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Location: Earth 2 / Time: 1:00pm-3:00pm

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"Lame..."

Artie frowned and tapped his head rhythmically while walking along a narrow river. He was still in a forest; it was always a forest. The tree's stood just as tall, and their color still amazed him.

The colossal trees dominating the area were rich yellows and oranges, but occasionally he'd see trees with white spots. Artie presumed they were sick or poisonous and avoided them. Above him, in the blueish-green sky, the sun and a pale blue and green moon.

It'd been three days since he arrived on Earth-Two. He learned quite a bit while roaming the forest and looking for survivors. First, the planet operated under the same day/night cycle as the old earth. There were 24 hours in a day; Artie didn't know this as a fact. He just thought the days felt like 24hours. Based on how long the sun was up, he guessed the time was between 1-3pm.

Another important discovery was that water on the planet was safe to drink. It was also the only thing he'd consumed since arriving.

And lastly, though the planet was only created recently, there was an abundance of wildlife.

Hearing a disturbing shriek, Artie lazily turned his head left towards the high-pitched racket that sounded from yards away.

"Another one…"

Slouched over, walking with his arms hanging in front of him, he scowled and began walking away from the sound.

His once moderately attractive dress shirt was washed in a river but still had red stains and tears from past encounters. His pants were torn, and his feet were bare and exposed to the stones and dirt on the ground.

A prolonged howl struck his ears minutes later and Artie's face became agitated as his right eye twitched and his teeth grinded. He again adjusted his path while striving to stay on his present course.

 

"This direction has even more monsters than the last two… If it wasn't for my hearing, I'd be dea-"

Artie stopped; he looked puzzled as he raised his hands and began groping his ears. Curious, he ran to, then kneeled down over the river. The clear, light green water reflected his appearance, and he gaped at it for minutes.

"Exactly when did my hearing become so nifty? Before, I couldn't even hear my phone unless the volume was max."

Artie's reflection was regular, aside from looking like a feeble bag of bones. He was inquisitive about his unexplained ability and continued to tamper with his ears while walking along the water.

"I've been hiking through this awful forest for the past three days, and nothing… Surely there were other survivors. I mean, aside from those cavemen I met yesterday."

He referenced the previous day when he ran into a small group of humans that also roamed the forest. He remembered how bizarre the bunch was and couldn't help comparing them to early history primitives.

"I wanted to ask them where other humans were, but they looked like they'd eat me instead."

Raising his head towards the sun, he held his stomach. It growled, frequently reminding him how critical it was to find subsistence. His face rested into a gloom; his cheekbones were more prominent as any fat on his face had evaporated.

"Maybe I'll become a vegan… Eat leaves and... Grass?"

Artie crouched down and looked bitterly at the ground. He pulled strands of grass from the earth and inspected them before pondering the potential to live off plants.

"Maybe it'll taste like salad… I do love a good salad. The Caesar kind, oh, with ranch dressing. Also, extra ham bits because the meat completes the taste. Oh, and I can't forget how tasty the chees-"

His hunger got the best of him, and while off in his daydream, he'd unknowingly begun chewing on the blades of grass. It took a moment for the taste to register with his senses. Still, he spat violently and coughed up saliva and grass bits when it did.

"Gross!"

"That doesn't taste like salad at all!"

Alerted by Artie's yelling, a faraway creature roared.

"No, no, no, I shouted. That is the number one rule of survival! DON'T SHOUT."

He covered his mouth and quickly jolted up before stomping the grass-covered ground, vexed by his own moronic behavior.

"I'm such a loudmouth. I can't even get mad if natural selection roots me out. Ugh, it's this grass's fault for being so unappetizing."

Some distance away, bushes rustled. Artie was able to hastily identify it as a creature running towards him. He spat once more, trying to disengage the taste of grass, then ran. While doing so, he attempted to stay as close to the river as possible.

After surviving the waterfall, Artie returned to the landing area and traveled a few miles in each direction. First north, then east, and now he was following a river south of the original location.

Not even a minute after he'd started running, his breath was fleeting. His heart raced, his feet ached, and he couldn't keep it up. His stride decreased into a walk, then a stagger before he could no longer move. He'd become afflicted with distress and discomfort as his systems began to shut down.

