The day started normally, he got up from his bed and pulled out his Rubik cube. He had been trying to solve it on his own for years but never succeeded. Walking into the bathroom and brushing his teeth Hendrik made his way to his part-time job. Finishing his shift and heading home, he kept fiddling with his Rubik cube.
After looking both ways and continuing home he noticed people started acting weird.
Some of them screamed and hollered, others spasmed on the ground. People tried to help them but then they got up and started attacking people. What Hendrik noticed is that after every kill they ate and mutated slightly, ramming one with his car he watched its back audibly crunch and snap against another car he had hit.
It screamed and cried like a newborn not knowing why it was in pain.
Pulling back and turning around he slammed the gas pedal to get home faster. Everything started to blur once he passed 60mph and he hurled but kept driving.
Everybody he ran over made his stomach squeeze and turn as it went bump. Slamming into a telephone pole he got out of the car and ran, hurling the door open and locking it behind him he just laid there panting. Why had this happened was it some sort of disease, terrorists, bioweapon anything to make sense of what was going on.
He fiddled with his cube again as he pondered fruitlessly as his mind kept screaming murder and death.
He heard banging and screaming at his door, but he couldn’t hear it everything was so distant. After a couple of minutes, the screaming stopped and the pounding grew louder until even that stopped. Hendrik wanted to scream cry anything but sit in a corner listlessly until his body gave him a reason to.
He hurled and choked on blood as his organs squirmed fighting something violently without care for a superficial injury. Even then he couldn’t move although it was for a different reason this time, his body didn’t listen and he was numb.
“ Somebody help me…” Was all his throat could muster but nobody heard him.
______________________________________
When Hendrik woke up he was in a forest of green, tangled with vines and thorn bushes. A bird cried and a branch snapped nearby, he got up and ran. Something was chasing him, some sort of animal from what he saw. He tried to yell for help but his throat was raw and his voice came out a squeak.
Then he started falling, branch, branch, trunk, branch, ground.
“Ow, shit that hurts, FU-”
He woke up sometime later and tried to move emphasis on try. He managed to move his fingers but not his shoulder. Tentatively touching his stomach it was wet, but no wound. Getting up and using a tree as support, he looked around again.
Tree, sky, bird, wait bird why is a bird there and why is it getting larger.
“ FUCK” he yelled as he ducked behind a tree, it cut the tree in half. Those are some sharp claws, it then took off again with a beat of its wings. Well, that's terrifying, using another tree Hendrik made his way in one direction.
“Where am I, wasn’t I at home?”
At first, he thought he was hallucinating but later decided he was dead, giant bird, mysterious monster. That just wasn’t what was going on before he passed out, people were going rabid. And mutating what happened, was his home okay, where was everyone.
-Crack-
When he looked down he saw a human skull, a really old one as it broke as soon as weight was put on it. And then he looked around and realized where he was, a mass graveyard a human graveyard.
He stopped moving for fear of making more noise and attracting some sort of monster.
Who knows when he stopped and started moving backward carefully avoiding skulls, femurs, and ribs. Then he looked inside his pockets and found his Rubik cube, it looked different. It was cracked and broken in some places, and the color was worn away. He tried to twist it to ease his mind, but it snapped, he gently put the two pieces in his pocket, and looked for high ground.
He looked up and didn’t see the sun so he picked a random direction he would try to stick to. He found a small pond stopped and started a fire after many tries, the rest of the day was spent carving out a bowl.
He grabbed two evenly long sticks and Hendrik grabbed some vine and made something to manually hold the water over the fire with.
The bowl almost caught fire but he quickly dipped it in the pond careful to not spill any water, and finished boiling it maybe around 2 minutes of rolling boil.
“ That hits the spot, animals here will hopefully stay away from smoke but I can’t stay here long” Looking around again he decided to climb a tree, “ Holy shit that tree is tall”
But ultimately it was the best to climb as it would allow him a wide and far field of view.
It was around the same size as a redwood, but had many branches even lower down and was many times thicker. The short answer is the tree was huge but also the safest to climb, the tree was a really dark red and almost had spikes along its trunk and roots.
Climbing up the tree, he grabbed foothold and handhold carefully and almost spent the whole night climbing. He had brought some water up with him, but nothing prepared Hendrik for what he saw.
At the top he saw the most beautiful sunrise, and turning around he saw 8 moons slowly dipping down beyond his field of view.
