[T: 24 hours]

It was a hellish struggle for humanity. As people fled to survive the onslaught of the monsters and to find a safe place to hide, the integrity of some groups collapsed. Some people panicked and fled away from the group when a monster ambushed them, others simply got separated for other reasons. For the majority of the humans fleeing, staying in a group for overall safety wasn’t their concern. Their primary concern was their own survival.

However these people would soon find that they had no means of escaping a group of monsters, nor did they have the ability to defend themselves once they had no means of escape. It quickly became common knowledge among the survivors that being in a group was their best means of survival, as numbers allowed for the monsters to be distracted enough for a person with a weapon to quickly dispatch them.

As the number of monsters they killed increased, so did their basic knowledge and understanding of the monsters increase as well. For one, the monsters did not seem to have sentience or intelligence whatsoever. Their basic course of action was to either chase, be on standby or to slowly roam around. They did not seem to have a way to communicate with each other, nor did they even attempt to communicate with each other, as animals with some form of intelligence would do even without a language of any kind.

They were a pack, but not in any sense of human understanding. They did not fight with each other, nor did they compete with each other. They did not seem to have a sense of self at all, yet they regarded anyone other than themselves as “others” to prey upon while simply ignoring other members of their species as if they did not exist. The result from this was that they were collectively cooperative, yet ironically uncooperative. The single-minded dogged mindset of chasing prey dominated their every action, ignoring the acting of any and all actions. And so they would chase prey together, if circumstances allowed it, but not stay together for any other reason other than the fact that they were chasing the same prey. And thus, they were a collectively goal aligned species with no need to compete with one another, but also disconnected as a species in that they had no need to connect with each other.

And so since they had no form of communication of any kind, the monsters would confront them, simply based on the fact that they were in proximity of acknowledgement that there was an “other” in the area.

The monsters were also interesting in the fact that they responded to sound when there was no correct action to undertake, such as chasing prey, but ignored sound as well as everything else when chasing prey. And thus it became known to the survivors that they chased sound by the acknowledgement that prey was in that general direction, but ignored sound when they already had prey to chase in front of them.

But even with this knowledge and even as their abilities to combat the monsters grew they could do nothing but be in constant vigilance. The monsters did not hide in plain sight. Rather they hid in bushes which were in abundance in the forest. And so oftentimes the monsters saw them first before they even noticed the monsters. This would mean that most of the encounters with the monsters started with the death of one of their group, ambushed by a monster hiding behind a bush.

Over time as they got through the initial shock of such extremely hazardous events and through the experience of losing many to the monsters, the survivors slowly developed a natural method of facing the monsters after a couple of hours.

The fear of death,

while wading in its depths,

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

brings need of necessity

The way forward represented a wilderness that foretold a future death for someone within their group. No one really wanted to go forward. But going back meant suicide and standing still meant that the monsters would come to them. Although going forward meant finding new monsters and new danger, the survivors felt neither the option of going back nor standing still was a better option. Humans are a species that persists through hope. And they hoped that the way forward was a way out of this hell. And so naturally they devised tactics they hoped would save them.

Some members of the groups remained logical through their fear, enough to note that those with the weapons to harm the creatures needed to be available and able, in order to be able to kill the monsters once the encounter with a monster started. Thus the people with weapons and the ability to use them effectively would make use of the reason that they had weapons, to stay towards the center of the group. If an ambushed person was able to effectively dodge the ambush, they would then lead the monster to the center of the group and the weapon holders would surround and kill the monster.

One member, a construction worker with a hardhat and a wrench, would pick up small stones and stuff them into his pockets. He would then throw these into the bushes. The monsters were simple enough that if one was hiding in a bush they would just come out. The construction worker would then hit the monster in its claws or arms to use the momentum to shift the claws away from him briefly, as to move the claws away from him, at the same time gaining attention of the monster to himself. If the monster got its claws a little too close he would swing the wrench in order to hit the claws away from him again as he lured the monster to the center of the group where it would get swarmed by the weapon holders.

Others would attempt to copy the construction worker’s method of combat with the limited resources they had, such as a plumber who armed himself with his pipe wrench which he pulled out of his backpack, as well as attaching a hacksaw to his utility belt. The groups would continue trudging further and further away into the forest, better equipped in mind and body, which came at a substantial loss of an incredible amount of life.

As they went one by one the group would hear the sound of running water. They did not speed up to get to the source of the sound. The fear of making one mistake and losing one's life weighed heavily on their minds as they had seen countless lives lost right before their eyes.

They just kept their pace as the sound of running water got closer and closer.

During this time the distance between each tree got further and further as they got closer and closer to the sound of running water where finally there was a small area clear of trees with a small body of water running, the areas clear of trees running along it. And they finally reached the source of the sound, a small brook streaming from the south to the north.

And again people did not rush to drink the water. Only a handful of people cautiously knelt down to drink the water while many simply looked back towards the forest unable to let go of their guard. It was through the rotation of only a handful of people drinking at a time that everyone eventually had their fill.

Someone among the group commented that they liked the fact that they could see along the stream, which alerted many to the fact that they could actually detect monsters and any other threats more easily. Then another commented that, yes indeed they could see better along the stream, perhaps they should follow the body of water? That same person added that they would have water nearby to drink also, which was a need they needed to address regularly.

The opinion to follow along the stream was extremely popular, so much so that no vote or convincing was needed of any kind. Someone then asked, along which way should they follow? Northward or southward?

Opinions slightly split over this question, but the opinions were not strong enough to create a debate or argument of any kind as both choices were based on a feeling rather than a reason.

Everyone was of the same mind to stick together as they were loath to split up which could affect their chances of survival. To everyone which way didn’t matter, since going in no direction wasn’t a choice. Eventually with this train of thought they went along the stream towards the north.