The forest was as lively as ever, but there weren't a lot of people here. It was an immense contrast to the noise inside the city. In the rest area was a parking spot, empty now but in the tourist season a man would have a better luck winning the lottery than finding a spot. Next to it was a large cabin where people could spend the night. Besides the cabin there was a small dirt road that was the beginning of the trail.

Walking past the cabin, it was like an entire different world. Part of the reason why she liked this place so much was because it had everything that lacked from her daily life.

Inside the city you would have better luck finding the lucky numbers and win the lottery than finding a tree if you tried searching for it. Here? Pine trees, other kind of trees, some other kind of trees, normal trees and more of the same trees. She didn't know what kind of trees they were, they were tall, their presence both calming and empowering as they shielded her from the sun.

The fact that there was a natural forest somewhat close to her home was a blessing. She remembered coming here with her parents when she was young, when they were actually her parents. The memories hurt when she remembered the way she had spoken to them the day before.

She remembered visiting a beautiful river back then with them. She didn't know where it was, but hopefully the trail would lead her right to it. She had no desire to get lost in the forest, so for now, she would stick to the trail.

Without realizing it, she'd walked quite far from the cabin after half an hour of walking, so she decided to have her first rest on the side of the road. Unfortunately she couldn't find any good spots to stop, but she wasn't in a race.

Breathing deeply, surrounded by woods, the only thing that was missing was a serial killer chasing her to add some excitement. She felt pretty confident in being able to outrun the hypothetical killer.

Taking a few things from her bag to eat, she took off with a handful of pistachios in her mouth. Walking and admiring the nature led to her being lost in her thoughts. Sometimes exploring very unlikely scenarios and trying to be a hero, others she thought about what she could do better to help her family, besides running away.

Thinking about her parents worsened her mood, so she avoided thinking about it. Out of sight, out of mind.

A few hours passed since she last took a break and she hadn't even realized it. The sun showed it was afternoon, and she liked that she could check that without looking at her phone. The moment her mind wandered there, she stopped. She actually hadn't used her phone the entire time, which was unusual for her, "I should go on more of these walks."

Taking a long since deserved break, she stopped and finished another bottle of water, only now realizing how much she's already drank.

She checked her remaining bottle of water, "This won't last me another day, darn it. I thought I was prepared enough, but it seems like finding the river is my best option if I really want to spend the night here."

To her defence, she was prepared, just not for an overnight sleep. The sun, the sweat and the walking combined in force to devour the water in her body. Searching for a Hail Mary wasn't like her, but she didn't want to give up. She knew approximately where it was, but an estimation had a lot of differences with actual knowledge.

Of course, she'd already been walking without a purpose in mind, so it wasn't like this would change anything. And she could combine the two and perhaps find a spot close to the river where she could spend the night.

Sometimes her genius was almost frightening.

She stopped and considered exactly where the river was. She knew the river was about a kilometer away to her right, off from the road she was on now, but going in a straight line inside a forest was easier said than done, let alone a kilometer away. Also the road wasn't a straight line and in certain parts of it she could even miss it entirely.

The question was, where was she in the road? The mountains were still some distance away, but she didn't remember the map well enough to know if that meant she was past the river, or if she still had a chance to meet it. It was annoying, but she would have to look into her phone and hope she'd taken a picture of it last time she came here.

Looking down at her phone, "Did I have the same phone back then?" she cursed quietly and quickly dived down the memory lane to find out the latest date. She'd gotten the phone two years ago, which was about the same time she'd last visited this place. With crossed fingers she scrolled and skimmed through over five hundred photos which she'd taken in a single year.

Not finding anything related to the Grimwoods in the photos, she had to accept defeat... after searching through them another half dozen times.

After twenty minutes, finally having gotten tired of going through the same photos over and over, she decided she needed a new plan. Plan A was hoping for a signal from Gods, Plan B was hoping the Gods were kind enough to give signal to her phone, Plan C was climbing a tree and plan Omega was go in at it and hope for the best regardless.

She liked the letter Omega, but liked more how Plan C sounded like. Checking her phone briefly for any hopes of plan B being active, she quickly put it back to her pocket. Plan C it was.

Now, climbing a tree sounds a lot easier than it is, and that's because it is. But unfortunately, countless hours on the internet had given her an idea to make the impossible possible.

She took off her jacket and went about finding a thin tree to climb, one she could wrap her hands with the jacket around. That part of the plan turned out to be quite worse than she thought would have been. Her arms weren't that long, so neither was her jacket and even trees that seemed like they were thin enough for her, weren't.

"Finally!" She couldn't help but exclaim after an hour of searching. By that point she was fairly far from the road, and if it weren't for the tall mountain close by, she wasn't sure what she would do if she lost her way.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Hopefully, she also wouldn't.

It was a comfortable fit and she quickly tried climbing the tree... and it was hard. She was stumped, but she'd already invested too much into this plan... which seemed to be a trait with how she went about her failures.

Before trying again, she rested for a bit, understanding that her state wasn't the best and continuing to try would only get her more tired.

And finally, after convincing herself it was still a good idea, she managed to climb up the tree, enough that if she fell her legs were toast, but not enough that she could see above the other trees... and she still wasn't over the worst part, the branches.

Using her shirt to climb had been fine up until that point, but things got trickier once she had to move her shirt up and there was a log with the thickness of her torso and the length of a rope blocking the way.

And after a bit of wriggling around, letting go of her shirt with one hand, trying, failing and succeeding in managing to climb up the branch and move from it, she let go of her breath. Gymnastics ten meters in the air was not what I signed up for. Looking up at the dozen different branches blocking her way, she cursed internally. This better be worth it.

Finally, she managed to climb to the top of the tree, exhausted but happy. She got a good look of her surroundings, standing on top of a thin branch, her arms hugging the trunk of the tree tightly. "What do you want first, good or bad news, self?" She asked.

And in character she sardonically replied to herself, "Of course the river would be right fucking next to me."

She shook her head, the annoyance fading as quickly as it came. It felt freeing being so high up, the cold breeze hitting her face, overlooking the entirety of the forest. If she wasn't afraid for dear life she would free up a hand and take a picture of it for her friends. Not that she had many, but perhaps someone on her social media would appreciate the effort that went into taking that picture... not.

She took a look for a good area to spend the night that was also close to the river. That one was a little bit harder, because despite the river providing one of the most essencial needs of the human body, it was also fairly far from a good camping spot. Not that she had camping equipment, but still annoying.

Making a plan quickly, she decided that following the river to the mountain was probably her best option for now, and she could easily find the road from there on the way back. Plan made, she now faced a different problem, How the fuck did everyone in the movies got down from the trees once they climbed all the way up?

Taking a glance down below wasn't a smart idea. She got dizzy just imagining the trip down, but it wasn't like she could spend her entire life up in the tree. Theoretically, it should be easier to get down. She had a lot of branches for help and climbing down didn't require as much strength as climbing up.

That was all, of course, theoretical. In practice she almost killed herself after climbing down the second branch from the top. After getting her heart in order, she continued climbing down. Thankfully there weren't any other incidents and she quickly reached the part of the tree she had climbed with the help of her jacket.

Taking off the now worn out jacket, she lunged it around the tree and hugged again. Honestly, if it wasn't so tiring, painful and scary, she would like to try it again some time.

Climbing down didn't take more than two minutes, and after she was back on the ground, she fell and kissed the dirt a couple of times. Her heart was beating fast and a smile was barely hidden in her face.

"I want to tell what I managed to do to my parents, but they would probably kill me and bury the body under the tree I climbed on, so yeah, this stays a secret." She said to herself with a smile.

Now in a better mood, she went on her way, with a proper goal to follow, she was excited. Finally something was going well for her, the river was near and she could already hear the rushing water amidst the rustling of the forest. It was a melody created by nature, a melody that permeated the entirety of the forest and calmed and relaxed her like nothing else had.

Soon she reached the river, and it was a fair bit bigger than she imagined. Though to be fair, she thought she could jump across it if push came to shove, but she would need to be an olympic athlete to make the jump as she came to realise the true size of it. Perhaps she should still try, because if she failed, she would get a quick bath and if she succeeded, her name would go down in history... not.

Crouching down, she formed a cup with her hands and drank merily from the river. Cold and refreshing, but also safe to drink!

The sun was now starting to set, being directly in front of her and forcing her to tilt her head so she wasn't blinded. There weren't as many trees next to the river, so the sun could now shine through brighter than before.

Taking out the empty bottles, she carefully filled them with water, set them on her backpack and got up. She still had some ways to go before she reached the spot she'd found.

If she had the tools, she wanted to try boiling it to remove any possible contaminants or bacteria from it, but since she knew it was safe, she didn't believe she would go through the trouble in the future.

Of course, it was at that moment the ground started to shake. Almost falling into the now raging river, she quickly backed off and put her back on one of the tree's trunk. The earthquake was so bad, she had to wonder what it meant for those in the city, and it kept going seemingly without an end.

Finally, after almost five minutes of shaking, she could stand without feeling like a surf-boarding accident.

And right on que, a blue box appeared,

Status: Effective

Planet: Earth

Dark Matter Concentration: Low

Implied Corruption: High

Priority: High

Without a chance to understand what all of that meant, the box disappeared, quickly replaced by another,

Due to High priority, the System has decided to give limited benefits to the inhabitants of the planet.

Increased recovery rate +200%

Increased experience gain +50%

Bonus attribute points +1 free attribute point

Increased title selection

Increased class rarity by one

Achievement store unlocked early

And just as she finished reading this one, another quickly appeared in front of her, but at that point she'd gotten annoyed at the constant flashes and angrily swiped it away. To her surprise, it went away before she could read it.

She stood still for a second, worried if she'd just missed something important, but quickly realised that worrying would do her no good.

Getting up, she felt more energetic than before, and considering how little time she had to rest between her stant at climbing the tree and now, it felt abnormal.

But if she'd learned anything from video games was one magic word, "Status."

Immediately, a blue screen appeared in front of her, startling her,

Name: Katherine Islaw

Race: Human

Level: 0

Class: None

- Attributes -

Strength: 7

Constitution: 7

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Free: 1

- Skills -

[None]

Well shit, I didn't expect it to actually work...