…

It was currently very dark and cold outside. The moon in the sky shined even though it was in front of the sun. However, everyone had things more important things than this to bother about.

‘What’s going on?’ Jonathan woke up with a jolt, immediately jumping out of his tent and observing the situation.

Through the sound of the insects in the night, screams and coughing could be heard all around him. There was not much vision, so he immediately illuminated a torch he had prepared before hand.

Stephanie had also woken up and they headed towards the source of the noise.

While watching out to not injure themselves while running, both arrived at a nearby camp.

There were about 4 makeshift tents with people from their group.

You could see almost all of them on the ground heavily coughing. Two of them were also screaming.

Their face was pale white along with their eyes being bloodshot. Most were holding their stomach.

‘‘What is wrong here?’’ Stephanie asked out to the few who were up and helping the others.

“We don’t know! They had woken up a few times complaining about their hunger, then some of them started screaming or coughing heavily.”

“Get them some water or something then!” Stephanie started approaching the group of sickling when Jonathan grabbed her arm. “Why are you stopping me?”

“You idiot, this is obviously food poisoning. Going there will only get you potentially infected.” Jonathan looked at the sick people with cold eyes.

The top priority in survival was keeping yourselves at a certain degree of healthiness. This was done by eating, drinking, sleeping as wall as avoiding injury and sickness or infections. How could he allow Stephanie to join that mess?

“What does that matter for? As long as I don’t put my mouth on any of them I am fine. You think we should just stand there and watch their suffering? Hmph! If we do that, we aren’t any better than street dogs.” Stephanie was angry at her friend. She was a naturally benevolent person, so refusing to help when she clearly could be unacceptable for her.

“Street dogs? F*ck that. I’d rather be a street dog then be a dead dog. Helping them makes sense when we can afford to, but now we cannot. We don’t have any food or water left. We can’t hunt in the dark and feeding them random plants could very well send them straight to the gates of hell. Collecting water is also impossible, considering that we don’t have any containers and building a ground boiler is already extremely hard. Don’t forget that it’s night right now. If you fall and break your ankle, who will carry you? Who will heal you? What medication will you take?”

“So what? How can you live with knowing that you let go people who needed your help? I’d rather die with people around me then in a pit all alone.”

“Eh. You really think that? You don’t understand what dying means and how much your life is worth. Cut your crap! You’re no saint, nor should you delusion yourself into being one. You can only give as much as you have, but we have nothing.”

“Give as much as we have? You have your little guide, don’t you? If you don’t want to touch them like they as if they are garbage, then at least tell them what they can do. And don’t tell me some shit like how talking would take up too much of your energy.” Stephanie was infuriated by the current situation.

Hearing her mention a little guide, the other group suddenly had a shine in their eyes. They had seen how the young man didn’t want to help them and although they had found it a bit excessive, they still understood. However, they now had a sliver of hope since the request was so small.

“…” Jonathan had no reply to what she had said. It was true that this was the leas they could do. “OK, I’ll do it.”

Hearing this, everyone here had a smile on his face except Jonathan. It was true that this would have only disadvantages to him, draining his phone battery, but he had to appease Stephanie.

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Truth be told, if they separated, he might very well have a mental breakdown in a few days from being alone.

He handed his torch to Stephanie and opened his phone and looked at the Survival Manual.

“What type of symptoms do they have?” Jonathan asked to the few that were still standing.

“It seems like they can’t breathe since the throat is inflated or something. They also have heavy stomach aches. We can’t perform CPR since they are still conscious.”

Without answering, Jonathan scrolled through his phone to find appropriate treatment.

“Put them on their back, grab their lower jaw from behind, lift it up and force open their mouth with your thumb. Reconciliation them is also extremely important.”

After that was done, something like a miracle happened, many of them started breathing more easily, although there was still some blockage. As for those that this didn’t help, Jonathan paid them no heed. After all, he was no doctor, he couldn’t help them if their situation was too severe.

