By the time the second winter hit he was already comfortable. He had made and kept up with the map for eight months. In that time he had completely added it to his memory by spending an hour every single day looking at it. As his confidence was building up he didn’t push himself and left room for mistakes. He gathered detailed information of slow paced walking in a thirty minute radius. This wasn’t exactly accurate as he wasn’t dumb enough to actually distract himself by counting as he explored. Because of the repeated failures he couldn’t find a common point to breakthrough in making a clock. Thus this was thirty minutes by his internal clock. Regardless he had what he considered his own territory memorized and that was what he found important.
The key point of this was that with less than a five minute walk he could reach the edge of the safe zone. He had explored a very finite amount outside as a last resort escape route. He had learned there were multiple patrols and each patrol was three cockatrice. At the time he called them terror birds. It wasn’t easy to see but one of them had a clipped tail that drew his attention. When he noticed it, he started to pay attention and started to realize there was likely a large number of these beasts. He saw that the patrol with the clipped tail moved through a certain section that would come into his territory briefly at the end before they would return to the deep center of the safe zone. Using this information he found a single easy to notice characteristic to label the patrol teams.
There was Clip Tail, Scarface, and Tiny. Clip tail and Scarface were patrol teams that handled the nearby areas that bordered his territory. Tiny was a little vicious thing. It would often bully those that patrolled with it. To the point that while the other patrol teams moved in groups they kept a close knit group that didn’t deviate from each other regardless of what they found. The furthest he estimated was a matter of five feet. As for Tiny’s group, there was never a gap smaller than three feet between them and it. That was to say the average distance between them was usually around five feet which was the maximum distance the other groups would get separated as they moved in a rough ‘V’ formation. Tiny on the other hand was usually in a one by two formation with it in front with the other two never getting closer than three feet as they patrolled the edge of his territory.
He was tempted, his hatred of them was starting to get explosive as he found numerous occasions he could have exploited this disarray within the team. Ultimately he decided against it. He had no such confidence in taking out the other two patrol teams because he couldn’t get close to them. These creatures weren’t jokes, the only reason he knew this was because Tiny’s team was disorganized and weren’t a strong comradery. Take for example Scarface’s team. He had attempted to follow them a bit but halfway through he realized one of them had disappeared. He instantly stopped and hid in a tree with a large amount of cover. Sure enough as he watched two disappear across a field between two groves.
Within less than ten minutes he found the missing one moving slowly through the grove before making it to the field before calling out. Very quickly he saw the two that had disappeared reappear within moments as Scarface took a look at the grove he was in for a split second before leaving. Because the groves themselves weren't flat land there were many small hills and close grouping of trees it wasn’t possible to see all three constantly and in fact it was rarely seen. Therefore when one of them disappeared it didn’t immediately strike him as odd as he could only see a distinguished mark on the face of the leader. Only reason he found something to be odd was because he reached a hill and as he peeked over it he saw the extra switching from left to the right. This wasn’t a simple action and was clearly deliberate as it went against their normal actions.
Tiny on the other hand was leading a group that seemed to be waiting for a screw up so they were more preoccupied by each other. After experiencing the slyness they were capable of he didn’t get too close but he did realize this disorganized group was easy to take advantage of. A week before the snow was finalizing his gathering. He planned to move before snow actually came and collect food in advance. As he was no longer in the unfeeling state he could feel the temperature starting to drop. With plans in mind he noticed the group was doing a really sad excuse for a patrol.
Usually he could feel something in the back of his head that made him uneasy. Slowly he learned it was the cockatrice. At the time he couldn’t explain it, but by this time he was no longer the toothpick he once was. He was still overly skinny, this made him look sickly, but he felt better than ever. He had no idea what it was but the so-called sixth sense seemed to awaken and he wasn’t about to look a gifted horse in the mouth. Still he didn’t completely trust it but he was finding it harder not to as it continued to work exactly as he thought it did. He attempted to see what they were up to. When he found them they were moving around the edges but then Tiny stopped.
