I stare at the fish in disbelief as if they are not real. After all I just saw them get killed via a monstrosity made up of thousands of teeth. I am thinking about whether or not this is more concerning than the fact I am about to die from hunger and after no thinking at all I decide that my hunger is more important.

I then for the first time realize that if I eat the fish raw it will most likely kill me just as fast as starving will. So I get up and get on my way back into the woods in search of materials for starting a fire to cook the fish.

So I will need to gather dry leaves, bark, stones, and large, dry twigs or logs for it. The leaves are the first thing I gather and probably the easiest. Luckily it is autumn so all I have to do to gather them is to reach onto the ground and pick them up.

After spending about fifteen minutes or so on this task I put all that I had collected in a pile and move on to the next one on my list, gathering bark. I think about how I will get it and after a bit I come to the conclusion that I will need to find an old, peeling tree that is easy to peel it off of.

I start walking further through the woods looking for an old tree when I find what I am looking for. I walk up to it and find a spot where the bark has started to peel and grab the edge with my hands and start to pull on it. It takes a quite a bit of work considering how weak I am right now but eventually I get a decent amount off to take back with me. I take the bark back to where I put down the leaves and drop the pieces of bark off there too.

Onto the next thing to gather, dry twigs. This one is going to be a challenging one because tree’s twigs don’t usually just break off randomly, it usually happens from animals and the such. So this will take a while of searching to find some but luckily I only need about ten or so as they are just going to be the fire starters and the support for the fireplace I am making.

So once again I go off into the woods to find materials. I spend quite a while looking for my first one, having to look through the bottoms of many trees, shrubs and the such but finally I find my first one! Just nine more times of doing that to go.

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“ sigh, I might really starve before I am able to cook these fish ” I say while giving off a depressing laugh.

I continue searching for more twigs whilst wishing that fire didn’t need dry twigs to start, but I can’t substitute anything because I literally have nothing on me besides my clothes and shoes.

Eventually after another twenty or so minutes of searching I find an old, fallen down, and most importantly, dry tree. Today must be my lucky day, well not really considering my current situation but you still get my point. I look around for twigs and branches that fell off and find even more than I need, adding fourteen to my total making my total amount fifteen.

I head back to my little material pile near the lake and put them down in it. Now I just have to get some stones from by the river and set it up and I will be all good. I head over to the river and get what I think is a good enough amount of rocks to surround the fireplace and bring them over. Now it is time to get it set up!

I get the twigs and make a cone type shape with them and then place bark in the middle. I place the leaves all over the bark and twigs as small amounts of kindling to use a easy fuel to get the fire going. I leave one of the twigs to the side so that I can use it to get the fire going. Finally I pick up the stones and surround the structure with them.

Finally I am done making it and I only have a few things left to do before I can finally after so long be rid of my crippling hunger. I pick up the twig I set aside and position it on top of the bark and start rotating it extremely fast so that it will start a fire from pure friction. Normally this would be near impossible for a person to do because of the level of speed and duration you have to do this for but I can do it because of my new hands and forearms being immune to fatigue.

Eventually a fire starts and it will soon be big enough to roast some fish. After a bit the fire is big enough that I can roast my fish with it so I pick up one of them and hold it in the fire. After about ten minutes of this it is fully cooked and just needs to cool off. While it cools off I cook the other two fish over the fire and when they are done I pull them out and reach for the cooled off first one and bite into.

It tastes like heaven after how long I have gone without food and within but a single minute it is already gone. I reach for the other two and eat them just as quickly.

After eating them I start to feel extremely exhausted after how hard I pushed my body in it’s already horrible condition and pass out right on the forest floor, warmed by the fire next to me.