“This is the only active treatment I have for you. As for medicine, I can only tell you so make get salty water, although the other bacteria in it might hurt them even more … we don’t have any medicine here and food poisoning can only be solved by their body at this point…”

In truth, Jonathan had given them a very simple instruction. Food poisoning was something you avoid instead of fix, as a cure was very specific and hard to find.

“That’s good enough for us, them being able to breathe is good enough.” The girl who spoke to him started laughing in joy while holding a man’s face. This reaction was also shared with others.

Hearing sounds of joy and seeing the fire from the torch, the rest of the group as well as other groups transported their sickling here. Soon, there were almost one hundred people. Many of them got helped by the simple jaw procedure.

Along with another boy scout, Jonathan helped people apply CPR, although the boy scout was much more actively involved.

Seeing that the situation was getting under control, Jonathan decided to return to his tent with Stephanie. They couldn’t miss out on sleep for something like this.

Although Stephanie was hesitant to it, Jonathan had done one of her requests, so she had no choice but to accept his.

All went well, except that when they go close to the location of their tent, they heard some noise behind them.

Two boys and one girl came out of the woods, all looking like they were eleven years old.

Shining the torch upon them, Jonathan could see their face, along with a facial expression that he didn’t like at all.

‘They’re here to cause trouble.’ Was Jonathan’s first taught. His facial expression instantly turned cold and his cynical nature locked down all attempts of friendliness from them.

“What do you guys want?” Stephanie immediately asked them.

The girl stepped up and started talking, turning her glance towards Jonathan.

“Nothing much. We saw how you were helping and we thought that you were extremely nice and useful. Thanks for that. However, we still need the extra help, and since you guys are leaving, we were wondering if you could lend us your…”

“Fuck off.” Before she could finish her phrase, Jonathan cut her off, he clearly knew why they were here so he denied them before they could influence the naïve Stephanie even more.

And it worked quite well. Stephanie quickly took a step back seeing that Jonathan hard turned hostile.

However, this made the three people have a foul expression.

A boy stepped up and angrily complained.

“We didn’t even…”

“I told you. Fuck off. I won’t deal anything or give anything to you guys.” Once again, he cut them off. He also waved his torch.

Seeing that there was no hope for proper discussion, the other group dropped their act.

“You think because you have a weapon like that you can do something? Just hand over your phone along with your password before things get very, very dirty.” The boy quickly spat out this threat,

“I’ll repeat, SCRAM. NOW!” Jonathan took at step forward and a shiny object appeared in his hand. His eyes turned ice cold, showing that he had every intention in the world to use it.

“A knife?!” The boy trembled when he saw the object in Jonathan's hand. A torch was not a big danger since it was big and hard to move, furthermore, you wouldn’t instantly go on fire if it touched you. A knife, however, that was a threat. A single stab was enough to kill you. In addition to that, Jonathan was the same height and size as them, making it so they couldn’t easily suppress him.

“So what if you have a knife. It’s a three versus one.” Seeing that Stephanie got scared out of her wits, he assumed that she wouldn’t join their fight. Even though their girl was also scared, she could probably hit Jonathan once. “I’ll take your phone, your knife and your girl. If you don’t want to turn into a worst state then those that can barely breathe at the camp, hand everything over.”

“Hahahaha. You make me laugh. You think I don’t know who you are. You two are just b*tch boys from the older grade. You act tough but if you could fight a quarter as good as you talk, I would start to get scared. Hell, I’m surprised you didn’t shit yourself by now, even though you are two.” Jonathan took another step forward, seeming even more imposing, he had some battle experience, so he wasn’t scared of these two guys.

However, he knew very clearly how bad the situation could turn. If he could avoid a fight without any lost, he would welcome that outcome.

The two boys looked at each other and after a nod, they both decided to attack Jonathan.

However, before any party could make a move.

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Jonathan started shaking from fear. What he had heard was a sound he was very familiar with, just much louder. In addition to that, it came from very close.

This sound often announced imminent danger, especially for the weakened by hunger and thirst like them.

“We’re so f*cked.” Jonathan couldn’t help but mumble.