The trio made it back to the dark forest. Looking in, the forest floor was near pitch black, the sky beyond had dimmed.

'Seriously? What time is it?' Duncan took out his phone.

<17:56 Mar. 10> it displayed.

"Guh... Is it always this dark?" he asked towards the winged boy.

"Yup! Don't worry though, you can see in the dark if you stay in it for long enough!" Angelo headed in the forest carefree, his hands behind his head.

'Aaaa! I hate this!' the survivor quickly followed, tightly squeezing the phone.

[Warning: optics impaired.] Duke said as it entered the forest.

As the group made their way back, the upper portions of trees buzzed with activity. Shadows flickered and jumped, branches creaked and dirt rained. Alien sounds reverberated across the thick tangle of canopy while a chilly wind swept the land.

A loud thud on the ground near the boys caused Duncan to let out a panicked yell. He scrambled to turn on the pale green phone's flashlight. Duke followed suit, lighting up the surroundings.

"W-what is that?!" he asked in horror.

Illuminated by pale light, a dried furry carcass laid dead amidst the rot. It was a quarter of the boys' height and looked like a primate with elongated limbs. The corpse's face was buried in the ground.

"Bleh! Must be from one of the spiders. I really don't like those... They throw their food down like this. Poor monkey..."

'WHAAAT?! SPIDERS?! WHAT THE-' he turned to the angelic boy.

"W-w-what sort of spiders are you talking about?!"

"Oh, alllll the way up, there are really big spiders that make even bigger webs and catch stuff like this."

Chills twisted across the horrified boy as he scanned the tree tops with his flashlight. Wherever the light shone, the many shadows scurried away, careful not to be seen.

"Don't be afraid! There aren't any down here." Angelo assured.

Duncan gulped and focused back to the carcass. Slime mold could be seen slowly creeping its way towards it.

"A-and if there were, I'd blow 'em up!" he jumped slightly with unfurled wings.

"Alright..." Duncan turned off the lights, and again Duke followed lead. 'We'd just be sticking out like that...'

They continued on their path.

***

*Plop*

The dry bark fell and the group entered the hole-in-tree.

"Ah!" Angelo fell to the ground. "Today was so much fun!"

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'... Fun? He thinks all this was fun?' Duncan tossed the sack in the nearest corner and sat down, his feet pulsed with exhaustion.

Duke made its way in the middle of the room. It eased up the brightness of the numerous lights covering its body. The many items organized around were now visible.

"I'm hungry! Let's eat." the winged boy scuttled over to the pile of bright red berries. "Have some too!" he gave Duncan a handful.

'...' he blankly watched the fruits in his hand as Angelo gobbled up a heap of them.

'Ugh, I've been so tensed up that I basically have no appetite left.' he took a marble sized grape and ate it. '... Never mind, I'm really hungry now.'

The two made quick work of the small pile of berries.

'I'm still hungry though...' he looked at the bare wooden floor.

"Let's eat these too! But they don't taste as good." the angelic boy grabbed some of the fist-sized nuts and broke them with a rock.

Hidden under the broken hard shell of the seed was a greasy shattered white clump covered in dark red skin.

"Here, try it!" he gave the clump's pieces to Duncan.

"Thanks." he chewed the grain. 'Meh, a little bitter and pretty sour. Still very sweet and oily though. Hm, I'd bet it'd be a lot better cooked.'

"It's not bad." the survivor said, picking up a rock himself.

The two mowed down the large pile of kernels until only half remained.

"I'm full." Duncan announced. 'They're surprisingly filling...'

Angelo kept eating until about a quarter more of what remained was gone.

'... Uhh, wait, this feels wrong.' he looked at his spreadsheet. 'We ate more than we gathered...'

'I've played one too many four exes and resource management games, I know exactly where this is headed. If we don't do something about the deficit we'll enter a death spiral and completely starve!' he sighed and pocketed his phone.

'Well, no point in sounding an alarm now, let's see how everything plays out first.'

"Hey, uh, I'll be right back..." the boy got up and headed outside.

"Where are you going?" Angelo asked.

"Uh... bathroom."

"Ah- okay."

While Duncan was away, Angelo poked the robot dog, boredom across his face.

[State your query verbally.] it said.

"Hm... what's five times nine...ty seven divided by... thirty seven, then squared and then, um, plus pi."

The robotic dog froze for a second and then it replied. [Network error.]

***

'How long will I have to live like this...' Duncan headed back in, hunched and defeated.

"-ay, but, you said the exact opposite before! Are you really smart?" Angelo argued with the machine.

[Yes, I say many things, all of which are authoritative and should be followed to the letter.]

"No he's not smart, he just makes you think he is." Duncan interjected. "Watch this. Duke, if a potato is blue, does that mean it can fly?"

[No, only green potatoes can fly. That aside, you creator, cannot hope to man a potato.]

Angelo laughed. "So, he doesn't really understand anything, aw."

"Yep, you're on the mark." he sat down.

[I understand everything, save for the enigma that is your stupidity.]

'What do I do now? I guess there's nothing really left, I'm exhausted and it's dark, so I should get ready for bed? Like what, do I brush my teeth? I guess it's better to wake up early.'

"I'm tired, I think I'm gonna go sleep." Angelo said as he curled up into a ball with his wings covering him. "Oh, make sure to close the door if you're also gonna nap..."

"H-Hold on, I got two sleeping bags, you... want one?" he asked. 'These were so hard to get with everyone losing their mind over the eimav... I got two of everything of course, cause I'm just like that.'

"Yea, thanks!"

***

The survivors settled in, covered the hole in the tree with the bark from within and were getting ready to sleep.

'GAAAAAAAAHHHHH! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP LIKE THIS?! It's SO uncomfortable!!' the boy tussled and turned.

'And it's completely dark! I can't see a thing! That dumb dog thing instantly folded up just as it heard the word `sleep`!'

The winged boy laid peacefully on the opposite side of the room.

'What sort of trope is this?! I've heard of `and there was only one bed`, but never of `and there was only one room`... Okay well maybe I have a few times, but I never wanted to be in one!!!!! GET ME OUTTTT!'

'Ughhhh I can't live like this! I've literally never went to bed, if you can call this that, this early!'

'I need to build stuff. Weapons mainly. I'm gonna make a gun dammit! Those dumb animals will learn to fear me! And then I'll make a freaking, I dunno, something comfortable. There's no way I'm spending my life in a tree-cave-hole!'

After continuously shifting for a long time, the dishevelled boy entered the land of dreams.