Jake watched Rick's retreating figure for a few seconds before the nostalgic sensation of falling took hold of him. A split second later he landed upright and ankle-deep in something cold and wet. Panic took hold of his heart before he had a proper chance to look around, but it faded when he felt how fast the fluid surrounding him flowed. Looking around he’d landed in a creek that jutted through a low-cut forest filled with bushes and pines.
The air had a soft chill, which brought the water he stood in from moderately chilly to uncomfortably numb. Yet the air was not freezing, and nowhere around him did he see signs of snow. He saw no signs of anyone, only the swaying of the trees and needles of the pines falling slowly to the earth.
Jake wasn’t sure how to feel. A moment of elation took hold of him for a moment, at his escape from the sunless world. At the continuation of his journey. Yet it was quickly snuffed out when he remembered the near-fatal condition Leopold and Lana had been left in. He recalled the sad eyes Rick had held as he departed. As he remembered them, the first people he’d truly had to talk with in weeks since this journey was forcefully started, another crushing feeling set in.
Amongst the waving trees and gracefully dancing pine needles the crushing grip of loneliness took hold of Jake's heart sending a shiver through his body. This shiver was also not helped by his continued stance in the flowing creek. Snapping back to reality as his feet grew ever number, he hurried to the bank beside him, sloshing out to dry land.
Tossing his sopping, mismatched shoes to the side and removing his singular remaining sock, Jake lay back on the bank. Amongst the gentle breeze around him, he laid back into the gently swaying grass and closed his eyes. For the first time in weeks, he felt he could allow his body to relax. And only now, laying back breathing in deep lungfuls of crip woodland air did his body’s exertion truly reveal itself.
His hands felt sore and calloused. His neck felt bruised and tender, making moving it around painful. The sun above, though a welcome blessing, was now blinding to his eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he’d adapted to the unending dark till now. The longer he lay still the more his body’s problems seemed to reveal themselves, begging him to sleep.
Yet sleep evaded him. Despite his best efforts, he could not stop his brain from wandering into thoughts of Lana and Leopold, bleeding endlessly barely holding onto life. No matter how hard he tried he could not stop the guilt of his departure from creeping into his heart, gripping hold of every being. No matter how much he wanted to ignore it, the endless solitude of the Forrest around refused to escape his notice as the wind rang hollow and barren throughout the trees.
Jake lay on the ground for a while, trying to force himself to sleep before admitting defeat and sitting up. His mind was a wreck, a million thoughts racing through his head a minute and his body didn’t feel much better. It hurt to keep his eyes open, and a throbbing headache was beginning to build up in the base of his skull. Yet still, no matter how hard he’d tried to force it sleep would allude him for the foreseeable future.
Crawling to the creek bed, Jake cupped a handful of water to swallow. It cut down his throat, cool and refreshing and loosening his throat. Cupping another handful he leaned over the edge of the creek splashing the cool water against his face in an effort to wake himself up to a comfortable degree. If he was stuck keeping himself awake, it might as well be at a level where he was comfortable.
Yet as the water dripped from his face back to the stream, its cool undercurrent shocking his system as soon as it touched his face, he paused staring into the spring below. He couldn’t believe what he saw, who he saw staring back at him.
His hair had grown long, now reaching the base of his neck. A scruffy curtain of hair grew out around his ears and soon would envelop them completely. He could still see clearly, but it wouldn't be long before his bangs grew enough to dangle in front of his line of sight as an inescapable distraction. His eyes were gaunt and set in, heavy black bags underlining them. They looked bloodshot and mad.
A nasty-looking bruise stretched around his entire neck and sneaked its way around his entire body, reaching around where the flesh had gripped hold of him. Flecks of blood caked his overgrown nails, and looking closely he could see dried bits of flesh and blood in his hair. The clothes he wore, a borrowed patchwork, once sat tight on his frame but now fit him comfortably. He hadn’t felt like he was losing weight, and he still felt plump, but he had definitely lost a noticeable amount.
He didn’t look like himself. A laugh began to escape his throat, pained and uncontrollable as he realized how unrecognizable he was. How long had it been already? A few weeks? A month? How long would he be stuck like this, stuck wandering alone bumbling from place to place till he finally made it home? Would they even recognize him if he finally made it back somehow? Jake himself could barely recognize himself.
Jake stood up, shivering and his throat hoarse. He shook his head hard trying to force the thoughts that tormented him out of his head. It didn’t matter if no one recognized him. He’d force them to. No matter how long it took to get home, no matter how alone he was, no matter who he had to leave behind. Jake was going home no matter what.
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Jake turned away from the creek, no longer wanting to see his reflection staring back across at him, and wandered away from the creek bank into the woods. He was careful not to wander far, never further away than what he could backtrack. He didn’t want to lose the one source of water he had while he was stuck here. He’d grown hungry, or more like his time relaxing had allowed him to realize how hungry he was, and so he decided it was time to forage.
Yet there was nothing around worth foraging. The pines above produced nothing he could see that looked edible, and the bushes surrounding him didn’t look like he could produce any sort of berry he could eat. Curious, Jake tried biting a cluster of pine needles falling from above in hopes that in this world they may be edible. Unfortunately, he found it just as inedible as a series of sharp sensations stabbed into his mouth accompanied by a bitter taste.
Falling to his knees, spitting and gagging on the needles, he flopped to his side as he rubbed his hands across his tongue in a hurried attempt to remove any remaining needles from his mouth. As he lay rolling on the ground drowning in the sharp bitter taste of the pines, he spotted it. Ears at alert, hopping cautiously through an undergrowth Jake only spotted thanks to a low opening flat on the ground. It was a blue hare, unlike anything he’d yet seen.
Its fur was a brilliant electric blue with shades of white dotted across it. Its ears were straight and narrow, save for the ends which ballooned out like cotton. Its back was turned away from Jake, yet its ears were on high alert and it stopped moving once Jake's eyes made contact with it.
Jake froze, unsure what sort of movements might set it off, and send it running. The rabbit across from him in the hidden grove also stayed stock still as if listening and waiting. Carefully, eyes never leaving the rabbit Jake snaked his hand down toward his pocket and dragged one of his knives loose and into his hand. The rabbit didn’t move, giving no sign that he’d heard Jake’s movements or would react.
Holding his breath Jake carefully tried to creep forward brushing the bush away as silently as possible. He moved methodically, never overextending the branches of the bush so they wouldn't snap, and always trying to move the bush so the leaves would flutter with the wind. Yet still he wasn’t perfect and with every creek or flutter of the leaves he saw the rabbit twitch and look around frantically. Yet it never ran away, just stood their stock still like a statue ears twitching violently.
Jake counted his lucky stars the rabbit hadn’t moved yet. He’d managed to get fairly good the last week at hitting a stationary target. Even then, all the targets he’d practiced on were larger than the rabbit so he figured his odds of actually hitting the rabbit with his knife weren’t very good. If the rabbit started running away on top of that, any hope he had of successfully catching the rabbit disappeared.
Drawing his breath in and holding it, Jake drew his arm back as silently as he could and let his knife fly forward. The knife did not leave his hand silently, a soft sound escaped it as it traveled through the air but by the time the rabbit noticed it was too late. The knife embedded itself through its neck, causing it to crumple flat.
Jake stood tall and forced his way through the surrounding overbrush into the hidden clearing the rabbit had been grazing in. Looking closer, it looked like his knife had managed to sever the rabbit’s spine when it hit. Jake stood there, mouth agape, amazed at his good fortune. He’d been aiming for the broadside of the rabbit hoping to injure it enough to catch it or follow it till it bleed out. Picking the corpse of the rabbit up and retrieving his knife from the base of its neck, Jake marveled at how his luck worked sometimes.
Backtracking toward the creek bank, Jake hung the rabbit from a tree and left it to bleed while he prepared a fire. Fortunately, there were plenty of discarded pine needles around to act as starter kindling and it didn’t take too long to gather some additional bark and discarded branches to form a decent-sized campfire. Digging through his rather unorganized bag, Jake pulled out the sparking stones that had tangled themselves with the discarded cloth of his old clothes.
He briefly paused, pulling his phone out for a moment but found it had no power, and the screen was now horrifically cracked. Even if it could be charged, Jake doubted it would ever work again after his swim through Blood Lake, but that was a problem for the future. Refocusing he took the striking stones close to the campfire, and after a few attempts the sparks caught bringing the fire to life. He repacked the stones and brought his still wet shoes and sock over to the fire's edge to allow them to dry faster.
Jake sat back a bit, enjoying the warmth of the fire which contrasted with the slight chill of the air around him, before returning his attention to the rabbit waiting to be skinned. The blood had drained from the rabbit, forming a small pool on the floor below and on the tree it hung from. Looking at the red of the rabbit's blood, Jake realized how odd he found it to be skinning a creature that lacked the black blood he’d slowly gotten used to.
Still, it skinned easily enough, and using the method Rick had taught him the past few weeks he managed to skin the rabbit in only a few minutes. As he moved on to preparing the meat to cook, he marveled at how much he’d improved. Looking around the whole of the campsite he’d set up so far, everything he had now would have seemed impossible to him just a month ago. Confidence soared in him as his focus was drawn to the roaring fire searing with heat across from him. He could handle this; he’d survive till the end and make it home.
His drifted attention refocused once his work prepping the meat was done. Yet a saddened sigh escaped his lips as he realized in his lack of focus he’d automatically portioned it for four. Looking around his camp he realized how empty it felt as his mind was drawn back to the thoughts of the trio, despite his best efforts throughout the day to distract himself from them.
Reaching into his pocket and pulling the wolf fang free into his hand, he stared at it surrounded by drifting pine and swaying bush and remembered how truly alone he was.