Dakota’s legs burned. He had to deal with the wounds sooner than later but for now, he was determined to do a little more exploring. He had water but that did nothing for the emptiness in his stomach.

Making his way to the scene of last night’s battle, he pilfered the goblin corpses. Thirty minutes later, he had a stash of items containing a rusty knife, some leather strapping, a drawstring pouch with a few small coins in it, and most importantly, two roasted squirrels wrapped in a grimy cloth. The cleanliness of the meat was debatable, the goblins did not seem hygienic but he was relieved there was something to eat if he needed it. Gathering the items, Dakota limped back to the house to set up camp.

After stashing his gear, he settled down next to the well, rolling back his pant legs to expose his cut and scratched flesh. None of the wounds were too deep, although he did notice some redness around a couple of the worst cuts. He wasn’t overly worried about the injuries themselves, it was the risk of infection which made him anxious.

Trembling, he drew water and poured it over his wounds. Perspiration bloomed across his face as the water cleaned away the filth. Dakota clenched his teeth and dabbed the injuries with his shirt. Dirt and grass had gotten jammed into them.

After what felt like hours, but was probably only twenty minutes, he let his pant legs fall to the ground. The worst of the dirt and debris was out but the possibility of infection still worried him, especially as he felt a chill run through his body.

Any thoughts of further exploration were extinguished as a wave of fatigue rolled over him. Pulling up one more bucket of fresh water, he staggered to the house and collapsed into a feverish sleep.

Dakota opened crusty eyes. He felt terrible, worse than the time he caught Dengue Fever while on vacation in Mexico. His legs were in agony, he felt like throwing up, and he was being wracked with chills. Rolling back his pants, his worry increased. Most of the cuts were healing but a deep redness spread from two jagged gashes. He sloshed back a mouthful of bitter-tasting water and laid down.

He woke again, this time in darkness. He was ravishingly hungry but only allowed himself to eat a small portion of one squirrel. The life-threatening situation he was in had sunk in as the infection had grown worse. Survival would depend on his ability to ration.

In this way, he passed the next three days. On the third day, Dakota woke without feeling completely wretched. The fever had been getting worse but seemed to have broken last night.

He had eaten his last squirrel yesterday and was now becoming faint with hunger. Grumbling, he stepped outside, feeling a fresh morning breeze blow some of the odours off of his body. One bonus of the three days of bedrest (floor rest?), was his wounds healing over enough to walk around. Even the big cut had scabbed over and didn’t appear as red and swollen.

Taking a swig from the well, he took a look around the homestead. The wind rustled through the long grass causing the field to look like an ocean with waves undulating through it. The morning dew was also burning off while the sun ascended into a cloudless sky. As his eyes drank in the sights, Dakota smelled the rich loamy earth and clean, crisp air blowing past him.

“It certainly is beautiful.”

His stomach performing a whale call pulled him from the sight.

“Right…food.”

Having already explored the farmstead, he turned his attention to the forest bordering the fields. The same forest which he had escaped the goblins from.

“Am I that hungry?”

His stomach performing another whale call, this time with an added urgency was the difference maker.

“Well, I either die of starvation or dozens of small, rusty knife wounds.”

With that encouraging thought, Dakota strode into the woods.

Stealthily creeping through the forest with the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox had been his original idea. The reality was quite different. *Crunch…crack…crackcrackcrack. Dakota hobbled away from a fallen log.

“Darn thing looked sturdy enough.”

He peered through the gloom of the underbrush painfully aware of his lack of stealth.

“It would be so easy to sneak attack me right now.”

He kept looking through the trees while considering his options. He could tromp back to the farm (funny, he was already thinking of it as his farm), but that left him hungry and without a food source. He could continue crashing through the forest, making a racket and possibly attracting unwanted attention or…or what? Or nothing? There weren’t any other options.

Dakota slumped onto an old tree, mental exhaustion suddenly rearing its head as the small pit of despair he had been holding in finally broke loose.

What was going on.

His head in his hands he let out a shuddering breath.

“I want to go home.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

His vision blurring, he thought of his family, they were probably wondering what had happened to him and where he was. Nothing about his situation made sense and worst of all…he was getting really hungry.

The despondency passed quickly, leaving him oddly dazed for a moment. Dakota gave his head a shake trying to figure out why he had been feeling down…

“Probably just the hunger pangs.”

As he started hiking through the woods again, a faint trickling sound caught his ear. A few minutes later, he stood on the bank of a gurgling stream.

The stream was ten feet across and shallow. It was broken up by the odd large boulder and quickly bent out of sight to the left and right. Dipping his hand in, he found the water was cool without being icy. Dakota had no idea whether this type of stream would contain fish, but he was sure willing to find out.

After searching around, he found a slender willow branch which would make a good pole. Using one of the knives he had looted off the goblins, he notched the end creating a slot.

He was tempted to use his shoelaces as a line but was loath to cripple his ability to explore. Instead, he rooted up a long weed and stripped it down. It was weak but better than nothing. Unfortunately, tying the stalk to the end of his improvised pole created a new problem. The stalk became weak at the tie-off point.

Dakota glanced down at his shoelaces.

“One must make sacrifices.”

Undoing one shoelace, he tied it to the end of the pole. It was only a couple of feet long and, as he examined it closer, was actually made up of a series of smaller fibres woven together. He smacked himself on the forehead.

“Idiot.”

Retying the lace to his shoe, He rooted up three long weeds and wove them together to form a braid which retained plenty of strength after being tied to the pole.

Dangling his pole and line over the stream, Dakota encountered his final challenge, the hook.

“Now, you might think to yourself, ‘How hard could making a little old fishing pole be?’ and, in some respects, you would be right. Up until this point, it hadn’t been terribly difficult in constructing the pole and line, in fact, just about anyone could make it this far. But put yourself in my shoes. You're in the middle of a random forest which you were Narnia’ed to with no food, negligible survival skills, and no one to ask for help. How would you do it?”

Dakota held the unfinished fishing pole in his hands thinking.

“Hook, gotta make a hook.”

He had looked for a sharp rock but hadn’t found any that would work.

Grabbing a fallen twig, he tried whittling a hook but had no luck with that either. Finally, he patted his jeans.

“What have I got in my pocket?”

He produced… his wallet? How had he not realized that was there? He supposed it was such a familiar weight it hadn’t bothered him while exploring.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any pictures of his family which he sorely regretted. He clutched the worn leather to his chest, it was still a wonderful piece of home in a foreign land.

Dakota closed the wallet, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand.

“I’m getting soft, three days and I’m already crying over sentimentality.”

Sadly, his wallet hadn’t contained any item worthy of becoming a fishing hook (a high honour in his estimation), so back to the drawing board it was. And by drawing board, he meant the middle of the forest.

After fiddling with a few more items, none of which worked, he decided to walk back to the farm.

“Too bad I was never an earring guy.”

As he tromped through the brush, he came across berry bushes. Dakota wasn’t a total idiot; however, so he didn’t immediately cram his face. The berries looked like blueberries but their skin was smoother and the little fronds sticking out the end of the berry (he didn’t know what they were called) were slightly larger.

He plucked a berry and rubbed it between his fingers. Purple juice stained his nails as the skin peeled off. Tentatively, he licked the juice. It was sweet, intoxicatingly so. He put the berry in his mouth and rolled it around before spitting it out. He wanted to eat but dying of severe abdominal pain and diarrhea seemed like a bad way to go. He would see if any reactions cropped up from tasting the berry then decide whether he wanted to eat them or not.

He continued his trek to the farm, eventually emerging into the field adjacent to the barn. As he stepped past the trees and into the field, a feeling of peace settled on him. Something about the farmstead called to him. He couldn’t say exactly what but he had the distinct urge to start planting. To watch something grow. He had never enjoyed gardening much, the few times his family had one, but now he thought he might start a gardening bed or two when he got home.

He had already peaked inside the barn when he initially explored the farmstead but this time he fully entered. The interior was in better shape than the outside, the timber posts running down the main corridor looked solid and unrotten. The floor was covered in debris, mostly scraps of wood and old hay, although Dakota did spot the odd piece of rusted metal.

There were animal stalls to the left of the main door, each with a big swinging gate and a trough attached to the outside wall. Opposite the stalls and immediately to the right of the door was a workshop. A decrepit bench ran the length of the wall while shelving units clung to the ceiling above it. Both bench and shelves looked as if they hadn’t seen use for a long time.

Skipping past the workshop he noticed a set of steep stairs leading to the second story. Wood creaked as he climbed, each footfall sending clouds of dust swirling away.

“ACHOO.”

Wiping his nose, Dakota’s head popped into the hayloft. Sunlight poked through the roof, sending glowing beams across the room. Padding into the middle, he gained an appreciation for how much stuff you could fit in a space like this. The peak of the ceiling was probably twenty feet high. Multiply that by forty feet wide and sixty feet long and you had…uh, a lot of square footage.

The Hayloft (It seemed a fitting name) didn’t have anything else of interest other than an old rope bundled in one corner which he was tempted to make a rope swing out of. Holding up the decomposing rope, he decided it would have to wait.

Heading to the main floor, he began rummaging through the junk, looking for a potential fish hook. As he rummaged, he came to the conclusion that while he might be in a world with goblins and a monotone voice which said you had levels, it was still a world which had experienced the industrial revolution. The rusted gear in his hands was a testament to that fact.

Dakota kept looking; however, nothing quite worked. He found a couple of promising metal scraps, but they were either too heavy or too large. He leaned against a post, surveying the room. Only one corner left to look through. As he pulled away, his shirt caught on something. A bent nail poked from the wood, a few fibres hanging from its rusted surface.

“You’ll do nicely.”