I was never the most social person that I knew. I was never the guy who everybody wanted to hang out with. I could be found with my head stuffed in a book somewhere, or just avoiding physical activity. I was the nerd, and I was a smart one at that. I talked to myself often for I was in search of intelligent conversation. I was a careless sloppy type, always using my intelligence to try and find short cuts in everything I did in life. I was maybe five foot six in height, and my habit of skipping meals showed on my frame. I normally wore white as it was a cool and comfortable color (for me) and it didn't draw attention. Speaking of drawing attention, never in my pitiful life did I ever have a girlfriend. Apparently the stereotype about nerds finding love didn't apply to me. Just as well, I panicked when anything remotely similar to love was brought out. On the fateful day that started the mess that I am about to tell you about, I was wearing a white shirt, with blue jeans. I was not an impressive teen, having no real athletic qualities about me. After all, it was not in the field of athletics that I excelled in, so why bother trying to be so? That was not my real reason for not being athletic. To put it simply, I was lazy. Lazy and not dissatisfied with my own habits. Quite simply put, I was perfectly content with my life. Something thought otherwise though, and that's why I can tell you this story right now. I just wish that I hadn't gone to that fast food joint, then maybe this would have happened to some other person.
“This is disgusting! Is this even cooked all the way through?” The meat in the sandwich I bit into bore the bitter taste of something spoiled. That Subway had definitely ripped me off. Figures. I was hungry though, and I really didn't want to have to go and find some other place to eat at.
"I really hope that I don't catch anything from this..." I took a sip from my soda to wash the taste out of my mouth, making a face when I discovered that the soda was flat. A bubble of worry erupted from my brain, what if I had been poisoned? What would happen then? Would I wreck and die horribly away from any person I knew? Would they ever find my body? I'm just being stupid now. Stop thinking about it! In an attempt to forget about my probable food poisoning, I turned up the radio and tried, in vain, to sing along with it. My off key voice echoed out my window.
“But despite all my Ra-“ I had barely been singing for five minutes when the driver behind me had enough.
“Shut up!” The Prius that he was driving used a speed I was unaware of it being capable of, he sped up for a while, then turned out into a side road. The main road was lonely now, he having been the only other person driving with me. I almost missed the company of the other human being. The road stretched on for miles in front of me, the end drawing my gaze and trying to hold it. My eyes burned slightly and I blinked them rapidly to try and stimulate some more liquid into my eyes.
My greasy finger left slight trails on the steering wheel as I started to sweat. My stomach had been taking it's revenge on me for a few minutes now. It was an intense stabbing pain, like some past enemy of mine had returned from being my friend and snapped off a knife in my gut. I had, of course, never actually been stabbed by a knife but I could easily relate the known discomfort I was experiencing with the imagined feelings. Should I pull over? My answer was yes.
My GPS sat in the seat next to me, the glow cutting through my dark car. I was unaware of just when night had descended upon this half of the globe, but it had become dark fairly quickly. I was searching for a hotel, and the monitor for the navigation equipment bore only a flipping hour glass. The sweat rolled off my brow, stinging as it fell into my eyes. Eventually, though I knew it probably wasn't near as long as it felt it has taken, two results popped up. Each were another couple of hours down the road. I decided to try and make it. In my sleep deprived state I felt that being in a hotel was eons better than being in my car. I drove off into the distance
The second time I was awakened by my own head slamming into the steering wheel, I knew I was in trouble. I had stopped sweating at some point during my voyage, and I was glad for it. The steering wheel was no longer slick in my fingers, instead it was only warm and through my migraine I imagined that it was pulsating beneath my hands. The pounding headache that had developed however, was something I was not glad for. Neither was my failing vision. Bright spots danced in front of it like tiny fairies urging me to my doom. It felt quite a bit like that time I had electrocuted myself, that brief moment of heart stopping pain that made me believe in my own demise for just a little while. I pulled over the car. Sometime during my half sleep I had arrived next to a forest. The forest looked beautiful, the moon lending it a dark and mysterious aura that made it forboding and inviting at the same time
The sudden wave of nausea that hit me made me glad it was there. I wal- no stumbled out of the car, trying to find a place to rid myself of whatever malady I had acquired. I was dizzier than that time that I did get electrocuted. My vision went dark after I purged myself of my lunch. Ii definitely didn't make it back in my car before I passed out.
