I woke up. It was very bright and I still had some pain only where the lightning struck me but also a strange tingling pain throughout my body. This did not stop me from getting up. I also noticed that I was extremely hungry.

I ate the berries I had and some leftover cooked meat. I now only had 1 bag of oatmeal and 1 bag of mashed potatoes. I also had uncooked deer meat. 

I checked my wounds. I now have some gnarly scars. The one on my shoulder from that chicken was almost completely healed. I had random cuts and scratches from branches and rocks. I also had that black scorch mark on my abdomen. It looked like someone had taken a blow torch to my abdomen, but not as bad. It felt hot, in fact it felt like it was burning. I rubbed it with some water and tried to ignore it. 

I knew that I had only lived because the lightning stopped the bleeding. 

I certainly was careless. I need to think that these animals and monsters will have strange abilities that I do not know about in the future.

I started to ponder all the abilities and situations I could be in. Some examples are, maybe they could go invisible, use the wind, waterbend, and much more.

After a while of pondering I decided to do an inventory check. During the inventory check I realized that my phone no longer turned on, in fact when I touched it, it gave me a small shock. A few minutes later, I deemed it broken, but I was not sure if I should throw it away.

I then thought that I should check my other electronic equipment. 

Shit, Damn…..This is a big loss.

I was angry, all my electronics were broken. My camera, my trail-cam, my watch, or any other electronic item I had was fried, some even literally had burn marks. A side bonus, my spare AA batteries had exploded. This caused my big backpack to have some holes on the side because of the acid. A few other things were damaged by the acid but not to the point of throwing them away. Such as, my big sketchbook now had some holes in some of the pages.

I spent over an hour going thoroughly through my stuff cleaning out the acid and reorganizing things. Ultimately I decided to dump all my electronic stuff except my camera and my phone. 

I really hope these can be useful in the future and I can always throw them away later. ….Sigh, I seem to always have a hard time throwing stuff away.

I buried the electronic stuff under a rock. I marked the rock with a big X scratch mark and the tree close by. I then went a little aways and attached a strip of orange marking trap to a low branch of a tree. 

As I was doing this, I noticed that it was past midday. 

I must have slept longer because I was so tired and hurt. 

Another thing I noticed during my inventory check was that I only had 1 arrow left. I knew I would need to make my own arrows and I didn’t think that the arrows I would make would be able to work with my current compound bow. I thought I might need to make a bow aswell or start learning spears.

So, I decided to do everything. I will make a bow and arrows and I will make some suitable spear for throwing. Lastly, I will have to up my trap making game. 

I started to start going south again after cooking my deer meat.

As I was cooking the meat, I suddenly remembered something critical.

What caused the lightning?

I looked at the 3 items I thought were related, the antlers, the second heart and the crystal. I also brought out the chicken crystal. 

After thinking and doing some small things I came to a conclusion.

I have no idea. There is no way for me to figure it out and I literally have no idea on how I am supposed to check by myself. I need to find a local and ask them. I will eat the heart, keep the crystals and the antlers.

I packed up and began to go south for today, deciding to start making tools tomorrow.

 

A good amount of days have passed since then, but I am not sure how many. Things have progressed. I was able to make better traps, catching some horned rabbits. I made some spears and had gotten better but had not gotten good enough to actually hit a moving animal at a mid to far distance. 

I made some arrows and a bow. The bow was the hardest part. I vaguely remembered some stuff on how to make a bow in the wild that I read in a book once. I found a straight stick that was bendable. I then slathered it with the fat of a dead rabbit I had killed. As I covered it with fat I roasted it close to a fire and bent it as I did so. Something like that. Took me several tries to actually make a bow and arrows that actually functioned, however it was nothing impressive. I could only shoot about 15 yards somewhat accurately. When I say accurately, I mean I could probably hit a deer if it was standing still, not a rabbit. The spear that I could throw had about the same range but it was a little less accurate. 

I knew I would have to make more bows and arrows and keep doing it until I actually had a good bow and arrow.

By the way, the arrows were basically thin straight sticks with a sharp rock attached to the end using either some rope I had or long string like tendon strips from rabbits. The arrows were not perfect at all either. They would sometimes just fly off track and the rocks would fall off. Surprisingly, the sticks were pretty tough and did not really break so I could reuse them as arrow shafts. 

I did try to shoot the arrows with my compound bow, but it was not compatible with my sloppy arrows. The power was too great for them, it would cause the arrow to fly off to the sides or in some strange direction with great power. 

I was concerned, thinking that maybe I should leave the compound bow behind, but for now I kept it. 

I knew that hunting big animals like deer was no longer an option unless I could use a good trap. 

Also, as I kept going south I had a run in with a Giant. It saw me and tried to catch me, but I ultimately escaped after showing that I was more trouble than it expected by blowing a hole through its hand with 1 round of my 9mm.

