Tom saw a flash and found himself again in the same spot where the wooden bear had first started chasing him. It did not take long for him to find the place where he had the final showdown with the bear.
It was quite a surreal sight. If Tom hadn't known that he had beaten the wooden bear just a day ago right at this spot. He wouldn't have had any idea that a battle had occurred here. As it only looked like unnaturally lumpy ground compared to the surroundings. The forest had grown over the bear's remains and covered it thoroughly.
Tom used a stick to poke at the bear. And sure enough, the wooden frame was still there, under freshly grown plants. But it was surprisingly soft, almost like it had already mostly decayed. He noticed that there were already some strange-looking worms eating the corpse. Like it was not super hard wood. "There must be something different about this bear and these trees. Besides the fact that the bear could move. As there still are trees in this forest. And I could imagine that the trees wouldn't last even ten minutes if these worms started eating them"
After looking at it for a while longer, Tom started walking towards where he thought the hill would be. It was around the same time of the day as it had been when he began hiking toward the hill last time. So he just checked the sun's position, roughly estimated the direction, and hoped for the best.
Tom had walked for over an hour when he decided that it might be a good idea to climb up a tree and look around for the hill, as it was eight meters tall. So it should be quite easy to see where the hill is from the top of a tree. As all the trees seemed to be roughly equally tall. So the hill should stick out like a sore thumb. And hopefully, the tree wouldn't attack him as he didn't have a core with him anymore.
Tom found a suitable tree to climb after looking for a while. And sure enough, as he got closer to the top of the tree. He started seeing eight trees that were substantially taller than the others. He was also relieved that he decided to climb up the tree. His course had been clearly off, and he wouldn't have noticed the hill in the worst-case scenario. This time he set his course in the right direction, and it didn't take him that much longer to arrive at the hill.
Once there, he did not waste much time and started walking up the hill. This time it was much easier to climb up the hill. The fear of death he felt last time was much more muted, almost like there was some force protecting him.
When he finally was able to see the top of the hill. And what he saw left his skin crawling. There next to the juniper tree, he saw his own body. His face looking up twisted in agony, mouth open forever locked in a silent scream of pain. Even worse was that his body had turned into wood, and his mid-drift was rotten with maggots crawling all over it.
"I wasn't just feeling like I was turning into a wood," Tom muttered under his breath. As he took in the scene, he was sure that it would haunt his dreams for many years to come. It was not every day that one could see the moment of their death immortalized as an ultra-realistic wooden sculpture.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
When Tom finally managed to tear his eyes off his own dead body. He quickly scanned the surroundings looking for his spear. The moment he spotted it, he quickly sprinted to it and picked it up. He held the spear as tightly as possible without even realizing it. Like somehow, just by having it, he would be safe. Seeing his body had put him on edge, and he felt quite jumpy.
Tom debated just leaving this place and continuing his trek through the forest. But alas, he couldn't make himself do it, even if he truly wanted to. So he started looking through the clearing. Now that he had time to do so, as the juniper tree wasn't trying to trap him. But he didn't see anything besides his body and the juniper tree. He was quite sure that eating those juniper berries was the cause of his stomach being rotten. So he made the smart decision of not eating or touching them. But he felt like they could come in handy. As poisoning, your enemies sounded like something you wouldn't die miserably while doing.
Tom picked some moss to act as an insulator, gathered some berries into it, and placed them into his pocket. They were inside a ball of moss, so hopefully, they wouldn't just burst inside his pocket and corrode his leg.
The only thing left in the clearing was just his body. "Should I look if the core is still in me.." Tom thought. But the moment the thought entered his mind, he suppressed it immediately. Even if he intellectually knew that that was not his body. He could not even think about what it would be like to perform an autopsy on yourself, even if it was in-game and the corpse was made out of wood.
Just out of curiosity, Tom poked his former hand with the spear. And he saw how his ex-body pulled the hand back as the spear's tip came in contact with it.
"NO, NO, NOPE, I AM OUT OF HERE!" Tom yelled and bolted out of there.
After running for good five minutes, he stopped to catch his breath. And his toughs went immediately to the corpse. Tom already knew what he wanted to do. He could feel his curiosity rising with each second he spent resting. When he had finally calmed down a bit and could think clearly again, Tom lamented. "Oh, how I hate my curiosity." As his gaze locked onto the hill in the distance.
"Why couldn't there be someone to slap some sense into me" Tom kept complaining about his own nature, as he knew there was nothing else he could do about it. He felt how his false resistance gave up and resigned itself to its fate. As Tom toughs drifted, coming up with theories about what could have happened to his body and what caused it.
"First of all, this must have something to do with the core. As the body is mostly wooden, that's a given. But what caused it to move? Is it alive, or was the movement just some of my muscle memories acting up? Or is it like the bear, stupid but clearly still alive? Was the bear a normal bear before? And was it also turned into a wooden counterpart of its previous self..." Tom felt his mind going down a rapid hole from where there would be no returning. As no matter how much he reasoned, he wouldn't have any answer. Because he just had so little knowledge, so he forced himself to stop.
After his mind ran through a couple of other theories, he wouldn't be able to confirm. He finally managed to collect himself enough that he could function as a human. And he started making his way back towards the hill.