The woods behind the apartment complex turned out to be as tame as it had ever been, even with my new tremorsense to help me notice anything, the worst thing I encountered was something that I would describe as a 'dire squirrel' that took one look at me and fled. I called after it, but I think that this one might have actually been an animal and not a person. And if that didn't just get my blood up. I literally had to guess if anything I encountered now was a person or an animal, and not in the behavioral sense either!

I was still fuming and running a rut in my mind going through all the horrible and bloody ways to dismember, humiliate, and torment the Overseer if I ever got my hands... Those fucking shitters! on them by the time I reach the river. The waters were flowing fairly fast, maybe a recent rain, but thankfully the murky waters were still fairly clear near the edges letting me spot shadows of four to eight foot long fish in the river. Now I'm fairly certain none of the fish in the river grew that big before the Event, so it looks like those 'sweeping improvements' meant an ability to sustain far larger sizes. Hmm, I wonder what that meant for diseases and viruses, where they now supercharged or worse yet, some sort of hive intelligence that infected and overtook their host now? Regardless, focus on fishing first Joe, navel gazing can take place when you're not busy gathering food for an unknown number of hungry people.

I largely ignored most of the fish swimming around in the shaded spots hanging out over the water and looked for flooded burrows. The larger size of the fish themselves made it far easier to spot the places the local catfish had selected for their spawning nest. If those nests were active it would really help narrow down what time of the year it currently was, which was going to be damnedably important going forwards. Selecting a site not far from the shore, I wrapped my head tightly around a tree and sent my tail down into the potential hole poking around and wiggling to encourage any fish inside to bite.

-You have taken 2 points of piercing damage-

Huh, that alert was actually halfway useful. I barely felt that through my scales and the cold water, would have probably mistaken it for poking a branch or a piece of glass. Still, seizing upon the moment, I thrust my tail deeper and crooked it like a hook as I pulled and... Yes! managed to get the bastard by the gills! Pulling my tail back in I smiled seeing the six foot long catfish with sharp pointy teeth struggling against me, trying to swim off and spit out my tail. But I had the bastard well and truly hooked as I pulled him out of the water.

"Well what do you know! A danger noodle is good at noodling!" I announced gaily with a cackle.

Pulling the fish fully out of the water I unwrapped myself from the tree, wrapping the fish more fully in my tail. To hold it still was tough, the damn fish's slime made it like trying to grip a bar of soap. Still either through air drowning or my own efforts I managed to eventually hold it steady enough to line up my heavy metal snout with the back of the fish's head and slam it home as hard as I could, feeling the fish immediately still in my coils. A pained groan filled my chest as I massaged my nose with my tail, definitely needed to find a better spot for delivering heavy blunt impacts. Still looks like it killed the fish so mission accomplished, now for part two.

Uncoiling from around the massive fish I grabbed the knife with my tail, pulling it free of the sheath and sliding a thin slice down the belly of the fish. Really I should clean the slime off first, but I was not going to drag this thing all the way back up the hill through the woods, just to come back down carrying its offal guts, likely in my mouth. Blehch! No, I'm doing that here so I can put that shit to work attracting more fish.

I slowly worked the knife about an inch or two deep before checking to see if I'd made it into the chest cavity and then carefully slicing open the belly being very careful not to go too deep and hit an organ before setting the knife aside and using my tail to start scoping out organs. Oh hey! Egg sacks, and they look to be recently emptied. That must mean it's early to mid summer assuming this lady wasn't late to the party, good to know. Also heard that you can eat those, but I don't know any recipes for that so I'm going to need some experimentation there. Leave the liver inside because I know how to cook that, the rest is now just fish bait. Scoping up the big awful mess of organs up and around my tail, I spilled all of it into the water and wrapped my upper body around a tree again, ready to reel in whatever bit. I even splashed it around a bit to make it seem more like a dying animal to try and make it appeal more to whatever was out there.

Hmm, interesting. It seems my new tremorsense worked somewhat in water. It was even murkier than usual but I was still getting the occasional fuzzy sensation of the general locations and size of the fish. At least a couple seemed to be showing some interest in my bait, That's it little fishes you know you want it. Hey! Where are you goin- OH HOLY SHIT THAT'S BIG! Almost as soon as I detected something massive in the water it rocketed towards me and my bait, its massive toothy jaws taking in my bait and a full five feet of me in one massive bite.

