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Strange noises wake me up, not where I remember sleeping, is mega strange for me. I feel a cool outside breeze, and I can just feel nature around me, not a room. It isn’t dark, I’m not wet and don’t have strange things on me, but I am dirty, and it smells… nice.

My eyes hurt though, the little bit I can see in front of me, I see… colors. Brown and green things are all over, there are leaves all over the ground in different colors too. Everything has been gray or black for so long, now I can see so many flashy things, and I have to blink a lot while my eyes take it all in. When I close my eyes to the colors, something else shows to me. A bunch of lines all over the place, and I have no idea what it all means. I open my eyes again, and the lines go away, and it isn’t as strange.

I’m in a forest, wake in a log, and a frog is looking down at me, sticking to the ceiling.

I’m a dog, there’s a frog, we’re in a log, in a forest.

Instead of the strange smell of the alpha’s rooms, all I smell is dirt and trees, like I’m outside.

The frog’s eyes bulge in front of me, and I growl at it.

Rolling around to put my feet under me, they don’t feel strange anymore. I put them under me, and get up. The frog is above me, when I get my feet on the ground, I try to reach up with my teeth, but it crawls through a hole. Looking around, I’m in a dark log, but not far from me there is light, normal sun and fresh air.

Not knowing what else to do, I get up and walk to where I can see. A huge forest is all over, trees everywhere, and they smell fresh and no chemically smells in general where I am. Taking a deep breath, and letting it all out, it is hard to think of what happened with me and the alpha. It didn’t happen long ago, so sure, it was scary, but I must have gotten loose, because I’m out here and everything is ok.

My stomach growls like I haven’t eaten all morning, which I guess I haven’t. What is best to do when you are lost? Follow your nose.

I sniff the air and smell something other than trees and fresh air, nuts? They aren’t just strange rocks I can eat anymore, I know they are a different food, but I still shouldn’t eat lots of them.

I think they are the things all over the ground in tree areas back at home, but the smell being so strange, I want to find out what it is. Curiosity makes the dog better and stronger, that’s what I’ve always thought.

Jogging towards the scent as it gets stronger, I see a big dirt hill. At first, it looks big, but I get closer, and it is huge. It is bigger than the alpha’s house, bigger than my old real home, with holes all over it.

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Sneaking up closer, I’m being super quiet, along the ground there are little bushes that I can crawl close to or under, and I can look around. Not far in front of me, I see a small open area. A monster crawls into view. This monster has some face claws that make clacking noises as it walks in front of me. At first, I think that it can see me, so I crouch down even lower, if I could disappear into the ground, I would.

This monster isn’t alone either, it walks next to a few others. I’ve seen ants outside, and they are tiny, smaller than my paws. This one is bigger than me, way bigger, and being alone seeing this thing, I doubt it tastes like the smaller ants.

It walks by with its friends, well I say friends, I don’t know if one bullies the other, but they walk by like they can’t see me. I give the big hill a lot of distance as I walk around the area, sneaking under bushes when I can, even waiting for a while looking around and listening for danger, but my empty stomach is telling me I really need to eat something. My eyes widen as I get too close to another small group walking around.

Hoping it is just me that can hear my tummy rumbling, the ground feels safe under a berry bush. Still don’t know what these things taste like, even if they taste gross, it couldn’t hurt eating a few of them, right?

When the bugs eventually walk away, I sniff one of the berry things one more time. I don’t get much of a different smell from them. They are a different color than the bushes, and little circles, sort of like strange rocks. I pull one off of the bush and it hits the ground. My tummy being so empty makes me take a cautious lick. Tasting at the stem point, it is a little sour, but it doesn’t stop me from closing my eyes and licking it off the ground.

A tone sounds around me, scaring me as I hit the ground, hoping nothing else hears the noise, “Poison resistance reaches level one.” Nothing else jumps out at me if it can hear it, so I keep slowly eating the berries.

The juices coat the inside of my mouth, and I'm not sure if I have ever tasted something so sour. In truth, I mostly have had dry food, maybe a little tasty food sometimes, but the little bit of the meat of the berry, makes my eyes water. It is better than an empty stomach though, and even the small thing enters the empty pit that is my stomach.

Pulling a few more berries off of the bush, and licking them off of the ground and chewing them, my eyes water so much, I wipe them off on grass under me, which is really hard to do. I eat some grass to get some of the taste out of my mouth too. It isn’t tasty either, but it is better than the strange berry taste. Shaking more of the gross taste out of my mouth, and the water out of my eyes, I stop eating them. It might be partially filling my stomach, but it is so hard to eat more of those.

Walking in a big circle around the hill, I look all over for more things to eat. Another strange smell fills my nose as I walk around, and it draws me forwards. I see another ant, but it is laying down on the ground.

The ant isn’t moving, I walk up closer and it lets me see all over. Looking at the other side of its body, it has a big hole in it. Parts of its hard skin are broken, and a lot of the inside bits are gone, unless it is how they look without it. Getting closer to smell, the body smells like strange meat. If food that I usually eat is left outside for a little while, if I were a betting puppy, and I am, I would think it would smell like this. Hearing some noises close by, I look for the closest bush and rush to it and hide.

“Forest Survival reaches level one. Stealth skill reaches level one. Congratulations, you are now level one. You have a choice of multiple jobs, choose one to continue.”

Shaking my head, I push away the loud strange noises telling me something and I tune it out. Another bug, long and with many legs crawls up and digs its face into the ant’s open skin. Not long after that though, many ants show up and attack the long bug. After a few seconds, they rip apart the long bug, and it eventually stops moving. There are so many ants that they take all pieces of it away. The broken ant body is still on the ground though, and they don’t do anything with it.

It seems like a dangerous thing to take from the ant body, but the berry things don’t just taste bad, but since they are the only thing in my stomach, it makes my tummy queasy.

I’ve never eaten bug before.