Sam groaned as he stood from the ground, popping his back as he stared down at the little grave he had dug for the doll. It was packed tightly, and the soil looked almost undisturbed. Good, he didn’t want anything digging this up… He sighed as he turned from it, glaring at the two corpses littering the beach. It would be on-sight for these freaks from now on, unless they offered an olive branch, he was gonna jump em’, no mercy would be given.

Killing children… His hands balled into fists as that familiar red entered his vision. There were just some things that were off limits, even for criminals such as Sam. That was particularly off-limits to most thugs, he’d never bring himself to even hurt a kid. Whenever someone harmed a child in front of him… well…

Sam took care of them.

He always did.

He wobbled back down the hill on shaky tired legs, a grim look set on his face as he came to loom over the bodies. He had dragged the one in the water to lay next to crater-face, the mask of water-boy seeming to stare up at him accusingly. He removed the mask after laying his machete in the sand, looking upon the face of the native. His eyes were wide with shock, bloody mouth left agape in death. Sam didn’t bother to try shutting his eyes, reaching down to swipe up the pouch that remained tied to the body's hip.

He quickly opened the soggy bag, looking within to see a multitude of keys, all dangling from a single wide link. There had to be around thirty of them, all of different variations and serving different purposes. Some of them were electronic car keys, likely taken from the poor souls this freak had killed. ‘Rightful plunder’ according to the one he’d interrogated. Some of them were quite a bit older, like them big ol’ victorian era keys, all made of blackened iron.

Sam was perplexed by this. Did this guy collect keys from people he killed? If so, why were some of the victims running around with old-timey keys? He shook his head, pulling the key ring out to flip through the many variants. In a way, he was glad to have these, the little serrated edges of the modern keys could probably be used to hew into some sticks or something. Hell, maybe there was a door around here somewhere that needed one of these bad boys to unlock. Just in case, he’d hold onto all of them, even the old black iron ones.

He let the keyring fall to the sand as he continued sifting through the sack, finding a sharp piece of rock and a tiny chunk of steel, molded to look like a narrow horseshoe and both being about the length of his thumb. His brow furrowed a moment before he realized what it was, his lips turning up in a grin. Flint and steel! The cannibal could have gotten the rock from anywhere, but he had probably taken the steel off some poor schmuck. They couldn’t have made anything out of steel considering the fact that they used stone weaponry, so there was no way this wasn’t ‘plunder’.

He wasn’t really sure how to use it, but he’d sure as hell find out. Having the ability to make a fire was a God-send, and he thanked the Lord that he wouldn’t have to bash sticks together to do it. There was one more item in the sack, a single, brilliantly cut purple gemstone, the size of his fingernail. It dazzled his eyes as he held it up in the fading sunlight, gawking at it for a moment before scoffing.

Totally useless.

What was a gem gonna get him here in the wild? He couldn’t eat it or use it for survival, at least there was no application that he could think of for it. Still though… he had to think about when he actually got off the island. How much would this bad boy sell for? The cutting was impressive and the gem itself was the real deal, not fake plastic. Definitely wouldn’t be enough to buy him a new life, but who knew? Maybe he’d find some bigger ones soon. He gently tucked all the contents back into the bag before tying it onto one of his belt loops. His pockets were still full of blueberries and-

Sam paled as his hands went to his pockets, feeling the squished contents within. He pulled out a handful to only see scraps of his flattened food. Cursing, he flung the skins of his gathered goods at the bodies, looking out to the lake to see even more of them floating on its surface. It wasn’t much, but it might not be worth it to collect them again… many were already floating toward the center of the lake, or being pulled into one of the two streams. He put a hand on his brow and gave a defeated sigh, moving over to the crater-faced corpse.

Sam leaned down, swiping up the other pouch with a glower for the child-killer. He looked into the sack to see only one item. Another gem, the same size and cut as the other one he’d found, but this time it was a brilliant shade of green. More investments for his future, he supposed. He stuffed the gem back into the bag and tied the new one to another belt loop. The bags themselves were gonna be useful, ain’t no way he was leaving them behind.

