The next few days were subdued and dull. My wounds got healed but I could not bring myself into a celebratory mood. I would wake up, bathe, eat, drink and complete my assignments, those which were already started before and had finalized plans for, silently. My nightly talks did not continue. I would just lie down, stargaze and listen to sounds around me.

I felt like I’m waiting for the other hammer to fall and send me scurrying around. I did not feel any eyes tracing me hungrily from the forest nor some weird sensations assaulting me. The lack of hyperintensity, present so far, confused me. The constant need to push forward disappeared. My body has plenty of energy and I dare say, that my mind is...less excessive, now that ever-present aura of fear is gone? Yet I feel a void in my soul and have no idea what to fill it with.

-&-

With a stick, I slowly stir a dark thick blob of an experiment on a makeshift fire plate. I recalled a rock, called a slate, and my search of the stream did result in few pieces in respectable sizes I could use in various ways.

“What I’m trying to say, Jim, is that a change is happening. I’m changing and I don’t know if I should be appreciating this or be fearful of it. The Cure is changing my body. It gets tougher, stronger and it gets tuned up like an engine meant for high performance. Some things I did look weird now and...Jim, I swung a huge ass club like it was nothing, and stuff literally got vaporized.”, I try to give Jim my best look of concern but he remains unmoved, calmly tasting the air with its forked tongue.

“I don’t think my body forgot to limit itself in adrenal torrent at that time. I can haul more stuff now and my stamina is exceptional. I had…”, I exhale an exasperated sigh. “Fun lifting rocks in the stream and playing a strongman.”

I give the black substance an inquiring look and shrug. We will see how my attempt at glue goes soon. Poking different trees around has been a lengthy errand but I did get some resin. I’m thinking that mixing stuff from different trees might not be the best of ideas, not to mention I have no idea if resins found here would work anyway. That’s gonna be a very long experiment. I can barely remember anything on this topic. What was it? Resins from specific trees. Eather ash or charcoal, this stuff was used like, in everything before. Starch? Plant fibers?

I added in some charcoal and ash, then some fibers. I have not the faintest idea what I am doing. A low snort escapes me and I turn to face Jim. “You think this is going to explode?”, Jim is stoic as ever.

“Look, I know I’m bitching about a power-up. But before it was just this, a power-up. You did not question fantasy stuff and anyone asked about how it works, would just spread their arms and say ‘Magic’. But now...I always check the fine print but the contract ain’t here if you catch my drift”.

Using a brush made from fibers and bamboo I slather black tar on few pieces of wood. They get pressed together and clack as I toss them into experimental site A.

“I worry Jim. I worry that someone might come in the future and collect. Urgh, rambling. I mean, I have here this miraculous ‘drink and forget’ cure and super-soldier serum in one. Are there any drawbacks or side effects when overused?” I go back to the prop holding my newly carved club, it’s big, and...damn it, I’m compensating for something, surely. But there is something awesome about having and being able to swing big weapons, that sends my inner child into overdrive. And it’s about to get a whole lot meaner.

“Should I just roll with it? I can’t imagine not taking it when I’m bleeding and dying. Actually, there is hella a lot of things here, that I wonder if I should just roll with.” Black inky stuff gets slathered into small indentations along edges and the head of the octagonal club.

“I don’t know what broke in me Jim, and I don’t mean the fact that I got mind fucked by an oversized newt and a plant that generate an aura of fear. Uh, no offense mate.”, Jim appears to be more interested in sunbathing, but then I think what the heck I’m doing right now and add “And I don’t think you can really understand how much I appreciate the fact you don’t suddenly talk back, that might be a tad bit too much for me right now”.

Small crystal shards are inserted into sockets and pressed in firmly. Small chips of wood are used to secure those who appear to be too loose and everything gets additional coating.

“It’s the stuff I said and thought. Even when I remind myself that I was mind-controlled it offers barely any comfort. Jim, I promised and gave permission for anything. I was ready to commit with full heart to do things that I from before would never, under any circumstance, allow to happen. I literally swore myself into devil’s thrall and vowed to burn the world if only I get a bit of respite. What does it make me? I never thought of myself as weak. I from before would not bow to something he did not agree with. I always believed I had a tough, well-structured moral spine. It was one of few things I was genuinely happy with!” My voice keeps raising and I am almost shouting at the end of my rant.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“And all of that can happen again because of magical bullshit if I stumble on a magical plant, not to mention a monster with...how...how can I defend myself?”. I felt emotionally deflating like a punctured balloon, I really want now to enter the cave and go to sleep, try to forget. But the cave became also a symbol of my greatest defeat and failure, I don’t want to sleep there anymore.

