Panic filled the boys as they pushed the grass aside to gaze at the stampeding bovines raising dust. The herd formed a thick line encompassing much of their view.

"Wh-what do we do?!" Duncan looked around in a daze.

"Ah- um, fly!" Angelo unfurled his wings and floated above the ground. "Ah!" he looked down at Duncan. "Quick take my-"

Just as the boy reach down with his hand, he could see the ground reverberate harder. Duncan and Duke tripped and fell down due to the violent shaking.

From behind the horde of bovines, a titanic snake sped forth like a locomotive. As it caught up to the animals, the serpent unhinged its abyssal mouth and cut clean through the swarm. The reptile swallowed whole every creature that got in the way of its bottomless maw.

It continued to blast forward until it flew past the trio like a bullet train. The survivors could only catch a glimpse of the serpent's head-sized sharp eye before it turned into a blur of countless scales bringing forth a powerful wind that chilled them to their core.

The snake continued, going beyond the barren border and plunging into the forest of towering trees. It turned and wrapped itself around one of the gray trunks as it slinged back into the grassland.

As if knowing their fate, the pack of animals fled parallel from the snake's body, no longer stampeding for the survivors. The serpent wrapped back around the side opposite the trio and enclosed a sizeable chunk of the herd.

The boys watched frozen in fear as the reptile turned a lap around its body, this time slower. When it reached the forest, it did not wrap around the trunk, instead it carefully threaded on the barren land. Slowly and calmly, lap after lap, it coiled in on its struggling prey, ready to feast.

Duncan shook and breathed heavily as he watched the blades of grass gently rise up after being crushed by the serpent. Angelo fell to the ground with a thud.

"Let's... get out of here... Now." Duncan didn't move his gaze from the coiled serpent in the far distance.

"Yea..." Angelo arose and the two ran away from the grassland.

***

'Haaaa... What the hell was that thing?' Duncan leapt out of the thick tangle of green.

"You okay?" Angelo asked, resting by a trunk.

"Yea, luckily... What was that... thing?" he asked in horror.

"Dunno... never seen it before..."

Duncan stood still for a moment before he sat down a little further from Angelo with a deep exhale.

'If we were literally just a few meters off that thing would've eaten us just like that...' they rested in silence, Duke patiently standing in front of them

"How... do we even deal with that?" the survivor asked.

"Well, I could fly off- but no then, never mind. I dunno."

After a brief respite, Duncan got up and headed for the grassland, catching the winged boy's attention. He took out a knife and began gathering blades of grass.

"Whachu doin? Want me to help?" the angel asked, standing behind the crouching boy.

"Yea, here." he rummaged and gave him a blade. "I want to get a bunch of these because I think we can weave them to make like, baskets and stuff. So we can carry more stuff with us so that we don't have to go back and forth as much."

"Ohh. Okay!"

The two gathered a whole bundle of hard to cut leafy grass. Angelo took it and carried it in his hands.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

***

Duke, Duncan and Angelo arrived at the hollowed out tree and entered. They unpacked their haul and sat down.

"Okay so, I downloaded these videos before just in case. They show how to make those coconut leaf baskets. I think we can treat this grass stuff the same way and it should work." Duncan showed Angelo the phone's screen.

The two sat side by side as they watched the tutorial.

"That looks easy! Let's try it!" Angelo grabbed a handful of grass blades.

He arranged them one after another in a line, each one oriented parallel to its neighbors. The plants formed a rectangular stripe on the wooden floor.

"And now this?" Duncan took a single stem of grass and positioned it perpendicular to the stripes. 'There's no way something this simple will work.'

He slid the stem under the first stripe, then over the second, under the third and so on until the end. The result was a sturdy interlock between the blades of grass.

"Huh... let's keep going."

Angelo took a piece of vegetation and wove it under the previous one the same way except that this time he started over the first stripe and then under.

They continued growing the perpendicular stripe until a square-sized patch took shape. The patch looked like a dense grid in the middle with the ends of the grass blades sticking out like whiskers at the four ends.

"Look! It works!" Angelo poured a handful of berries on the green patchwork and lifted it. "They don't fall off! And it's strong too!" he shook the construct, causing it to flex gracefully.

"Yea... I honestly didn't expect it to work... Well we just have the hard part left, actually turning it into a basket." they got to work.

Starting at the top of the patch, Duncan took hold of the two middle grass stems. While watching the video, he carefully crossed the left one under the right one. He then continued to weave the middle blade towards the right. After he reached the end, he moved onto the stem left of the middle one and similarly weaved it all the way right to the end. He continued until the top side had a triangular shape lifted up with pointy ends sticking out.

"You forgot to tie in the ends." Angelo took the work and weaved in the two ends at the tip of the triangle into its backside.

"Now we just need to do the same thing for every other side."

"Ok! I'll do the next one, then you the one after, and then me again, okay?"

"Sure."

The winged boy proceeded to weave the other side and passed it over to Duncan. The survivor completed his task and handed it back to Angelo that then weaved the last side. The patchwork of grass now had a shoddy cylindrical shape with many pointy ends sticking out in all directions.

"Ok, and last step. We need to like... Weave all the ends in to like the sides?" the brunette boy watched the screen with squinted eyes.

"Oh, let me do it!"

"Alright." he handed over the construct.

Angelo turned the incomplete basket around and wove in the ends diagonally in the direction that they pointed in. Some of the blades would become undone and spring up while others would refuse to move. After much trial and error, the two managed to weave together the object. The fruit of their labour looked like a hollow hemisphere with pointy ends sticking out. Inside it could fit a sizeable heap of berries.

"I think its done." Duncan inspected the work from all sides. "It does seem like we messed up the order in a few places... But overall, I think its great for a first shot!"

"Yay! That was loads of fun, let's get more grass and make more stuff!"

"Haha, sure. Hm wait, let's cut the ends a bit, so they're nice and flat." he sliced the thin ends of each grass stem and wove them in wherever they fit.

"It looks much better now!" Angelo admired the finished product.

'Man that took far longer than it should've... Like one or two hours...' he thought. "How do we add a handle though? So we can stick it on Duke!"

[If only you could lessen my burdens instead of adding to them, useless creator.]

"Hm, how about this?" the angel took a blade of grass and wrapped it around the perimeter to make an arch. "Try it!"

Duncan took Duke's hand and carefully pulled it through the basket's handle. He then let it rest to the side of the mechanical arm's base.

[Warning: partial optic obstruction.] the machine said, trying to shake the basket off.

"Hey wait stop-"

The handle came off and the floral basket fell down.

"Oh gosh darn it Duke!" the survivor said.

[A poor craftsman, for example, you creator, blames his tools.]

After many attempts, they managed to make a sturdy handle that could hang off the robot's arm.

"You know, I could carry one in my arms instead!" the angelic boy said.

"Nha, no need, let him be useful." he turned to the robotic dog. "Duke, ignore the obstruction this time."

[While difficult to ignore you, I have successfully done so my whole existence, worry more about yourself, hurdle of a creator.]

"Yea, yea. Try moving around."

The trio confirmed that everything works as expected.

"Alright looks like we're done. So, uh... Should we... go back out and get more food?" the survivor asked.

"Uhm, well honestly, I'm scared... But if you really wanna..." Angelo fidgeted. "Don't we have enough already?"

"Well, yea kinda, but only for today. We need a stockpile so we have enough time to do other stuff, like find your mom or figure out what happened to everyone... And really, I'm scared too... I don't wanna get eaten by some monster but we kinda have to..."

Some contemplation later, the winged boy brightened up and filled with determination. "Aaahh! We'll be fine! Together we can do anything! Let's go!"