Warmth. You can feel it spreading through your veins like honey, a reprieve from the harsh winter outside. The crackling fire a comforting tune, putting your mind, your body at ease. Wrapped in a soft blanket with a cup of hot cocoa nestled between your palms, you feel safe and comfortable. You take a sip of the chocolatey liquid, wanting to quench your thirst. But your throat remains dry. The hairs on your arm are static on your skin. Sweat drips, drips, drips down the back of your neck. Too hot. It is too hot. You try to kick off the blanket, but the heat only envelopes you further. That heat, all across your skin, in the air that fills your lungs. Every breath burns. Every movement is slow. Suffocating. The warmth is suffocating—
You are thrust back to reality. You are wandering along a narrow path. Your lungs still burn with every breath. Your body still aches with every movement. But those memories of a cold winter, of heat being anything but burdensome, are mere memories. Your skin is painted with bruises, the souls of your feet calloused and numb from the scorching red sand that you had once thought was a beauty of this country. It has been two days since you had fled. Since you had run away. The idea almost seemed romantic, like something a teenager would do in a movie. But never had you envisioned that you would be running away at the age of 65. But you had no other choice, not when the government was going to strip you of your right to live, purely because of your age. You were always scared of dying, and this may as well be murder. You continue down the path almost paved into the barren earth. Your stomach is churning, and your throat is parched like the land you are treading on. Even though you had been given rations for years, it still did not prepare you for the aching hunger you are experiencing. You notice a metallic shaded ant walk past, its antennae twitching. Do you: