Jake had been watching the rabbit for three hours.
Well, he thought it was three hours. Time was still weird when you were dead.
The horde had stopped again. Another rest period. The wights stood like statues in the snow, empty and mindless.
Kazhor sat motionless on his undead elk, thirty feet away, staring into the distance. Watching. Waiting. For what, Jake didn't know.
And off to the side, maybe fifteen yards from the horde, a white rabbit hopped through the snow. Digging. Looking for food it would never find in this frozen wasteland.
Jake's dead eyes tracked it.
"Okay. This is it. This is my chance."
The rabbit was alone. Kazhor wasn't looking his direction. The other wights wouldn't notice or care.
"I just need to... move. Walk over there. Fifteen yards. Grab it. Kill it. One EP, maybe two."
Simple. Easy.
Except his body wouldn't obey.
Jake concentrated. Focused all his will on his right leg. "Move. Just move. One step."
His leg twitched. The muscles spasmed slightly.
But he didn't step forward.
"Come on. Come ON. I can do this. 0.4% control. That's enough to twitch fingers. Should be enough to take one step."
He tried again. Harder this time. Visualized his leg lifting, moving forward, setting down.
His leg trembled. Shook. The frozen muscles fought him.
It lifted. Half an inch off the ground.
Then dropped back down.
"No! Almost! I almost had it!"
The rabbit kept hopping. Oblivious. Getting farther away.
Jake tried again. And again. And again.
Each time, his leg would lift slightly. Sometimes an inch. Once, almost two inches. But never a full step. Never enough to actually move forward.
"This is ridiculous. I'm standing here watching food... well, EP... just hop around, and I can't do anything about it."
The frustration was overwhelming. His conscious mind knew exactly what to do. Knew how to walk. Had walked for twenty-eight years before dying.
But this body wouldn't listen. The wight body only knew how to obey Kazhor's commands. Jake's will was too weak. 0.4% wasn't enough.
"Need more control. Ten percent for every EP. So... 100 EP would give me 10% total control. Would that be enough to walk?"
He didn't know. Couldn't know.
The rabbit hopped behind an ice formation and disappeared.
Jake stood there, motionless, one wight among fifty.
"Gone. It's gone. And I couldn't do anything."
The defeat tasted bitter. Even though he couldn't actually taste anything anymore.
Days passed.
More marching. More standing. More waiting for commands.
Jake kept trying to move independently. Kept testing his limits.
He could twitch his fingers reliably now. Both hands. All fingers. That was progress.
He could move his jaw slightly. Open and close his mouth maybe half an inch. Not enough to speak, but movement.
He could blink. The other wights never blinked. Their eyes just stared, unmoving. But Jake could blink now. A small thing. But his.
But walking? No. He'd tried a hundred times. His legs would tremble, would lift slightly, but never take a full step.
"Not enough control. Still not enough."
It was maddening. Knowing what he needed. Seeing opportunities. But being unable to act.
On what Jake thought might be day twenty, they encountered more wildlife.
Three arctic foxes. Small. Fast. Darting through the snow.
KILL.
The horde surged forward. Jake's body moved with them, chasing the foxes.
The hunt was brief. The foxes were fast, but the wights were relentless. They cornered two of them against ice formations. The third escaped.
Jake participated. His body grabbed and tore along with the others. No choice in the matter.
[+2 EP]
[Total: 6/1,000]
"Six points. 0.6% control now."
The notification flashed. Jake's thoughts cleared slightly. Just a fraction. Like someone had turned up the brightness on a dim screen.
"Better. That's better. Maybe... maybe at 1% control, I'll be able to walk?"
It was a theory. An untested theory. But it gave him hope.
"Need four more EP. Four more points. Then I'll have 10 EP total. 1% control. Then I can test if I can walk."
The goal was clear. Small. Achievable.
Four more points.
They marched for days. Jake kept his eyes open for opportunities.
He saw rabbits. Three of them over the course of a week. All too far from the horde. All impossible to reach.
He saw birds. Frozen on branches. Already dead. Would they give EP? He didn't know. Couldn't test it.
He saw nothing else. Just ice. Snow. Wind. Emptiness.
"This place is a wasteland. How does anything survive here?"
The answer was: It didn't. Not really. Everything was barely clinging to existence in this frozen hell.
Just like him.
On day twenty-three, or maybe twenty-five, something changed.
The horde stopped in a small valley between ice cliffs. Kazhor dismounted his elk.
REST.
The wights collapsed into sitting positions. Jake's body sat with them.
But this time, Kazhor didn't stay. The White Walker remounted his elk and rode away, disappearing around an ice cliff. Scouting, maybe. Or reporting to another White Walker. Jake didn't know.
The wights sat there. Motionless. Waiting.
Jake's mind raced.
"He left. Ice-daddy actually left. How long? An hour? A day? I don't know."
But this was opportunity. Real opportunity.
Jake looked around without moving his head. The other wights sat like statues. Empty. Unaware.
And there, maybe twenty yards away, a rabbit hopped through the snow.
"Okay. Okay. This is it. He's gone. I have time. I have 6 EP. 0.6% control. Maybe... maybe it's enough?"
Jake focused. All his will. All his concentration. On one thing: Stand up.
STAND.
Wait. That was Kazhor's command. From his memory. But Kazhor wasn't here.
Jake pushed. Tried to stand without the command.
His body didn't move.
"Right. Can't stand without a command. Still bound. Still a puppet."
But... the wights were sitting because of the last command. To rest. What if...
What if he could resist the rest command? Like he'd resisted the sit command before?
Jake focused. Pushed against the invisible strings holding him down. Used that 0.6% control.
His body trembled. Shook. Fought the command.
And slowly, agonizingly, he began to rise.
It took everything he had. Every scrap of will. Every bit of that 0.6% control.
But he stood up.
He was standing.
"Holy... I'm standing! I resisted the command! I'm actually standing!"
His body swayed. Unstable. The moment his concentration slipped, he'd collapse back down.
But he was standing.
"Okay. Okay. Now... now walk. Toward the rabbit. Just... walk."
He focused on his right leg. Tried to lift it. Tried to step forward.
His leg trembled. Lifted. Half an inch. An inch. Two inches.
Then he lost his balance.
Jake toppled forward and crashed face-first into the snow.
[+0 EP]
He lay there, frozen face buried in frozen snow, limbs splayed awkwardly.
"Well. That went great. Really stellar, Jake."
He couldn't even get back up. Couldn't move. Just lay there until Kazhor returned hours later and commanded the horde to rise.
The rabbit had long since hopped away.