We made it to Leon’s camp in under an hour. During that time, I got a good view of what the woods around me were like outside of my camp. The area that I had been staying was relatively flat with only a very slight incline, made more obvious by the stream that ran downhill beside it. There were plenty of trees and vegetation as well as animals that wandered the area comfortably.
But as we moved further east, the treeline started to thin. There were occasional drop-offs in the land and some areas looked like you would need climbing gear just to scale it. I stared up at those high cliffs, pursing my lips as I thought how much it would hurt if I had accidentally fallen off one of those while exploring, but there was something else on my mind as well: the terrain looked… familiar. I had never seen it with my own eyes before, but it strangely looked like an accumulation of all the survival games I had ever played— down to the edible and medical plants that bore question marks in their descriptions.
Despite the warmth of the day, I shivered.
“Right this way,” said Leon, still wearing his friendly smile. “You’re really lucky I ran into you, you know. It’s not easy surviving out here.”
I followed him around a vast thicket of bamboo. When we reached the other side, I got my first glimpse of Leon’s camp. It was small but much larger than mine had been, there was a single tent and a large sleeping area made from thick bamboo that had been raised off the ground and tied tightly together. There were blankets, to my amazement, as well as various piles of random things like clothing and plastic water bottles that were empty.
A girl sat on a log next to the burned out fire. She had long black hair and wore a pastel green hoodie— not at all like the clothes I had woke up in. Her arms were folded across her stomach as she smiled shyly at us, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear.
“Hello,” she said, glancing at us and looking away.
Leon grinned and motioned between us. “Christine, this is Jo. She’s a newbie that I found about a mile west of here.”
She nodded but didn’t look up. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” I said, feeling somewhat awkward. I glanced around the camp. “This place is really nice. How long have you guys been here?”
Leon waved me off and said, “We’ll wait for introductions until Heidi gets back. She’ll be excited to meet you.”
“Do you want something to eat?” asked Christine, glancing towards a box at the corner of camp. “We don’t have much right now, but we have some granola bars. And water.”
I nodded gratefully and she hurried away. A few moments later, she came back with a granola bar and a small package of dried bananas. My breath caught as I looked at the food, the hunger of the past two days washing over me. I wasted no time ripping into the bags and eating. Even while I tried to take my time and savor it, I found myself scarfing it down so fast that it was gone much too soon.
“You must have been hungry,” observed Christine, smiling softly.
“Have you eaten anything since you’ve been here?”
I shrugged at Leon’s question. “I found some blueberries and I’ve been eating those.”
“Blueberries?” He raised an eyebrow and snorted. “It’s good that we found you. But to be honest, you’re lucky that you came here when you did— some people arrive in the winter and only make it a few days before they die to the elements.”
I blinked, unsure how to respond. Instead, I rolled the snipped of information he gave me around in my mind. The fact that there were more people who had arrived here was news to me, and I found myself wondering just how many people were in this forest, and if any of them had found a way to escape. But just as I was starting to ponder it, footsteps sounded from a few feet away.
A girl walked into camp. She was tall with short brown hair that was smushed down by a cap. Like Leon, her getup looked more militarized, with black cargo pants and gloves. She wore the same vest that Leon did, except hers was beige instead of black. To my surprise, she also wore a black watch on her wrist that seemed to double as a compass. Her eyes were yellow, and as she observed me sharply, I couldn’t help but compare her to a lioness prowling into camp.
“You must be a newbie.”
I nodded.
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“Names Heidi, but I’m sure Leon has already told you that. How long have you been here?”
“Two days.” I racked my brain at her quick questions, trying to get my footing in the conversation. “My name is Jo, I had a shelter about a mile west of here when Leon found me.”
“Good thing that he did,” she huffed, sliding her backpack off her shoulders and sitting down next to Christine. “There are a lot of people out here that aren’t so fortunate. Tell me, what are your levels?”
“Uhhh.”
I opened my menu and listed them off for her, as well as my [LUCKY FIND] perk. She put a hand to her chin and nodded slowly.
“Sounds like you’d make a good forager. What do you think, Leon?”
“Yeah, that sounds great!” He nodded at me enthusiastically. “None of us really have good perks for stuff like that. That must be how you found those blueberries.”
Christine perked up. “Oh. I’d love to have some those, too.”