It panicked and ran away after holding its bleeding hand. Apparently I caused it to die, since a few days later I found a half eaten giant corpse. 

I assume it was weakened and bleeding enough to be targeted by either a T rex or a big pack of something.

I was not happy however, because I now only had 6 bullets left. I felt like I would die when I ran out of bullets. This thought depressed me.

 

One day I went out to hunt some rabbits. I left most of my stuff in my big backpack in my current shelter. I had planned on going south but eventually I had settled in this place because it seemed a little less dangerous. I had been here for two days and now it was my third day. 

I got up, covered my scent and went out to hunt. I had found another small meadow, but this one was smaller and had no spring. This small meadow was also a huge ditch, or in other words a hill but in reverse. The slope was gentle, and in the very middle water would gather after it rained. A Lot of tall grass and weeds grew there. However, the edge of this meadow was covered in bushes that had a lot of thorns, it was basically a haven for small animals like rabbits since most big predators would find it a pain to enter. I, however, was not a big predator, compared to the predators I had met, but I was smarter than most other small predators so it was basically an easy feast for me. However, I decided to not hunt there every day because I thought this would scare the rabbits too quickly. 

I entered my hidden spot near the edge of the rabbit haven and then waited. 

I had noticed during my time that this rabbit haven was a social spot for the rabbits, I was willing to bet that this was a mating ground. I found it odd that the rabbits did not make burrows here.

Soon light came, and the environment awoke, some birds sang and I heard the morning calls of animals including those damn chickens.

Rabbits filled the meadow, taking drinks and ramming their heads against other rabbits to fight for better spots of the haven. Remember, they have horns. 

I was hiding on one side while I had set some traps on the opposite side last night. I planned to wait until the numbers of rabbits had thinned after their breakfast and then hunt 1 or two when they were in smaller numbers. I planned this way in hopes that having less rabbits remember the trauma of the hunt so the others would come back the next day. 

They ate, they played, they fought, and they ran around. It was very peaceful. Rabbits began to leave, the morning social was coming to an end and I was preparing to begin the hunt. 

Crack!!

A branch broke as it was stepped on and shortly after a spear flew. 

The spear soared and soon struck the biggest rabbit left. It squealed and tried to run, but the spear had gone through it and nailed it to the ground and its blood soaked the rabbit haven. 

There was a problem with this scene…. That was not my spear. 

I stood hidden in my bush in shock as 2 more spears flew out of the bushes to my right hitting 2 more rabbits.

The rest of the rabbits quickly ran away, breaking into the woods. They were fast, I even saw one look like it blurred. Probably just my imagination. However, the rabbits were no longer the focus of my attention. 

I turned and watched the area where the spears had come, I knew it had to be something intelligent because normal animals would not be able to craft spears.

Soon, three people came out of the bushes. 

They were tall, taller than 6 feet. Two were blond and one had red hair. They were wearing fur coats, had spears and short swords or small axes. They were quite stocky. They didn’t look like savages, but they certainly had a wild side.

They were smiling, and seemed to be joking or bragging to each other, they were apparently in good spirits. 

I was extremely happy.

Humans!!! I finally found Humans!!! Thank God! I need to talk to them.

I stood up and began to leave the bushes. 

The three stopped and quickly turned to wear I was facing ready to throw their spears.

This action calmed me down immediately as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water on my head. 

I raised my hands and shouted.

“Wait! I don’t mean any harm”

They aimed their spears at me and began to shout back. 

“ADJFAIRA ADFIARE aAERIE”

I saw them looking at the spear in my hand.

“Wait!!  I will get rid of it”

I dropped my spear. I wanted to talk to them, I wanted it to be peaceful, I needed to show them that I was not a threat. 

“ADFAH  aDFEI aEIFGBA” 

“DFAHF  AERODFSOSDFI SEISEL”

They began to talk quickly, pointing their spears at me and they also were shouting at me and one of them pointed to the open spot in front of the bushes. 

“I got it, I got it, I am coming out.”

I was beginning to get nervous, more than I was before. They seemed to be acting really aggressively and it surprised me. 

I may have made a huge mistake but I need to try to get them to calm down.

I stepped out of the bushes slowly. They watched me with great wariness. One of  the blond ones approached me quickly but cautiously.  

I took a step out of the bushes. I thought the close one was gonna look and see if I had any weapons or something, to be honest I did not have much thoughts because I was super nervous and panicking. I was wrong.

Without warning, The close one came forward and swung its spear at me, the but end. I saw it coming and tried to dodge, but it struck me in the chest on the left side and I was sent flying just a bit of the ground to the side. I landed on the ground and rolled a few times.

Cough cough.

I coughed up some blood and tried to get up. I now knew this was not going the direction I had hoped. 

I was suddenly kicked and rolled a few more times.  I was kicked again.

My thoughts were blurry and so was my vision. The impacts felt like being hit by a hammer. 

