There was seemingly no end to the sea of trees as he walked further and further, he had no way of knowing whether he was getting closer to the end of this forest or if he'd unknowingly started to walk towards the heart of it.
Fortunately, he'd only crossed paths with smaller creatures and animals in the past three hours he'd been travelling - he'd tried to hunt a few of them in an attempt to have something to eat later but they proved that despite their size they were still beasts, their agility was inferior to the Panthers but since they were trying to avoid him instead of attacking him it was impossible to catch them before they disappeared into the wilderness.
After the first few encounters went like this he'd given up on trying and concentrated on the path ahead, after his experience with the Panther he was much more attentive to his surroundings just in case.
The sky was a golden hue as the sun was beginning to set, with no end in sight to the forest Jackson had no choice but to pick up the pace in an attempt to find some sort of shelter among the trees. His casual jog evolved into a full blown sprint, he didn't hold back as he raced through through the forest while trying his best to avoid the trees.
The increase to his agility from the Beast Crystal, while not that obvious, was noticeable as the trees began to slightly blur as he ran; it was a good thing his intelligence was already high or else his mind might not have been fast enough to make his body react when he closed was about to crash into trees.
That was one of the 'balance' issues that could come with unequal rating increases, he might be able to run fast but if his mind couldn't react fast enough then it was nothing more than raw speed with no use in battle, you were more likely to hurt yourself while running than anything else because of it.
Five minutes later he began to notice the surroundings change. It wasn't that there was less trees, he was still in the depths of the forest as far as he could tell, but there were signs of civilisation. Lamp-posts, signs and parts of a concrete road were emerging from among the lush greenery that surrounded him.
The words on the signs were too faded for him to even make out the language let alone the words on them but it started to prove one of the rumours he'd heard floating around a year ago. 'So above ground really has been taken over by nature again...' His heart started to beat faster in anticipation of what he might find.
With no other choice he followed the ruins of the road as fast as he could which was harder than it sounded, in some parts nature had completely retaken and the road had completely disappeared as if it'd never existed but a few meters away the road would be there again, continuing into the distance.
Finally, buildings began to appear.
They were rundown, collapsing and crumbling with trees, vines and plants growing around and within them but they were buildings nonetheless. Small homes and larger offices, it looked like he was on what used to be the street of a small town. In some cases there were simply empty spaces with mere bricks remaining to show there'd been a building there to begin with, maybe it would only be a few more years until even these remains of the old world were buried and forgotten.
Jackson couldn't help but grow nostalgic as he walked on the ruins of a pavement, the soft breeze of the wind as it was herded through the maze of concrete man-made buildings that humanity had once inhabited on the surface.
There was no better place for him to stay the night than in the walls of one of these buildings, if he could find at least a single bed that hadn't been destroyed over the years then he could at least try and rest easy while ignoring the low growl of his stomach.
The darkness of the night sky was quickly revealing itself and as were the nocturnal beasts of the forest as howling and shrieks could be heard from its depths, the forest was coming alive with activity that he hadn't heard in the day which quickly made up his mind for him. He walked towards the most 'intact' building he could find, in this case the one that looked the most stable amongst them with the least amount of plant-life growing over it.
Simply from walking in he could tell it was a clothing store, while it was small it had several clothes racks that'd been either emptied of clothes or there were rags of cloth on the floor from the clothes that had originally been here. The darkness of the store only served to make him more cautious as he ventured inside.
The door was stiff as he tried to close it, he gave it a solid push only for one of the hinges of the door to suddenly snap and cause Jackson to jump back slightly in fright. After realising what had happened he gave a soft sigh and chuckled before carefully closing the door so much as he could so he didn't damage it any further.
Jackson made his way towards the door that was behind the cash register while picking up some of the rags of clothing and shoving them in his pockets, they'd make good fuel for a fire if he could manage to start one at some point.
Crrrrrrr...
The door slowly creaked open as he pushed it, it was much easier to move than the front entrance one at least although that sound was certain to have already announced his presence to anything within if they hadn't already heard his struggle with the front door.
He waited for a full minute, not daring to go through the door, as he listened for anything moving in the building from further inside. After a minute had passed and nothing had happened a small sigh of relief escaped his lips but he didn't let his guard down for a moment as he cautiously stepped through the doorway.
The room on the other side could only be described as near pitch-black but after a few seconds he found his eyes adjusting to the light level as darkness became faint outlines, faint outlines then became shapes as the room was painted to him in differing shades of black that painted him an almost clear picture of what was in front of him.
On the other-side was what he could only assume was a mix between a stock-room and general break area as several racks of clothing lined one side whereas there was two small sofas a coffee table and a small kitchen on the other, there was also a set of stairs at the back of the room going up to the second floor.
The room hadn't been left undisturbed either however, he could see the outline of plants that had somehow broken through the floor of this part of the building and in some places the ground had begun to crack as if some creature was trying to force its way through from hell below.
The idea that plants may be just as dangerous as the beasts he was hiding from was beginning to form in his mind as he walked towards the set of steps at the back of the room.
He slowly tested the first couple of steps, they creaked beneath his weight but they held as he made his way up them. Somehow, he reached the top without any of them snapping on him as he began to explore the upstairs.
There was a single, open door, which he stepped through into an upstairs area that was completely open. there was a single bed in one corner of the room with an assortment of old furniture and trinkets all around. Walking to the table in the middle of the room there were a few hand-written letters that had faintly aged but were still legible enough that the words on them remained.
Straight away he realised that either the owner of this store either had a different native language that he preferred to write in or he was no longer in America. He looked through the remaining few letters and confirmed his theory almost immediately, there were a few that had stamps on them that looked like official government seals but they were all written in the same language as those the hand-written ones were wrote in.
Despair washed over him as he took a seat on one of the chairs, "Crap!" The wood snapped beneath his weight suddenly and unexpectedly causing him to hit the floor, the wood of the floor split open from the impact causing him to go straight through back down to the stock-room he'd just come from.
His muscled were numbly aching as he just lay on the floor after the fall, "It's not too late to give up right?" He said to himself half-jokingly and half-considering whether he should just go out into the forest and let some beast eat him and be done with all of this.
