Survive

by Narlepoax III

Chapters

Where Am I?
Venture Forth!
Take Action
On The Prowl
The Scorched Hill

Where Am I?

It's the heat that wakes you up.

The pounding, unrelenting heat, that causes you to sweat profusely without doing much more than breathe.

Once your brain rouses your consciousness, you become startlingly aware of three things:

1) You have a monumentally powerful headache.

2) You are completely naked.

3) You are lying on plant life of some sort, meaning that you are outside.

As soon as these revelations are fully processed, you snap your eyes open. You regret this action as soon as you take it, as the sun is positioned directly over you, and you are immediately blinded by it.

You instinctively shade your face with your hand, and roll onto your side to avoid more pain. Once you can see the browned leaves under you, you sit up, and take your first look at the location you've found yourself in.

The first thing you take notice of, are the incredibly tall trees. Thick trunks stretch up nearly fifty feet, completely unwavering, until they explode into dense leaves that block out the sun. The only break in the tree's unadulterated ascent is provided by smaller trees. Vines wrap around the behemoth plants, dotting the tree bark with their leaves in a desperate attempt to find some light in the shade. Large ferns cover the ground around you, where fallen leaves don't. You're stricken by the notion that you are in a jungle, and that jungles are really only found far to the south.

Scorching sunlight beats upon your nude body through the only break in the nearly impenetrable canopy above, the clearing you are currently lying in. As well as you are able, you can see no one around to look upon your indignity. Not even the forms of animals are spotted in the dense forest around you.

The panic begins to lance through your mind. You realize that you are completely alone, in an area you have never seen before. You can't see anything dangerous, but as far as you know, there is some terrible beast lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity to turn you into a meal. Or maybe some kind of poisonous spider, you can already feel them crawling on your body, puncturing your skin with their dripping fangs. Or maybe

"Calm down," you think to yourself, "Everything will be fine, I just need to find my way out of this jungle. All I have to do is remember how exactly I got here, and I can make my way back to civilization."

You close your eyes, and place your head in your hands, as you try to think back to the last thing you can remember.

You recall being in a dark area, intense pain, and high, raucous laughter.

As you try to dig deeper, your mind suddenly splits. You can't even see through the incredible pain you are feeling, and you are only moderately aware of heaving your stomach's contents onto the ground next to you. After some time, and with herculean effort from you, you manage to roll onto your back, once your gut finishes it's rebellion. For a long while, you are only able to lay on the jungle floor, covering your eyes with the crook of your arm. Your hands and feet are numb, despite the awe inspiring heat pounding onto your body.

"That's never a good sign," you think, once your mind is capable of thought once more, "Why does it hurt to remember anything?"

You know that memory loss could be a sign of brain damage. Brain damage usually means serious physical trauma to the cranium. Serious physical trauma to the cranium that could lead to death. You have to try remembering something else, in order to be sure that there was no danger of being killed by your own body.

You decide that your name is a good starting place.

You try to recall what people call you by. The only prize for your effort is a dull throb of protest from your head.

You decide to try recollecting where you live.

"Milky way galaxy, Star System Sol, Planet Earth." That's all you're able to remember, before your head decides to discourage you again.

You begin to panic again, wildly trying your hand at history, in an attempt to remember something.

"In 490 B.C.E, Athenian defenders were aided by troops from Plataea, in order to dissuade the invading Persian army. They were successful in deterring the Persians, and legend states that a man named Philippides sprinted nearly twenty five miles back to the nearby town of Marathon, in order to deliver the news of victory. After arriving in the war room of Marathon, Philippides said one word, "Niki!" Greek for "Victory!" before collapsing onto the floor, dead. A footrace that is twenty five miles long is named after the city."

Well, that's new.

That memory was incredibly clear and detailed. A stark contrast to the mere snippets in exchange for pain you were receiving earlier. You know that memory detail of that level is quite uncommon, to say the least. Unfortunately, trying to recall whether or not you've always had that kind of recollection only results in more headaches.

You conclude that you should test this new found ability with some more remembering.

Your name still refuses to come to you. You figure you should try thinking of your family.

Your parent's names are met by waves of hurt, although, you are able to conclude, by the fact that you exist, that you do have parents. If you have any siblings, your mind isn't revealing any details.

Something else... Math?

"The number pi is a mathematical constant that is used in geometry to determine the size of various objects. The sequence goes:
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286 208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481
And so on."

Now you're becoming frustrated.

Why can you conjure up all these incredibly specific facts? Why is it that you are unable to recall comparatively mundane and simple things, like your name? Why can't you even remember the name of the school from which you learned all of these ridiculously detailed facts?

A chill breeze rushes through the trees, and you suddenly remember some very important details:

You are completely alone in the jungle. You don't know how you got there, and you can't remember how to get back home. Your head is aching with a vengeance, and you don't know whether or not that's because you've been attacked in some way. You are sweating away precious water, and just put your most recent meal onto the jungle floor. You are completely naked, which means that you have absolutely no equipment, or tools with which to survive.

You stand up, and begin to survey your surroundings. You take note of a slight slope running out of the clearing, but the only other thing worth noting is dense vegetation.

All of a sudden, there is a crash of foliage behind you.

You whip around in panic, only to be greeted by the strangest thing you have ever seen in your life.

As far as you are able to remember.

A tiny animal stands before you, seemingly just as taken aback as you are. It's head comes to about knee height, and it balances on three hooves. Amusingly, it's fourth hoof is bent up to it's chest, holding a tiny flint spear; which is currently angled up at the sky.

It's covered in a dark, umber brown coat of fur. It's head is obscured by some kind of tribal mask, preventing you from making out any real details. Although, it's backside sports a strikingly white tail of hair. This suggest that it's some kind of horse-like creature, although much smaller. Most strikingly of all, is the strange symbol painted onto either of the creature's haunches. The symbol is a circle, made of bamboo. Two bamboo rods cross over the circle, secured with vine.

You are looking at a teeny, tiny, tribal pony.

You stare at the pony, and it stares back at you. The presence of the mask and spear suggest that this creature is sapient, to some degree. You once again become aware of your nudity, and you move your hands to cover any unseemly parts of your anatomy.

Unfortunately, this action seems to shake the pony out of it's stunned torpor. The pony quickly lowers its spear at you, and it starts speaking rapidly in an indiscernible language. The language consists of vowels, and soft consonants; with the hard consonants being replaced by loud clicks of the pony's tongue.

The absurdity of the situation hits you hard. So hard, you start laughing.

You are being threatened by a sapient pygmy pony, with stone age weapons. You couldn't dream up a stranger situation if you tried.

The pony sees that you are not being intimidated, and decides to rectify the situation.

The pony stabs its spear at the most vulnerable place it can reach: your thigh. You jerk back, in order to avoid the blow, and immediately stop laughing.

The sudden threat makes you nervous. Even if it's a small spear, it's big enough to go into you. You have to neutralize the situation, before things get worse.

"Easy now," you say, putting your hands where the pony can see them, "I don't want to hurt you. I'm lost, and probably injured. I need to get to a hospital, and I need your help to do that. Please, put the spear down."

The pony begins speaking in clicks again.

Of course. The pony can't understand you, and to make things even better, it seems to have taken you putting your hands up as a threat, as it starts jabbing the spear again.

This won't do, if the pony keeps stabbing wildly like that, it might actually hit you. You make a grab for the spear, but the pony yanks it out of the way, just in time.

That really set the pony off. It backs up into the brush, before throwing the spear at you.

You just barely manage to dodge to the right, before the spear sticks into the ground just behind where you were once standing. You hear foliage crashing again, as the pygmy pony flees into the jungle.

You morosely watch the ferns shake, as the pony gets away. You wish that you could have started things off more diplomatically. Not that it really matters. The appearance of a sapient pygmy pony is enough to tell you that this is some kind of hallucination.

You turn around, and take a look at the spear. It landed right next to the puddle that was, at one point, your most recent meal. Looking at it reminds you of the pain that caused it to stop being in your belly.

...

If this isn't a hallucination, it would be best to prepare for long-term survival in an unknown, and potentially hostile, location. You once again take a sweeping inspection of your surroundings.

You are standing in a jungle clearing. In front of you, the land slopes down, into jungle. Behind you, is where the Pygmy Pony ran. Uphill, and into jungle. To your left and right, the land continues on relatively unchanged intoyou guessed itjungle. The sun hangs directly overhead, making determining direction impossible, for now. There is a tiny spear embedded in the ground directly in front of you.

What do you do?

Author's Note

Hey everyone, I've got a little story to tell about why I decided to write this.

I have several story ideas bouncing around in my head, but I fear that I may be under skilled at putting them into a proper narrative. So, I figured, "Why not have my readers write half the story for me?" That's when I decided to take one of my underdeveloped plots, and turn it into a comment-driven story.

This is also a good way to hone up the necessary skills to go with my new duties as coauthor of Poking Pinkie Pie Part Two, as well as serving as a nice apology for my inability to get it onto this site.

