Everyone can agree that getting woken up sunlight shining in your eyes is a terrible way to start your day. So when Grant woke up he was pissed.

However, his anger quickly abated when he opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the cloudless sky. The sun hanging almost directly above him. The second thing he noticed was that he was in a forest, trees surrounded him on all sides.

Where...? How...?

Grant's mind went blank for moment trying to understand how he got there, just looking at things without processing them, before kicking back into gear.

Where I'm at isn't what's important right now. I'm in unknown territory with who knows what in this forest.

Getting to his feet, Grant thought about what to do first.

From what I can remember about survival shows and whatnot, shelter is the first thing I need to secure. After shelter is water, then food, as I can survive a week or two without food.

With his mind made up, Grant set out in a random direction, hoping to come across anything.

As he was walking slowly, to not twist an ankle, he was also marking the trees he passed with X's. Although, Grant thought that he wouldn't get lost with his sense of direction, he didn't want to risk getting lost in a forest with the only landmark so far being the clearing he woke up in.

After walking what felt like hours, but was probably three hours max based on the sun's position, Grant was starting to get tired. After finding a good fallen tree to sit on, he contemplated stopping for the day and building a shelter himself, he heard something above him.

Standing up and looking at the trees branches above him with caution, he threw the stone he'd been marking trees with at the source of the rustling.

The noise immediately stopped, with the only other noise being the sound of wind blowing through leaves and my breathing. I never noticed it before, but ther where no sounds of life. No birds singing or tweeting, nothing. Just silence

Maybe I shouldn't have thrown that rock at whatever's in the tree.

It was then, as if reading my mind, something dropped from where the rustling once was.

Standing a foot tall and almost that in width, with beady black eyes was an... apple.

What the— Is it looking at me? How is it even doing that?! Is it sentient?!

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Not knowing how to react, Grant spoke, "Uh... Hello?" Nothing happened. After a few seconds, he approached the 'apple.'

That got a reaction, though one completely unexpected.

After Grant took a step towards the 'apple,' it moved. The 'apple' split, seams appeared all over its red surface. The seams on its side, shaped like an oval on each side, pushed out of its body, until arms with little tiny fingers appeared. The same happened with the seams at the bottom, forming legs. As these two changes were taking place, a zigzaging seam on the front of the 'apple' split forming a sharp mouth.

Too stunned to think, my body reacted, kicking it straight into a tree.

It exploded. Splattering on the ground behind the tree and on the tree itself.

As Grant's mind caught up to what he did, thumps sounded around him. Looking around he saw three more of those apple things forming their limbs and mouths.

Taking the opportunity, he kicked the closest one as hard as he could, hoping to smash it to pieces aginst a tree, but only sending it flying, that's when his luck ended.

First, the apple he kicked landed on the ground and looked only bruised. And also pissed.

Second, the other two had finished forming, running at Grant with surprising speed, and bit and clawed into the side of his leg. Drawing blood

Screaming in surprise and pain, Grant bent down to pry it off, but the other apple took that as its que to attack. Latching onto his left arm, Grant jerked, accidentally yanking off the other apple, along with a heap of flesh.

A wave of pain washed over him, his vision blinked out for a second before coming back. Only to see the apple he kicked limping back to the fight, though still pretty fast. Grant smashed the apple he still had in his hand on the ground repeatedly, until half of its face slouched off.

One down.

Letting go of it, Grant focused on the one on his arm before it chewed anymore of him. Using his right arm, Grant pushed it into his arm.

Now this might have seemed counter intuitive to what he was trying to achieve, but from Grant's experience with cats letting go if pushed into the thing they were biting, led him to the conclusion that the apples were the same.

Fortunately for Grant, it worked.

Pulling off the apple without pulling a chunk of flesh with it, Grant held the back of the apple so that it could bite him, and focused on the final unaccounted for apple.

Between the adrenaline clouding his decision making, and pain, and being tired even before this fight, and just wanting this fight to end he let the apple bite into his open palm, before slaming both apples in his hands down on the ground, only stopping until they stopped struggling in his grasp.

With the threat dealt with, Grant sat down and tried to calm his nerves, and failing. Grant could feel the adrenaline wearing off now that he wasn't in a life or death situation.

What were those things? How were they moving by themselves? What's happening?

Plaguing himself with questions to starve off the growing pain, Grant looked over his wounds.

Looking at his leg, he could see a chunk of flesh missing, blood oozed out at a steady stream.

His arm, though bloody, was in much better condition. Only a ring of bite marks being the only wound.

Frowning, Grant took his shirt off, then with much difficulty and also utilizing a particularly sharp branch sticking out of the log he leaned on, ripped his shirt into strips before grabbing the biggest piece of cloth and pushing it into the wound.

Pain flared throughout his leg, causing his to sweat and twitch. With shaky hands he pushed through the pain, slowly, and tied the strips around his leg.

Gasping for breath to cool off, Grant closed his eyes and leaned back against the log.

Then promptly passed out.