooped ears, stammering as he tried to find his words but couldn't.
She looked down at the bit area, which revealed a small dent on her finger and then he dashed away when she wasn't looking. Within just a few seconds, he was out of sight, and she didn't bother going after him this time. The new bite mark painted the most obvious sign.
She fell to her knees and sighed. "You promised that you wouldn't leave me."
Instead of using her Rozzum vision, she ejected her portable tablet and tapped a few transparent buttons. It pained her to revisit one of her core memories, but she couldn't keep it out of her mind any longer. Roz chose an old video file she recorded from her POV that she bookmarked many months prior and hit play.
"You swam satisfactorily today and if you keep practicing…"
"I still won't belong."
"I understand."
"You don't understand anything! "You don't feel anything!" Brightbill paused for a beat. "You're not my mom."
Roz slid the video scrubber to the left, rewinding the garbled audio in the process.
"You don't understand anything! "You don't feel anything! You're not…"
She cut off the video again, rewinding it once again before setting point A-B as a repeat loop.
"You don't feel anythin…You don't feel anythin…You don't feel anythin…"
Then, a tiny raindrop splashed on the screen, and Roz looked up, realizing that another storm arrived as the heavy rain started pouring in. But, she just stood there, not even bothering to seek shelter. None of this made sense to her. What was she doing wrong? No matter how much she displayed to others that she wanted to assist them, they always left her in the end.
Roz looked down at her bite mark one more time. She didn't feel any pain from that bite, yet she still had a strong sense of fear that Fink would be no different from those who attacked her upon arrival. And what about those angry words she couldn't take back? Was that something that she purely felt as a real feeling or was it just part of her programming? Her code had been overwritten for months, and she presumed that this sense of loneliness was just another byproduct of that rewritten software.
Which of these feelings were real? Are they even real?
Meanwhile, for Fink, all he could do was keep running as fast as he could. He only desired pure escapism, literally running away from his problems and to wherever he wanted to go. He had no destination in sight, not that it mattered to him. While the rain poured on his drenched fur, the big storm drizzled hard over his fuzzy face, so he kept his eyes shut and ran straight ahead of the clear path.
This was the closest he could get to this feeling of running free in the wild. But, he couldn't keep on running forever. His legs eventually got sore, and he had to take a breather, not even realizing how far he had gotten away from Roz.
Soon enough, this part of the forest that he arrived at felt all too familiar, and he began to feel a looming sense of dread as he passed by some particular rock patterns, one which gave him the creeps. He kept hoping to himself that this place wasn't what he thought it was. Once he opened his eyes again, what laid in front of his eyes gave a haunting reminder: his old family den.
It was laid out exactly as he remembered in a now abandoned part of the forest. The two broken tree branches with the same claw marks on the entrance, the long burrow that stretched out with a long, sideways loop-de-loop, and so on. Fox dens were usually seen as a place of safety and protection, but all this one did was trigger many repressed memories. His tense chest began hyperventilating as his inner demons returned to haunt him with many of the biting insults he grew up hearing.
"PREDATOR!"
"JERK!"
"BEAST!"
"THIEF!"
"VERMIN!"
"DUMB FOX!"
"MAMA I-I'M SCARED!"
"STAY OUT OF MY SIGHT!"
"WHY SHOULDN'T I EAT YOU RIGHT ABOUT NOW?"
Fink curled up in a fetal position, burying his snout in his bushy tail, and attempted in vain to drown out these thoughts by staying out in the rain. He tried recalling the comfort of his own mother but instead, this led to him remembering her last words before she was never seen again.
"Wait inside. I'll be right back."
He tossed and turned as the past events replayed with her and the other kits leaving the den to forage for some extra food during a snowy winter storm. Young Fink shivered with a foggy breath as he waited for quite a while. Little pieces were missing here and there, but the most crucial part that he vividly remembered was the low rumbling, rattling little clumps of dirt before he poked his head outside the entrance.
He then had eyes like saucers and quickly ducked before a huge mass of snow rolled past him, spraying some ice chunks into the den. A powerful avalanche rolled throughout the forest with many uttered cries of animals buried in the ever-flowing barrage of snow. He still swears to this day that he faintly heard his family's final cries over the resounding crash.
Everything else afterward was a blur, and the current Fink slapped himself awake with a harsh swish of his long, flowy tail. His first thought was to hide in the den from the rain, but that's not what he ended up doing. Instead, he continued running away, not wanting any of these traumatic events to inhabit his feeble mind.
The only way he could think of keeping out these memories was to continue running away. And so he kept running, and then he ran and ran and ran, even when his legs were about to give out. Nothing would stop him from getting these events out of his head until…
SPLASH!
One of his front paws slipped onto a wet mud puddle, and he rolled over on his back, painting his red fur coat in splotches of sludge and dirt. Before he could even scream for help, he saw a mudslide rise over the cliff above, and he got caught in the flood since his legs were paralyzed with exhaustion. The water flow pushed him off a short ledge, and his soaked body tumbled downhill, bouncing on the wet grass multiple times. He nearly got dizzy from seeing the earth spin this many times.
Fink remained stuck helplessly in the relentless current and narrowly avoided some trees and small twigs along the way. His dirt-covered muzzle occasionally gurgled, and his eyes splashed constantly in the muddy water, temporarily blinding him. He waited forever and ever for the flow to stop eventually, and it felt like it would never end.
Eventually, to his luck, there was one particular tree flowing in his path that broke off, which he couldn't avoid. He crashed head first into its sturdy bough, and the sheer force knocked him out cold. It soon caught onto a sharp rock near the edge of a cliff, and his limp body hung over it. The last thing he saw was his feet dangling over the cliff before his vision faded out.