As I said in the description, ponies will eventually happen, but not for a long while.

[This story was inspired partly by my vividly warped imagination, as well as a certain music video on a brony song. If you can guess which music video before I cross this story with the events that unfold in it, I'll PM you an internet hug, as well as my congratulations.]

Venture Forth!

Grab the spear, it's the only tool of survival in your possession.

Get the spear.

Unnamed Protagonist, It is suggested that you retrieve the spear and make a pair of crude undergarments out of jungle leaves.

Unnamed Protagonist: Add Spear to your Inventory.

Gather the discarded spear and...

Waste not, want not. It would be very unwise to leave a ready-made tool lying in the dirt, when you are so woefully under prepared. You make your way over to the spear, and gently prize it out of the ground. Once it's within your grasp, you decide to take a few moments to inspect the weapon.

The blade is definitely made of flint, the shiny black stone is marbled by thin streaks of dull grey. It's length is roughly four and a half inches, the serrated edge is an iridescent orange where the stone becomes thin. The staff is barely thick enough to fit in your hand, and just barely two feet long. It's much too short to allow the weapon to be used for it's intended purpose, by anything other than the pygmy pony that threw it at you. The stone is set into the staff with some kind of black pitch, and wrapped several times with thin cord.

Unnamed Protagonist: Equip Spear.

Really, the length of the staff is too short to be any kind of effective weapon, and too long to be properly used as a knife. You make to snap the rod to a proper length, but a thought stops you.

Since his brain is full of curiously detailed history and math (he wasn't a season champion on Jeopardy, was he? heh) I wonder if that brain doesn't also have a encyclopedic amount of lore on survival?

You remember that stone blades of this quality are incredibly hard to make, even for master flint knappers. Anyone can take a rock and break it to make an edge, it takes real time and effort to make a blade that would last for more than a few cuts.

And that's for people with hands.

That pony certainly didn't have any hands, and you're sure that it's lack of gripping appendages would make crafting a blade of this caliber very difficult and time consuming, indeed.

You decide to put off breaking such a valuable tool until you absolutely have to.

I would've suggest wait to see which direction the sun is setting and head towards the north.

Finding out which direction is which is imperative, if you don't want to get lost, but waiting around for a few hours is a waste of incredibly valuable time. Survival is a game about taking opportunities, and being as lazy as possible. Right now, you are sweating like a pig, you just vomited up your last meal, and you are completely naked.

You need to take action, and quickly.

Being naked in the forest isn't just annoying, it's painful. Tender bits getting thwacked by wayward twigs, blood sucking insects going for you there because they know how annoying that is.

Oh, and try to make some sort of clothing/covering for yourself for yourself. You're a human being, not some common animal!

And try to get something to hide my pride.

Unnamed Protagonist, It is suggested that you retrieve the spear and make a pair of crude undergarments out of jungle leaves.

First order of business, is to cover yourself. You're not going to wander around in the jungle without any protection for your skin, even if you are alone. And that's not even saying anything about the immodesty of wandering around with your "bits" hanging out. You decide to at least cover your groin, before you leave the clearing.

You make your way over to the nearest fern, which is not very far away, considering the jungle floor is covered with them. You kneel down next to it, and place the spear on the ground, so you can have both your hands to scrutinize the plant.

The leaves are quite thick, thick enough to stand up to your fingers' touch without bending. That may be a bad thing, you'd like to have the leaves not break off under duress. That would undermine the entire point of spending time and energy to make this garment. This one won't do. You pick up the spear, and move on to the next fern.

This one is not even worth touching, the leaves of the fern are segmented all the way up the stem. There would be absolutely no obscurity in wearing a skirt of this.

You move on to the next plant.

This one seems to be good, the leaves are solid, and appear to be thin enough to bend with the motion of your body. You kneel down in front of it, and test the leave's strength by grabbing one at it's very tip, and pulling hard on it.

It does not give way to you. This fern will do nicely.

You take the spear, and begin the process of cutting leaves off at the very bottom. The sharp edge slices quickly and easily through the pliable stems that attach to the fern's main body. As you work, you decide to sing a little song to yourself, to make the time pass more pleasantly.

A strange little ditty, but by the time you sing the last line, you have finished with your task. The spear's long handle made the job significantly more frustrating, but you eventually managed to gather a respectable amount of tough leaves, leaving the fern nearly completely leafless.

Once the job is complete, you decide to make your life easier, by taking the leave's stems, and tying them into loops. This task takes another couple of minutes off your hands, and your fingers are covered in a sticky, clear sap by the end.

Now that you've got the main body of your garment finished, it's time to affix it to your body.

...use it to cut off a length of any of the vines around you to use as rope...

You stand, taking the spear with you, and make your way over to the nearest tree. Once in it's shadow, you grasp one of the thinner vines creeping up it's trunk, and slice through it without effort. Now that you have a good grip on the vine, you pull it free from the tree, yanking off all it's roots, and pulling off a good twenty feet of usable cord, before the vine snaps off.

You clear the vine of leaves, and slice off about three feet to use. To save on time and resources, you wrap the remainder into a bundle, for later use. You take the cord you need, and feed it through the loops on the leaves. Once you've got all the leaves on the vine, you wrap it around your waist, and tie the vine together on your left hip with a square knot. Now that it won't fall off, you pick up the bundle of excess vine, loop it into the impromptu belt, and secure it with a figure eight knot on your right side. You're left with quite a bit of excess vine on your "belt", which you decide to leave there, for now.

Finally, you don't feel exposed, like everything is trying to get you. You know it won't last long, and that you still need a more permanent solution, but you can finally relax, even if it's only for a moment. You shade your eyes with your hand, and look up to the sky. It's only been about ten or so minutes since you woke up, so the sun hasn't made any discernible movement.

You suddenly become intimately aware of just how much moisture you've lost standing under this punishing sun, when your throat sticks painfully. You need to find a source of water, and fast. You take yet another look at the clearing you stand in, noting the slope once more. You know that water always runs downhill.

In most survival situations, the best thing to do would be to travel downhill, until you find some kind of water source. Then, you follow the water until you come across a path to follow, or a city or town. Civilization is always found near water.

Go uphill, to see if you can find some sort of vantage point in order to find a way out or a source of water, like a river.

Water does help after all, and the risk of following a pygmy pony back to what is probably its pack may be worth it if you can find some way not to be wandering a jungle blindly

Going toward the pigmy pony would only bring you trouble, considering he probably sees you as a threat. So,

Unnamed Protagonist: Go Uphill, try to find a source of water.

...after doing that carefully head up the hill that the pony fled towards once there use your new vantage point to find anything that might get you to some thing of signifigence such as a water or food source or at least something of signifigence or direction.

But this isn't like most survival situations. The first thing you did was cross paths with a seemingly sapient being, and then scare it away. Your best bet in this situation, would be to find the home of the pygmy pony. It may be scared of you, but it would be better to find it, and try to calm it, rather than trying to survive here, alone. You might even be able to give it's spear back, as a peace offering.

If you remember correctlywhich you do, with the help of your incredible memorythe pony ran uphill, so you need to head in that direction. You steel your nerves, and step into the shade of the trees, for the first time.

The difference is remarkable. The instant the sun's light no longer touches you, you stop feeling it's devastating heat. You had actually forgotten how good it could feel to not be hot. The feeling is incredible, and you actually sigh with relief at the little bit of respite.

As you begin your journey into the wild foliage, a random thought crosses your mind.

Now time to go stone-age and work my way up the history of mankind because I'm pretty sure I am from an advance time period.

Yes, you distinctly remember several pieces of technology that put this little flint knife to shame. Cars, televisions, microwaves, computers, and radio technology. You can even remember the two shining achievements of your race's foray into the scientific arts: smartphones, and the internet. Modern medicine had nearly removed the threat of death from the lives of everyday people. Engineering had crafted devices of convenience that almost anyone could have with little effort.

The moment your mind wandered into what your place in that world was, you get a nasty reminder of the pain you had awoken with.

As fascinating as that little peek into your history was, it didn't suggest anything as incredible as time travel. It wasn't like you had met a human who was decked out in tribal dress, you distinctly remember a pygmy pony. For all you knew, this was all some kind of product of your vivid imagination, maybe you were in a coma, somewhere, having a vivid hallucination. Maybe you had been run over by a car, or mugged in an alleyway, and someone found you, and brought you to a hospital. Or not, you could always be conscious, but in some unknown location in the Congo, where no human had ever set foot before.

Neither of those theories were very comforting.

Climbing uphill without any food or water in your system is taking a toll on your body. You are already winded, and you can still see the clearing back in the distance behind you. You find a random rock, and sit down, resting your aching body. This whole situation is not going to be easy on you.

As you wait for your heart to calm, you try to think of your past again. Maybe remembering your friends would prove to be more profitable venture.

You can't shake the feeling that you did have friends. Good friends. Just thinking of who they may be instills you with a powerful feeling of companionship. Unfortunately, trying to remember details goes the same way trying to remember anything about your personal life does: with no real gain, and you holding your head. You don't know who your friends were, but they were very close to you. It's probably for the best you can't remember their faces. That would just make you sad, and you couldn't afford to be sad right now.

With that option spent, you decide to take a look at your body.

Your skin is very pale, you obviously didn't get a lot of sun before you came here. That's a trend you want to continue, if the terrible heat from the clearing is anything to go by. Toned muscle covers your form, and there is not much fat to obscure it's appearance. To be honest, that's a bad thing, in this situation. All that means, is that you won't be able to last very long without food. You need to put more emphasis on finding a food supply.

Unnamed Protagonist: Listen to your surroundings. What do you hear ?

Just as you start thinking about how you should go about finding food in this environment, you hear it. It's so faint, it's almost impossible to hear. Coming from your right, just at the edge of your hearing, is the sound of rushing water.

Your heart leaps, and you quickly stand off the rock. The water is very hard to pinpoint, the wind rushing through the forest is almost enough to cover the sound. Fortunately, with enough time and effort, you manage to determine the direction you need to head in to find the water.

You start walking to the source of the sound quickly, your esophagus reminding you of just how much fluid you've lost today. Every step makes the sound clearer, it's like listening to the most beautiful music you've ever heard. You round trees, and step over vines, all without much thought, the only thing you really care about right now, is quenching your burning thirst. Finally, after a short time that was far too long, in your opinion, you catch sight of the little stream that makes the noise.

The little creek is only about two feet wide, but it's enough to suit you. It's crystal clear, absolutely unblemished by foreign objects. Even dirt seems to avoid traveling in the water, for fear of spoiling it's beauty. You rush up to the liquid, joy expanding your heart, and drop to your knees on the muddy bank. You drop the spear next to you, and plunge both hands into the merrily dancing water.

It's ice cold.

With great enjoyment, you scoop out a portion of the water, and splash it over your hot, sweaty face. The shock of cold exhilarates you, and you lean in to take your first drink. The freezing liquid goes down smoother than anything you can remember feeling, and the fluid soothes your parched throat. This drink is like the life-saving drink given to a dying person, which it sort of is.

Normally, drinking directly out of a stream would be a terrible idea. There's no knowing what kinds of parasites or germs could be livingand breedingin the water. But this water seems to be perfectly clean, and it's coolness suggests that it runs directly from a spring, somewhere. There's not much chance of anything dangerous being in this. Besides, without any sort of watertight container to carry or boil it in, you're kind of stuck without options.

Once you finish slaking your dry throat, you decide to give your body a rinse. You're absolutely drenched with sweat, and your hands are sticky with fern sap, and now mud from the stream. You sink your hands into the water, savoring the coolness of it, and rub them clean. Once done with that, you stand, and remove your new fern skirt, placing it down with the spear. Now that you're again nude, you kneel by the stream once more.

You start by splashing the water onto your scorched chest, the cold feels amazing against your overly hot body. You gently rub the water into your skin, scrubbing the sweat off. Finished with your chest, you move on to your arms, you just pour water onto your shoulders, and rub the grime away. Then onto your back, which is accomplished by dripping water over your shoulders, and letting it run down. Then you wash your groin and backside, and finish with a rinse of your legs. Now that you're clean(ish), you stand, gather up your meager equipment, and put everything in it's proper place.

Now that your mind is refreshed, it takes the opportunity to tell you of your senses. You are chilled from the water, but you know that it will not last long, with you hiking through this muggy forest. Under the canopy, everything is tinted green, from the chlorophyll reflecting that wavelength of light all over the place. You hadn't noticed it before, but everything smells incredibly clean. There is no stink of smoke hanging in the air, in fact, the air is permeated by the faint, sweet smell of fruit.

You decide to take a closer inspection of your surroundings, and finally notice the tiny hoof print embedded in the mud on the other bank of the stream. You hop over to the other side, and kneel down to take a closer look.

It is definitely small, smaller than your fist. It only goes about a quarter inch into the mud, so whatever made the print was incredibly light. Your thoughts immediately go to the tiny pony you scared away, the one you are currently looking for. The print is facing upstream, suggesting that the creature went that way.

You're just about to start heading after it, when a break in the jungle's pattern catches the edge of your eye. You turn to your left, facing the anomaly, and you take a better look at what caused you to stop. A long trough of the undergrowth, a good foot wide, is crushed and torn. It seems that something quite large was dragged through here. if the torn leaves are to be believed, whatever destroyed the foliage went uphill, as well.

You stand up straight, and take stock of the situation.

You are in the jungle, having just found a seemingly clean source of water. You have also found evidence of where the pygmy pony went, but something else seems to have traveled in the same direction. Something large. All you have with you, is a fern skirt, about sixteen feet of vine, an awkward to use stone knife, and your wits.

What do you do?

Author's Note

I got really bored around bedtime last night, and stayed up until 2 a.m. writing. Now I'm tired, I'm gonna take a nap.

Thanks everyone, for your support. I really wasn't expecting this story to get so popular, so quickly.

Take Action

Do a little dance and call forth the nearest god. After that ask him/her to send you home or wherever is safe and provides clothes. Or you could skin your skin off replace it with leaves or bandages if you find some and your are now open to being possessed by gods anytime in your life if you agree to it.

...

Maybe you really do have brain damage. This could be another sign of an impending stroke, you really need to get to a hospital as soon as possible.

Look for a more sturdy stick or piece of wood to mount your spearhead on...

Protagonist That is Unnamed, I suggest that you untie the stone blade from the shorter spear and then retie it onto a long much more suitable stick.

The head is not attached to the pole by merely tying it, it's glued in with hard resin. The only way you could remove the stone from the rest of the spear, without breaking it, would require tools that you don't have. Besides, it's not even your spear. Technically, it belongs to the pony that threw it at you. Even if it did not ever consider getting it back, you should still make efforts to return the spear to it's rightful owner.

If there is none follow the tracks of the large disturbance and possibly hunt down this animal.

hun' 'er down 'n flay'em, i don' care what yer havin ta do, property a don' own, break n remake it!, dats da redneck way, woooweee, amurica

consider making an abacus, so you might work finances for the pygmy ponies,profit

Where are all these crazy ideas coming from? An abacus?! Everyone knows that calculators are much more efficient! Also, you'd really rather not die, that's the whole reason you didn't give up from the start. Trying to fight any beast that could make that trail, with nothing but a stone knife, would invariably end with you being in several pieces. It's hard to be alive, when you're in several pieces.

Of course, that's assuming that this mark was made by an animal. It could very well have been made by someone dragging something big through here. You don't know anything about this place, for all you know, this is someone's back yard, and all you need to do, is find their house. You shouldn't get your hopes up about that, though. It's probably not even close to reality.

...or just sharpen and use as a crud spear

Consider making a club whit a thick branch a rock and vines.

find a good branch to use as a club it should make a better weapon than your tiny spear.

You don't have anything sturdy enough to withstand cutting into wood. The stone spearhead is definitely very sharp, but it's also very thin and brittle. Theoretically, you could use it to carve something, but if you twisted it in the wrong direction, it would shatter into pieces. If you're right, this spear means a lot to that pony, and you'd rather not casually break something that holds sentimental value. You could certainly snap off a branch, and you know a technique to put a good hard point onto it, but you would need to make a fire for that, and you don't want to waste that much time, right now.

Tie rope to spear, so you can throw then retrieve it.

Tie other end of rope to a decent sized stone, to use as a weapon/grappling hook.

attach nice sized rock to rope as a kind of swinging rock thing to smash into faces

You don't have rope, you have a length of vine. The weight capacity on vine is much less than that of actual rope. If you tried to make a stone flail with this vine, it would just snap, and waste vine. You put time and effort into gathering this, and you'd rather not waste any. But, the thought of swinging rocks around gives you another idea.

You untie your "belt" and take the coil of vine off, you cut about three feet off, and replace it onto your waist. You bend the length you have back on itself, and slice it in half. You are left with two lengths of vine, each one and a half feet. You walk over to the ferns, choose one that is tough, and pliable, and cut off a leaf. With that done, you fold it over four times, and puncture a hole on either side. Finally, you poke the vines through both holes, and tie them on. You are left with a crude sling.

You don't really know how to use a sling with any accuracy, but it's best to have some kind of ranged weapon. The vine should be able to stand up to the stresses, as long as you don't use any really big rocks. You would take time to pick out some rocks, but you don't have anything to keep them in yet.

make a hat outa leaves, make a pouch and fill with rocks to throw nice sized rocks at things,

Not right now. You do know how to make those, but you need to use the daylight hours to find food, and potentially, allies. Weaving things out of grass or reeds takes a while, and you can make do with what you have now until dusk.

Come up with name for self.

think of a title you could give yourself, without stroking your own ego too much

Why? There's no one around to call you by it, and besides, once you get back to civilization, the other people will tell you what your real name is. You don't need a name right now. You wouldn't know where to begin, anyway.

Make leaf shoes

make footwraps outa something like leaves or such,

It's the moment you think about your abused feet, that they begin to sting. Hiking through wild terrain without foot coverings was a bad idea. You decide to take a moment to make yourself some foot wraps.

Since you are already next to a suitable fern, you bend down and cut yourself several more leaves. It takes quite a few, almost as much as you needed for your skirt. Once you have them, you find another vine to use, since you've already used quite a bit of the stuff you're bringing with you. You figure two three foot lengths are enough for this job.

With your materials thus gathered, you sit on a large root, and begin with your right foot. You fold about three leaves in half, leaving you with a pad that's about the size of your foot. You place the pad on top of a gathering of more leaves, and place your foot down in it. It actually feels quite nice on your poor sole. You wrap the leaves around your foot, and then wrap the leaves several time with one of the vines. Once it's secured nicely, you tie the vine up near your ankle with a shoelace knot. You repeat the process with the other foot.

Once the job is completed, you stretch your legs out, so you can inspect your handy work.

They look... like foot wraps made of fern leaves and vine. They won't last for an especially long time, but it's better than nothing.

search for small animals

After doing so check the stream for and fish.

Acquire food if there's any to be found.

You take the down time as an opportunity to search the forest for anything that you could eat. As far as you can see, there is nothing edible anywhere around you. If you're going to find something to fill your belly, here is not where you do it.

I think, that before moving forward, you should try and find something to carry water in, even if it means using an old log or something of the sort.

There is nothing around that you can use as a ready made container, either. You can't carve yourself one, until you find flint to make your own tools out of.

Well, going after a large creature with makeshift weapons. In the spirit of not wanting to die, I'd saaaay; go another direction.

The thought of that track being made by an animal makes you very nervous. You almost turn around at that moment, but you catch sight of the hoof print again, and realize that there is a tiny pony out there, completely defenseless, and scared out of it's mind. Both of those are your fault. And, to compound the gravity of the situation, there could be some giant beast following the poor thing.

You can't leave that pony out there, not without losing what makes you a human.

continue up the stream cautiously

Cautiously follow the trail, but stay to the undergrowth to keep hidden from any nasty surprises ahead.

Move through the trees and bushes off to the side of the tracks, you have no idea what to expect and you don't wan't to be caught off guard, so be stealthy to get the upper hand if you need it.

Survival in jungle with large predators alone is daunting, seek pygmy, perhaps save from predator.

Follow pony tracks, but stay close to the stream. Better to fight large one with your "enemies" than alone.

Unnamed Protagonist: i don't think it wise to try to find the dangerous pony place yet so soon so under prepare side what can your stick do to a predator like that right now? but i guess if your careful and not die in the process you learn more and might possibly return the spear to it owner to not appear like a monster... side explore the terrain is good thing to do.

saving the pony will make him or her indepted to the protag and without there spear what could they do to protect themselves?

Follow the trail but exercise caution, also find a good branch to use as a club it should make a better weapon than your tiny spear.
Reasons:
Emotional/moral: You're kind of responsible for the pygmy being disarmed and should always try and aid your fellow sentient creatures.
Practical/logical: If you can save the pygmy it will be more likely to aid you, if you can't whatever made the drag marks will likely go for the easiest prey (the pygmy) first and seeing what kills it will provide survival information.

Yes, aside from the moral obligations you have to that tiny creature, you can definitely see the upside to having an ally in this jungle. There is a downside to tracking it down, but possible danger is outweighed by possible friends. First order of business:

Come up with more random knowledge.

create camouflage to both hide your body from other creatures eye sight and also protect you more from the sun, smear mud from the river on your body to cover your scent,protect your skin from the sun and to add to camouflage.

Also consider covering self in mud to keep cool and/or act as camouflage.

Unnamed Protagonist:Camouflage and covering your scent before you begin your tracking of the pony.

Unnamed Protagonist: i would advise you to get your self covered in mud and then head up hill.

You return to the stream, and kneel down, putting aside the spear. You take great fistfuls of mud, and smear it all over your exposed skin. The mud serves several purposes:

1) It will act as a camouflage, making it harder for predatorsand preyto see you from a

distance.

2) It will contain your scent, making it harder for predatorsand preyto smell you.

3) It will help keep the sunlight from baking you alive, if you ever find the need to leave the

jungle.

4) It will protect you from bugs and parasites, once they begin to go on the hunt.

5) It exfoliates your skin, helping to combat pimples!

keep an eye out for more tracks to possibly elude you in on what created the large disturbance

keep your eyes open for tracks of anytype

Once every inch of your skin is covered in mud, you stand up. You figure it would be best to take a few seconds to inspect the large trail. It would not be wise to track down something, when you don't even know what it is.

Just like before, the first thing you notice, is the long trough of ruined undergrowth. Anything that isn't crushed, is torn apart. The trail is about one and a half feet wide, and seems to lazily meander back and forth. It wraps closely around trees, and goes between places that would be much easier to simply avoid, if it were someone dragging something large.

That takes away the possibility of it not being some kind of animal.

If you were to make a guess, you'd say that this trail was made by a giant anaconda, but what you notice next puts that theory handily to rest.

Every foot, or so, a thick hoof print drives itself roughly an inch into the ground, the crushed trail sometimes covers them. Whatever made the prints, was directly in front of what made the trail.

Now you have no idea what could have made this strange mark in the jungle. Nothing about it made sense.

The hoof prints were spaced in a way to suggest only two hooves. Maybe another of those pygmy ponies killed a snake, and was dragging it with?

No, the trail still went places that made no sense for a burdened personor ponyto go.

If you were crazy, you'd say that this creature had a snakes body, and two hooves on the front. But there is no such creature, not even in mythology, as far as you know. Even if the pygmy pony didn't make sense, ponies do exist. Trying to learn more about this track, has just made you even more confused.

Deploy wits and cautiously follow the hoof print. Grip the awkward to use stone spear/ knife a little tighter.

tread carefully from now on

Follow tracks to give aid and gain trust.

The lack of knowledge you have on the strange beast makes you even more nervous about following it, but it also strengthens your resolve to find the pygmy pony. If the strange beast is dangerous, the pony is in danger, just by being near it. You have to get to the pony, before something terrible happens.

You steel your nerves, and set out.

You first go back to the stream, and retrieve the spear. Then, you walk over into the tree line, and begin to follow the little stream. The water will cover up most of the sound you make in the underbrush, and the trees will help to keep you unnoticed.

Stealthily, you creep through the undergrowth, keeping as silent as possible. You make your way uphill, keeping the stream on your right, at all times. Occasionally, you spot another hoof print in the mud, letting you know that you are going the right way. You continue on like this for a good ten minutes, before something makes you stop.

The strange beast's path veers to the right, crosses the stream, and plunges straight into the trees. It no longer follows the same path as you.

Confused as to what you should do now, you exit the trees, and return to the stream's bank. The deep indent in the mud, and even deeper hoof prints are a definite reassurance of the strangeness of the strange beast. You can't see any more pygmy pony tracks, so you don't know if the strange beast got it, or not. There is no blood anywhere, to suggest that something was killed, but you don't know how the strange beast makes it's kills. For all you know, it could be a constrictor, that would support the snake-like(ish) tracks.

You don't know what to do anymore, the beast's trail goes away from the stream, and you can't see any more of the pygmy pony's prints. Should you continue following the stream uphill, or try to track the strange beast?

What do you do?

Author's Note

Man, this "writing" thing really takes it out of you. It's not exhausting, so much as it is overwhelming. It's just like editing, only worse. The words start getting behind your eyes, and sapping your will to be creative. I found myself having to take a break twice while writing this one. Sorry about how little actual content is in this chapter, I just got burned out.

If you guys really want >Unnamed Protagonist to take on a name, you need to talk it out amongst yourselves. Whichever name has the most copies, or thumbs up, will be made >Unnamed Protagonist's new moniker. I personally can't see why you care.

Though, if I were forced to chose, I'd go with [REDACTED].

Only got one guess as to what music video inspired this. Anyone else wanna give it a shot?

On The Prowl

Warning!
This chapter contains scenes of gore. I do not suggest that you read this, if you have a weak stomach.

As a name, I volunteer Owen. In the book "ten little Indians," one of the characters aliases is U.N. Owen, which is a play on the word "unknown". I volunteer this name because his name is otherwise, or as yet, unknown.

Think of U.N. Owen and call yourself that.

Additionally, Owen would be a good name for the as-yet-unnamed protagonist.

I think his name should be Daniel, because he has amnesia. Sorry I couldn't think of anything more clever. I tried, believe me.

also, why not Daniel Owens? sounds classy, and two referances at once,most humans do have two names.