I was suddenly grabbed and rolled so that I was looking up towards the sky. One of them was standing above me. He then punched me in the face. 

My vision blacked on the edges, but I gritted my teeth and forced my consciousness to stay awake. 

I covered my head with my arms.  I felt a few hits against my arms when suddenly my left wrist was grabbed and pinned to the ground then I felt a piercing pain in the palm of my left hand. 

“GUAAHA” I screamed.

It was extremely painful. 

I panted and fought through the pain.

I then realized the hitting had stopped and focused my vision onto the one standing above me. I noticed that the other two were close by, just behind him. 

They were looking at me with a cocky expression. 

They began to talk to me with fierce expressions and were nearly shouting. 

“AGAFGIU ADFJOIE ADRFAEIO”

“ADGFADGI SERISJ  ESRSER”

I have no idea what they are saying, but I don't care. They fucking hurt me. This is a fight to the death. It is either them or me.

I moved my right hand towards my handgun on my right hip. Slowly at first but when I saw that they were losing patience I then moved quickly. 

I grabbed it and pulled it out. One of them saw my movment and shouted to the one above me. 

“ADGADGI ADFJI”

The expression of the one above me turned more fierce and lifted his fist to strike me. 

I didn’t bother aiming carefully. I just turned the pistol and pulled the trigger. 

BANG

A portion of his chest on the upper right side burst like an erupting volcano. 

“GUAAH”

He shouted in agony as he quickly grasped his chest. Then he started to fall and got weak quickly. 

I lifted my right hand and aimed at one of the ones in the back to the right. 

The ones in the back were in shock mainly because of the loud bang. From their point of view, it sounded like thunder which was odd because there was no storm. The sound of thunder or rain when the sun could be seen was a bad omen to them.

BANG

I pulled the trigger.

The one on the right jolted backwards, tripped and fell backwards.  

I suddenly felt an impact because  the one above me had fallen on top of me. 

I can’t see!!!

Now, a big body was on top of me covering my head making it hard to breath but the worst part was that I could not see the last enemy. Also my left hand was nailed to the ground by a spear so it would be hard to move the huge weight on me. 

I tried to move the body with my right hand but I didn’t want to let go of my gun. 

Thump

I heard a step as I struggled. 

I panicked. I quickly lifted the pistol and fired into the direction where I remember seeing the last one. 

BANG BANG BANG

I fired half randomly in desperation, but hesitated to use up all my ammo. 

I felt extreme desperation so I shouted with all my might.

“DIE YOU FUCKER!!!”

I was shaking with extreme fear that I would suddenly be stabbed by a spear.

I waited, listened for any sound, but I heard nothing for a few seconds. 

Then a minute passed and I still heard nothing. 

I was getting more nervous.

Did I hit him? Did he die? Is he sneaking up on me?

I was breathing hard and panicking but I could only wait and listen for any sounds.

After a while I started to calm down.

I think he would have killed me if he could have by now, I must have hit him. Also I can hardly breath, I need to move this body or I will suffocate. 

After putting down the handgun, I worked to free myself. 

I finally got the body off of me and could breath. I then reached over and after gritting my teeth, I pulled out the spear in my left hand. 

“GUH” 

It felt like it hurt more than getting stabbed, but maybe it was because I pulled it out.  I quickly wrapped some clothes around my hand to slow the bleeding. I sat up and looked around. 

I noticed a problem right away.

There is only one body besides the one that was on me.

Only two bodies, one of them had left. The last one had escaped. 

I was scared of the possibility that the last one would bring more so I knew I had to keep my calm and move quickly.

My hand hurt and in fact I hurt in a lot of places, but I decided to go through the belongings of the two. I took some food like jerky, water bags, and 2 spears. Their stuff was better crafted then mine. 

They look strange to me. 

I observed the dead bodies.  Their noses were huge and their faces had an odd shape. Their mouth was kinda forward, and their brows too. 

They kind of look like, what was it again??? Neanderthals? But aren’t Neanderthals extinct and aren’t they also shorter than humans? They must not be Neanderthals but they don’t look like normal humans either. 

Oh well, I don’t care.

As I was checking around I noticed an out to spot blood spot on the grass. I then knew I had hit the last one.

Maybe I can catch him! I thought he would escape for sure since they are definitely stronger and faster than me, but if he is hurt then I think I can catch him.

I followed the blood trail for a while, but I did not find him and the blood trail was very sparse. I knew he was not bleeding a lot and my hand was beginning to hurt more as I lost adrenaline. I was also starting to lose energy and become faint because of blood loss. I knew I could not hunt him. 

I memorized his direction, he was going towards the northwest. 

I would go towards the southeast just in case he brings friends to kill me.

I left the meadow and forgot to grab the rabbit.

I went back to my shelter, cleaned my hand, patched it up, ate some jerky, drank some water and then went to sleep.