Popping his back, he turned to the waterfall, squinting his eyes as he noticed something wiggling at the top. It fell down the short drop into the lake, and that was when he saw the thing in its entirety.

It was a fish.

He stared hungrily at the thing as it rushed toward the center of the lake. It was the length of his forearm and almost as wide, and Sam knew that the creature was destined to be in his stomach. Urged on by the growling of his gut, he untied the bags at his waist, letting them fall to the ground before he removed his sopping socks and boots. It was swimming close to the beach now, and didn’t retreat as his shadow loomed across the water, in fact, it seemed to be trying to get closer to him…

There was something strange about that, but his hunger won out over his sense and he waded in after it. He had strong hands, if he was lucky, he could grab the thing and fling it onto the beach before it could get away. Licking his lips, he and the fish drew closer to one another, wading through the still-bloody side of the lake.

As they drew closer, he paused, his brain screaming caution. This wasn’t normal, a fish should be trying to get away from him as quickly as possible. It would be easy for it to get away from him, all it had to do was swim into one of the two streams to escape… then again, weren’t fish stupid? He wasn’t sure, but whatever the case was, he was fully intent on eating it. His gut was sick of eating just fruit, it needed meat.

Once it was close, it lunged forward before Sam could react, opening its mouth to reveal a gaping maw of razor sharp teeth. It bit deeply into his shin, shaking hard to rip its chosen chunk free. He screamed at the sudden pain, cursing his dumbassery for ignoring logic for his hunger. It had been swimming toward him, drawn by the blood flowing through the waters. The teeth bit cleanly through his exposed leg, and he could feel them closing around the bone as the psycho giant piranha shook its head like a dog.

Sam quickly reached down, gripping the creature and forcefully removing it from his flesh. A small chunk of his meat came out with it, blood flowing freely from his new wound as the fish gulped down its morsel. Sam growled at the sight, red filling his vision as he raised the fish over his head. It was time to remind the little bastard that it was MAN who was made in God's image! He brought the biter crashing down upon his knee, hearing a sharp crunch before the thing stopped wriggling.

Heaving angrily, he flung the thing onto the beach, reaching down to clutch at the small hole in his leg. How many wounds was that so far? A machete to the forearm, a spear to the ass, and a bite to the shin. This place sucks. Thankfully this new wound was shallow, but he’d need to get some more sleeve onto it… hmm… that reminded him.

How was he going to bandage his ass? He felt at the thin hole in his jumpsuit, gently poking at the tender wound to get a feel for how urgent it was. It didn’t feel very wide thankfully, but when he brought his hand back, he saw a dabbing of blood on his fingers. He didn’t have enough sleeve to wrap around his whole waist, maybe he could just pack it with a cutting from his arm bandage? Was it safe to pack an ass wound?

He wasn’t sure, but he knew that he couldn’t just leave his cheek to bleed. He’d need all that blood for later. Thankfully he wouldn’t need much cloth to get it covered. He trudged back up to the beach with a scowl, irritated to have a chunk ripped out of him. Was every day gonna be like this? A new wound every couple hours? Most likely.

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He winced as he stuffed a piece of cut cloth into his wounded cheek, not too deeply, but enough to keep more blood from coming out. He needed to keep one hand pressed on it so it wouldn’t just fall out. He then took another, longer cutting of cloth, and wrapped it around his bitten shin. Honestly, that one might just stop bleeding on its own, it wasn’t nearly as deep as he initially thought it would be. Still, best to keep something on it till it scabbed over, didn’t want any of the jungle’s microscopic nasties getting into it. With himself all nice and bandaged, he waded back into the lake.

There was some other ‘rightful plunder’ he’d almost forgotten about. The two spears floated gently in the water, bobbing slowly away from him as he approached. It was a good thing he remembered them when he did, or else he’d have to swim out to the center of the lake to get them. Clutching both firmly in one hand, he went back to the beach, laying the spears beside the fish and staring down at it.