“I really want to get better. But it burns, Jim. It burns terribly and it does not come easy to forgive myself. And the change Jim. It scares me. My life so far was so structured and everything was so much more clear-cut than it is now. When I was younger I dreamed of exploring a fantastical world, full of wonders and magic. We gathered and spun tales, made merry. Adult life beat it out of me. There was just no time, you had to pay attention to your education, job, and the multitude of other things. This child is back and vies for my attention and confuses me as I try to survive here. My mind was set in its ways, like an old trickless dog, and now that comfort of well-structured reality has been taken away, I’m dazed.” I stop my work and raving. My vomit of words just keeps coming and coming. I thought that regurgitating this stuff would bring me...what? Catharsis? Answers? Nothing has changed.

I grab a bamboo container and greedily gulp down water. I eye Jim’s house and see that his is still filled, later then. I plonk down beside the cage and look at my project. The fire died down and black tar solidified, huh, perhaps this experiment will get some results, but now I have to reheat it. I prop myself and Jim gives me a vary eye as his cage creaks.

Am I really that old already? I don’t feel such. True, my much younger sister is already engaged and I hovered in some weird dating purgatory where nothing changed. New meets, new farewells. Nothing clicked. Oh shoot, we are stopping that line of thought right here and now. If I also start to bemoan that stuff I might just go and whack myself with my own club.

I poke Jim with a small stick and then rustle some dead insects closer to him, he doesn’t appreciate being stick fed.

What is the goddamn problem then? Fear? My lack of mental flexibility? Resilience? I could really use a hand but there is no one here. Is it loneliness? Need to validate myself and compare? Lack of hope? Are some of my bad habits making a grand return? I was a bit of a minimalist. Reach a minimal set point and as long as it stays constant, all is well in the world. Oh yes, a lot of dirty laundries got aired recently and the stench lingers.

I turn and inspect the mountain. It’s big. Should I risk possible dangers and try to get as high as possible to scan what’s around? I should do it. Why am I not doing it? I might find some signs, like rising smoke.

So far nothing here even hints that there might be someone here save animals, and I include the dragon here. I really want to give him exactly the same treatment the weed got. I prop myself up and get the fire going again.

I never fought a wild animal before but I know it’s not a fight, it’s a struggle, and an animal that chooses to stay its ground because it defends its territory or offspring or just hunts because of hunger goes for the kill. What happened at the weed area was an episode and something that happens in a movie or a fict...anyway, I’m not too proud of it. It was stupid luck that shroom had nothing else and there were so many possibilities it could have gone wrong. I really lost it there…

The heat from the campfire finally reaches the tar and it becomes gooey again. I return to my paused work.

Did everything that happened at the beginning got compounded so hard with later events that now I am a shattered mess? Pieces of myself battle for domination and I am left in indecision? I know I question everything I do here. I’m my own devil advocate. My mind is sometimes so fucking hyperactive... Am I...my worst enemy?

Now THAT thought really drives in how bad my current situation is.

Was I so hard on myself in before? I honestly can’t tell. It feels familiar, like it’s ought to be normal. I question myself to shield myself from stupid mistakes that might kill me. My mind strains with detecting all possible pitfalls that I might encounter. Then why I don’t act? Because the false familiarity is throwing me off and I get a constant blue screen? I want to establish a new familiar framework in which I can live?

This...this is getting heavy and I constantly chase my own tail in a never-ending loop. Stop.

I gaze blankly at my completed weapon and wonder how it will fare. I don’t know how tough bigger stuff here is. And by stuff I mean raptors. Those are pack hunters. Should I rather make a minefield of traps around my home? But...this club feels good. Its big, heavy, and black teeth shine menacingly along its octagonal borders. I can’t believe anything of medium size can shrug it off like nothing unless some magical fuckery is present. I was inspired by club-swords used by Southern American natives and even had a thought of making a similar one. But I was not sure I could carve it well enough, a club though...this club means a bad day for something if it connects...

I freeze as I sense movement in the tree line and only my eyes search for danger. A small lizard...no, it’s not a lizard. It looks like evolution got bored somewhere between a lizard and a bird and left. I can definitely spy scales and feathers. Sharp serrated beak and small claws at the top of its wing. It moves sharply and erratically, like a squirrel, glued to the tree. It searches, prods. And then I hear weird clicking sounds and...a bird song? It’s actually nice but so weird. It sings and a feathery crest on its head rises.

Is it calling others to descend here? Or is it about to unleash something? My club is right in front of me...

Then the song ends. Without any fanfare, my visitor grabs a small stick and disappears into the canopy.

After so many shocks lately, I don’t know what to think. Right now I have this double vision. I see a probably magical, prehistoric scaly bird but also I see a friggin cockatoo that just tried to woo any nearby female and then got back to the nest construction effort. No meteor storm is coming.

Actually...does that mean that neighbors are moving in?