He called out to the two behind it and while they didn’t seem happy they still gave up patrolling as they moved outside of the safe zone. Tiny gave one last look around and also left. This was the first time he had seen them leave half-way through the patrol of their own accord. Curiosity got the better of him and he followed them. They became a bit unpredictable and it gave him a bit of suspicion about other things. Ultimately the group moved deeper until they finally stopped and split up. As this was the first time he saw them do what appeared to be hunting he didn’t dare get too close as they had split up.
In the end he only saw the two do most of the work as Tiny reaped the most benefits. Taking the kill it started to eat while the other two were left with a second trophy they had to share. Regardless of his size Tiny was able to finish the entire creature. Worse was the fact this boar-like creature was pushed left and right by the two until the point of exhaustion before Tiny killed it. While he considered it a hunt it looked more like a psychological torture session. He was following Tiny so he only heard strange sounds coming from around him. As they finished they didn’t immediately leave but he did.
He currently didn’t have the confidence to get close and he wasn’t learning anything from being this far out. Worse yet winter was coming and he wasn’t sure on the exact timing so he needed to gather food for himself. He had many ups and downs in that year. First and foremost was the loss of his shirt. It was the last complete even if half gone piece of garment he had. He was currently wearing a large strip of pant leg that was relatively in decent condition. He had to make some type of loincloth that was barely held together by some vine. It was something very hard to get used to and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t feeling a bit degraded.
The largest up was the discovery of a black tree. This tree grew by itself so it drew his attention. First time he saw it was when he was stalking a patrol by prints left behind in the dirt. The prints clearly showed that they had moved past this point and there was a piece of wood embedded into the ground that was stepped on. The thing was the wood wasn’t just embedded into the ground. It was completely embedded without a single break. When he picked it up he felt it being far heavier than he expected. Using a slightly larger tree branch roughly the same size the black wood branch was estimated to be five times heavier.
As he played with this wood he learned something amazing. It was as hard as what he could only guess was metal. As he was smashing it into rocks he broke a boulder in half and while the pain transferred to his hands made him drop the wood he noticed something. When splitting in half the two didn’t separate cleanly. While it was mostly in half the core was intact in one half leaving a dip in another. He searched and found two special branches. One was slightly pointed that could be used as a chisel. Other was just the log he originally found, it was large and solid, making it perfect to use as a hammer.
After many experiments he finally found ways to make use of them and created a few utensils. He had spent three months making everything. And while he wanted to say he got better the reality was that it took him that long to get lucky. The idea was easy but normal rocks were brittle and didn’t break cleanly. In the end he made a large container, a stove, and a series of rock slabs. He knew he was lucky, not just because the rocks broke in ways he could use them but by the fact that something in the air made him stronger than he ever was before. Rocks by nature are dense and hard, but also because of this they are heavy.
It was only thanks to this new found strength he could actually make use of this. He was able to make a large tub. This wasn’t large enough to use as a bath but it was large enough to make the efforts of transporting water plausible. Using some loose rocks he could heat them up and even boil the water. This helped immensely as the water often gave him numbness and stomach pains. He had slowly become used to it but that meant that he would need to be in pain while he did other activities. The numbness didn’t sound bad but it would often leave him in a near inebriated state. In which he would find it difficult to walk and could easily trip or fall. This made it dangerous to explore in such a state where he needed to be careful how he moved to lessen or remove his tracks completely.
The food wasn’t much different, though he took them in smaller doses and slowly started to build up a small tolerance so he only felt uneasy and some light numbness that didn’t stop him from other activities. With a way to boil water this helped a lot as it cut down the time he was unable to move. Without his unfeeling state he needed to take more care of himself so he was averaging around three to five hours a day in activities. With much of the problems brought about by consumption he now was able to increase his activities to five to eight hours.
The slabs worked to help build himself some cover. While the rock formation kept him off the ground, he still had a bit of wind from two sides. After devising a way to get them up he was able to use some mud and made a bit of a wall. This not only kept most of the wind at bay it also worked in conjunction with the stove that helped to keep the area around him warm. The hardest was finding a way to dispel the smoke. None of these options were unique or extraordinary as they were crudely made constructions.
The snow could replace water but he still needed food. After ten experiments he was able to know that he had a window of ten days to store and keep the berries in person before they would usually show problems. This included opening the fruit up as the first signs of rot or other problems were inside. This meant he needed to make a rough estimation of when winter was coming.
From last year’s experience he knew that the berry bush would disappear as the fruits grew back slowly and the berries would be seized by animals that wouldn’t normally invade the territory. This was likely due to the fact that the cockatrice would stop patrolling. This left him with an issue. He didn’t have any problems with animals stumbling onto him and the closeness to the edge meant he was still close to the patrol route which was heavily avoided by everything. If he took all the food it was possible things would need to find more food and come find him.
Another issue he realized was out when he followed Tiny’s group. Animals didn’t usually come near or around the border he was near. Tiny had to move outside a good distance to start finding tracks to follow. Worse was the timing. He had periodically gotten meat. In fact he had cooked some of it and it was one of the most delicious things he had ever tasted. The problem was the corpses from the past always showed up when he was in trouble. In the beginning it seemed like some random animals invaded the safe zone but later they appeared when the berry bush was infected and all the berries were rotten.
This seemed deliberate and while he tried not to dig too deep it filled him with unease. The cockatrice would disappear towards the center of the safe zone. While he did explore a lot of the edge he never once dared to go, as there were patrol traces he could find on the border of the safe zone. It was how he knew when he explored he was still in the safe zone. He tried to control it but his paranoia was starting to run rampant. He felt like it was something normal everyone experienced but having been alone for these years it wasn’t once or twice he woke up with tears in his eyes. Most of the time he couldn’t fall back asleep unless he cried. The isolation was affecting his mental help but he didn’t want to die so he had no choice but to try and ignore it.
Each time it happened the best he could do was think about the past and the future. He dug in at himself and analyzed each time he was put in a situation he should have asked for help. Each time that he felt the worst he had ever felt. Times he originally thought he would rather be dead. Looking back at points in your life that were hard become a lot easier when you really experience hardship that truly teaches you what despair is. This was one of the ways he could tell how bad his situation was. Using his new focus he was able to dig out details of the situation that bothered him.
While some of them weren’t as serious as he felt at the time. There were a few that were worse and built all these situations together and used them as a wave to wash over his current emotions. Most of the time they weren’t nearly as serious as he felt back then, partly they had to do with the fact looking back now was like looking in from the outside. He noticed far more than he did back then, he also forgot some things that the current him deemed as not as important as they became forgotten. Using these waves to battle his current state he felt a magnitude of emotions.
Most of the time when comparing the two, his current plight was so much more serious than back then. His past experiences that felt like the sky was falling felt like jokes, and even still trying to put himself back into those shoes he could feel a small bit of overwhelming. And when his emotions started to turn dark he would rub his arms and legs as they had grown cold. He would open his eyes and see the darkness around him with no light in sight. Those budding dark emotions would be crushed without mercy.
This at many times caused him to feel much worse. The reason he did it so often was because it helped him relax by picking on his past self. The difference between the two situations left an emotionless void between as the gap between here and there was too large. This difference combined with the physical exhaustion allowed him to sleep. When he couldn’t sleep he started to use his current situation to help him release the burdens of the past. Here he was at rock bottom. A place were suicide was a thought he would have next to when should he eat. That was the situation he was in at this moment.
Each time the thought came and each time his emotions at his current state started to reach a crescendo there was one phrase he could repeat and make the tsunami turn into a bathtub quake, one year. He had been here for so long and not only was he not dead, he was starting to thrive. When he reached that point he wouldn’t be able to fight the physical exhaustion and he would start to doze off. And each time he had the same feeling of happiness. He kept the creeping thoughts of tomorrow buried in his heart. That was because the next step was remembering that each day he woke up he would wake up in this nightmare that was no different from the day before.