It looked like some kinda salmon, but with the serrated teeth of a piranha. He supposed that he should be lucky that this freaky thing had been alone. An entire school of gigantic salmrahna’s would have been… problematic. Hmm, now that he thought of it, salmrahna sounded like a good name to call these things. Hopefully it’d taste good, first though… he’d need to cook it. Eating a raw jungle fish was a good way to get a load of parasites and diseases, he was sure. Now that he had that flint and steel, it didn’t sound so impossible.

He wasn’t really quite sure how to use the little steel horseshoe, but he did know that it required him rubbing the rock on the metal to produce sparks. He stood again, approaching the two bags he had untied and re-tying them to his belt loop. He needed to find some sticks or something… he gulped nervously as he stared out into the darkening jungle. He wasn’t going back in there, if he did, he’d get shifted around again and he’d have to sleep in there, with the lizards and the damned BUGS!

Sam swatted away a couple that were hovering near his bare arm with a scowl. There just had to be some kind of natural bug repellent somewhere around here, he couldn’t just keep getting eaten alive like this! Then again… smoke was a fantastic bug-be-gone. Yet another reason to get a fire going. He’d just skim the rim of the jungle without entering it, he could see some old branches lying beneath the canopy at the edge, so he shouldn’t have to brave the trees to find what he needed.

There wasn’t much daylight left, he’d need to be quick about it. Hobbling over to the edge of the beach, clutching one hand to his tender cheek, he went to work. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that trying to light something moist was gonna be a pain, but a lot of the pieces here looked freshly fallen, the wood filled to bursting with water. Couldn’t have one damn pine tree in this stupid jungle, could they?

He had heard somewhere that pine sap was super flammable, that sure as hell would be useful right about now. Ah well, no point in dwelling over it. If they couldn’t grow showers here there was no way pine seeds would make it either. His face scrunched as he picked up another semi-dry piece of wood. Pine tree’s didn’t have no seeds, they had pinecones… were pinecones the seeds?

He’d never really thought about it before, his previous profession rarely had any involvement with trees. Once he had picked up a good amount of wood, he moved over to the fish, setting them down and gently coming to rest on his knees, using his legs to keep the patch of cloth in place on his rear. Alright, the wood was here, fish was here, how was he gonna make this happen? His brow furrowed as he brought out the flint and steel, the sharp rock and horseshoe clutched firmly in each hand.

How was he supposed to use this? Did he slip the flint through the little opening on the side and wiggle it? That didn’t seem right… especially since the metal on the inside of the shoe was barely worn. It was the exterior that showed signs of wear, being paler than the interior by a significant margin. So he’d need to strike the outside of it, if he was guessin’ right. But why the horseshoe shape? He pondered this a moment before it clicked, and he wrapped three fingers firmly around the interior.

It was kinda like a small brass knuckles! So the question was, did he hit the rock with it, or it with the rock? He was guessin’ that it was the latter, since it was easier to hold the steel still than it would be the flint. Gently, he placed the flint against the steel, and scraped the rock down the metal in one quick motion.

And it produced sparks.

He smiled giddily as he began building his fire. After arranging the sticks into a chaotic tepee, he began striking the steel just over it, creating several sparks but producing no flame. A few minutes of this passed until he growled, pounding the sand with a frustrated fist. Why wasn’t this working? It was wood, and sure, it was a little damp, but it should have caught on fire by now! He grit his teeth as he thought, frustrated.

A few more minutes passed, his surroundings growing darker as he thought of a way to get this thing to burn. Finally, when the sun was out of sight and the horizon was a faint orange, he had a realization. Fire catches on smaller things easier right? Smaller, less weighty things… whenever he’d had to commit arson, it was always the small things that caught first, not the big things. He needed to light something smaller on fire first, then the flame could spread to the bigger twigs and he’d be set.