You don't know why, but you can't get rid of this nagging sensation that you should create a name to call yourself by. Maybe it's some longing to be like most other humans you know of? Maybe it's because you want to craft a new identity for yourself, now that you've lost your original one? Well, the reason doesn't matter much, in the long run. All you know is that you want a name, and that you should create one.

You rack your brain for anything that could be used in your context. Your name is going to define you, and you should really pick one that's appropriate. Since you have no personal experience with names, you turn to media you may have consumed in your past. Searching your mind for any names connected to amnesia, or mysterious pasts, you come up with two suitable candidates.

You remember a book by the title of "Ten Little Indians", in which one of the characters went by the alias "U.N. Owen", a reference to the word "unknown". That seems like a worthy name, Owen. Alternatively, you remember a popular video game called "Amnesia", in which the protagonist was named "Daniel". Another appropriate candidate for your self-made title, but which one should you choose?

...

Why should you choose? You know that most humans have a least two names, why should you settle for only one? You make your decision, and enact it.

Command Prompt>
player>
changefullname to>
Owen Daniels

It's settled, your name is now Owen Daniels. But now, you have more pressing matters to attend to. You have lost track of the pygmy pony, and you think it may have been captured by the strange beast. Even if the pony is fine, all you have to go by is the strange track of the strange beast. You really only have foraging to do today, and it's still a few hours until the sun goes down.

If the beast was going in the same direction as the Pygmy, try to follow the swathe of destruction. At the very least, you need to find someone/something, not to mention returning your stolen weapon.

With the strange creature crashing through the underbrush like that it is most likely either the most powerful thing in the jungle or very stupid. Either way it is probably unsuspecting of something hunting/following so you should definitely notice it before it notices you. Besides it's the only lead you have toward anything because if the river leads to a spring (which could be miles away) you will have no idea where to go once you reach it.

Considering you can't see any more of the pygmy pony's prints, it'd be safe to assume it's off the ground somehow.

The strange beast might be carrying it, whether as a meal, a slave (if the beast is indeed sentient), or any number of various other methods.

The pygmy pony could be with this strange beast.

Maybe it's eaten the pony. Maybe it's sapient, and has captured the pony for nefarious purposes. Maybe the strange beast serves as some kind of mount for the pony. Maybe the pygmy pony has changed direction, and the strange beast is following it. Maybe the beast was never tracking the pony, and they are far separate by now. Whatever is going on, you only have one lead at the moment.

If the strange beast is okay with making such a massive mark on the jungle, it's obviously near the top of the food chain here. It's last worry would be getting hunted. You should really try to make sure the strange beast is not a threat to your survival. So long as you tread with utmost care, you should be able to avoid conflicting with the strange beast.

Attempt to gauge size of beast by tracks. also note if the tracks are deeper than they were before, to cement or disprove snake theory.

Look even MORE closleyer to the STRANGE BEAST tracks maybe there is something you didnt Notice/Comprehend why something with two hooves and a snake like trail is there,

You look again at the strange beast's tracks. Deep hoof prints covered by a constant deep depression in the soil. Hoof prints are spaced to suggest only two hooves, and not moving in a hurry. Depression covers hoof prints, in some instances, suggesting that depression is occurring directly behind hooves. The size and depth of the hoof prints suggests that their maker was incredibly large, and heavy. This is supported, by the way the hoof prints in the mud seem to have gotten stuck. They go deep, and there are signs of the strange beast struggling to pull them back out. You notice that these hoof prints, as opposed to the pygmy pony's, are cloven, the line in the middle having been obvious the whole time.

Maybe your mind isn't as powerful as you thought it was.

This is either some animal with hooves using it's front legs to drag something behind it, or some kind of snake-itaur. You have no idea why, but that sounds familiar. Maybe there is some kind of beast with hooves and a snake tail. The mystery only fuels your curiosity toward it.

lets grit our teeth and pierce the heavens[hold the stone knife up] with our drill and man up, no creature may stand in mans knowledge and taste for war!

You grip the tiny spear with conviction, and hop to the other side of the stream. You slink into the trees, just to the side of the strange beast's trail.You quietly steal through the trees, keeping the tracks to your left. You continue like this for a while, making sure that you always have sight of the strange beast's tracks. You climb over roots, and duck under branches, weaving through the plants with as little impact on them as you can muster. After five minutes of doggedly tracking the strange beast, something catches your eye. Something you've been looking for since the beginning of this whole ordeal.

search for a thwomping stick

continue the hunt for the sturdy dead whackin stick,

Just off to your right, tangled in vines and undergrowth, is a stick. But not just any stick, this is the perfect stick. You walk over to the stick and untangle it from it's plantish resting place. Holding it in your hands makes it easier to get a good look at it.

It's not quite as tall as you are. Any bark that was once on it, has been peeled away by something. Probably time, considering that the wood underneath is dried, and gray. The stick is almost perfectly straight, with the only mar being a very slight curve in the wood's entire length. The stick is thin enough to be comfortable in your hand, but thick enough to stand up to brutal punishment. All of these features are nothing, however, compared to the most useful thing about it. The tip of the stick is broken in just such a way, as to have a long, and deadly point. It's almost a perfect, naturally made spear.

Such a stick can't just be called "stick", this tool needs a name.

You take a breath, and say, in your most authoritative voice, "Stick, I hereby christen thee:

Instant Doom Stick Of Total Awesomeness."

IDSOTA does not react, but you knew it wouldn't. IDSOTA is just too cool to react. You tuck the tiny pygmy pony's spear into your "belt", and equip IDSOTA to your right hand.

With your new weapon of doom acquired, you return to your previous task, tracking the strange beast.

You return to the side of the trail, and begin following once more. The time goes by basically uneventfully, and you actually consider giving up, and returning to the stream. Just as you are about to turn back, you catch site of an abnormality in the pattern of the jungle.

It's another clearing, different from the one you awoke in. You know this, because, rather than being a naturally formed clearing, this one is definitely artificial. There is almost no undergrowth in this clearing, it seems that all of it was torn up, or crushed. Trees have been toppled, broken just above the ground by something large, and very strong. Many of the trees that haven't fallen have deep grooves carved into them, as if by an animal with shedding antlers. You notice something else out of the corner of your periphery. A long, and thick, white tube lies near the edge of the trees.

You take cautious looks around the clearing, to make sure there's nothing around. The coast is clear.

With great care to be silent, you exit the tree line, and check around the clearing. Everything smells of dirt, and animal waste. This is definitely some animal's home. A big animal, by the looks of things. More trails exit the clearing, just like the one you followed here. It would be impossible to tell which trail is the one that leads to the strange beast. It takes a bit for you to find which path you came from, but you find it, and mark it by scratching an arrow into the bark with the pygmy pony's spear.

Now that you're sure you won't get lost, you creep into the strange beast's clearing. With nothing else noteworthy around, your first stop is at the odd white tube. It's about as large around as you are from shoulder to shoulder. It stretches about ten feet long, and gradually becomes thinner, into a point at the end. The entire thing is made of white scales.

Well, that confirms the snake theory. This is definitely a very large snake's shed skin, but only about half of it. You can't see any more skin, but searching for it causes you to spot something else, near the center of the clearing. It's white, and thin. You walk over to the object, and pick it up. It's curved in the middle, black on the pointy tips, and cleanly severed at the other end. It looks like a bull's horn, but you know that bovines don't shed horns, this probably came from a kill of the snake's. You drop it on the ground, no longer interested in holding the thing any more.

That was probably a bad idea, as you hear a snort come from your right.

Unnamed Protagonist may or may not run into unwanted preditors or prey

You turn to look at the cause of the noise, and what you see causes your blood to turn icy. An enormous black bull is uncurling himself from off of the ground, underneath an overhang of dirt. His black fur blends in to the shadows of his den almost seamlessly. The bull stands roughly eight feet from hoof to shoulder. He looks at you, blearily, having obviously just been awoken by the noise you made. He stares at you confusedly for a while, before he seemingly realizes that you are in his territory. He bears his teeth, showing long, pointed fangs. He rolls his head with rage, and paws at the ground, snorting again.

"Oh, shit," slips out of your mouth, before the bull bellows at you, and begins an awkward charge. You snap out of your stunned fear, and turn to the direction you came from, your heart pounding like a jackhammer. Once you spot the arrow, you begin sprinting away from the mass of anger and muscle.

You flee from the bull as fast as you can. You follow the strange beast's trail, leaping over high roots, and ducking under low lying branches, but the forest still grabs at you, whipping your skin with thin branches and twigs. You can hear the bull charging at you, just behind every move you make.

"WHY IS THERE A CARNIVOROUS BULL IN THE JUNGLE?!" you think, using IDSOTA to vault a particularly high root, "BULLS ARE NOT SUITED FOR THIS KIND OF ENVIRONMENT!"

