Day 2 / 9:30 am?
Whitetail Woods
'I don't want to get up,' was the current thought I had while looking at the room in my bed, although I naively ignored that most of this vision was fuzzy. Yet, even if opaque, I could feel the phantom fabric of the overly large comforter laying on top of me, hugging against me for that relief I nostalgically cherish. I can practically name the place I thought I was in, where I came to live for almost a year as a place of safety from the stress of studies and looming deadlines. A place where I could call my friends to hang out. Even though I know it was a distraction from my textbooks, it was a welcoming one.
My dorm room, at least I think was what I could glean from it, barely changed over the last 10 months. I didn't need any extravagant décor to so-called flex on my dormmates, my friend's words, not mine. And why should I? Even if I wanted a poster, the entertainment industry was going downhill anyway. Why bother hanging a poster that will be commented on the controversy instead of the content that inspired it? Yeah, that was a dumb excuse, and my friends saw through me easily. I couldn't decide what poster to pick, and my friends were not precisely décor savvy, so I gave up and hung an 'inspirational quote here' poster instead. It was on the wall behind me, yet I seemed to ignore it while reading something interesting.
I remember looking down at my maple-caramel-colored hand holding my phone while in my bed, although it was a blank white screen staring back at me. I didn't mind and commented that 'those guys better punch those tides, or we might miss our flight,' as I was only half caring what I was saying then. After that, everything seemed to turn, like suddenly I was breaking the illusion while not paying attention to my surroundings. As the rays of light from my bedside window grew brighter and ever brighter, I suddenly felt heavy as lead, while the comforter was made of osmium. 'Why is it getting brighter?' I looked out and suddenly felt the need to reach for the window. I think it was about to close.
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Day 2 / 9:30 am?
Whitetail Woods
Then suddenly, I groggily opened my eyes, seeing not a standard cheap dorm room but the dirt, trees, and the glaring sun shining through the branches like an interrogator's headlamp blinding me as I woke up. I look down and see not my skin but cream-colored fur with an orange-red appendage. 'So, this is not a dream…' "Damn it." I cursed to myself as I slowly got up from lying against the base of a tree, trying to ignore the "Ni-ti." under my breath and the aches from sleeping against a hard surface that would soon follow.
A part of me wished and still thinks that what I'm seeing is a dream, but after remembering that if it were the case, did that mean that the last dream of me in the dorm room I just had was a dream within a dream? That's just… ridiculous, even by current standards. There is just so much bending of logic until it finally says 'screw you,' then proceeds to snap itself in half three-fold to end that line of thinking. And there is evidence to prove it.
One is this, 'My name is Luther Endini, I'm a 20 year old college student and if my friends see me now, they will either nerd out or laugh at me due to this short chubby form.' If I can articulate my thoughts clearly, this is definitely not a dream, or it will be muddled. I heard that REM sleep, the thing that actually gives you dreams, is supposed to sort out information like memories so it gives life-like sensations to mimic reality making the dream seem real. The key word is mimic. The brain can't process every single bit of physics, heat, touch, smell, or even the finer details within the dream, as you need to be born with perfect memory and instinctual deduction to have such vivid lucidity. My previous ape brain couldn't even come close to that. This leads to my second point.
I stood up and looked around until my bright blue eyes spotted its target. I walked over to my firewood pile and picked up a stick half as long as my height, which was not very long but perfect for my stature. After trying to wield it awkwardly due to the lack of two small appendages that are supposed to be attached to my hands, I finally get to write in the dirt the first thing that came to my mind as cleanly as I can get using only a three-fingered hand. 'LUKE' spelled out crudely in the ground, the nickname given by my friends. It would have been illegible if this were a dream, but it's clear as day. But all of that leaves me with a single thought I wanted to avoid, like the plague. 'You are not in a dream. You are in a different world. Deal with it.'
'I'm not in a dream,' I thought, and I don't know if that was relieving or terrifying. It's Relieving that I might not be in a realistic coma dream sequence. Although it may be cliché, it is still a scary thought that I might just be subsiding off a tube while strapped to a hospital bed and that no input from the real world will wake me up. Thank the heavens that I don't have to suffer. But it is still Terrifying that I will get hurt, and I just can't wake up like it's a nightmare, knowing what I went through isn't real. If I were to put my life in peril, it would all be real, that I might actually be gone permanently. This is my reality. While in a body that is familiar yet unknown at a fundamental, biological, and even physiological level. That goes twofold for my situation as there might be a chance that the inhabitants not knowing what a Victini even is, and that is for this world I'm currently on!
'This is not Earth,' I constantly remind myself as my eyes take a clear gander around me with my new sensitive eyes. Now that it's morning, I can clearly see the crisp blue skies with some clouds hanging in there with several forms flying across the horizon that are way too big for ordinary birds, as I guess they are the flying types Pidgey or Starly. I look at one of the blueberries-of-unnatural-size next to me. Even GMOs couldn't even scratch the size difference compared to Earth berries. I would have solved world hunger AND helped out with healthcare, giving me a Nobel prize if I were to bring these things home, and that is not the most shocking part! I look over and see a familiar face of a giant caterpillar. Who I think I named 'Buddy' and saw that he was already active and munching on a mushroom before my lazy butt even left the ground. "At least you know what you are doing," I said to Buddy, and yet I can't help but feel inadequate, comparing myself to a bug on survival skills. But that thought soon turned into wonder as there was a Catterpie right in front of me, reminding me of the opening intros to a Pokémon Movie about the fantastical creatures and the environments they live. This soon turned into a feeling of isolation, knowing that I didn't exactly fit the part of one with the ecosystem. 'I can't live here,' my mind made up. I will not stay here, which leads to the last point.
How am I going to deal with it? 'Society,' my mind went off like a mad sprint towards the forgone conclusion to my predicament. I need to find others. I am not a survivalist. I never once had a passion for roughing it in the wilderness to only live on scraps for the rest of the day. A place of safety and security is where I thrive, full of information, opportunity, and community. With people to actually talk to! If I am in the Pokémon world, there must be humans, right? I know my only source for my thesis isn't exactly sound, with me only playing two games and watching the anime and a handful of movies. It was risky to assume that I would find humans here, but it's either that or try to survive in the wild where I might accidentally piss off the nearest predator and become its lunch, so in hindsight, my choice seemed obvious at the time. 'I need to find civilization, or I die trying.'
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Yep, great plan! Let's just ignore the fact that I don't know any hint of civilization near here, and if there are humans and if I were to meet them, some of them might bring out their fast pitchers from a local baseball team, just to say hello! Yes! Just ignore the round metal objects moving 50 meters per second at my face, which may or may not have a chance to catch me when it inevitably brains me full force! I see no way this will turn into an absolute shit show! Okay. Maybe this is not a well-thought-out plan, but it is a start to not being in a survivalist life more than I need to. I just have to figure out the 'oh god, please don't catch me!' plan while traveling. There might not even be humans here, and I might accidentally stumble across a Pikachu colony or something.
Now though? It is time to gather my camp and prepare for my journey! By Gandhi, if only I came here as a trainer, it would still suck, but at least I would have no fear of meeting my fellow man and shiny metal balls… there is an innuendo somewhere in that thought, is there? Gah! My mind right now just wants to drift toward less boring subjects that don't have to do with packing, but I refocus on the task at hand, knowing my life could be on the line. 'Stuff to carry; food, water, and a fire starter,' I listed in my head. The food will be the most straightforward of the three since it's not a liquid, and it's not, *ahem* dubious at best. So it should be easy, all I need is a carriable container, and I might know how to get one. My eyes soon drift towards the tall grass, standing straight and proudly at the field.
Day 2 / 11:00am?
Whitetail Woods
Did anyone ever think having claws would be so useful? From my recent experience, cutting grass with long stalks that get wider and tougher at the lower end, which I can envision, can get pretty annoying to the everyman who wants to gather yet doesn't have a sharp-cutting implement at hand. So although I don't have a hand sickle now, or ever later down the line, claws came to save the day once again! They are still blunt at the end and do not have completely sharp edges, as I had to cut it a few times for one stalk, it's still better than the rocks I find on the ground, and I suck at stone knapping, so I'll just stick to my claws thanks. It took a bit to gather what I needed, but I had dozens of grass stalks about similar length as my height in a pile in front of me, making me eager to do the next part.
I took one stalk and just laid it straight. Took another one and laid it parallel next to it. I kept doing this until I stopped, having about ten stalks in a row. Then I took another stalk in a pile and started weaving perpendicular to the row of grass, just under and over until the end of the row. I did the same thing with another but did the opposite going over and then under. I kept adding stalk after stalk in a repeating pattern until I got some sort of grass weave with the leftover length hanging out the edges of it. The next part is crucial. I snatched a longer-than-average stalk, bent the ends of the weave upwards, then started weaving in and out. It took a few tries, knots, and plenty of grass, but I got the desired height I wanted. Then used the rest of the cage's length to wind and tie at the ends to make a makeshift handle.