“ That is beautiful, why can’t everywhere else be as awesome and semi less dangerous”
Too bad he needed to survive but he had other things to do in this han-
-SHOOM-
-d fate dealt him, what the hell was that?
Looking towards it, the many eyes that suddenly appeared along the tree did as well. He immediately started climbing down as fast as he could, the tree's eyes didn’t even look at him. He climbed down very carefully in some spots as the tree was absolutely covered in eyes.
But thankfully or not the tree still knew about his presence and close the eyes where he was about to step.
This tree was terrifying much more so than any of the monster like things he had encountered. The tree most likely watched him climb its branches, that was hella scary.
He almost fell on the way down when he suddenly had trouble breathing, he definitely had a broken rib.
“ Fuck fuck fuck, fucking hell why is the tree alive what was that shoom like noise and why am I in this place”
When he reached the bottom and an eye looked directly at him he almost pissed himself, he was almost old enough to drink. Why was this tree so scary, why did everything want to kill him. Pushing aside his doubts and insecurities he quickly put out the fire and kept going in the direction he chose.
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Maybe the spikes and it being tallest and dark red wasn’t enough of a sign that it was some sort of monster.
Who knew Hendrik sure didn’t, drinking some of the water he had prepared for when he got down from the tree and putting the bowl away. He had three bowls, and his shirt was getting worn out as it was extremely hard to make a backpack with vines and wood.
He had a designated fire starter stick which he called woody. ‘I know original but it sounds nice and I’m not gonna think too deeply’
After walking for what felt like forever he found another smaller pond and started boiling. He needed to stay hydrated as he could get sick, and dehydration was serious. It didn’t get too cold at night but he needed to find shelter so he could sleep peacefully as he hasn’t slept in what felt like forever.
Taking off his shirt and filling it with leaves he sought how to find a high enough branch that was also thick enough to comfortably sleep in.
The first tree had branches that were too thin, the second was just right but it also had thorns. The third one was red the fourth, fifth, and sixth until tree number 78 was just right.
Filling all three bowls he took a sip from one and climbed upward, managing to make it forty percent of the tree before calling it good.
“ Why are all these trees so fricking tall, where do they get their nutrients and how do the smaller trees get sun”
This world didn’t follow anything he knew about physics that he learned in high school, the trees had eyes. And the birds were freakishly large, not to mention the fact that he shouldn’t even be here. Anyway he went to sleep ‘why do the bird be big tho’ yes he had entertaining thoughts.
Hendrik woke up and started his way down the tree, using an improvised vine rope he found a dead weight to attach it to from up above so he could get down the tree easier. Later that morning he saw that the sun moved freakishly slow, maybe 10 times slower but hey his internal time was always screwy.
“ Shit it's hot, whoever made this place sure didn’t include air conditioning”
Today he managed to carve out a spear, and by his sight it wasn’t even 7am. After he made the spear he settled on acquiring a steady supply of food, as he could be here for a long time.
Maybe he should just give up, but yesterday Hendrik got chased by two separate animals. Couldn’t he find some smaller ones, the only one he saw was from a distance and it flew away it kinda looked like a hummingbird but larger.
He was probably seeing things but it instantly disappeared after looking at it too long. So he decided to set traps, using some of the berries he found traveling through this dense forest.
The trap was a simple noose trap using one of the smaller bendy trees of the bunch.
A couple hours later he found that the tree had been ripped out of the ground. Tying vines together in a braid and then braiding two braids together at around noon after grabbing a nap he had caught one of the hummingbirds.
It was straining the vine as he had chose a much larger tree deciding he would check on the traps and kill the food himself.
Maybe he was crazy but he sure didn’t think so, and he was the only vote so majority wins.
Hendrik then pelted the poor bird with rocks, it didn’t even phase it so he tried to use his spear. It ended up just dodging his spear swing and stab both, he even tried tugging on the rope and reeling it in. Needless to say it still didn’t budge and the rope couldn’t take much more, so he used his vast intellect to put some berries on the ground and then grab it.
“Screech screech SCREECH” The bird hollered but once he got hold of it he started choking it.
Sure this sounded cruel but he needed to eat, and if he didn’t have any energy he would slowly starve. So its best to just take this win wher- -YANK- e it is.
Finally managing to choke the damn thing out he tried to defeather it, failed and headed back to his temporary camp to try again. He had to yank at one feather for maybe 10 minutes before it came out, so he started sharpening a wooden knife. After he felt it was sharp enough he tried to defeather it by just cutting the feathers off.
Sure after he cooked it he would have to occasionally spit out feather pieces but he needed food bad.
Cooking it took a while and he had to constantly turn it, leaving him to his thoughts ‘alright so even birds are physically stronger than me to I better take that into account’ What about the larger animals would they just straight rip him in half with any tail swing or tug on him.
The question is are the animals even the same, it might look like a hummingbird but it could be something entirely different.
If they are that means it will be extremely hard to pierce them with his spear as their muscles could just snap the wood in twain. Or fragments don’t really matter, but the point is any weapon he could make currently probably can’t take out mid to large sized animals.
What if they are venomous, one bite would end him or poisonous and eating it would also kill him.
Wait before we continue down that avenue the bird is burning, plopping it down onto one of his bowls he poked it. It was kinda gamey and strings and full of fat and some kind of grease.
It tasted like chicken heaven though, its really hard to describe it tasted like cajun chicken had a baby with marinated turkey and wagyu steak.
Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all, wait a minute didn’t he have to take his medicine.
“ SHIT, fuck god damn it all” If he didn’t have his medicine he would feel agonizing pain. Fuck, maybe the berries would have some sort of pain dulling effect or just keep him out of it until the episode ended.
Finishing the angel bird, he popped a couple of berries that looked different into his mouth. The berries are purple so maybe it isn’t poisonous but even if it is, killing him before the pain became debilitating in the middle of a monster-filled forest would be a small mercy.
After a couple minutes he started to see color, like really see it. Everything was suddenly full of color, he felt a sharp twinge of pain but it faded away.
When he came back to from his trip, he smartly said.
“ This berry makes you see things so hallucination berry is what I’ll call you"
His naming sense was the best at least he didn’t call it the “see-see berry” Or better yet the trippy berry, anyway he looked around for tracks near his camp with his trusty spear and woody the wood starter.
Nothing, he started playing with the bird bones, call him childish if you must but it helped keep him calm.
He knew he needed stimulation and to solve puzzles to keep himself sane, pocketing some berries for the road he went in search for a stick to draw in the dirt with. Couldn’t do it with woody as he needed him to start fires.
“ Maybe I’m stupid but It's common sense to not put dirt on your only fire starter and spend time fruitlessly making another”
He didn’t know what these animals eat, the bacteria from these super animals would give him a really bad stomach ache at best, kill him at worst.
Doing complex equations in the dirt, he finally realized why his math teacher said math is important. Who knew it would be the thing to keep himself sane, or from getting any dumber than he already was.
His voice was still quaking and squeaky but at least he could talk almost normally.
Then he started on word problems, he almost gave up but when your sanity is at stake you better be ready to do anything. Afterward, problems he started drawing, he would need a map later no matter how crude.
“ Hey maybe I can draw myself an explanation as to why I am here”
Maybe he could make a treehouse later, he IS in the forest and wood is the only available resource. Gathering some wood and wrapping it with vine he slung it over his back and started making a pulley system to transport wood faster.
After making a basic pulley he started loading wood up, tearing some vine off a nearby branch he made a small hut. By making a small circle with sticks and tying it to a stick in the middle he made a small house.
No windows but it would do, and he could camouflage it to blend in.
“ who knew I would be building a treehouse at my age, for I am old in my infinite wisdom at the age of 18”
Most of the stuff he learned was still in his head and his nickname in school was toby. Too bad or maybe good that Karl wasn’t here even though he knew more survival skills. It would be better that only one person was stuck in this hellhole of a planet. Too bad he was held back a year or he would have graduated with me, but hey when the planet turned to hell at least he has teammates to survive with.
“ Me I’m on my own I hope, cause I might be the only sane one to try to keep sane”
And hey maybe he could just thrive here, the food tastes great even without seasoning. Some salt or pepper maybe some butter or oil to cook with would be nice.
Maybe later he could boil salt water to get salt, who knows he might become a great chef.
But he would also have to catch his food and wrestle it for survival making him the greatest chef to ever exist.
“ Call me Hendrik David “Toby” Vance and I dream of making the most delicious food on this here planet”
Tucking in for the night he went over what had happened that day a lot had happened, call him a baby but some tears streamed down his eyes just before he went to sleep. Maybe he wasn't the best human being but he would say he was pretty lucky after a splash of bad luck put him in this mess.