-You have taken 48 points of piercing damage-

–Encounter Quest: King-

I ignored the pop ups, focusing my all on holding my grip on the tree, literally focusing everything I had on constricting to keep this monster from dragging me into the water even as it thrashed, tugged and bit again. I felt the tree splintering under my grip, but I did not feel any fear. Oh no, this was something I had longed for, lusted after, since I first went through puberty. Just me, alone, facing off with a monster that wanted me dead, and nothing but my own will to survive and maybe a knife to deny it with. I felt the pain of my injury, and oh how it made my blood sing, made that suffocating cloud of civility that kept the primal instincts of man suffocated boil away. For the first time since my first hunting trip, I felt alive in a way that was nigh impossible to describe as I felt my face split into a wide wild smile.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"You want me!?" I crowed at my foe, "Come up here and get me!"

Using all of those powerful constrictor muscles I pulled at the beast pulling at me and managed to pull it halfway out of the water revealing itself to be an absolute monster of an alligator gar, probably pushing twenty feet long and maybe four foot across. God damn! I didn't even know those things lived in the Trinity! And the Event has made them even nastier! What a wonderful meal you will be! Another mutual tugging contest pulled the beast almost completely free of the water, leaving just its tail thrashing in the shallows. Not to be defeated the monster chomped on my tail again and I felt its teeth impact each side of my spine. A snarling hiss ripped its way free as I realized that the biggest threat was no longer getting dragged in, but getting bisected by the beast's jaws. Good thing I had a rope to tie its bloody mouth shut!

Releasing the tree, I pulled myself over to the beast, wrapping myself around its jaws and constricting hard to keep them closed. Then I wrapped myself further around its head and down its body as the thing began trying to roll, either to try and unravel me or roll us both back into the water. I couldn't let that happen as I could already feel the fatigue starting to cut through the battle high. I needed to end this now or I'd collapse and this damned fish would drag my back into the water. Good thing I knew how to deal with a gar.

To remove the head you just need a good hard snap up! I twisted all those cords of muscles I had wrapped around the thing's face to pull its entire head sharply skywards so hard that I heard and felt a crack like a shattering tree branch. And down! This time pulling in the other direction I snapped the fish's head down a full one hundred eighty degrees drawing out another crack like a sundered oak as it was internally decapitated. The thing still managed a grinding chewing motion around my coils before it finally died.

Going limp and gasping for breath I finally let myself relax and pulled up my status to see how I was doing. I was greeted by a rather large backlog of updates as I did so.

-You are inflicted with the Grab condition!-

-You suffered 13 tearing damage!-

-You are inflicted with the Bleed condition!-

-You suffered 28 piercing damage!-

-You suffered 15 tearing damage!-

-You suffered 18 tearing damage!-

-You suffered 24 piercing damage!-

-You suffered 2 crushing damage!-

-You are no longer suffering Grab-

-Prehensile Tail has leveled up! x4-

-Gain 12xp-

-Prehensile Tail has reach rank E-

-Tremorsense has leveled up! x3-

-Gain 9xp-

-Ferrous Mutagen has leveled up! x4-

-Gain 12xp-

-Grappling Strike has leveled up! x3-

-Gain 9xp-

-Constrict has leveled up! x5-

-Gain 15xp-

–Encounter Quest: King of the River!–

–1 Mini-boss Defeated–

–CalculatingParticipation…–

–100% Damage dealt–

–Performance: Unbelievable!–

–SysAutoGen_EQReward…–

–Received: Selective Skill Token: C–

-Random Mutagen F: Lithic Mutagen

–SysAutoGen_BonusLoot…–

–Received 5pt!–

–Gained 200xp!–

–Level up! x2–

–Gained 3pts!–

–Health: 84/256–

–Stamina: 2/55–

As the notifications ran through my vision and that horrid bubbling needling sensation began to flow down my entire body once again, I found myself laughing. I laughed long and loud, nearly passing out in the middle of it as I struggled to breathe. That was a secondary concern now. After all, I had survived! I had fought an honest to god monster on my own and I had snapped its fucking spine even as it was chewing on me! I don't think I could have been happier unless God and Jesus both came down from heaven with the Overseer tucked under their arms in a headlock to give me a high five!

I'm not sure how long I lay there as the exuberance and euphoria of both survival and victory slowly wore off leaving me with the dull ache of the after party and weeping wounds. I could handle that back at the complex, I still had a couple first aid kits. I just had to grab my fish and... Ah hell. I forgot I don't have any hands again. How on God's Green Earth am I going to drag both of these fish back up through the woods?