That doesn't matter right now. What matters, is not being gored by an angry bovine. You put your attentions into the current situation, you swear you can feel the bull's hot breath beating on your back. Suddenly, a vine on the jungle's floor grabs your foot, and you are sent sprawling to the ground, IDSOTA flying from your grip. You instantly start scrambling for the stick, hearing the bull's crashing coming closer. You finally manage to get your hand on IDSOTA, and roll onto you back, to see the mass of black fur and muscle barely three feet away.

go into the predator aspects of ones mind and prepare for the hunt!

let your primal human out for the "Hunt" your instincts will guide you to a warriors victory!, fucking leeroy jenkins this bitch(its too fucking hot i wana smack shit)

You only just barely manage to get IDSOTA between the bull and yourself, before he falls upon you. The spear goes right into his dewlap, and sinks deep into his thorax. Before you can celebrate, the enormous animal crushes you, you feel the both of you sliding through the dirt for several feet. Several disconcerting cracks and pops sound from the strange sliding pile of flesh that is you and the bull, before the ground finally manages to stop your abuse of it.

The bull is on top of you. Your only your right arm remains unpinned, and you can feel terrible pain screaming from your right thigh, and left side. You start to yell in pain, but before you can, the bull starts squirming, exacerbating the agony from your broken bones. The bull is not dead. Another pop comes from your left hip, and more pain jolts through you. You let out an anguished cry, as the bull tries to get it's fangs into you. It's all you can do to move your neck out of reach of the beast's maw.

Pick up a nice sized face smashin rock

Your hand scrabbles through the dead leaves and undergrowth, trying desperately to find something to defend your life with. You feel your hand brush a large rock, embedded in the earth. You instantly latch onto it, and begin pulling it out of the ground. You manage to pry it from the dirt, but the sudden shift of inertia causes you to lose your grip on it. You just manage to get find it again, when the bull finally manages to sink his fangs into your shoulder.

With a scream of pain, you grab the rock, and bring it down on the bull's massive skull.

SMACK

He release you, and bellows with agony, but you refuse to let up. You smash the rock into the bull's head again.

SMACK

The bull bleats in pain, and you hit him again.

CRACK

The bull's entire body goes limp, but you keep hitting him.

CRUNCH

The bull twitches.

CRUNCH

The bull remains still.

SPLAT

You rear your arm back for another blow, but the blood on the rock causes it to slip from your hand, and fly out of your reach. With a cough of exertion, you let yourself go limp, gasping from the weight on your chest. You begin to wriggle your way out from under the bull, managing to free your left arm, before the lack of oxygen causes you to become woozy.

Once your head stops spinning, you start clawing yourself free. The blood from the bull acts as a lubricant, making the job much easier. You excise your chest from under the beast, and shove it's giant ruined head off of your stomach. You collapse, finally able to take full breaths again.

You stay there for a while, gasping to get your blood re-oxygenated. Pain shoots from your legs, and side, and you look down to your chest to examine the situation. Through the dried mud, an angry red patch, mottled with dark purple, covers about two or three ribs on your left side. Obviously, you have broken some of them.

Enough lying around, you need to get out from under the dead beast. You again start crawling, straining your legs in the process, the pain is almost overwhelming. Luckily, the bloody mud under the bull makes your legs slip out almost easily. You feel the fern skirt slip off, as you fight your way to freedom. Just before you pull completely away, a thought hits you. You reach down to the bull, and pull the pygmy pony's spear out from under him. Once you have it, you slip the rest of your legs away.

The pain and exertion is starting to get to you, as you see your vision darkening. With all your strength, and quite a lot of pain, you manage to drag yourself under a tree, lean against it's trunk, and drop to rest again. You can feel your consciousness slipping away, as you take a look at the massive beast you just slew.

It certainly is a gargantuan bull. The horns protruding from it's destroyed cranium extend at least two feet, you're amazed that they missed you. It's black coat, stained by crimson blood, covers it's body to about just under the ribs, but that's where things start getting weird... Right where the ribcage ends, the coat of fur abruptly stops, to be replaced by large, dark green scales. The beast's body tapers into a dull point, with no second set of limbs to be found. It's some kind of half-snake, half-bull monster.

Ah-ha! So this isor rather wasthe strange beast. You rack your memory for a name to call this creature. It takes a while, but one comes to you.

"Ophiotaurus. From Greek myth, a beast that is half bull, half serpent. Legend tells of a prophecy, that whomever could slay the beast would take on the power to kill gods."

Strange, you don't feel particularly god-slaying, right now. Right now, you feel miserable. You feel abused, hungry, and confused. Nauseous, exhausted, and in-pain. Furious, terrified, and frustrated to all hell. Everything comes boiling to the front, and you suddenly have an emotional break.

STOP. Can you feel it? All of your frustration on your current situation. Your confusion, your fears, everything. Before you go any further, look towards the heavens and scream as loud as you can! Let it all out!

You rear your head back to the sky, and roar at the heavens as loudly as you can, tearing your vocal cords with the effort. You continue like this for about a full minute, before your lungs demand that you stop your abuse of them. Coughing, you let your head loll onto your shoulder, feeling every stress of the past half hour catch up with you at once. Your eyes close, and your mind dulls...

Feel better? I sure hope so, because that was probably a bit detrimental to your survival.

God...

damn it...

brain...

...~~~***xXOXx***~~~...

It's the stench that wakes you, this time.

The choking, suffocating stench, that causes your nose to sting.

Once your brain rouses your consciousness, you become startlingly aware of three things:

1) Your left hip is in agony.

2) Your lips are cracked, and your throat is on fire. Both from it's abuse, and lack of water.

3) Your belly is very upset at you, for being ignored.

You open your eyes, gently this time, to be greeted by the most revolting sight you have ever been graced with, in your memory.

The ophiotaurus's corpse is bloated, stretched skin stained by the disgustingly colored "fluids" leaking from the wounds you inflicted upon it. Flies swarm around the carcass, as maggots, and other insects, crawl over the beast's body. Amazingly, no scavengers have found the cadaveror you, despite the amount of blood, and your screaming.

You make to sit up, but your hip reminds you of it's damage. You grunt, and fall back against the tree. That's when you notice the change in light. Everything is much darker now, and you can even see the sun shining through the trees directly in front of you. You look down at your hand, and catch sight of the pony's spear. The spear's shaft is broken, about in the middle, the spear's head, amazingly, has survived. You grab the remainder of the spear's pole, and snap it off. There is no point in putting it off now, if it's already broken.

Your hip gives another throb, and you look down at it. The first thing you notice, is your return to nudity. You left your skirt under the ophiotaurus. The second thing you notice, is the fact that your mud has fallen off. You'll have to reapply it, once you get back to the stream. The final thing you notice, is the strange angle at which your leg holds itself. It seems to just hang off, held on only by the flesh and skin.

It is dislocated.

That's really bad.

Looking at this injury reminds you of the others you sustained, and you look down at your ribs. The spot that was once covered in angry red splotches, is now covered in strange black marks. They weave through each other, varying in their thickness. There doesn't seem to really be a beginning, or an end. They just spin around each other, and connect to each other. They really put your mind to tribal tattoos. You switch over to your right leg. Right in the center of your thigh, are more marks. They circle the thigh, and connect on each side, making a circle around your leg. On your shoulder, it is a little different. These marks are dark green, and they seem to be long, thin triangles, pointing down.

Curious, but you're not going to look this gift horse in the mouth. Those injuries would have spelt your inevitable death.

But back to your current injury. Your leg is dislocated at the hip, and you need to set it back into place, if you are going to survive. You know that dislocations usually require someone to hold the limb, and pull, but you could make due with that tree over there. It's short, and small. But, best of all, it bifurcates right at the bottom, providing a niche that you could put your leg in.

You roll onto your stomach, only receiving minor pain from your leg, and begin crawling over to the tree. You army crawl on your belly, making sure to not use your left leg. The process is tortuously slow, but you don't dare rush it. You could strain your leg, and make the injury worse.

About three quarters of the way there, your foot catches on a vine, and before you can stop, it pulls free. You lower your head, and whine in pain, waiting for the agony to cease. Once it does, you continue your journey.

You finally make it to the tree, and roll yourself onto your back, with your feet facing it. You sit up, and manually position the limb into the crux of the tree. Then you lie back, and prepare yourself.

This is going to hurt.

On the count of three.

1...

2...

With a yell of determination, you pull your body back, and wrench your hip into position. The yell quickly becomes a scream of agony. Once you're sure that the ball will go back into the socket, you relax. With a loud POP, your hip shifts back into it's normal placement. You slump down, whimpering at the fire in your bones, but content that you won't have to do that again. You just lie there for a while, breathing hard, and clenching your teeth. Tears stream down your face. You wait for the pain to subside.

You idly look back at the corpse of the ophiotaurus. It's bloated carrion clouded by insects. IDSOTA sticks out, only about a foot, from it's original five feet. That thing is buried in there quite nicely.

it would provide a good source of protine and tools out of bone and fur coat or leather

You would love it, if you could. But that corpse is ruined. There is nothing useable about it, save maybe it's bones, but you'd rather not touch that thing, if you could help it. The bacteria swimming around inside it would kill you, if any of it came even close to your mouth or eyes. It's now that your stomach reminds you of it's emptiness.

