'Hard rock, who does not love it.' Kes thought as he slowly awoke for yet another day of spending time within the cave. He stretched and moved around the cave for a while to try and get rid of the soreness he felt in his entire body after sleeping on the hard rock floor.
Then he went to the well to drink a little bit of water, if he kept this drinking pattern up he was sure he could survive another five days at the very least. It wasn't like that was a whole lot, but it would be better than not having any water left. If the bear stayed longer than this then it was time to drink the puke and other filthy liquid water in the back of the cave.
Anything was better than dying of thirst; he had to grit his teeth and drink it if he wanted to survive, but Kes hoped it would not get that far.
'If I enter that state of mind that is hellbent on survival will it be easier to drink the awful water?' Kes thought for a while.
He came to the conclusion that it probably would, he would be able to shut off his sense of taste that way. Actually he would be able to shut off all other thoughts except his thoughts of survival, it was very helpful.
But right now it could not be utilized yet, it took too long for Kes to get into this state of mind. Kes theorized it would be easier for him to enter this state of mind when overwhelming survival naturally dominated his thoughts. Currently he was sitting in a cave, hungry and tired, but not directly threatened. So it wasn't as easy to lead his mind into only thinking of survival.
Kes was also sure that it was easier to enter the complete blank mind state when he had less on his mind and was calmer. He had felt the thoughts colliding within his mind, creating a sort of chaotic soup within, and that soup had been hard to get rid of this time.
When he was on the verge of going completely crazy he had somehow managed to do it a lot quicker. It was probably done purely on survival instinct, and because he was slowly going crazy and could only think of thirst his head was quite empty, so he could enter it a lot quicker.
Kes also theorized that the state he had called going crazy was simply his mind being only led down the path of thirst at that moment. In other words he had not gone completely crazy yet but it was yet another survival instinct kicking in. It was basically the same as him shutting all out but survival, but with thirst instead.
Whether he liked it or not this had saved him at the time. But it was not a state he would ever like to enter again, to Kes it was tantamount to being crazy. Not being able to control your own mind while entering this state was pivotal. That was what he was using the meditation for, he needed to have control over his own thoughts when he led them into a certain direction.
Thirst was obviously not something Kes wanted to feel, his body and mind rejected it. So he had sort of lost his mind back then. But survival was something Kes wholeheartedly accepted, he had once seen it as his leading personal philosophy. So when he led his mind down this path he was much more in control.
Kes did not know if there was a correlation between these things but he expected it to be the case.
Right now his mind was still infected by lingering grief of the village being destroyed, he noticed it clearly when he had been meditating yesterday. And because he had noticed it earlier he also noticed he could steer his mind into another path if he wanted to.
Instead of survival, he could steer it towards protecting.
Kes didn't really know what to think of this, it went against his personal philosophy. But he could not deny it, his desire to protect had been very strong at that point in time.
If Kes was a good person, a noble person, a selfless person he would focus on leading his mind into this route instead, but he did not.
The village chief's words still rang true in his ears, and survival was the most important right now. He was stuck right now, he needed to survive and he wanted to survive to know what had happened to his village too. So the desire to protect needed to be discarded from his mind conflicting thoughts would only get in the way.
This made Kes feel very conflicted, despite the fact that he had always thought he could do anything for survival, he still would not like to become a totally heartless and emotionless person.
He knew very well now, he was naive, very naive. He was not strong and had trouble leaving people behind. Another thing he had never done was kill someone, a human that was. He still struggled to even think about taking the life of another human being.
So how could he, someone so naive, even have thoughts of becoming a heartless monster.
'I don't have the qualifications to become one yet.' Kes smiled as he thought.
'Maybe in the future.'
For now he would just sit and meditate. So that, if he ever needed to become a person that was hell-bent on survival, leaving all else behind, he would be able to do so.
A couple of hours of meditating later and Kes had still not once reached the state of a completely clear mind, but there was a reason for this.
An annoying pest was bothering him, it wasn't an insect but instead a gigantic brown bear.
It seemed the big brown beast had lost some of its patience. It was continuously trying to enter the cave and making loud growling noises.
'I should be feeling delighted about this, but right now it isn't what I want.' Kes thought with his eyes closed, still trying to reach the state in which his mind was completely clear.
Usually the bear losing its patience would undoubtedly be a positive thing, it meant it was probably going to move soon. This was faster than Kes' expectations, he expected the bear to at least last a whole week, that was why he had built the well after all. But instead the bear seemed to already want its prey and now. But right now Kes wanted to calmly meditate, he wanted to capitalize on the insights he had gained over the last couple of days. He felt like he would lose out on a lot of progress and strength if he didn't do so now.
'I guess I really cannot compare wild animals to humans.' Kes sighed as he thought back to his first hunt within the forest. He had already come to this conclusion back then.
Wild animals would do things that were completely illogical, like sacrificing themselves to kill someone else. Did they not want to stay alive? Of course they did, but it was not what they thought about at that moment.
If there were three parties, all of around equal skill, all wanting to kill each other, humans would avoid fighting.
Why? Because the second one person goes down, the person who did the least work would be able to finish off the person who did the most work. Humans were smart, and because no one wanted to be the tired one no one would do anything.
Beasts on the other hand had no regard for this at all, they simply did not care. If something is scary, run. If something looks beatable, kill. They could not see further than the moment.
Back then, on his first hunt in the forest, it had hurt him a whole lot, but experience was the best teacher. And now he had made a wrong guess based on the same principle, Kes was feeling quite ashamed of himself. For someone who prided himself on his quick wittedness he was still vastly lacking in real world experience.
If the bear kept this up it would really be a problem, though. The meditation was the main thing suppressing his hunger, and like this Kes could absolutely not meditate in peace.
But it was even worse for the bear, with it making such a fuss he would get thirsty way quicker than if it just lazed around outside the cave.
The main problem was that Kes would not have any gains while stuck inside the cave, but all in all it was still a net positive. Because he was human, he could see this.
Of course if the bear really was smart he would just let Kes go and hunt some other prey nearby. But apparently just like humans, beasts possessed pettiness too.
And this pettiness, both for humans and for beasts, always resulted in losses for both parties.
Kes sighed and pinched his nose as he crawled towards the back of the cave.
'I really did not want to waste any energy on this but it seems like the thing just won't leave me alone.'
He picked up a rock he had thrown in the back of the cave earlier because of the well excavation, and hurled it at the bear.
This wasn't a simple rock, it had been marinating in the delicious soup that had accumulated in the back of the cave.
"Take this." Kes shouted as he hurled the putrid smelling rock towards the bear.
It hit the beast square on its nose.
The bear let out an ear deafening roar as the rock hit him, and the awful smell found its way into its nose.
After that the bear growled into the cave a couple more times before it eventually stopped bothering Kes for now.
Kes had decided to chase away the bear instead of letting it waste its energy. Even though he had just come to the conclusion that it would be positive for him if it continued to do so.
Why? That was simple, he had gotten greedy. Kes thought that if he could meditate undisturbed, while he still had the breakthrough fresh within his mind, he would have more gains than he would have if he could get out of the cave because the bear went away.
Even though this decision could cost him his life Kes still decided to do so.
Kes smirked as he got back into position to meditate.
'I guess being greedy is a very human thing too.'