He’d just need something small, semi-dry, and thin… but what? Fate seemed to guide his eyes until they landed on the corpses, still drying on the beach. That was when he noted the grass skirts. They were yellowing, dry, and ripe for burning. Again, he grinned as he plucked the skirts free, leaving the bodies naked as he hobbled back to his soon-to-be fire. Wadding up the grass into a birds-nest looking thing, he packed it beneath the tepee, lips pulled tightly as he concentrated. He brought the striker close to the dry grass, and struck once, twice, three times, with no flame catching.

Not giving up, he struck a dozen more times, each slide more ferocious and frustrated than the last until finally, he slipped. The flint gashed the side of his pinky knuckle open as it slid wildly down the steel. He cursed as he brought the gashed digit to his mouth, dropping the flint and steel as he did so. Why was this so friggin’ hard? Why couldn’t those two cannibal freaks have taken a lighter instead!?

As he was about to start cursing at the two bodies, he felt a sudden warmth. Looking down, he could see a small flame, starting to life within the dried grass. He shouted triumphantly, raising his fists in the air as he cheered wildly. Oh thank God! Now all he had to do was make sure that the sticks caught, then everything would be all good. He waited, seeing the flame spread across the grass, immolating it quickly…

A little too quickly. Soon, there’d be nothing left, and the sticks might not catch in time! Panicking, he stood, head whipping here and there for something else small to burn. Again his eyes landed on the bodies, and again he ran toward them, inspiration filling him as he ran back with their feather-topped wooden masks. Desperately he ripped the colorful feathers free, tossing them into the hungry flame. This only bought a few seconds at most, and it still wasn’t enough, as the fire still refused to spread to the sticks.

Those few extra seconds thankfully proved to be enough. The wooden masks themselves were of a long dead and dried wood, perfect for tinder. He broke one in half with a stomp before tossing the piece into the hungry fire, and he waited, staring pensively as the flame slowly withered.

Then it spread. The half-mask soon joined the grass in immolation, staying alight for a long while until finally, his bundle of sticks caught as well. Soon, a strong healthy fire blazed up before him, hovering a couple inches above the wood. Excited, he moved over to the dead fish, dragging it and one of the spears before it. He snapped the sharpened stone tip off the end of the weapon, holding it firmly as he began gutting the fish, pulling out several strands of entrails and other viscera before promptly chopping off its head with the machete.

He of course made sure to rinse these tools off beforehand, didn’t want to eat human-blood stained fish of course. After all the guts were out and the head was removed, he used his hands to split the remainder in half, picking out the ribs before rinsing off the meat in the lake. He wasn’t sure if he really needed to do that, but there had been some gross stuff leakin’ out of the salmrahna’s intestines. A little still stained the flesh until he cleaned it off in the water.

With the meat nice and purified of filth, he unceremoniously tossed it into the fire, watching as it cooked quickly in the flame. He didn’t really care if it got a little burnt, his gut needed meat and he didn’t care how crispy it was. The machete proved to be a fantastic spatula, and before long, the two halves were fully cooked. A tad bit black on each side, but completely edible. Using the remaining mask as a plate, Sam tore into the hot fish, gulping down every scrap until nothing remained.

The salmrahna was oddly… sweet tasting, as if it had been dunked in a pile of sugar. It didn’t matter much to him, he was paying far more attention to how pleasantly full he was. That thing had been about the size of his forearm, and it sat heavily in his grateful gut. He let out a belch and leaned back on his palms, head back as he stared up at the blackening sky. Well, now that he was finally full and hydrated, what did he do now? The dark jungle still menaced all around him, so he couldn’t keep moving.

Why not just stay the night by the beach? It was uncomfortably out in the open, but his fire was here and it helped drive the cold from his skin. Hmm… maybe he could wash his clothes and let em’ dry next to the fire? That certainly sounded like a good idea, but he wouldn’t be sleepin’ naked if he could help it. He’d need to stay awake while they dried. Those socks and boots needed a good dryin’ too, they’ve been through a lot.

He let out yet another belch, unaware of the sharp, reptilian eyes staring at him from the jungle.