That disturbs you, considering what you're looking at.

You should get moving, though. If the sun is to be believed, it's twenty after seven in the morning, and you've been out for at least nineteen hours.

You pull your foot out of the tree, grateful that it had been there, and push yourself to your feet. Your hip screeches with indigence, and you grunt when the pain hits, falling against the tree. You won't be able to walk without assistance for a while, but you don't want to stick around that stinking corpse for much longer. Besides, you need to get back to the creek, and drink something. You reach up to the tree, choose a thick branch, and pull it down. It comes off almost pitifully easily. You pull off all the little twigs, and leave only one split at the top.

You place it down under your left arm, allowing the split to turn the branch into a crutch. Now that you can move, you bend your left knee, and begin on your way. You wish you could take IDSOTA with you, but it's firmly stuck in a body that you refuse to go near. You hobble around the ophiotaurus, finding the remains of its trail, and start following it back to the creek.

It takes nearly twenty minutes at this pace, but you eventually find the stream again.

You let the crutch fall to the side, and drop onto your knees, surprisingly still full of energy. You lean in, and plunge your face into the water, sucking deeply of the fluid. It's still just as cold as the first time, perhaps even colder. The water plays over the cracks in your lips, and wets your scorched throat. You are more grateful for the drink now, than the first time you drank from this river. Once you finish filling your belly with precious water, you are reminded that you have not peed in twenty hours.

You grab your crutch again, and use it to pull yourself to your feet. Once you are standing, you limp into the woods a while. You should never "drain the lizard" next to a clean river, you run the risk of polluting your water source. Now a good distance away, you do your thing. You are taken aback by just how quick it is, when you don't have to undress yourself. The pitiful amount of urine you produce is dark yellow, and stinks with fury. You are glad that you already found a clean water source to use, or you would be in danger of dehydration.

Done with your task, you return to the water side, and think about what to do. Obviously you should look for food, you haven't eaten in twenty hours. But, where should you begin your search?

You stand in front of the creek, the ophiotaurus's tracks erased from the mud, by the moving water. Your stomach rumbles with passion, and your leg hurts too much to stand on it. You have your foot wraps, the stone knife, and your crutch. Behind you lies the ophiotaurus's corpse, and lair. The stream runs downhill to your left, coming from it's source uphill, to your right. In front of you lies unexplored jungle.

What do you do?

Author's Note

Name vote tally came to:
Owen=4
Daniel=2
Steven=1
John Doe=1

Unnamed Protagonist=1

notarehs's suggestion of giving Owen two names was pretty clever, so I just made his name be the two most voted names, in descending order. I'm surprised that no one noticed that I was trying to be gender neutral with O.D.

An extra long chapter today, to make up for the shitty one yesterday.

IDSOTA is based off a walking stick I have in real life. I found it when I was thirteen, during a Boy Scout Camp at K-M campground. I was hiking between my shotgun merit badge class, and the mess hall for lunch when I found it. It was about five feet long, and almost perfectly straight. I picked it up, and started whacking it on things. No matter how hard I hit something with it, the stick never broke. I named it the "Instant Doom Stick Of Total Awesome", and carved IDSOTA into it, as well as a spear point. I brought it home with me, but my mom made me cut off the spear point. It became only three and a half feet, after that. I used it later, when I was sixteen, as the cane for my Halloween pimp costume.

I started this chapter at noon, I finished it at eleven PM. This stuff takes a lot of time.

The Scorched Hill

note position of sun. then note cardinal directions. then note where those are in relation to stream and its current. for future reference

East is to your right, upstream. The sun has been obscured, by the jungle, and the hill. But, if you remember correctly, it's roughly 7:50 AM. You've got hours to spend, but your stomach insists that you spend the first ones looking for food. Unfortunately for your stomach, you've got some things to do that can't wait until you've found food, namely:

Take bathe. Reapply mud

You reek like blood, sweat, and bile. Wandering around like this is basically advertising to any predators around that you are an easy meal, and you don't want to be seen as an easy meal. You drop your crutch, and kneel down next to the creek, again. You scoop up handfuls of water, and splash them over your body.

You begin with your armpits, reasoning that they probably smell the worst, out of all the parts of your body. The water rinses away the sweat, caked on from the yesterday's chase. Patches of dirt still remain under your arms, and the ophiotaurus's blood dried on quite firmly. It will take quite some effort to get yourself completely clean.

You spot some coarse sand, at the very bottom of the riverbed, and scoop some up. It will make scrubbing the gunk off of your skin much easier. You scrape at the grime on your arms, chest, back, and legs, stretching to get to the hard-to-reach areas. It takes a while, but you finally manage to scrape all the filth from your skin, leaving you pink, and raw. A quick rinse, and you're completely clean again.

That whole ordeal took about fifteen minutes, but you can definitely say it was worth it, to not be disgusting. And now you get to make the whole thing not matter, by smearing mud all over your body.

The mud here seems to be siltier that further downstream, much finer. As such, it feels quite nice against your skin. The paste-like substance just glides into the nooks between your joints, and the whole process is quite soothing. It feels especially nice, after having just rubbed your skin raw. Once you are covered again, you decide that you've had enough of this "nudity" thing, for now.

make new leaf skirt

You grab your crutch, stand up, and hobble back over into the tree line. You spot the kind of fern you need almost instantly, now that you know what to look for. It's right under a vine-covered tree, which makes things even more convenient. After testing it's strength to affirm, one hundred percent, that you have the right plant, you drop onto your backside, and start cutting leaves. You sing another song, as you work. This one is quite beautiful, and strangely catchy.

Once you finish singing, you figure that you have enough leaves to work with. You tie the stems into loops, and shuffle over to the tree, without standing up. You select a vine of proper length, cut it down, and clear the leaves off. You start whistling a new melody, as you cut the proper length for your waistband. Once you have it, you coil up the rest of the vine, estimating around twenty feet to spare. You gather up the fern leaves, loop them into the waist cord. Now you'll have to stand up, in order to get the skirt around you properly.

You grab the crutch, already becoming tired of having to do that, and put the coil of extra vine onto it, so that you won't have to bend over, once you're up. With that done, you pull yourself to your feet. You put the stone knife in your mouth, and lean into the crutch. Then, you wrap the skirt around you, and repeat the actions you did first time. You tie it on your left side with a square knot, securing it to your body. Then, you pull the excess cord over to your right side, slip the vine coil onto it, and tie it with a figure eight knot, making it so that it wouldn't just fall off, but would be easy to untie, when you would need to. Finally, you take the knife out of your mouth, and slip it into your brand new "belt". Five more minutes, well spent.

The next step would be to reconnaissance the immediate area and search for a reliable source of food.

You should continue up stream as you've already made sizable progress in said direction it simply would not make sense to squander that progress with time waiting backtracking as well as any chance of finding that pigmy village,

You limp back down to the stream bed, and take a look uphill. It would be a shame to lose all the progress you've made in this direction, even if it would be easier to go downhill. The pygmy pony's village could be up there, and you really need help, in your current condition. Something has to be up there, the pony wouldn't have come running this way, if there wasn't. Mind set, you begin your journey, doddering up the slope at a slow pace.

It takes a bit to find the best technique to use your crutch, while going uphill, but you eventually slip into a rhythm, and your mind starts to wander.

Ponder on who you are on the inside. Who you would like to be and who you are not.

You think of who you may be, as a person. You know that it's folly to try remembering anything specific, but the decisions you made in your previous life must be influencing you, in some way. You know that you hold vast stores of incredibly detailed information, so maybe you were a scholar. You've yet to see any kind of limitation to the knowledge you have, but there probably is one. No one knows everything.

Your body seems to suggest a life that was far from sedentary, so you at least worked out. You don't know anything about yourself, just that you know a lot about other things.

think on religious or some form of symbolism that matches your tats

And then there's these new markings on your skin.

They seemed to emulate traditional Native American tattoos, but you don't know which tribe. Possibly Polynesian? You know that tribes used tattoos as a way to determine the identity of the individual who wore it. They would be used to mark someone's social class, clan, and even which local tribe they hailed from. Sometimes, tattoos would be used to confer divine blessings, or even heal the person.

...

Heal the person. These marks have significance to the healing of your wounds, there's no doubt about that. But exactly how do they relate? How did you come by these markings? Did your slaying of the ophiotaurus really give you supernatural powers? The very existence of such a beast was supernatural. Would it really be such a logical leap to say that the prophecy about it was true?

A good thing about that battle is that you proved to the jungle that you are a worthy opponent, and one to be feared. You whould be left alone for a while.

However, keep in mind that slaying the beast does not give incredible powers. It's burning its flesh that does the trick

Yes, that's right. Thinking more on the prophecy makes you realize that your exhausted mind failed to bring one detail to light. The prophecy stated that whomever could kill the ophiotaurus, and then burn it's entrails, would gain the power to kill the gods. But that just made you more confused. If it wasn't the ophiotaurus that healed you, what did?

