The silence was deafening as I sat by the cave opening, besides the gentle breeze on my skin and the trickling of the streams beside me there was no other noise. I sighed and realized there is no point in throwing a pity party for myself right now. I need food and shelter. I would like to boil the water that flows in the river to get rid of possible parasites but I don’t have the tools needed for a fire or a way to hold the water. I went into the cave to see if there were any supplies. I know it is a long shot but I need to try and I am not heading back into where that thing that killed the bear was. So I put my shoes, shirt, and socks back on and got to walking back.
As I walked up the pathway I went back to the cavern in the cave that had the rock sticking out of the middle. I paced around the perimeter where the light of the crystals didn’t reach and as I almost made a full circle my foot knocked into something and then a person fell on top of me. I yelled and pushed the person off of me and placed my foot behind me and raised my fists getting ready to defend myself from the unknown threat.
But what showed up the pulsating crystal light was more terrifying than an intruder, a skeleton laid at my feet covered with a steel helmet with a nose guard, a chainmail hauberk, and leather bracers over his hand-woven clothes that were no more than discolored rags now. His shoes -- if you could even call them that -- were poorly made and looked like they were leather scraps that were put together in a haste. But I found out why he died. A steel dagger was shoved deeply through his orbital socket, so deep in fact that the dagger was shoved to the crossguard. I looked near to where the skeleton was and found a short spear and an enormous burlap backpack. I looked over at the skeleton with pity, “ Sorry, buddy I need these more than you.” I hesitantly take the armor off gently to not scratch it and wiggle the dagger out of the skull. The backpack had a small set of utensils for cooking hanging off the sides of the pack, a moth-eaten sleeping bag, and a fire starter. Along with the sheath that goes to the steel dagger, whoever stabbed this skeleton probably knew him well enough to get his dagger.
After putting on the armor I decided to take off and find some food nearby the creek. After all, where there is water, animals are guaranteed to show up. Before I left I went over to the rock and knelt and rubbed the top of it; for some reason, it feels like it’s kinda warm and when I look at it; it feels like I have a sense of comfort toward it.
Well, I can worry about the rock later, running for your life works up an appetite so I need to fix that. I walked out of the cave, spear in hand with the knife now strapped to my belt, no point in bringing anything else that might give away my position or slow me down.
I kept close to the main part of the creek to make sure I didn't lose my way back and to ensure my way back to the cave as fast as possible. After all, if there are bears out here and things that can kill them I doubt that I could escape an encounter without injury.
As I journeyed by the riverbed I noticed something, it was a brown rabbit about the size of a small dog drinking by the river. Before it could react I threw the spear nailing it in the back of the head killing it instantly. I dashed over, not even bothering to remove the rabbit from the spear, and immediately took off towards the cave again, there is no way in hell I am going to stay around to find out what other nasties might be lurking in this forest.
Of course, nothing is easy and I felt like something was watching me and I was not going to turn to see what it was. I reached the mouth of the cave and dashed inside and sat down on the rabbit carcass beside the oval-shaped rock and once I felt safe I went to the edge of the woods picking up some branches that littered the forest floor.
After coming back with the branches I set up a makeshift campfire and made some rabbit stew and boiled some water to drink. It didn’t matter that there were no spices. I was hungry and trust me the stew was delicious.
“Now what?” I questioned myself, there is nothing really to keep myself safe besides hide myself in this cave and hope nothing comes and kills me in my sleep tonight. It is not like I can blockade the mouth of the cave or even the cavern I’m currently in, I don’t have the correct materials or tools.
I feel sort of helpless and it pisses me off...huh. I slump against the rock and exhaustion seems to take over my body after I realize how much I have been doing today and then I feel it again, the heat pulsating from it.
A comfortable feeling washes over me like everything was going to be fine and I am not sure why but I believed it. Whatever ‘it’ was, I was so drowsy after all the action today.
Yeah, sleep sounds good and for all, I know this rock is evil as sin and is probably pulling some One Ring bullshit on me right now but I am way too tired to care, and being a dark lord sounds a lot better than sitting in a cave in the middle of nowhere with no sense of security outside of sleep.
My body slid across the cool smooth stone using the backpack as a pillow, leaving the sleeping bag aside because I was too tired to care about slipping into it or even taking off the armor, so my consciousness left me.
My eyes were blurred as I woke up and something felt off, my bed was unnaturally hard and low to the ground. I sat up and rubbed my eyes realizing I did not in fact dream about what happened before I went to sleep. Well, there goes the sliver of hope that I was mentally ill and not in mortal danger.
I got up to check on how far the sun was down to make sure I didn’t just sleep away precious daylight. “Wait, that can’t be right.” I looked up at the sun’s position, based on where it currently sits in the sky. It should be about 7:00 A.M.
Did I just fall asleep the entire day!? I took a nap around 3:00 in the afternoon, meaning I have been asleep for sixteen hours!? I have never slept that much in my life even when I trained to run a marathon. I clutched my face with self-loathing, congrats James you could have just screwed yourself in so many ways it’s not even funny.
Well look, let's try to figure out the positives of this like even though I slept for more than half a day I am not dead so there is one. Also even though night fell and this cave is enormous I have yet to see one creature beside me in there; this means there could be a force coming from inside the cave that marks it as a no-go zone for animals and even monsters like that thing that killed that bear.
I grabbed some supplies to make some traps for rabbits and other small creatures and I went once more in the forest leaving carved markers on trees to find my way back to the river. After I set up the traps it was time to play the waiting game so I thought ‘hey might as well try to figure out what is wrong with that rock’. I went over and hesitantly prodded the rock with the shaft of the spear because I was actually alert now and not extremely high on adrenaline and worrying about my imminent death from outside sources and not a warm rock that make you feel like your soul getting covered up with a blanket that came just out of the dryer… no focus!
The comforting effect was too strong already! I originally needed to make direct contact with the thing to feel its warmth but now I was standing about eight feet away. I can still feel it, and for some reason it made me notice things about it that I didn’t notice before. Like how the rock's height went up barely past my abdomen and I stood about six foot three inches; the rock was probably a little more than three and a half feet around. The color of it also didn’t match up with the surrounding slate gray rock that made up most of the entire cave or the pulsating yellow crystals that gave off light.
It was a deep grayish-purple that almost perfectly blended in with the surrounding rock due to the relatively poor lighting in here. After prodding it a few more times I went over and poked it with my hand despite the alarms going off in my stupid ape brain not to touch it. But out of curiosity, I poked it, and… nothing happened besides the warm feeling washing over me even more intensely. Well, that was anticlimactic for all I knew; this is just something that just occurs naturally in these caves.
So I started my way out once more to go check if any of the traps caught anything because I was impatient. Or at least until I turned my head around in horror barely making it toward the exit of the pocket of the cave after hearing the stone crack.
Is it too late to start running?
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