“That settles it,” said Leon, pointing at me. “Looks like you’re going to be our new forager.”
It felt like the whole thing had been decided without my input, which made me a little uncomfortable. I scratched my neck awkwardly and opened my mouth to speak, when Heidi suddenly cut me off and gave me a hard look.
“You do want to do your share of work, don’t you? Everyone has their job at our camp: I find the food, Christine keeps the camp clean and prepares our food, and Leon eliminates any threats. If you want to stay here, there has to be a reason for us to keep you around or you’ll just be wasting our resources. Got it?”
Leon rolled his eyes. “You didn’t have to say it like that, Heidi.”
“She needs to know what she’s getting into.” Heidi turned her head to me. Her gaze was so cold that it reminded me of the sound a rusted door made when it creaked slowly open. “So, what do you think? Are you going to play your part or do you want Leon to return you to your camp now?”
I felt a little uneasy about the whole thing. Heidi seemed a bit… intense… but Christine and Leon seemed nice enough. They were right that it would be hard to survive on my own, and once it came winter it would be near impossible.
“Okay,” I said. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to work hard.”
“Atta girl.” Leon clapped me on the back. “You’ll be part of the team in no time. We’re counting on you.”
Christine clenched her hands together and nodded once. Even though she didn’t say anything, I could see the excitement in her sparkling eyes.
Heidi stood up. “Good. We’ll see you at sunset then.”
“Be sure to mark our camp on your map,” Leon added.
After a moment of hesitation, I marked the camp on my map as if in a dream. I wandered away from the camp and searched the ground, but my thoughts were rushing through my head so fast that anything of value seemed to blur past me. I had a bad feeling. There was something strangely pushy about this group that made me feel really uncomfortable. The way that they immediately accepted me into camp and then pushed me out to forage for food.
I knew that I was probably overthinking it. After all, their group had likely been out here longer than I could imagine, and surviving was of the utmost importance, so perhaps the problem was with me needing to be better at adapting. If I wanted to make it work, I needed to relax and do my job the best I could.
With that in mind, I slowed down and took my time sweeping the woods for anything of value. I found a few plants, one with fuzzy, bushy leaves and another with small orange-red berries. Both of them had the same description as the blueberries before I had eaten them.
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Since I wasn’t sure about their use, I plucked them and put them in my inventory for safekeeping. Surely someone back at camp would know what they were good for. After a bit of walking, I also found a small patch of brown mushrooms, more of the vine I had used for my shelter, and about ten small sticks that I figured would be good for the fire. And as the sun started to set, I made my way back towards camp using the waypoint I had marked. I could tell already that waypoints were really going to come in handy.
“Welcome back,” said Leon. “You can toss everything over there and Christine will deal with it tomorrow.” He motioned to a stack of things in the corner of camp, right next to the box of food. “If you’re tired, you can go ahead and go to sleep. The bamboo is a bit hard but you get used to it. Christine left you a blanket.”
I walked over to the bamboo bed. It was long and Christine was already asleep, breathing softly, on the other end of it. I looked around, but Heidi was nowhere to be seen. Noticing my gaze, Leon pointed to the tent.
“Since she provides the food, Heidi gets the tent at night. I get it after her since I sleep in the early hours and don’t wake up until noon.”
“Got it.”
I sat on the bamboo bed. It was hard on my shoulders and back. Frankly, the shelter had felt more comfortable than this, and I knew immediately that it was going to be a rough night of sleep. I pulled the blanket over my shoulders and tried to close my eyes. At some point, Leon stood up and started patrolling around the camp while munching on something that looked like trail mix. No matter how much I tried to steady my breathing and clear my thoughts, my mind kept buzzing with the events of the day, and I couldn’t help but feel like coming to this camp might have been a bad idea.
And yet, I had a place to sleep. I was surrounded by others who were gathering food and protecting the place. I knew that I should be grateful— it sounded like many people hadn’t had that luxury. Keeping that thought in mind, I drifted off to sleep to the sound of our night watch eating.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
And in my dreams, I saw a wolf. He was laying on the ground and the bones at his feet made the same sound as he chewed into them. Crunch, crunch. When it noticed me, saliva dripped from it's teeth as it grinned, the sharp fangs glistening with blood.