Fresh Blood

by Jessica Hicks

  Felix stood there, frozen. The creature tossed Koale's lower half in the air. It caught and swallowed it. Felix turned and ran again. He did not stop.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Felix trudged on. Two thoughts chased each other around his mind. He was a coward. Koale was dead because of him.

  He couldn't refute it. He had seen that monster in front of him, and he had left. Run, not left. He had run like a coward. And then that monster ate Koale.

  A day of food, some water, a knife and a lizard. That's all he had to restart. And mustn't forget the beacon, so that one day, someone might save his disloyal ass. For the first time in several days, Felix thought of Ublao. He would give just about anything to be there instead of this hellhole.

  And on he walked through the jungle. He didn't have any particular destination in mind, nor did he pay any attention to his surroundings. If any creature wanted him for lunch, he might just let it. No, couldn't do that. He had left Koale to die, he couldn't let that be for nothing.

  With something resembling purpose, Felix straightened up. He would do Koale proud. He grabbed a long stick off the ground. As he walked, he swatted down ripe waterfruit. It wouldn't be enough to sustain him, but it would stretch his food stores a little further.

  He tried to think of what to do next. He had gotten used to speaking to Koale while sifting through their problems. Thinking of Koale brought back images of his companion's body sliding down the cave wall. Half his body. Felix's stomach lurched at the memory.

  He took a deep breath and pushed through. The day was half gone and he had nowhere to stay the night. He had no long term food source, and he was so lost, he doubted he could get back to the river. First thing, he had to find a place to sleep for the night. No caves, he decided that quickly. He didn't have a lot of alternative, however. He couldn't sleep on the ground. There were too many things that wanted to eat him there. Other than the snuffle lizards, the beach seemed safer, but he was sure that just meant that he didn't know what other dangers lurked there yet.

  Felix stopped for a break and leaned back against a tree. Koale would have a good, if over complicated, solution. No caves, no beach, no ground at all. That left up. Felix craned his head and looked up the tree he was resting against. Thick branches. WIth all the vines, they must hold some weight well. A ghost of a smile touched Felix's lips.

  The first step was to find the proper tree. He needed a tree of good size that would support his plan, he needed one with good resources nearby. Lastly, he needed one near a good landmark so he didn't lose his new home.

  He stood up slowly. The day's toll was beginning to show and he still had an awful lot to do. He set off once more, still without direction but at least with a goal.

  It turns out in a jungle there are a lot of trees. A lot of them are big trees, even. He didn't know where the resources were and one patch of jungle looked just like the next to him. It did not take long before Felix was just wandering, looking at trees and hoping one would call out to him.

  By the time the afternoon was dragging towards evening, Felix had not found the perfect tree. He picked a large one and decided it would be good enough. He set the pack next to it and got to work. First step was a research desk. That would allow him to build up the tech while he gathered supplies the next day.

  He opened up the craft menu and placed the build at the base of his tree. He'd want it elsewhere later, but it was as good there as anywhere for now. He cut down two vines leading to his tree. He only needed one for the build, but the other would give him something to research in a few minutes. He fully intended to remove every vine he could find on the tree when he had time. Just because the slimes were less terrible than the threats on the ground didn't mean he liked them or wouldn't take precautions.

  That left the logs. Felix smiled sadly. Images of Koale hitting that first tree ran through his head. Felix swung at a nearby tree. Pain ran up his arm. He swung again, and again. He only stopped when the weight of the logs threatened to take him to his knees. Hands on his knees, Felix panted. His knuckles were bloody and swollen. He'd be lucky if that was the worst of it.

  He added the material to the desk plan. Once that was built, he added the vine. That would be done by the morning, and by the end of the next day, he would be able to make tools again. Perhaps he would detour for wood first. He hadn't decided yet.

  It was still early, but he decided to call it a night. It had been a long, horrible day, and Felix was tapped out. He wasn't sure what to do with the pack. Food and water would be best off the ground with him, if only to keep other creatures out of it. Likewise, the beacon would certainly work better higher up. Liz was awake and standing on the new research desk. That lightened the load, but minimally.

  Felix eyed the tree. If he stood on top of the desk, there was a branch in easy reach. He would still need to pull himself up, but he wouldn't need to scramble up the trunk itself. He hefted the pack and eyed the branch. He decided to do the climb in two trips. The first would be everything but the beacon. He would bring that up seperate.

  Plan decided, Felix took the beacon out of the pack and set it aside. He clambered onto the desk. The branch was at eye level with him. Felix wrapped his arms over the top of the branch. A jump saw him with the branch under his armpits. He swung his legs, trying to get a foot over the branch. He missed.

  He leaned forward and squirmed further onto the branch. Once he was mid chest onto the branch, he was able to throw a leg over. He sat on the branch, a leg on either side and facing the trunk. He looked down at the beacon below. It would be fine there for the night, he decided.

  He ate some of the waterfruit he had collected and drank water. He decided to save the ration bar until the morning. He'd go hungry before all this was through, but he could stretch it out a bit yet.

