I GUESS THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT WINDOW PAIN

[Wham Yubeesling]

He'd made it considerably farther this time before his body forced him to stop.

And he was back here. At that steel building he had walked past the day before, apparently called the mess hall. Had he been given the chance, the capability to, he would have walked past it again. It was unappealing to look at, and it was far, far away from where he needed to be, especially given the silence that permeated the place. The plan — his plan — was to scout this island. Try and find whoever remained amongst the wreckage of his cohort. Try and convince them to follow his plan, stop the killing. Let the timer on the game run out, let whatever help was coming arrive, and see whether the terrorists dared to act upon their threat. See if they would let their precious game come to an early end.

That was the plan. If he found someone, he would talk to them. If he didn't, he would scout before moving on.

The problem was, it turned out that closing Saachi's wound was not enough.

Pain filled his leg as he tried to take another step, as he tried to have the trident support it. The pain stayed as he stopped walking. Started leaning against the glass window inside the mess hall. He tried to will it away. The pain wasn't much — dull, only producing something sharp when strained — but it still bothered him. Still hurt. Still made walking much, much harder than it had any right to be.

Lord knew how it would look if he brought up his pant leg.

So he kept leaning — against the window, hoping that it wouldn't suddenly break — and pushed himself into sitting down. The trident went to his right side. His backpack went to his left. As much as he hated it, as much as he didn't want to let the timer go even further down, he had to stop. Take a break, try and let his leg finally shut up.

Given how much time he'd wasted already these past seven days, he figured that he could at least take another moment.

[Wham Yubeesling]

Only one moment, though.

The pain faded. Maxwell's leg stopped screaming and he sat there, in silence, part of him wanting to see if anyone else would enter. If anyone would talk to him. If he could convince anyone to adopt his plan, just as Chuck had.

They didn't.

And as much as Maxwell just wanted to stay here, as much as Maxwell just wanted to rest, as much as Maxwell wanted to fade, waste away to what was probably an infection, he knew he couldn't be selfish. He knew he had to at least do something.

So he stood up, slowly. His leg immediately began to groan again as he slid his back up the window pane, cried as he took a step with it, his arm pressing the trident against the ground soon after.

It wasn't ideal, it wasn't wanted, but it had to do. No other alternative.

((Maxwell Lombardi, continued elsewhere))