"Hungry…"

Artie's vision clouded, then his body hollowed and crumpled. Without any means of catching himself, he dropped and landed face down on the ground. The area along the river was covered with rocks, and his lower lip came crashing down onto a baseball-sized stone. It erupted with blood as he instinctively screamed.

The acute pain made him jolt over onto his back. His mouth stretched out as wide as it could as he wailed in agony, oozing from the gash. His weak arms strained as he clenched onto his mouth to stop the bleeding and muffle his wailing.

"Shut up!"

He was desperate to conceal where he'd collapsed. Frantically trying to close his mouth, his muffled yelling still escaped. And as if he wasn't miserable enough, his arms stiffened and constricted to his sides. His toes curled, and his eyes rolled back as the entirety of his body began to intensely convulse.

Artie was having a seizure, a severe one. His condition could not have been at a worse time because a threatening creature jumped from over a bush and ruthlessly homed in on his incapacitated body. It had a thin layer of silver fur and tusk curling from his jaw. It was no bigger than a boar and bore a striking resemblance to a hog with a horse's tail.

Since his senses were halted as he seized, Artie could not discern the danger that barrelled toward him. It resulted from his malnutrition, blood loss, and heightened anxiety. His soul was vacant from his mortal form, and nothing could be done to prevent the onslaught.

The teeth of the beast maliciously bit down onto his right shoulder and tugged at the flesh, trying to rip it off. More blood sprayed from Artie's brittle body and coated the thing that fixed its dark empty eyes on its soon-to-be meal.

The anguish from being bit into sent emergency signals to his brain. He regained his senses only to realize he was being eaten by the boar-like monster.

The nightmare stood directly over his body, limiting his movements. Artie's legs flailed, kicked, and thrashed about while his delicate arm's pushed at the monster's head. Any attempt to force it off failed as his body continued to be ravaged.

The monster unlocked its jaws and bit down onto his shoulder again, crushing his right collar bone. Artie's eyes rolled back; his body was tense and failing him on every corner as he became seconds away from becoming lunch.

Hysterical strength: "A display of extreme strength by humans, beyond what is believed to be normal, usually occurring when people are in life and death situations."

He bit back. Artie opened his mouth wide and sprung at the creature's neck. His expression was so intense and ungodly that he couldn't replicate it outside of that moment.

Blood from the monster spurted from its neck and onto Artie's face. His eyes became covered in that fluid, but he bit down on the flesh even harder.

There was a tearing sound as he yanked away from the creature's flesh, then swallowed it in blind, unadulterated hysteria.

Hurt and squirming, the beast took steps back, freeing Artie's body. With his torso unrestrained, he reached over and grabbed onto the baseball-sized rock he landed on. In addition, even though his collar bone was crushed, he used his other hand to grasp the retreating monster's tusk.

Then, Artie used the stone and throttled it against the creature's head. Again and again, while yanking it closer with his arm. On the seventh head bash, something fractured, and it crumpled down.

"…"

Once the threat ended, his hellish agony returned to full effect. His body staggered over the beast, and he fainted, falling onto the warm, wet, woolly corpse.

 

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Time: 12:00am - 2:00am

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That night his eyes reopened. The sun had long since set, and the two moons glimmered in the dark sky. The pale blue moon was more prominent than its green counterpart and aided in banishing the darkness of the night.

"I'm alive…."

Artie climbed from the ground. His pain was vivid and intense, like shattering glass while he held onto his wounded shoulder and recalled how he got there.

"I don't know if I want to be...."

Looking at the corpse below him, the nauseous feeling in his gut amplified.

"It was you or me."

Artie tore the sleeve off his shirt and wrapped it around his injury. He'd never done anything like that before, but he felt it helped, if only a little. After, he grabbed one of the beast's legs and dragged it into the river.

"I'll eat some. Then wash it down."

The very sentence he uttered disgusted him. He wouldn't say it, but he'd felt the fuel from the flesh he ate prior. So, he started to eat the beast, washing each bite down with water while struggling to hold back the urge to vomit. He managed a few bites before it became unbearable, and he pulled the corpse from the water and then departed. Everything he experienced that day and night blurred and became a secluded memory.