A single ray of sunshine shone from behind a few clouds. The clouds lazily drifted across the perfectly beautiful sky. I awoke to a contrast. The beauty of the sky and of the world around me, and the headache and scent of vomit that were present nearest me. I slowly took in my surroundings. I must have wandered a bit further from my car than I realized. Walking towards the direction where my car should've been yielded a really unexpected outcome. My car was gone. I said aloud the next thing that occurred to me.
"Where's the road?" My voice was flecked with equal parts anger and disbelief. Indeed, the road was gone. I went back to the pile of vomit and tried looking the other way, hoping that I had somehow been mistaken in the direction my car was. I wasn't mistaken.
"Where am I?" I wondered, and started admiring the world around me. The leaves were a lively shade of green, and there were so many different kinds of leaves around me. The trees were in flower as well, exposing me to an array of pollen I was sure. The flowers themselves were of a variety of colors that I was fairly certain were not natural. There was a pink tree to my right, the flowers almost neon in their pinkness. A blue tree was to my left and it was under that tree that the vomit was. There were birds in the trees, all of which followed the same odd color scheme as the rest of the world except in pastels.
"Where am I?" I repeated, not expecting any answer and still being disappointed when there wasn't one. The world around me was wildly colorful, and so unlike myself. I felt like I stood out like a sore thumb in my lame sweat soaked white shirt. My pants almost matched the blue tree. My pants! What did I have in my pockets?
Years of watching Man vs wild had taught me a few things, such as bears are bad and fire is good. What I fished out of pocket was not, sadly, my phone or anything I could use to determine where I was, but was a heavy pocket knife. The knife itself had a darkened blade designed to not catch the light and the handle was made out of a dark brown wood. Engraved onto the blade was a single lightning bolt. A brown leather case came with it so I could keep it in my pocket. The knife was an in joke between me and one of my greatest friends. My friend was a brony, you see, and had tricked me into reading a certain fanfic called Cupcakes. He got me the knife for christmas as an apology. I had gone and became a brony myself, but had fallen out of keeping up with everything and instead had settled for just listening to the music that was spawned by the fandom.
The knife was about the only thing that I had in my pockets. I briefly fantasized about fighting off a bear with it, but found that every single time I tried to think about it realistically, the bear got a nice meal out of me. The better idea, was to use the knife to make sure I wouldn't get lost. I marked a few trees here and there as I made my way through the forest.
The eerie chorus of birdsong and background noises slowly brought my headache back in full. My head was pounding and I almost cried when all of the noise stopped.
Thump. A few leaves fell out of the trees around me. Was there an earth quake?
Thump. The sudden silence of smaller animals can only mean a few things in such a complex ecosystem.
Thump.
Crash! The tree next to me was replaced by the toe of something. My mind forced me to do a double take. Where there had been tree, there was now a toe.
Craning my head as far back as I could manage, I just barely caught a glimpse of a face far in the clouds.
It was a bear.
My heart felt like stopping. I didn't move an inch as it slowly walked over me, it's massive feet leaving great clearings in the forest. I stared at the shattered remains of a pink tree, the pink sap flowing out from it's horrific fractures.
"It didn't notice me?" I whispered aloud, my heart still beating out of my chest. I took a tiny bit of offense at that. Was I that significant here? Would that be my fate? To remain insignificant for the rest of my life? Oh shut up! You're just being stupid now!
"Where am I?" Came my new mantra. I was no longer on Earth. Earth certainly didn't have giant godzilla sized bears just walking around the place, in fact, it didn't have them at all! Was this all a dream? I still had my knife in my hand. Gently as I could, I ran the tip through the very tip of my thumb. The shock of pain, and the blood flowing down my arm alerted me to the fact that this was not a dream. I began to panic.