  He lay back along the branch. He saw Liz scamper up the trunk to the branches above. He didn't have anything to spare for her. He hoped she was able to fend for herself for a while. He didn't want to have let down both of his companions.

  With a sigh, Felix closed his eyes and tried not to think.

  He woke up some hours later when his pack hit him in the face. With as little movement as he could, he search the branch it hung from. It was probably Liz playing with the pack. Only, he didn't see Liz. He didn't see anything.

  He was getting paranoid. Not everything was trying to eat him all the time. He adjusted the pack so it wouldn't hit him again. Then he wiggled into the least uncomfortable position he could find and fell back asleep.

  When morning came, Felix was surprised to find himself still in the tree. Liz was curled on his chest, already snoozing away. Felix carefully picked her up, and set her next to the trunk. After a quick breakfast, he and the pack were on the ground. He popped a piece of wood into the research desk and then made his plans.

  Sticks were next on his list to research which would give him snares again, and hopefully, a source of food. When the wood finished, he should have access to most of the basic structures, and he could start work on his new shelter. He looked up his tree at all the vines hanging from it. Until that finished, he had his work cut out for him. He would need the ropes, and he was damned if he was going to make it easy on those slimes.

  As he was already on the ground, he began his work low. The work was slow going. Rock did not hold an edge well in the best of circumstances. As it was, his poor knife had been used rough, and would need replacement as soon as he was able. It still cut, however slow and he had a lot to do.

  He was at the base of the tree, eating a waterfruit when the research finished. He had cleared all the vines he could reach from the ground and most of those from the lower branches. He paused for a break before climbing higher. He didn't want to struggle up another tier, just to climb back down to start the next research. Along with a snare, his next should give him ladders. That was a blueprint he had not appreciated nearly enough before.

  Research completed, he started it up on sticks. He selected the
newly regained "floor" blueprint and hoped. He mentally dragged it up the tree, and it worked. The green outline clung to the tree trunk. He placed it so the floor would rest on one of the tree branches. He pulled the outline to about two thirds the length of the branch and tried wrapping it around the trunk. It would only cover about a quarter of the tree. Felix finalized the build and selected another floor. He repeated the process all around the tree. When possible, he tried to rest the floor on a branch.

  The floor plans didn't line up quite evenly, but he had a plan for that. He wasn't really sure how the magic that made these things build worked, but he figured a bit of extra support couldn't hurt.

  Next he picked walls. All of the uneven spacing between the floors soon had walls in the gaps. Last thing he needed was to catch his foot on the step. There he ran into a problem.

  The blueprints were not opaque, but neither were they easy to see through. He clambered up the branch he had slept on the previous night. Felix paused and looked at the branch. He must have been more tired than he thought. This branch was at a decided angle, and he hadn't even noticed. It was okay though, he didn't need to sleep on it again. He'd be able to get at least a few of the floors built before night fell.

  Returning his attention to his main purpose, Felix began laying out plans for his tree house. It took him quite a while to complete to his satisfaction. This was not due to any architectural complexity, but rather having to climb up and down various tree limbs to get a better vantage point. By the end he was not awful at getting himself up.

  Felix stood on the ground examining his work. It was going to take a small forest to build, and it was no mansion, but it was something. He felt a pang as he wondered what Koale would have made of it.

  An ominous creak emitted from the tree. It list to the side. The roots began tearing out of the ground. It threw clumps of dirt into the air. A long minute later, the tree finished its slow motion fall with a tremendous crash.

  The blueprint Felix had spent the majority of the day tweaking still attached to the tree, though most of it glowed the red of an invalid position.

  From the center of the upturned earth where the tree had been just minutes before, there was movement. Felix pulled out his knife, and waited. Out from the dirt rose a giant pink tube. It was slimy with rings all the way down its body. It looked like nothing so much as a ridiculously overgrown worm.

  Felix pointed his knife at it and charged.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Felix sat in front of a small fire. He grimaced at the gooey lump hanging off the stick. Even after it was cooked, it was slimy. It squished and popped as he chewed. Juice gushed out into his mouth. His stomach turned and he took another bite. Of course the worm can't even taste decent. Even Liz only took a small nibble before wandering off to find her own meal.

  He had charged the worm when it appeared. He had to; it took out his tree. It didn't put up much of a fight. It didn't put up any fight at all, actually. Making a fire pit without using the system was far more difficult. Starting a fire without the shorted sensor, even more so.

  Felix swallowed with a grimace. The "meat" slid down the back of his throat. His stomach roiled. Felix continued to mechanically shove the meat to his face. It wasn't that he was low on food, though that was also true. Felix ate it because that worm ate the roots of his tree and wasted a full day of effort. Now he was further behind than he had started the day, other than the research. And food, if the sludge could be called "food".

  Though Felix could eat no more, he stayed seated. The fire had taken far too long to get started and it was now dark. He thought about spending another night up in the branches, but he was too burned out to bother. He threw some more wood on the fire and lay down. If the fire didn’t keep any nasties away, he’d deal with whatever happened. He closed his eyes and slept.

