Very early in the morning, the tortoise woke up with a terrible feeling. It had managed to nod off for a bit with the swaying of the water. Unfortunately, it was in a very bad state. Varying cold and hot temperatures, stress, and the ant's venom took its toll. It dragged itself out of the water, ants or no ants it didn't want to stay there.

Once on the shore, it laid down. Not sleep, just inability to move further. Nerve wracking pain besieged its body. It couldn't see out of its right eye at all. All four of its leg held a reddish tint and any attempts to move would cause a ripple of not just pain but also itchiness.

An hour passed like this. Breathing. Waiting. No relief came. The pain was constant. All it wished was that it would all go away. Death wasn't an option. The will to live was programmed into its body and it wasn't intelligent enough to even ponder suicide.

If it was a warm-blooded animal, it would be rapidly heating up its body in an effort to kill the foreign entities in the body. All the tortoise could do was wait and hope the sun would warm up its body enough to reduce the effects of the venom. This wasn't a reliable method as the venom of a desert ant shouldn't be something easily defeated by mere heat.

Just to rub salt in its wounds, it was also hungry. All day yesterday it went without food. Tortoises are able to live a long time without food or water, but this was still a baby. It was still developing and it hadn't eaten enough to stock up on fat reserves. When your food cuts you up and is plentiful, it's hard to motivate yourself to eat more to stock up.

Another painful lesson in life, one that could cost the ultimate price. Of course, the tortoise didn't die from this. Neither did the ants come back. This spot was close to their colony, but they had already lost interest in the area after a day of flocking around it. A scout would still come along eventually, so its survival hinged upon leaving.

However, the motivation to move never came. Hours passed and the sun bore down on the tortoise. With the help of the heat, the tortoise felt a bit more energetic and the venom died down a bit, more so from the tortoise's immune system than the heat. This newfound energy gave the tortoise a chance to move.

Even the tiniest twitch was rewarded with pain so it was trained to not move. The only part of its body that did move occasionally was its head. There were two reasons for this. One was so that it could properly breathe as it was in a muddy area and kept sinking a few centimeters. The other was so that it could look around. After being attacked by a swarm of ants while resting, it was understandably paranoid. With one eye covered, it had to move its entire head for just a fraction of its normal view.

One would think this would be the moment that brought it over the edge, turning it into a demon. No, this was far too tame for that. If that was all it took to push one over the edge, the world would be full of demons. The tortoise was weak and helpless, teetering on the edge of death. However, it had not reached the point of relinquishing its... well, if it was a human it would be humanity. Had it not reached the point of giving up its tortuosity? That would come later in much more dire circumstances.

This was not a point of no return. The tortoise could survive, provided it was lucky. The locals were not so confident about its survival and came to inspect it. Not the ants, but vultures. Carrion eaters that would consume the flesh of those who forfeited to this wasteland. They circled in the sky, waiting.

Every time the tortoise moved its head a little bit, the birds decided to hold back longer. The biggest rule about opportunists like them was to make sure their target was already dead before digging in lest they get killed instead. A wounded animal was far more dangerous than a healthy one as they had fewer options and were more likely to take risks.

If they flew down and tried to take a bite of the tortoise, it wouldn't be able to even muster to strength to bite back. The caution of the vultures prevented them from getting a free meal and saved the tortoise. Then again, if this area wasn't so rich from the lake and the vultures had been starving, they would not have been as cautious. A starving animal was no different from a wounded one in a way. The tortoise was both starving and wounded with neither the strength nor means to take risks.

As the sun started its downward spiral, the oasis cooled down. It came as a relief to the tortoise that had to endure blazing heat on top of its pain. At this point, the swelling had begun to die down and the tortoise could move somewhat. The pain became a slight ache and it moved out. Off to find something to eat then somewhere to settle down.

An entire day was wasted. One of many that the tortoise would live through. It was lucky that the venom was mild and that it was not allergic to it. Any number of factors being even the slightest different would have killed it. They weren't. It survived.