Elsewhere in Goshem, individuals who came to exist in this place were having various unique experiences. Tinashe Mahando, had woken up on a beach, soaked wet by the ebbing flow of the ocean. He was surprised and instantly assumed that he had transitioned to the afterlife. The vastness of the ocean blues were calming and he felt refreshed by the air, wonderful scenery and peace of mind.
He had succumbed to bullying, both physical and via social media, and taken his life through euthanasia. All those people who didn’t understand him and attacked him for being different were long gone. He believed he had transitioned to heaven as compensation for the trials he went through in his past life, but as he glanced behind and saw the massive undulating topography of the island he was on, he began to wonder if he would find angels or others who had moved on to this world.
The rugged terrain and unusual tropical elements were all remarkable until he saw the message from the purple being displayed in front of him. The experience was all too surreal and he felt rather conflicted by what he had just seen, as well as taking notice of the multiple bars on his peripheral vision.
Tinashe had many questions regarding what was going on and wondered whether or not he was in a video game or some horrific 5th dimensional simulation. What did the custom goal mean, why did he have RPG inventory slots, a life bar and so forth? He panicked and thought that he was hallucinating, but soon enough, he accepted that he indeed was living on the planet Goshem. He also began to acknowledge that his current physiology was different from before. Tinashe had remembered being a really frail boy with impaired vision, having to wear large spectacles that made him look like a dork.
His new body was slim and healthy. He could see clearly and didn’t even strain his eyes whenever he looked out into the distance. Though everything so far seemed like a mystery to him, at least he was blessed with good eyesight and would never have to relive the experiences of having to get prescribed lenses and getting new glasses every time they broke because he got his ass kicked by bullies in highschool. His short demeanour had remained, but he didn’t really complain about that facet of his anatomy not changing. His skin tone was light caramel and he had baby blue eyes. His mixed ethnicity showed in his rather snub-nosed nose, plump lips and rounded face.
The large sneakers, slightly baggy jeans, cobalt t-shirt and blue jersey he had when he went to the suicide facility were still on his body. He wondered if all people ended up in the afterlife with their clothes, but rather than fixate on the crazy ideas in his mind, he decided to explore the island which seemed large in scope. He would at times call out, “Is there anybody here?”, but was sadly confronted with silence. The vacancy of the island seemed to scare him and he wondered when he would find the other 1000 mentioned by the purple being.
As he climbed atop the rocky lumps and bumps to reach the top, he quickly realised that there was more to this island. He could see various kinds of animals that looked like slight variations of what he had seen at the zoo. From badgers, squirrels and even sheep with red fur and 6 horns that glowed. He distanced himself from the strange wildlife, hiding behind rocks, not willing to show his presence to them. Even if they were harmless, he was still afraid of making contact with them.
Tinashe took a detour and wandered to an opening. There he found several trees with fruits and he could hear various insects. The trees seemed to be entangled into each other; vines and branches were all coiled together and it seemed like the smaller trees were trying by all means to get access to sunlight. As he moved deeper, he started to hear the trickling of water and noticed the build up of what seemed like steam. He checked and noticed a gorge that led directly to a waterfall which seemed pretty far away.
The scenery was marvelous to behold and on instinct, his muscle memory made him reach out for something. He then remembered that he didn’t have his camera and couldn’t partake in some photography. His eyebrows were completely raised as he gasped, instantly shaken with awe. As he observed even more, he could see different kinds of fauna and flora. Some that resembled monkeys which had purple fur, climbing down a rocky wall with their infants hanging on their backs. It was an interesting sight to behold, but regardless of how amazing things looked, the 18 year old boy, who had never done a solo adventure, began to feel slightly worried. Where was everyone?
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The twilight came and there was still no sign of human life. Tinashe who wished to keep calm, soon enough got frightened by the time it was really dark. He had nowhere to sleep and he hadn’t eaten anything. All the fruits here looked strange and he questioned the nature of them being edible. He decided to return to the beach and slept there, but his night was not one that easily went by. He had committed suicide, but he regretted his decision. He recalled hating his parents for making him attend the school he was going to and wished that he could have changed schools.
He was eccentric and rather opinionated which rubbed most people the wrong way. He remembered being called, ‘Too woke for your own good’, by some of his peers. He was a liberal minded young man, living in a rather closed community of conservative individuals. His parents had moved to the Northern part of Lusaka in Zambia, at a particular suburb with its own highschool, for work reasons. They simply couldn’t afford for him to change schools this late into his highschool years just because of the issues with peers seeing him as vulnerable or hating his unique way of thinking. His parents wanted to help, but wished he could just endure and just finish his time there and move on.
Alas, that plan backfired and he killed himself. He had wished that he hadn’t been ostracized for being different and that there were more open minded individuals there. In the end, that was it. He knew that his mother would probably be in pain because of this and didn’t want her to lament, but it was of no use now that he was dead. As he listened to the ebbing shores and looked at the moon lit sky, he could see all the stars in the universe and some of the planets close by. He then slept, scared of his current situation and hoping to find others like him in Goshem.
The routine of being alone went on for a while and Tinashe began to experiment with the mechanics of Goshem. He slowly realised the effects of making xp purchases and passive percentage increases for stats and wondered what special ability he would get upon reaching level 2. He subsisted on fishing, fruits and vegetables. At one point, he even had a tussle with one of the monkeys which beat the shit out of him when he tried to take fruit that seemed to be belonging to a specific congress of monkeys.
It left him alone when it lost interest in him, but his body was a wreck by the time it was done with him .This was his first time experiencing a near death experience in Goshem, but he also got to witness the uncanny regenerative abilities that came from his body recovering from his wounds. He felt like Deadpool and even marvelled at the fact that his broken, dislocated forearm had reattached itself after he had lied on the ground for nearly 26 hours, as he completely healed. His life bar was fully restored and so was he confidence in living here alone.
7 days into being here, he began to think about the Tom Hanks film ‘Cast Away’ and wondered if he would go crazy and pluck a coconut and mark it with a smiley face to resemble a person. He desperately wanted to experience this isolation with someone, rather than doing it all by himself. One day, the weather drastically changed and the became vicious. Violent waves came and the beach was no longer the best place to sleep. Tinashe decided to find somewhere else to cover himself and also opted to avoid any of the monkeys at all costs. The water levels were rising and it seemed like going up top was the wisest idea.
Tinashe found a cave and quickly took shelter there. He didn’t want to test his body’s ability to handle the cold and rain, wishing to avoid getting pneumonia or a fever. Even if this was the afterlife, not much concerning how he his body generally operated had changed, with exception to his eyesight and build. As Tinashe stayed in there, he noticed that there were glowing night bugs in their hives.
They acted as lamps, giving a neon light experience which felt otherworldly to him. He was mesmerized by what he was seeing, but decided to rest for the night. Tinashe began to also think to himself that as much as it was amazing to be here, a unique experience you could brag to your friends or post on instagram just for show, he still missed the available necessities that came with modern civilization.
Without any television, video games, computers, music and so forth, he felt like he would eventually experience withdrawal symptoms from getting disconnected. This going off the grid lifestyle was eventually going to lose its lustre and he really felt lonely. He really wondered how long it would be before he would find someone he could share this experience with, but soon enough, his desire was obliged.
Tinashe snored in silence as the rain continued to do its worst. As he slept, someone was coming from the cave’s entrance, a man older than him as well as being much taller than him. Standing at 5’11 feet tall, John Banda, carefully walked in, wielding a bat made of wood. He had an overgrown beard that reached his collarbone, curly afro hair with faded sides which were all soaked and he had a solid build. It was clear that he was putting in the work for the strength percentage part, but his upper body was covered in a jiu jitsu gi and the lower part looked like it was cover with a hawaiian hula.
The man walked into the cave as if he was doing lunges and saw the young Tinashe. He nudged his body with his weapon which then alarmed the young man who had fallen asleep. John looked pretty creepy with how the lighting cast shadows on his face and body which petrified Tinashe. He began to scream like a bitch as John tried to calm him down. Tinashe even resisted him and began to run away, deep into the cave, using the glowing night bugs as a guide. He later on unintentionally slipped into what looked like a frothing flood pond. The area he was in was the rocky shelter which was just before the cascading drops of water from a waterfall.
Tinashe, however could not swim and began to struggle to stay afloat. The bubbling water swept him away until he was now just underneath the bombardment of cascading water. The peculiar figure, John, followed the young man and jumped into the water to save him. Because of the heavy rain and force that came from the waterfall, John was put in a position where he was chasing after the boy in a rapid. The dangerous flash flood was taking them for a ride, but John hoped to get a hold of the first person he encountered on this island alive.