It took her well until darkness took the skies to finally get the fire started. Her hands were red and sore from rubbing the stick for so long and if her stomach wasn’t demanding her to feed, she would go to sleep. But she has finally succeeded in her task of making a fire! Such a simple task honestly took hours and from her experience with it, she was not a very patient woman. If it wasn’t a matter of life and death, she would’ve given up on the 10th failed attempt because at that point she was ready to say screw it. Starving to death sounded like a better option than bursting a nerve in her brain from anger.
However, she stuck through with it and got a pitiful fire going. She added more leaves and gently blew the flames to keep the fire going before grabbing a stick and trying to stab a hole through the fish to cook it. It might’ve seemed stupid to think it would be easy to stab through a living creature with a regular stick but she was very tired, okay? A brief thought born from her rage at constant failure after failure made her consider ripping the fish apart and tossing it away but that would be beyond stupid. So, she gave up on trying to skewer it with the pathetic tree branch she had that wouldn’t be able to stab through a leaf.
She briefly considered just tossing the fish in the flames and just letting it cook. Then once it looked ready for eating, she would quickly put her hand in the fire and grab the fish. But putting her hand directly in fire went against everything that made her a modern human. That option was immediately thrown off the table and it was too dark to look for another branch with the thickness and sharpness required to stab through the fish. Giving up wasn’t an option either. Considering she was lucky enough to get this fire going and catch a fish at the same time, she was going to properly cook and eat a god damn fish.
After much consideration, she was forced to take one of the thick branches she used for the fire to use as a skewering stick. She really didn’t have any other option besides that or the plan from earlier where she’ll have to stick her hand in flames. The front tip of the stick was burnt black but the end where she grabbed it wasn’t hot at all. Once she impaled the fish on the stick and placed it above the fire, she finally felt like she could take a breath.
“Awooo!” In the distance, a wolf’s howl echoed throughout the forest.
She didn’t lose her grip on her cooking fish but she did place her rock much closer to her after hearing that sound. Wolves came in packs except under special occasions. Even with her rock, there was little she could do against a pack of wolves besides give them a satisfying meal. Her body had to be pretty tasty, right? There might not be much meat on her but it was something! It would be pretty funny if the wolves didn’t bother eating her because she tasted bad or something.
‘Do wolves eat their prey alive or do they kill it first before eating? I know some animals eat and don’t bother killing the prey. Letting them slowly suffer while watching themselves being eaten.’ She thought.
‘I definitely need to find a rock shiv or something to kill myself so I don’t have to go through something like that.’ She planned to search for a smaller weapon tomorrow.
Several minutes went by of more scary noises going through the forest but nothing at all happening around her. Her fish was finally cooked to perfection and she ripped into it like a wild beast. It was a nice juicy thick fish too. It held plenty of meat to fill her stomach up completely. Once she ate every part of it, including the wide-open eyes of the poor little fishy, she tossed the bones away and realized it was pretty cold. It was going to be tough falling asleep tonight with all these sounds and this wind...
Taking more than five infuriating tries to successfully climb up the tallest tree in sight, she cradled her knees to her chest and rested her head against her legs. The wind continued to blow cold air on her sensitive skin as she tried falling asleep with her rock between her stomach and knees. So, if she had to wake up with an animal nibbling on her toes or something, she can grab it and give it a nice bludgeoning on the skull. It would be a hell of wake-up that she was really hoping wouldn’t happen to her.
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Thoughts like that plagued her throughout the night along with the freezing breezy wind that wouldn’t stop. She found it hard to close her eyes for more than a second thinking about all the animals that could climb trees that could eat her. Whenever she did manage to fall asleep, she would quickly wake up from a nightmare of her being attacked or eaten. Looking up in the sky, it would still be dark as hell and nowhere near morning. Getting a good night’s sleep was impossible for someone like her. How could anyone peacefully fall asleep in such a dangerous situation like this?! Counting sheep didn’t work. Repeatedly saying, “Go to sleep.” in her head worked once then she woke up after being attacked by a group of monkeys who liked human flesh in her dreams.
She didn’t get a good night’s rest in her little tree to say the least. By the time the morning was rising in the sky once again, she was tired beyond belief. Her stomach softly grumbled once she started carefully making her way down the tree. The fear she felt throughout the night was reduced in the daytime even though she knew that animals could attack her regardless if it was day or night. Walking to the stream, she saw heavy bags under her eyes.
“I look like crap...” She dunked her hands in the stream and began washing her face.
“Grrr....” Her heart jumped into her throat as she heard that sound behind her.
This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a drill. This was a real animal behind her right now that probably wanted to eat her. Where was her freaking rock!? God! Why now of all times did this have to happen? Her eyes frantically looked around for a rock that was similar in size to her other rock as she heard the sounds of paws running across the rocks.
She screamed as her body went into flight or fight mode. Ignoring the large rock just a few meters in front of her, she ran as fast as she could towards the nearest tree and climbed up it faster than any monkey or squirrel could. Turning around to see the stupid animal that scared the life out of her, it turned out that it was some weird white weasel thing with sharp teeth around the size of a wolf. It bared its teeth at her as it circled around her tree while keeping its eye on her. Her heart was still beating out of her chest and seeing that such a strange animal that she’s never seen before come after her like that, pissed her off.
Tearing off a piece of bark, she threw it down at the head of the weasel who barked and tried climbing up the tree to get her for doing so. In response to this, she only threw more and more bark down at it for scaring the life out of her. It tried with all its heart to climb up the tree and sink its fangs into her throat. She laughed and laughed as she ripped more bark off the tree and threw it down, antagonizing the big weasel more.
“Pissed, aren’t you? Not as pissed as me, you stupid wiener dog! I hope you get a brain concussion from all this bark I'm throwing at your stupid head! Go die!” She yelled.
“Growl! Bark! Bark! Owow!” It cursed.
“Get the hell out of here before I cook you up tonight! A nice little wiener dog sounds about good tonight! Fish isn’t bad but I've never had weasel before! Keep messing with me and you’ll be in my stomach!” She threatened. She actually wasn’t interested in eating it at all.
“Caw!”
“Caw?” She looked up and behind her to see a giant bird flying down towards her with its talons stretched out.
She was snatched out of the tree by a giant bird with its feet tightly gripped around her shoulders. It felt like it was crushing her bones with its grip! Struggling with all her might, she reached up to free herself before this stupid bird flew her too high up. Pinching, squeezing, clawing, and wildly flailing, did nothing to help her situation. Because of her actions, the bird figured she was more trouble than she was worth when they were about 3,000m up. So, she fell from the sky as that bird flew off into the distance.
So, this was it, huh? She didn’t have enough courage to turn around to see how far she was from the ground as death was imminent regardless. Waking up in this crapsack world with no idea about anything at all, only to die like this. How was that fair?
It wasn’t fair at all! Who said she wanted to wake up in this place?! Why did she have to die like this? Why was all of this even happening?! Suddenly waking up in the middle of a forest with no memory about who she is or even the world she was in. She knew for a damn fact that that weasel and that huge bird weren’t normal animals.
‘I don’t want to die...! I really don’t want to die! Someone save me please!’ Her tears were swallowed by the sky as the ground suddenly became covered in blood, bones, and organs.