Nature doesn’t change easily. Mountains are there to stay, forests tend to endure and rivers forever flow out to sea. Of animals, certain breeds can change with the times faster than others, yet not so fast a new species appears overnight. Weather moves faster, yet one can still see a storm approaching. So it is, that if you are to look into a forest, seemingly as from above, you would not expect to see anything out of the ordinary. The unexpected happens, yet not so often as to lose its meaning.

Which is why if anyone had been looking at a particular spot in a forest, at a particular spot in time, they would have been quite distraught to see a body appearing out of thin air. A male body, young, sitting cross-legged on the grass in the middle of a clearing.

That is to say, they would have been quite distraught, yet not as much as the human in question.

“What.” He said, after opening his eyes. Not a question, since inflection was nearly not there.

“What is this?” he said, looking around.

Further questions arose, questioning the nature of the clearing, the reason he was there and perhaps most importantly, asking himself or anyone who would deign to answer, who was he?

But that was not the question he asked the loudest.

“And why am I naked?” he screamed bewildered.

Since no answer seemed to be forthcoming and he was running out of questions to ask the nature around him, he got up and started walking around.

“This is so odd. I can’t remember anything. But I can speak, so I remember words, right? Language.”

Stopping for a moment, he pointed at a tree.

“Tree” he said. “Rock, sky, grass, face, chest, belly…” he said while waving his hands around pointing at everything in sight, but stopped before he got too carried away.

“Ok, so I know how to speak. And I know the words for the things around me. I don’t know anything else though.”

His stomach growled.

“No, I also know that means I’m hungry. Great.” He added, unenthusiastically.

He looked around, but nothing seemed to be particularly edible.

“I know food exists. I know of apples. I think I’d recognize one if I’d see one.” He said, wondering about.

“But why don’t I remember anything but this? What happened to me? Why am I here?”

His stomach grumbles again.

“Why don’t I find some food before I ask any deeper questions, huh?” he said, patting his belly.

Some time passed while he wondered about. How much time was impossible to say exactly, though the sun hadn’t significantly moved in the sky. He walked out of the clearing, into the forest proper, grumbling whenever any branches or weeds hit his exposed parts. It wasn’t much longer before he ran into something of interest.

“That’s a mushroom. Yeah, definitely. I know a mushroom when I see one.” He said approaching it.

“I really hope I can eat it.”

He bent down, reached his hand towards it and grabbed it.

At which point it promptly exploded.

“Fuck!” he screamed.

“Shit, this hurts.” He said, looking at his hand, which turned beet red in seconds.

Commiserating about his situation, he eventually noticed that the mushroom he was attacked by was lying on the ground, though altered in appearance.

“It didn’t explode? Then how…”

He tenderly reached for it. With the same hand. No reason to cripple both hands. Though, now that he thought about it, the pain in his hand was almost gone, with only the vivid red color remaining.

“Huh, seems harmless enough.” He said, after picking it up. “Though it dried up. It’s smaller than my little finger now.”

Reason warred with hunger until reason, like most often times, gave up.

“Oh wow, this is spicy!” he said, while his eyes watered up.

He waited for a few moments, but he didn’t seem to be about to explode. His right hand was still red, though.

“Right, so, I’m still hungry.” He said, looking around. Fortunately, the spot in the forest seemed to be teeming with the little exploding mushrooms.

“So, I can stop being hungry, but I have to be in pain for every small bite. Seems fair to me.” He said nodding.

Judging by his serene face and calm demeanor, the trade was as fair as it could get.

“FUCK this world!” he screamed, out of the blue.

“I don’t even know my own name, I DON’T KNOW SHIT, but the first thing I learn after I basically start my life is that I have to suffer for every bite of food in this stupid forest?” he screamingly asked to no one in particular.

“I refuse! I’d rather starve!” he said, kicking over a small rock in frustration.

Which bounced a few feet away before hitting a mushroom. Which promptly exploded in a miniature cloud of red dust. Which was basically normal for how his day went so far.

“Huh.”

As far as the situation could be assessed, that was a fairly apt reaction.

It wasn’t long before he got himself a pile of dry mushrooms, courtesy of rocks, sticks and the one-time accidental foot. All in all, it wasn’t a bad trade. Two extremities colored red, an additional session of pain, for a small mound of dried-up mushrooms. Which he wasted no time in eating, if not so much savoring.

“That. Was. Good. But now my throat feels like embers.” He complained.

Looking up in the sky, he noticed that the sun has gone down noticeably while he had his little adventure. Which, if the limited things he remembered were correct, meant that night would soon be there. And along night, came cold. Especially since cold tended to impact extremities far more than the body and he had one such extremity sticking out like a sore thumb.

“Ok, have to find shelter. Or clothes. But since I’m in a forest, I’ll stick with the shelter.” He said, walking back to the clearing.

When he suddenly heard a rustle in the bushes next to him. That stopped him cold in his tracks.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

It was understandable, given the chaotic situation he found himself in, that he had not remembered an important aspect about forests. Forests are the hunting grounds of predators.

“Hello?” he asked, again, whishing he kept the stick he used to poke mushrooms with.

No further sound was heard and no movements seen either.

“I really have to stop talking out loud.” He said, before hacking out a laugh.

“Yeah, because talking in my head doesn’t get old really fast. What I really have to do is get a bigger stick.”

All this was said while walking. He reasoned that if he was to be attacked, better to be in a clearing, where he could at least see the danger coming. Or so he hoped.

He did stop to pick a nice, long stick. Which got him thinking again.

“I’m not likely to find shelter. So I suppose I have to build one. And for that I need sticks and… leaves?” he asked uncertainly.

Shelter building was not his strong point, though speaking honestly, he didn’t have a strong point to begin with. He did reach the clearing with an armful of sticks and broken branches. After depositing them on the ground he repeated the process two more times until he had a nice-looking mound, just waiting to be propped up into a loving home. Or a branch made hut.

“Damn, the sun’s almost down. I can’t build this in time. And it won’t stop big predators either.” He said to himself.

True, a shelter would keep the smalls ones out, but it wouldn’t matter at all for something truly dangerous. He didn’t know exactly what those were, but he had the feeling that if he got to see it, he could name it. Not that naming it would do much good at that point in time.

“No, I need something else.” He said, the word for it on the tip of his tongue.

“Come on, think! What’s useful for nights in the forest? What scares away animals?” His eyes were closed in concentration and his fists in frustration.

“There’s something! I know it. I know… I need… I need FIRE!” he finally roared, opening his eyes to the night sky.

Sadly, said fire failed to materialize in front of him, but at least he was on the right path.

“Ok, fire. I’ll need sticks for it, but I have sticks. I also need to get it burning. As for that…” he trailed of, knowledge of fires trickling back into his head.

“I need rocks. Great.” He said, stone-faced. “Well, no time like the present.”

He fished around the edge of the clearing for the rocks in question. He instinctively knew that one of the rocks had to be glassy in appearance. So he picked rocks of the ground, took the half-buried ones from the ground, smashed them open, all until he found what he thought was looking for. He still carried half a dozen back to the clearing, in the off chance one wouldn’t work from the start.

He was right.

“Of come on, work damn you!” he yelled while hitting rocks together.

“Work, work, WORK!” each iteration of the word followed by an increasingly more aggressive strike.

He was going through rocks fast, since the ones he used tended to break down to pebbles.

“I will not freeze to death and I will not get eaten. I command you to work!” he said, striking with his fourth stone.

Spark flew off from the final encounter between the stones. Whether that happened because of the rock in question or his hastily bellowed command didn’t matter that much, since he was in too much awe to do anything productive about it.

“Dammit, I forgot the sticks.”

He quickly placed a few sticks together before trying the rocks again. The spark did fly and with a little angling he managed to make them fly into the sticks, yet the fire was stubbornly refusing to appear.

“I need smaller sticks.” He said, getting up to retrieve them from the pile. “Sun’s almost out, I can already fill the chill.”

He also began to imagine seeing shapes in the dark at the edge of the clearing, but he neglected to mention that out loud.

“Ok, some leaves, under some small sticks, under some big sticks.” He said, after arranging them more carefully than he arranged his words.

“Please work, please work.” He asked, while striking with the stone again.

The spark flew again and again, until finally smoke started to come out of the small pile of dead wood, followed closely by heat and light.

“Fire!” he laughed out. “Finally, beautiful fire!”

If there were tears in his eyes, there was no one there to point it out.

“Ah, finally. Wow, I’m tired. And hungry again. Not to mention thirsty.” He complained sitting down.

Well, the light was nice and the heat felt so good on his naked body, that even complaining, he was only doing it half-heartedly.

“I should find a river tomo-“

 

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|Class Level and Skills accessible after acceptance. |

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“What.”