'There we are! Now that is how you make a basket!' I was practically beaming as I lay my eyes upon the abomination I'd brought to this world. It was supposed to be a grass basket, if you ignore the gaps in the weave not being even, stalk ends haphazardly sticking out in some places, and some grass stalks even snapped and torn during the whole weave process. What it truly is, a thing that should be burned so it will not see the light of day, yet I looked at it with some form of pride like I defeated the Elite Four without fainting any of my team. It is fugly sure, but it will carry my stuff without using my hands since it has a strap to go over my shoulder, whatever equivalent of my shoulder is anyway. 'It might not look pretty, but it would do for now. I could just make, a better bag on my travels so this is a good stopgap.' I thought while trying not to think about if my arts-and-crafts teacher were to see what I created, she might have pretended I didn't exist so that she would not have associated with the inspiration for the creation of this travesty. At least it works by carrying berries and rocks, but the basket does itch against my fur from time to time. Buddy even approves! But I had to pull away my creation before he did the taste test.
As for carrying water, no. I searched around for anything that could be an excellent watertight material to make a container with, and I did find clay, but that came with a problem. Making a clay container will take time, making the furnace will take time, making the fire hot enough to bake clay will take time, and drying and cooling the clay will take time. Time that I don't have. Plus, water is heavy, and It's not like I know how to make a small container without it crumbling to dust. It is already hard enough to balance my body without the added weight of the bag, as I can attest, as I almost fell over when carrying the berries with this thing. So I decided to throw my hands up and say, 'screw this!' as reality makes a return visit for my withdrawal of good karma for the day. If only coconuts exist in a riparian forest, but even in a world of pokémon, that seems too much of a stretch unless it starts gallivanting here with King Arthur. I have to rely on the local water sources for my journey, which should be easy to find since this is a forest.
Which leaves only my fire starter. I stared dumbly at the firestone on the ground covered in soot, my brain processing how I used it the last time I 'started' the fire. 'Should be easy, right?' I thought hopelessly as the feeling in my gut predicted the ensuing headache that would soon be brought upon my sanity. I should get a job application as a fortune teller because what I've experienced did not disappoint.
Day 2 / 12:00pm?
Whitetail Woods
I tried holding the firestone. I tried holding it tightly. I tried staring at it intently while thinking 'fire, fire, fire, fire,' without even blinking until a mosquito flew into my eye. "Oh, I did not miss you!" I stated angrily while rubbing my eye at the irritation given by the insect martyr. So glad those things still exist! Back to the stone, I waved it around, saying, "fire come, bring forth fire, cast firebolt!" like some sort of wizard dropped out of Hogwarts. I was getting desperate. I even did a firebending Kung-Fu stance shouting "HA!" with arms outstretched and hands cupping the firestone outward. A slight breeze passed, carrying leaves past me as I stood there like a dumbass in silence.
Currently, I was staring at the unchanged firestone in my hand, like I was trying to solve a tricky puzzle in the daily section of a newspaper. More than an hour had passed, and still nothing of the familiar glow I came to associate with my magical power of starting a blaze at will. I was beginning to lose patience, and when I lose patience, I begin to become impulsive, a bad habit of mine as I don't like to fail over, and over, and over again. This soon came ahead as I could do the only thing that came to mind. To create that spark I did last night, but with a twist. "Gah! Just spark already!" I shouted and threw the thing into the dirt ahead of me. It hit the ground, didn't even spark once, and then skipped straight into a bush with a 'crash.' What I didn't expect after the 'crash was a "Pidg-Scraaa!" coming from the bush the stone barged into.
Suddenly, a small, winged form flapped over the bush and started hovering over it. Its brown feathers puffed up in irritation and its sharp eyes darted around, searching the area like someone had mugged it for its wallet. "Who threw that?!" the cream-colored underbelly avian squawked into the open. By the look in its scowl, mildly frustrated is an understatement. The Pidgey's talons facing out looked ready to gouge anyone who looked at it funny. It was too bad that instead of hiding, I was making my best firebender impression while staring at it, going, "Uhhhhhhh." I wanted to say it was an accident, but I soon realized putting attention on myself and gaining the pokémon's ire was not a wise decision, especially when it had a craving for vengeance on its mind. But, of course, it didn't matter either, as the bird pokémon's head swiveled and stared down my stubby stature, automatically pinning me as the culprit of the impromptu rock throw.
"It was YOU, wasn't it?! You think it's funny, throwing rocks huh?! I'll show you something funny!" The Pidgey screeched as I felt this was the right time to leave. I snatched the basket off the ground and started booking it, as I shouted "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" while running away, hoping that would placate it, but the bird of prey was not having it. "You will be sorry after I'm done with you! NOW HOLD STILL!" The Pidgey was gaining speed and started diving towards me. This is going to hurt! "IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" I cried out to the forest as the form was about to make contact. Please, can anybody let this nightmare end!