It was relatively peaceful for two sunrises, mostly because I was careful. I had spent the last two days exploring the surrounding area, looking for food and watching more and more leaves turn yellow, orange and red.

Today I couldn’t be so careful, I couldn’t find any more Bane Berries, so I needed to find something else to eat. I had practiced sneaking around, but I wasn’t great at it, better than before, but having a single eye really messed up my depth of view.

I decided to go to the creek to look for things to eat, I was planning to wait for a creature of some sort to come and drink some water. Hopefully I’ll be able to eat this day, my mind was getting affected, and I kept making more mistakes, I had accidentally eaten something called a ‘Towel Cap’. It had a white stalk with a black top that flowed down.

The description told me it was a type of mushroom carrying potent toxins. I thought it was fine until I ate it and couldn’t move half of my body.

My one working wing and part of my body still felt fuzzy, but every moment it did get better.

Today the sun decided to hide behind gray blobs in the sky, the forest was in the dangerous levels of being dark, something that made me want to stay inside, which was reinforced by the many noises that filled the forest, which never happened when the sun was up. I couldn’t stay inside today however; I felt my hunger was on the breaking point.

I was too far to turn back now anyway; I was already at the creek, hiding in a bush that was shrouded in the dark, waiting.

It was slow, horribly slow, the cold wasn’t helping too. It was even more horrible when a creature I knew I had no chance of killing appearing, I had to force myself to look away as my hunger kept on whispering about the sack of meat just there for taking. I didn’t even know what a sack was!

As the day progressed, water started falling from the skies, it was something that I had never seen before so I was in awe, I couldn’t say it was pretty, but it was an interesting event. That awe turned to despair as the water kept falling with no signs of stopping, it was getting louder and louder each moment, and colder.

I grumbled mentally at my bad luck, I was hoping for the white pup to appear, yet even I wouldn’t want to go out either if I knew the conditions of today.

Do I even want to kill it?

I wasn’t sure, I was starting to enjoy seeing it, probably due to it being the only creature that didn’t want me dead all the time. Sure, it was going to kill me when we first met, but now we kept a distance from each other.

I was sure I was going to attack it anyway; I could barely keep myself from attacking the larger creatures. After a long time of waiting in the cold, the water started to slow down, before stopping completely. The sun had also decided to come up after the water left, which was nice.

Suddenly, my mind turned clear, and all my attention focused on a group of creatures flying high above the treetops, circling around the area of the creek. I was shivering before due to the cold, but I stopped moving completely. My excitement of finding something to eat was muffled, yet I still felt it as it increased once the creatures started descending.

These creatures had something that looked like fur, yet it was too glossy to be fur. I remembered that I saw a creature similar to these, yet these were larger, and there were so many of them. They had black bodies with white dots and streaks of lines breaking up the darkness. They had a strange pointed red mouth and red feet ending with three claws on each foot,

They landed on the creek or beside it. I felt slightly jealous about their beautiful wings, yet that didn’t matter once I ripped them off.

Focus, the wings aren't what I need...

I shook myself out of my distracting thoughts and waited. There were many creatures, some were still flying high above.

I wonder if I can lure them with [Appraisal]…

[Name] - [???] [Age] - [11 months] [Species] - [Avian] [Sub Species] - [Starcrow] [Level] - [7/25]

The one I used [Appraisal] on, snapped its head towards my direction, I watched as it scanned the tree line. Other Starcrows paid little attention to this Starcrow. The Starcrow cautiously went back to drinking the water. My second [Appraisal] didn’t do much, my third one however, caused the Starcrow to screech while spreading its wings.

Yet it didn’t come rushing at me like every other creature I’ve used it on, the worst part was that it alerted the rest of the Starcrows, something I didn’t want to happen. Thankfully, they only looked over and ignored the Starcrow, only a couple looked towards me, which caused some panic to set in, but they looked away.

I could almost feel the frustration the Starcrow was experiencing. So, I used [Appraisal] one last time. The Starcrow puffed up and appeared bigger, it opened its strange mouth and started approaching where I was hidden.

I wanted to see how close it would come to me before it would notice me, but my patience was already thin as it got in striking distance, I used all my strength and jumped at the Starcrow, the Starcrow tried to move out the way, but it was too close, with a sickening crunch the Starcrow went limp and I hurried back into the bush.

I gave some attention to the blue rectangle that appeared once I was back in the bush.

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[Starcrow] has been defeated!

There wasn’t a [Level up] blue rectangle, but I ignored that; I was more interested in eating.

The blood of the Starcrow almost made me stop, but I continued, I was too close to the other Starcrows to be able to eat in peace.

Once I got far enough, I was just about to start eating, but I heard the bush in front of me rustle and out came a certain white pup. It was about to take another step, until its golden eyes met mine.

Of course, you come along at the worst time.

I stared at it, I tried to figure out what it was thinking, but it's strange eyes made it hard. After a few moments, the pup came closer, and I moved back with the Starcrow still in my mouth, tempting me with its blood.

It didn’t work for too long as once I backed up into a tree, the pup was already in biting distance. It was strange how it didn’t attack me; it was looking at my food, however, which was basically the same thing as attacking me.

I let go of the Starcrow, yet I pierced it with my leg to keep it in place. The pup looked at the Starcrow and back at me before it slowly raised one of its legs and towards my broken eye. I stared at it, and had no idea what to do, this was all so strange.