  The morning came, and Felix was sound. He gathered up his sleeping lizard, who had nestled in beside him during the night, and readied himself to find a new tree. Knowing how his plans had played out thus far on this planet, he made a few snares and replaced his lost tools. He was intending on coming back, and so left his more replaceable resources. If he did get cut off again, he would be able to rebuild once more.

  He didn’t go too far. A tree was a tree, more or less. He would have just picked one of the trees nearby the fallen one, but he wasn’t sure if the worm had eaten any of those roots, or if it fallen had weakened the stability. He didn’t even know if those were valid concerns to have. Still, it felt wiser to move off a short distance.

  Keeping in mind his troubles while planning the previous tree house, Felix kept an eye out for a tree with a few large branches that were close to the same level. He found one he liked and set down his pack and prepared to work.

  First, he slowly circled the tree, examining the base. He had nearly completed a circle with no sign of anything off, when he found a hole. He almost missed it. It was obscured by foliage.

  Pulling out his knife, Felix squat down to look inside. The view was blocked by several squat, mushrooms. The little green balls peppered the walls of the tunnel. He stood again, satisfied. He didn’t know if anything lived down there, but if so, it was small enough to leave those mushrooms undisturbed.

  He finished examining the tree and found it satisfactory. Rather than start immediately on the vines and laying out the blueprint for his future home, Felix trotted back to his supplies.

  When he reached the research desk, Felix grabbed the small pile of leaves on it and put them in his inventory. Next he sized up the resources he had left. He had gotten stronger while he had been here, but it was still far too much for him to carry. Instead, he piled up all the goods he had left- the beacon, extra wood, vines and so forth- on top of the desk. Then, he pulled.

  Pulling a ramshackle desk across the jungle floor, even a short way, is not recommended. Log rolled off as the desk shuddered along the uneven floor. Halfway there, one of the desk’s legs snapped. Then another. By the time Felix got to his new tree, the table had been reduced to a large board.

  He lay the ruins of the desk at the base of his tree. One quick run back and he gathered all his wayward supplies. Looking up at the tree, he laid out the floor once more and cut down any vines in his path.

  Rather than immediately laying out the walls and roof like he did last time, Felix began making rope. When he had used up all his accumulated vines, he had a dozen lengths of ropes. He didn’t have enough rope to finish the floor completely; he held a few back for another project. He wouldn’t be continually clambering up and down the tree this time.

  He picked the blueprint for the ladder, placed it against his new floor. WIth his remaining rope and a few sticks, he had himself a way up. It was ramshackle and flexed to a concerning degree as he climbed, but it worked.

  He had to admit, that overall, while he might not have appreciated the delay that creature had caused him the previous day, this attempt was going much smoother.

  He wandered his new floor, cutting down any vines that were now in reach. A few had slimes on them. He lured them onto sticks and flung them into the jungle. He liked to imagine the sticks landing slime-first on the back of a snuffle lizard. The thought made him smile.

  The new vines gave him enough rope to finish off the floor and a reasonably clear stretch of tree. There were more vines higher up the tree, but that was a problem for a later time.

  Felix leaned back against the trunk and picked at the remnants of the worm. He washed it down with water. He didn’t have much left of either. The worm he’d be glad to be rid of, even if he went a bit hungry. The water though, that was a problem.

  He didn’t know where the river was any more. The waterfruits helped, but they weren’t enough to sustain him, especially in the heat. He eyed the rest of his water. He had a little time yet to find a solution, but not much.

  Felix got to his feet and set to work laying out the rest of his new house. Instead of just laying out the walls this time, Felix first lay o
ut the furniture. He put down plans for a new research desk, a table, chair, even a real bed. All of the things he and Koale had talked about right before, well-

  He wouldn’t be able to actually complete the plans for a while, but the translucent outlines let him see how much room he would need. After the furniture was laid out, the walls and roof took just moments.

  He gawked at the costs for just the building’s frame. It would be a few hundred logs. If he hadn’t already remade the axe, his fists would be bloody stumps by the time he finished. Looking at the rope costs was not much better. He may be clearing the top of his tree of vines sooner than he thought.

  Before he began heavy construction, Felix had one last chore to do. He needed to set up his snares. Shelter was important, but just one part of his survival. He set off in the direction of a waterfruit tree. He could collect some fruit and lay down the traps. Surely other animals liked the fruit as well, right?

  ***

  “You’ve been watching Survival World on GBK. As always, I am Daviron, and with me here is Aerav, producer extraordinaire and dear friend of our show. Now Aerav, with Manic Season winding to a close, what can you tell us?”

  “It was an exciting one, was it not? As you and our viewers know, the Manic Season is particular to this island, the byproduct of a vicious evolutionary arms race between the island’s apex preditor and a particularly cunning ovivore. Given the relatively small scale of the island, however, it has been a while since we’ve had a bloody one. Those newcomers did not take proper precautions like the experienced hands.”

  “Insightful as always. And to you at home, if the feast we saw earlier has got you hungry, why not order up some Sxalini’s? Fresh tulian grubs delivered straight to your door, still wriggling or it’s free!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN