I can tell the moment I’m out of Harrisonburg.

My shoulders relax, my breathing calms.

Okay, I have no idea if I’m actually out of the city, or if I’ve been out of it for a while now. There are still buildings around me, partially overtaken by nature. But there hasn’t been anyone within earshot and I can finally see the tree line in the distance, so that’s as good as being out of it in my book.

Four days. Four days with no one to make demands on me. To piss me off—What am I, chopped liver?—or just talk at me.

I know it’s my imagination, but I swear my will power climbed by a tenth just at the realization I was finally alone. Or maybe the system does work that way, who knows.

I’m not a nature man, for as much as Jim thinks that’s where I belong. I’m just as happy in my car, driving on the highway. It’s the being alone part that matters to me. Before the system, I didn’t get the chance to be in nature a lot because the places I could go to, others could too.

Now, with how dangerous it’s become?

I breathe in the smell of pine needles as I step past the tree line and relax some more. Birds chirp above me. Their calls are deeper than they should be. A sign they changed too, but they fly away.

There’s probably some big, violent, hungry animal in here somewhere, just waiting to eat me, but those I don’t care about. If one of them pisses me off, I can kick its ass until it leaves.

You can do that with people too.

Shut up.

I consider myself far enough in when I look over my shoulder and can’t see any sign of civilization, but I keep on walking for half an hour, just for good measure. This might all have been fields and farmland just a few weeks ago, but the system’s got nature retaking as much as it can.

I’m okay with that.

I hear running water and head for that.

The river runs smooth and clear, even if the bottom looks somewhat deep. It’s filled with fishes. Far more than seems normal and—the water gets cloudy where one fish devours another—okay, that might not last. It’s going to make crossing it a problem too.

So I stay on this side.

I find a tree, sit against it, and close my eyes. I listen to the breeze and open my eyes at the cracking of a branch, searching for something approaching. I shake my head to clear it and go back to relaxing. The wind dies down, and in the quiet, I feel eyes on me.

I’m up summoning my bar, searching for who that could be, or what.

On edge?

My hand’s empty because my bar broke fighting the scientist. There’s nothing out there planning to attack me, because this is a forest and what are the odds something’s going to find me if I don’t go looking for it first?

Higher than it used to be, I expect.

I sit my ass down. I close my eyes, slow my breathing, and relax.

When I feel those eyes on me again, I grit my teeth, look to the upper right of my vision, expecting to see a hint of my paranoia debuff, but it isn’t there. Does it mean I’m not imagining, or that my imagination can run away with me without triggering the debuff? I slow my breathing and pay attention to the sounds around me, both trying to calm myself and searching for one that’s out of place.

Like you know what sounds belong in a forest.

Perception check unsuccessful

Interesting, it makes sense that perception’s not limited to sight. But does failing mean there’s nothing for me to perceive, or that I didn’t perceive what is there?

You know what. It doesn’t matter.

Anything big enough to cause me problems, I’ll hear coming without trying.

You won’t hear some guy armed with a hunting rifle when he shoots you.

Of course I’m going to hear the gunshot, I reply, mentally rolling my eyes, then realize what he’s implying and groan. Just leave me alone. I’m trying to relax.

Good luck with that, in a place like this.

I ignore him, and, luckily; he doesn’t add anything.

* * * * *

With the setting sun, the temperature cools. Not so much it’s uncomfortable, but enough that the idea of a fire is appealing. It means a new location, since there are too many trees. I locate a clearing as darkness becomes near total. If the moon’s not new, there are clouds covering it. Locating rocks in the darkness takes some doing, arranging them, then getting kindling even more. By the time I strike the match, my hands are scraped and bloody in places.

Squirrels are vicious now.

The kindling gives me just enough light to find larger branches, then I have a fire and I wish I had marshmallows. A scan of my inventory makes me wish I had food of any kind. I swear I had some when I started the day.

Not like it’s been a relaxing day. You know how you get when you’re stressed.

There’s a softness in the tone I’m not used to. That ‘cut yourself some slack’ tone fathers will use on their son when he’s being too hard on himself. Or at least in books and on TV. Mine never used that tone unless he was looking to get me in trouble.

I was getting you ready for the big, bad world out there.

Stolen story; please report.

Keep telling yourself that.

You do remember I’m you, right?

Do you have any idea how annoying you get? Of course, to that he doesn’t respond.

I enjoy the fire until I fall asleep.

* * * * * *

I wake to pain and slap the thing hard. It makes a thug against a tree and I open my eyes. The dead squirrel is more than half a meter long, and the gash in my arm is deep. The damage isn’t enough to register on my health bar, but it is flashing, so I took some. Is that thing the father of that squirrel who bit me yesterday?

It’s big enough that when my stomach growls, I don’t protest turning it into breakfast. The fire’s out, but that’s easy to fix, then all I have to do is cook the thing,

* * * * *

Cooking check unsuccessful

The ingredients have been destroyed.

Skill Acquired: Cooking, Level 1

You are learning how to prepare food so it won’t kill you.

So cooking over a fire’s harder than I expected. The charred remains of the squirrel doesn’t even look appealing, not that there was a lot of it left after my failed butchering skill. Which also gained me my first level in that.

System Query: Butchering

Butchering is the ability to prepare an animal for cooking, separating the meat from the hide. The higher the skill, the more meat can be obtained, and the better the quality of the raw hide. Hide must be prepared before it can be fashioned into something else. See Skill: Tanning

System Query: Cooking

Cooking is the skill covering the preparation of ingredients for consumption. At low skill, it is possible for the ingredients to be destroyed on a failure. At low skill, it is possible for the meal to have adverse effects on consumption. Higher skill increases the quality of the meal. Certain meal require minimum skill levels to grant buffs.

Two skills I’m going to want to practice since I’m going to be traveling on foot for a while. Might as well start now.

* * * * *

I throw up hard.

Foraging check unsuccessful

Skill Acquired: Foraging, Level 1

You are learning to tell what will and won’t hurt you when picking wild plants.

Couldn’t you have told me that before I ate the fucking thing?

It would have, if you’d given it time.

“I’m hungry, okay?” I snap. And I can imagine my father’s smirk as I do that to his voice in my head.

An entire day of tracking and killing small game, well, compared to the larger animals I’ve encountered, and all I have to show for it is a skill of three in cooking, four in butchering, thirteen in tracking, and small pieces of hide I doubt anyone can do anything with.

I was so happy to come across the bush of berries that I didn’t think.

You’re surprised by that, how?

You ever considered helping, instead of nagging?

The way you’re always ignoring me? Not really.

“You’re never helping!” I snap my mouth shut. Fuck.

I’m always helping. You’re never listening. Well, mostly never. You should listen to your subconscious more often. I am full of good ideas.

No, you’re not.

The sun’s going down. This time I want the fire going before full dark and avoid putting my hand into a squirrel burrow.

But that would get you a chance at cooking again. You might not end up with a charcoal briquette this time.

I purposely ignore him as I go gather stones and wood.

* * * * *

The world hates me.

It’s raining hard, and it’s the cold sort. I’m soaked to the bones and shivering. I have the corpses of six rabbits in my inventory and no way to cook them. The one silver lining to this fucking day is that it started raining after I woke up. I’d hate to think about the mood I’d be in otherwise.

A weight falls on my back and before I reach for it, pain erupts at the back of my neck, matching the one tenth drop in my health. I dig my fingers into wet fur and pull, but before I can smash it in the ground, the cat wriggles and slips out of my fingers.

It crashes, rolls and gets to its feet and hisses at me. Some large lynx or small cougar. Instead of attacking, it bolts.

“Come back here!” I shout as I run after it. “You don’t fucking get to start this and just run off.”

It darts in the underbrush, and when I crash through it, it’s nowhere to be seen. I crouch and study the ground. You’re not getting away that easily.

Tracking check unsuccessful

“Ah come on! It’s at fifteen! You’re not letting that thing just get away from me. How the fuck did I not make that check?” when the system doesn’t respond, I pull up my activity log, because there is no fucking way I—

Tracking Skill Used, Level 15, environmental penalty, bad weather.

Tracking check unsuccessful

This is fucking unfair. “It started it!”

Ouch, what are you, seven?

I round on no one. “Don’t you fucking start! I have had enough of your running commentary. Leave me the fuck alone!”

Good luck making that happen.

I stalk off to find some place where I can get out of this rain.

* * * * *

The sunrise is amazing.

The trees are thin enough here that its rays reach me and warm me. I don’t want to ever leave here, and in spite of my protesting stomach, I at least have until my clothes dry by the fire to justify staying.

You know you can’t—

“Shut up, dad.”

Hmm. You’re verbalizing to me without me having to get you irritated. I can’t tell if that’s an improvement or not.

“It’s a I don’t fucking care right now and I want to enjoy this moment in silence.”

You’re the one talking. I’m just the voice in your head.

I sigh, but I don’t move. After yesterday, I need all the warmth I can get before I try to butcher and cook the rabbits.

* * * * *

The moan that escapes my mouth as the tough meat and the juices spill over my tongue probably counts as obscene in most company. The meat’s more burned than not, but after two days without eating anything more substantial than a handful of berries, this is the stuff kings of old feasted on.

There isn’t enough to sate me, which, once I’m done, nearly feels worse, but now I can ignore my father’s voice.

My clothes are uncomfortable for a while after putting them on, but I move the stiffness out of them as I walk, then track my next meal. I need to raise my tracking skill so nothing will be able to attack me and just run off, even if it’s raining.

* * * * *

I have one full pelt. It isn’t intact, but it is whole. I consider that a success. The animal could have been a very small bear, or a large badger, although it was nowhere near as vicious or tough as those things are supposed to be.

The meat goes over the fire, on a spit, and I turn it as the sun goes down.

“You’ve been quiet,” I say out loud, to hear something other than the wind through the branches, or the birds or the skittering of animals too small to bother with.

Didn’t you yell at me to shut up?

“Since when do you listen to me?”

You’re at peace for the first time in forever. It’s not like there’s much for me to say.

“I think I could stay here forever.”

My father scoffed. I wouldn’t go that far. Just you, me, and her? You’d go bonkers in under a month. Well, more bonkers.

“No, I think that after I’ve seen mom, I’m just going to disappear in the woods. If Toronto’s anything like Harrisonburg, Vaughn’s going to be a forest by the time I get back. Could be nice—”

Quest Reward is completed. Return to Oskar Jarzabek to claim it.

Tell me the excitement you’re feeling isn’t at being back among them again.

I scoff. “I’m getting my bar, finally.”

But I have to admit that the idea of the sound of people instead of this quiet is more appealing now than it was when I stepped into this wood.