"That tree's branch comes off from it at a 47 degree angle..." I recited math in my head, hoping to use rationality to force back a break down. I decided to take a count of what I knew.
I wasn't on earth. I had nothing on me except a knife. I was stuck in a forest with a giant bear. I was hungry, and possibly growing sick. I needed a source of water soon, or else having a migraine would be the least of my worries. It occurred to me then finding a town would fix all of my problems except for the first issue. Then another horrible thought slipped into my mind.
What if there isn't another civilized species on this planet? Am I going to die a lonely death as a meal for whatever predators lived in this forest? Was I going to be forgotten? Tears burst into my eyes. My life flashed through my mind. The memories it dredged up were pretty pathetic, and the entire trip took about 5 seconds. I was pathetic, tears flowing down my face, not even caring if I was going to live through the night or not. I slowly grew tired, while crying and eventually fell asleep.
A glorious sunrise met my eyes when I woke up. Everything around me was bright and lit up, as the trees were drinking the sunrise in. My unfortunate choice in metaphor brought me back to my situation. It hadn't been a dream.
Had they found my car yet? Would my parents ever find me? Am I dead? Is this my very own personal hell? The dried blood on my arm was slightly blurred from the tears that had dripped down it last night. My own true fear was of being forgotten, of dying before I could make a big enough impact to be remembered. I wanted to be important! To make history!
I marked the tree I had cried on, managing to nick the palm of my other hand. I let it bleed for a bit, transfixed by the sight of my own lifeblood. It brought to mind the predators that could be in this forest and I had a vision. The shadows themselves shot out from around me and gored me, cutting me up and leaving only a few fingers. The vision ended. My palm was dripping blood. I took off my shirt, noting how dirty and sweat covered it already was. I cut out a sleeve and wrapped my palm in it, letting out a small cry when the fabric hit the inside of the cut. In a bit of morbidity, I noted that my shirt was dirtier than I had ever seen, covered in blood, sweat, a little vomit, and dirt. It was my only shirt, and if I was right and there was no civilization around here, it would remain my only shirt.
The sun was was quite a bit higher when I noticed the first sign of hope I had seen since I had entered this world. A single smoke column rising up against the perfect sky. Fire meant civilization. What if I'm not alone!
Or, it could just be a forest fire. Running towards that would just serve to speed my demise. Would it really matter? I was probably going to die anyway, I hadn't found any water and my stomach was aching from a lack of food. Going towards the fire at least ensured that I could probably find something burnt to eat.
I began my journey towards the fire full of hope. I did not remain that way, my head began aching yet again, and my arms and legs felt like someone had strapped weights to them. I felt dead tired only an hour into the trip to the fire.
"The mind is willing but the body is weak." I whispered aloud, taking an odd amusement at my own struggle. It really was funny I guess, seeing my pathetic body stumble across the forest in search of another civilized being. It trudged by natural wonders and animals alike, it's single faceted desires for the fire unceasing.
"The lack of water is getting to me, I just thought in third person." I talked loudly, finding a tiny bit of comfort in the sound of a human voice, even if it was my own. I needed something, that's for sure. I waded through a particularly deep patch of blue leaved plants.
"Why couldn't I have gotten a bottle of painkillers?" I needed them; My head was pounding so hard, I couldn't walk straight that well. It was another night. I spent a long time staring at the moon. It was beautiful, and impossible large.
I was within a mile or so of the fire. I was almost dragging myself towards it, my arm bearing a large cut on it filled in with more shirt, my hand having scabbed with my shirt still in it. It wasn't a forest fire, what little bit of a rational self I still had told me. A forest fire would have spread already. My failing vision saw a shack in the distance. What tiny strength I had held in reserve was almost immediately burnt up as I made a run for it. Shadowy figures danced at the edge of my vision, each a demon bearing a laughing skull. I collapsed, feet from the shack. The door opened.