I had no trust in the pup, and I had no reason to trust it. I evaded its leg, and it froze. Seeing how this was getting to nowhere, I snapped at its leg, my teeth sinking easily into its leg. I didn’t hold onto its leg for long as I already had enough food and I’d rather not have to deal with something stronger than me.

The pup yelped, and gave me some room, but it didn’t leave.

Why are you bothering me today?!

I was ready to fight until I saw the bite wound I gave to the pup heal in front of my eye, allowing it to stand on it.

I want that...

I felt jealous, out here everything that attacked me gave me some sort of permanent effect, yet this pup could just remove such effects!

My jealousy went unnoticed as the pup continued staring at me, that’s when I had an idea. It was an idea I hated, yet having one eye was an awful experience.

With a struggle, I pushed the Starcrow’s corpse towards the pup, but I kept my foot on it, the pup looked at me, its eyes not giving any hint of what was going through its mind. I pointed to the leg it healed, and moved my face so my broken eye was facing the pup.

I waited for anything and was rewarded with something pressing on the top of my head. I slightly panicked and moved away, but the weight remained, and a warmth started to enter through where the pup’s leg was.

Gradually my body felt less sore, until long after the blood stopped pouring from the Starcrow I felt my wing once again and I could see through my other eye. I felt ravenous, however, which was a good trade-off considering I was now fixed up.

Once I felt the weight remove itself from me, I let go of the Starcrow’s long dead corpse and backed away from the pup, who in turn didn’t pay any attention to me and rather started eating the Starcrow.

I left before my ravenous hunger could further affect my judgement.

I arrived back at the creek, yet there was nothing here, only the traces of the Starcrows were left behind. The sun was no longer straight above me, yet I was certain I could still make it back home before the sun sets due to the pup.

I had an idea to get food, and I didn’t like it at all. I had an extremely low chance of finding a creature during this time as it was getting darker and from what I’ve seen, creatures that are here during the day disappear once darkness starts to approach.

However, once the darkness was here, the forest was suddenly filled with shadowy creatures. And I had a creature in mind, I didn’t know exactly how it looked like, but it was smaller than me.

I saw it when I was traversing towards the creek, every moment that pasted, it would twitch, and when it’s seven white eyes spotted me, it ran at me while making a shrill cry. Like every time something tried attacking me, my body had a sudden urge to go away from it and I was able to evade it completely.

I heard a thunk when I was running away, and it didn’t chase after me. I had wanted to check what had happened to it, but the incident from a couple of moons ago was still clear in my mind.

I wonder how it tastes.

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The sky was turning orange, yet the forest was already so dark. I was slightly worried about this as the day seemed to have progressed faster than I remembered, but I might have remembered it wrong.

I was hiding behind a small rock formation, yet I was sure I would be seen easily. I was sure those seven eyes weren’t there to just look creepy.

I wasn’t too far from home, but I didn’t go closer as I wasn’t sure if that thing was still there.

I waited and listened on as the forest got noisy.

It was pitch black once I heard the creaking of wood and the leaves and branches shaking. Curious, I looked over the outcrop towards where the noise was coming from and with the help of the moonlight that escaped through the canopy every time the trees shook, I saw something with four appendages steadily climbing through the trees. It was absolutely massive and didn’t seem to care about the moonlight as every now and then the moonlight would lighten up parts of its fur.

At one point its massive weight partially broke a tree, the tree somehow staying up, yet at an angle. Yet even though the back of the massive creature was exposed to the sun, it paid no attention. This, however, allowed me to see that the fur of the creature was not black, but rather it was a dark gray.

I watched dumbfounded at such a creature just existing, it made me completely forget that I was hungry until it went further into the forest.

I was really starting to regret this idea.

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Surprisingly, I’ve only seen one creature pass by, however that could be explained that creature didn’t bother hiding. If I was that big, I wouldn’t bother too.

I'm so hungry...

That must’ve been the fourth time my mind reminded me.

I was starting to regret having the pup heal me, but that regret stopped as I heard something crack not too far away, yet I was too distracted that I had no idea where the crack came from. I waited for any other noise and was rewarded with a single ‘tik’.

It’s infront of me, I’m certain it sees me.

I tried looking for the creature, yet it brought no results, but I could still hear it and it was so ever close. Then something fell right in front of me, it was a red leaf, like the thousands I saw.

I looked up and saw a shadow staring back at me.

I didn’t wait for my body to respond and rather I ran forwards. I made it just as the creature landed on the ground, it barely made any noise.

Looking back, I used [Appraisal] and for the first time, the creature didn’t respond in any way.

[Name] - [???] [Age] - [3 years] [Species] - [Hunter] [Sub-Species] - [Lurker] [Level] - [???/???]

Wait this is the same species as that Stalker?!

I know it's dark, but I was certain that the Stalker and the Lurker are completely different. The Lurker looked similar to a human.

It stood up and was hunched, its legs and arms were extremely long and thin while its torso had what looked like spikes on the back. It turned its head slowly and the red eyes of the Stalker greeted me, yet these felt intelligent compared to the Stalker.

After the initial surprise to the Lurker, my mind didn’t bother with the danger of the encounter, rather it thought of something completely different.

How do you taste?