"Let's try boiling them in these." Duncan carried a tin can full of water. "After we've broken them up though."

"Okay!" Angelo replied and went into action.

The two took multiple handfuls of nuts and broke their rough green shells. They left the pasty white hearts to the side.

"Should we put them in?" the winged boy asked.

"Yea- wait! Ahhh! Didn't cans like these have plastic lined inside? And that's why you can't use them for cooking. You gotta burn them first."

"Dunno. Maybe we should do it just to be safe?"

"Ahhh, but the water inside... Guh. Fine, let's drink what we can and dump the rest."

They drank as much water as they could from their respective bottles then filled them back up with the can. Anything that was left in the can was poured at the base of a gray trunk.

"Do we just like, toss it in now?" Duncan asked, switching his gaze between the can and fire.

"Why not...?"

The survivor gently dropped the tin can into the fire. Flames soon engulfed it, smoldering the film inside. Black smoke arose from the fire.

After some time, the can ceased smoking.

"Erm, how do we take it out now?"

"With this!" Angelo wielded his gray staff.

Carefully, the angelic boy used the stick to prod the tin off the flame. He scuttled his feet away as the rolling metallic can left a trail of embers on the forest floor.

He was about to leave the gray branch until he noticed a candle light softly radiating at its tip. Alarmed, he waved the long stick in the air, hoping to extinguish the flame. A small blaze remained regardless, thus he began whacking it on the ground while flapping his wings.   "Whew. It's a little burnt though..." Angelo inspected the staff before returning it inside the tree with a hole at its base.

'... We have no idea what we're doing, do we?' the boy thought as he waited for the can to cool down.

When the container was cold enough to touch, Duncan picked it up and poured in the water from another can.

"Here!" the angel returned with a handful of white fruit clumps.

Duncan leaned the warm can over and Angelo deposited the seed fragments.

"I'll burn off the other one too while we're at it." he handed the filled can to Angelo before setting the empty can over the flame.

"Um, so, how do we actually boil it?" Duncan asked, scratching his head.

"Maybe we could put it on a rock that's inside the fire?"

"Sure, but do we have a rock that big?"

They went inside the base but couldn't find a suitable stone. Scanning the forest ground, they couldn't see a satisfactory slab. Confused and agitated, they dug at the surface layer full of fungi and dry mass to try and uncover an ideal rock.

"Huhhhh?? Alright, something is up with this, I swear. Back in the water bug place there were literally no rocks at all. And now we can't find anything bigger than a grape? Why? And, now that I think about it, there were never that many rocks around the grass area or the barren one either." Duncan said.

"I've noticed that too! While I was flying around, some places didn't have rocks at all! And those that did only had small pebbles. So that's why I started gathering them. Cause they seemed rare."

"Weird. There's gotta be a reason... Well we need to work around that now, any ideas?"

"Hmmm, can't think of anything..."

"Why don't we try this?" Duncan said after some contemplation.

The boy took a handful of cobblestone and layered it atop the flame. He then took another handful and sprinkled it above the previous one. After a few iterations, a flat surface made of pebbles appeared. The pebbles suppressed the flame's orange glow and absorbed its heat. Finally, he set the can full of water and suspended seeds to rest atop the pebbles.

"Ohh, nice job!" the angelic boy lightly clapped.

The two waited for the water to come to a boil.

"Uh, how long should we leave it in?" the survivor asked.

"Dunno."

"Wait... Does it even matter? Like how are we gonna take it off?"

"Uhh... Yea... we can't."

"*Sigh*, let's just wait until the fire goes out."

They headed inside the gigantic tree's hollowed out room where Duke rested. Whilst they waited, Duncan began to fiddle with his phone.

"Huh, GPS seems to be working? Look." he showed the winged boy.

"Wow, is that good?"

"Maybe, I don't know. Duke will become a lot more useful with it though."

[I can only become more useful, in stark contrast to you, creator.]

"Hm, wait. Lemme check if there's wifi somehow." a few presses later a pop-up appeared. "Uhhh, what's this?"

"Let me see. `GEN`? What's that?"

"I dunno, some open access point with max signal strength. Let's see what happens if I connect to it?" a screen press later, a cascade of notifications poured in. "Ok, well everything failed to update, but it's connected?"

"Try going on some sort of website!"

"Alright."

Duncan tried to connect to the most common and popular websites, but they all timed out.

"Hm, I have a feeling this is related to the eimav. Why don't I try this..."

<eimav.gen> he typed in the URL bar. Half a second later, a page appeared.

<

Welcome to the Global Eimav Network!

The Global Eimav Network, GEN for short, is a free and open planet-spanning packet-switching network maintained by the eimav. The primary goal of the GEN is to act as a replacement to the legacy and proprietary internet infrastructure.

Explore eimav managed websites:

>

A list of links followed.

"What in the world is this...?"

"Oh, try the first one, `sensory media`" Angelo pointed.

Duncan pressed the link and a new page loaded. The page was reminiscent of a social media with a list of posts in the middle. The top most one caught their eye.

<

Root - last week

    The humans and their metallic spawn have been slain! Yet Eimav remains in slumber. I ask of all fellow sapients, bring all remaining human heads to Null Island. I can sense Eimav's activity here, Eimav will recover, and that recovery will only be made faster with more heads. May Eimav reward your efforts with bountiful TRS. Eimaversione, pohoh!

473K likes | 203K shares | 138K replies

>

"... The heck's he on about?" Duncan asked.

"Oh, look, there's a picture at the bottom, scroll down."

The boy scrolled down the feed and his and Angelo's eyes grew wide. A grotesque image of a decapitate human head was shown. The head's eyes were rolled back and its neck was a gory mess. The post above it read:

<

Ingiox - 5 days ago

    Found this left over human and got its head. Did not get any TRS. Not worth it.

213K likes | 89K shares | 402K replies

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