The sudden increase in illumination pulls you from your reverie. You look up, and see an end to the tree line. You've found the edge of the forest! You increase your hitched pace, shuffling forward with enthusiasm. Luckily, the early morning light is dark enough that exiting the forest does not blind you. You take a look around the new location you've found.

Packed earth is exposed to the elements, the only coverage being a thin layer of saplings, and other newly sprouted plants. The sparse and ruined remnants of tree trunks protrude from the ground, only about three or four feet each. The wood on them is exposed to the air, grayed from the beating of the elements. The stream continues uphill, disappearing over the hill's ridge.This appears to be the recovering remnants of a disastrous fire.

Noticing no immediate danger, you decide to hobble further into the fire scar, following the stream uphill. The tree stumps are spaced far enough apart so as to allow you to see the forest's edge wrap around the hill. The further you go uphill, the more you can see over the trees. Directly in front of you, a tree covered hill top begins to emerge from behind the jungle. You continue following the stream uphill, groaning every time a rise gives way to another rise. Surprisingly, though, you never become fatigued.

Eventually, you find the spring from which the stream flows. It's embedded in rock, spouting forth from some kind of underwater river. Clearer than glass to the very bottom, you can easily see the stones piled on the bottom of the spring. That means that you can also see what makes them odd. The colors of the stones vary, you can see light pinks, bold purples, dull greys, and pale tans. But, the oddest part, is that they all seem to hold the same oblong shape.

You limp over to the spring's bed, and kneel down next to it. The rocks are mostly arranged near the shore line, so it's easy to reach in, and pluck one out. The first thing you notice, is how light the stone is, the thing is almost as big as your face, but it only weighs as much as an apple. It's much thinner than it is long, and longer than it is wide. If your optimism was correct, this seemed to be a stone knife core. It looked to be made from chert, but who would just leave stone tool cores laying around in a spring?

You spotted more cores of chert, as well as other stones. Obsidian, flint, ignimbrite, onyx, opal, and even petrified wood. All knappable stones, all made into stone tool cores, and all soaking in the water of this spring. This is the greatest discovery you've made since waking up in this jungle. If you're correct about the nature of the stones, you've just found a cache of ready to shape tools.

Someone must have put these here, it's inconceivable to think that nature could have shaped all of these cores, and arranged them in this fashion. But who could have done it? You think once more of the pygmy pony. It seemed to be heading in this direction, but you can't see anyone. This clearing seems to have been abandoned for quite some time.

You look uphill, maybe there is a camp nearby, and you just can't see it from this angle. You should hike up to the top of the hill, and get a better perspective on this place. You replace the stone underwater, stand up with your crutch, and start shambling up the slope. The shadows of early morning are bold against the ground, but it's light enough to see where you're going.

The sun blinds you again, once it pokes up over the trees. You look down at the ground, to keep the sun out of your eyes, but keep moving. It takes few minutes, but you finally reach the apex of the hill. You turn your back to the sun, and take a sweeping look at the hill around you. You notice one thing that's odd, from your new vantage point.

Far off, and down hill from here, a ring of white sand borders the greenery of the jungle. Beyond the thin strip of sand, cerulean water continues on, as far as the eye can see. The arrangement of land and sea completely surrounds you, on all sides. You are on an island. When you check east, behind you, you also notice one other thing that seems off about this place.

That sun is at least three times as large as it should be.

The revelation stuns you. You know how big the sun should be, and that is far too large. How is this possible? Surely, such a large sun would change the way the world worked? The blasting heat would boil all the liquid water away, making plant life as you know it impossible. Is that why the heat was so intense in that clearing? Why isn't that heat pounding on you now? It honestly doesn't feel that hot, right now.

Actually...

Why isn't the heat pounding on you right now? You distinctly remember being overwhelmed by the incredible power of this massive sun, the first thing you woke up. In fact, the heat was literally what woke you up, in the first place. So why don't you feel it anymore? This whole thing is becoming too much for you to handle. You have to sit down. You turn away from the massive sun, and drop down onto the charred earth.

The sun... The sapient pygmy pony... The ophiotaurus...

Is it possible that you aren't on earth anymore? All these things that don't exist back on earth, or are just plain incapable of happening... Could you be on another planet? It's theoretically possible, even if you wouldn't have any kind of clue as to how you left earth, or how you came to... wherever this is. If you are on a different planet, is it possible to even get back home, without knowledge of how you got here?

Suddenly, you remember what you've learned about the cosmos. One galaxy holds up to four hundred billion stars. Most of these stars have planetary systems around them. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, most of which have planets. Your home is just one out of trillions, maybe even quadrillions, of planets. Is there really any hope of going home, if you really are on a different planet? It would be like trying to pick one specific water molecule out of the ocean. Will you ever see another human being before your life ends?

You will never see those friends of yours, ever again. You will never see your family, or even just a random stranger. You will never laugh with someone else. You will never be able to share someone's sadness. You will never find love with someone. You will never see someone smile at your presence. You will never even be graced with someone's contempt at your existence. You are completely, and irrevocably alone in the world.

Your dark thoughts are interrupted by the distant sound of thunder. You snap your head up, and see dark clouds, rolling in from the west. Lightning streaks through the storm head, and rain falls thick upon the ocean underneath. If it continues on it's current path and at it's current pace, the storm will arrive on this island in roughly thirty minutes.

Maybe you could just sit here, until the storm hits. Maybe you could be struck by lightning, and your life would be over, just like that. You wouldn't have to be alone, anymore.

The sunlight finally peeks over the hill, striking something white, buried in the dirt. The object is round, and quite large. It's roughly the size of your head. It looks sort of like the back of a skull. Despite your foul mood, your curiosity was piqued by this strange object. You struggle to your feet, and stumble down the slope to where the object lay. The strange item was buried about halfway into the ground, so you had to bend over to pull it out.

It was a skull.

Definitely not human, though. The eye sockets are far too large, and far off to the side of the skull. There is a pronounced muzzle on the face, though smaller than most animals you know of. The lower mandible was missing, but you could tell from just the upper teeth that this creature ate mostly grass and vegetables. Flat grinding teeth, long front incisors, and nearly non-existent canines. The temples were directly above the eye, suggesting ears that mount on the top of the head. It kind of looks like a cross between a human skull, and a horse skull. Again, the pygmy pony crosses your mind.

The skull is rather small, though, if sapient encephalization quotient was to be reached. These eyes are incredibly large. Tack the muzzle on, and the body would have to be very small, to allow for sapient-level intelligence. The pygmy pony definitely had a small body, it came up to your knee. If it had a head the size of a human, and a body the size of a small dog; large eyes, nose, mouth, and ears could be easily fit onto the head, and still leave room for a large enough brain to support sapience.

Looking into this skull's empty eye sockets reminds you that you aren't completely alone out here. The pygmy ponies now not only represent help, but your only chance at social interaction. Though it might not seem very important to someone who is constantly surrounded by other people, social interaction is essential to maintain one's sanity.

You bend down, and return the skull to it's place in the ground, making sure to put it back into it's original position, to avoid being disrespectful. You take another look at the scorched hillside, noticing many more bones in the sunlight. Tiny rib cages, spines, pelvises, and leg bones. Broken, whole, half buried, and just lying open in the sun. A macabre amalgamation of death, strewn about the ground.

Many creatures died here. Could these pygmy ponies be the ones who put the stones in the spring? What happened here, that so many of them are dead? Was the fire to blame for this pile of bodies? Why was the pygmy pony trying to get here? How will your survival plan change, now that you know that you're on an island, and not on earth? Where are the pygmy ponies now? Are they all dead?

The storm is looming over the horizon, marring the blue sky with black clouds, and angry lightning. Whatever you're going to do, you'd better do it fast.

What do you do?

Author's Note

Wow!

Jack. Shit. Happened in this chapter.

And it took me three days to write!

God damn, I'm really sorry for this bullshit, I just figured that the revelation of the island was important enough to warrant commenter input.

I promise a larger chapter, and soon. I'll get back to writing, as soon as I get some comments to work with.

I've decided to take things more slowly. Pumping out a chapter a day was straining my nerves, and making it harder for me to create quality chapters. As such, I will slow things down to half beat. One chapter every two or three days.

I asked some users I know to come give me some critical advice on this story.

My buddy, Shadowflash, said that I'm basically fine, except that I use identical comments too much. So, I'm going to stop that. I will copy one to three comments, per action, no more than three. This will save me some trouble, and make the story less cluttered. A win, overall.

Another guy, whom I don't know quite as personally, Mr Stargazer, said he'd follow the story, and tell me what I need to change, on a more detailed basis. I can't thank him enough for volunteering to do that for me.

They're both much more famous than I am, so you probably already know who they are. But, if you don't, you should definitely consider following these guys. Not only are they good people, but they are fantastic authors, as well.