Chapter 3: Advent of the GodKing

Welp, guess I’m awake now. I peer through the leaves and into the clearing where I notice a couple people asleep near the burning fire. Cody is still up, and my eyes widen when I notice the auburn headed kid is finally awake.

I let out a soft yawn as I stretch and stand. Body sore from lying on the hard ground. A back rub would be amazing right now. I trudge bleary eyed towards the fire.

“Hey Watcher, Sleeper.” I say to the two men before sitting down nearby. I hold my cold hands near the charcoal as I look at the others.

“…umm Watcher, Sleeper..?” the auburn headed boy asks, and heat creeps up my chest and face as I put my head in my hands.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry, I keep calling you two that mentally. Sorry Cody, and sorry…?” I trail off. Cody, the mute man, just gives a simple shrug and continues scanning the surroundings, meanwhile the boy lets out a soft chuckle.

“I assume you're Elizabeth? I’m Micheal, or little Mike now, I guess,” His grin twitches.

“Yup that’s me. Sorry again Micheal, I think I’m still waking up. I had the most realistic dream--”

“You got the apartment dream too?! With all the fancy furniture and the weird mirror?!” His voice blasts through the clearing. I look around, making sure the other guys don’t awaken with his screaming.

I whisper, hoping Micheal will take the hint,

“Umm no, I had some sort of small cabin, but I definitely had a weird mirror that had me select some sort of Path before I could leave.”

He scrunches his face,

“Are you sure it wasn’t an apartment? I had this small leather sofa in this square shaped room with blacked out windows. Plus a small bed, printer and laptop.” He continues on,

“But I did see the path thing. I bet that gives us classes! Imagine if we can get magic and fight monsters, I’m so excited!” His voice continues to carry throughout the clearing.

“Okay slow down…. Yes I’m positive the ‘L’ shaped room was a cabin, it had planked walls with trunk supports, and wooden furniture,” I pause.

“I’m not sure it’s all that great. We had to bury someone just a few hours ago, we have no idea if we’re even on earth anymore, and there are freakin dinosaurs out in the woods,” I let out a sigh.

“Well, I’m still excited. It might take awhile but I promise that once I get a class I’ll be kicking ass and taking names,” The kid goes on.

Like seriously, how old is this kid? This is the most immature reaction I’ve heard.

“So if you didn’t select a path how did you get out?” I ask, shifting the topic away from things that will surely get someone killed.

“Well…. You see…” he blushes.

“I went back to sleep in the bed and woke up here,” he stammers out.

“But does that mean you got a class?”

“I did select a Path, it doesn’t seem to do anything though, or at least, not yet. Did you tell the others about your experience?” I ask.

“I told them…. Not that they believed me… but you got a class! What did you get? Knight? Archer? Mage?” He switches from frustrated to excited mid sentence.

“Ummm, no. I got survivalist,” I reply.

“…..Survivalist. Such garbage! How are we supposed to fight monsters with that?!” his eyes widen at the revelation.

“This doesn’t feel like any game I’ve ever played. I chose my path in order to survive, not to kill dangerous creatures,” I focus my eyes on him.

“Micheal, why don’t you just sit there and think things through for a bit,” I suggest, when I notice Cody fiddling with some of the dinosaur meat. Reaching out my hand I meet his eyes, and with a short nod of acknowledgment he hands me a skewer of the stuff.

The first bite of meat after a long and hard day elicits a satisfied sound as juices run down my chin. I let myself savor the flavor as I ignore Cody's smirk. I devour the meal, filling my stomach until I can eat no more. Settling in for the morning, I look to the sky.

The sheer amount of stars I see is bewildering, and I only have a small section of clearing overhead. I’m surprised they don’t light up the whole forest with their distant glow. Despite searching, I don’t see any tells of the moon in the sky.

After sitting in front of the fire for a couple hours, dawn arrives. The red-orange sun shining beautifully into the clearing and revealing several sleeping forms, now including Cody. The fire is still smoldering, but with sunrise, I feel the need to get something productive done. I leave my spot and make my way over to the now dried ligaments of the Dino and check them over.

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Cody went through and laid them all out when we were gutting the beast. I’m no expert, but there are a couple ideas I have for them. Firstly, I know sinew can be used for bow strings, secondly, it can be used as a glue. Making a bow itself would be a process of trial and error. Maybe I could make thread too? You should probably be more concerned with fresh water Lizzy. I let out an internal sigh.

I find the rock we used yesterday and start hammering on the sinew. Pound. Scrape. I crush it and peel back the layers, I finally have something thin enough to sew with. Just need a needle. I know back in the day they used bones for them, I’ll have to experiment to figure out how.

I start by taking one of the claws and trying to scrape out a needle shape. I attempt to pierce a hole, but fail to get through the claw’s material. Maybe bone would be better? Checking over the smashed skull leads to me noticing some thin bone fragments that will work. They’re definitely not sharp but if I found a way to grind it I might manage to get somewhere. I leave the splinters where I am and make towards the river.

The nearest river might be faster and deeper, but it’s much closer than the other. I pass through the forest. Trees sway in the wind as small animals scurry from one to another. I keep my eyes clear, but let my mind wander before exiting the tree line. The deep waters fill my vision as I approach the river's edge. Clinging to the red dirt ledge lies a smattering of stone, stones ground smooth by the running water. Taking my time, I choose carefully before pulling a stone free. Grinning at the grapefruit sized stone, I grab some reeds and head back.

I return to only five men in the clearing. Looks like Chris, David, and little Mike have left. Probably for the best. Cody is still asleep along with the storyteller, the chubby guy’s snoring acting as a beacon on my return. But Big Mike is awake and chatting with Jamie and Trevor. The two still look out of sorts from last night, but at least they’re eating.

“Hey Mike, want to smash two rocks together?!” I call out to the beefy man. Only to be surprised with how quickly he jumps into a spin and faces me.

“Do I want to smash two rocks together? Of course I do!” He lets out an infectious laugh as he brings his still nude form over to me.

“Here take this stone, and I’ll grab another one.” I give him the larger rock before dropping off the reeds and handing over a smaller denser rock.

“Alright little miss, step back now,” he waves me out of the way as he sets the stone down. With a two handed over head swing and a ripple of muscle, that I can’t help but admire, he smashes the edge of the stone against the rock with a sickening crunch. Two more full bodied swings and the rock is split.

“Thanks, Mike.” I give him a quirk of the lips as I grab the two stone halves.

“About last night…” I start.

The man’s grin dips and his soft eyes look down,

“Umm, not right now. I need some time.”

I nod and give a slight smile, then make my way back towards the bones and spend a couple hours experimenting with how to work it. Running the stone along the edge of the bone helps slim it down, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make a cylinder like that. So I slowly rotate the bone fragment across the makeshift grindstone instead. I press the bone to the stone, working the needle into shape. My hands ache and I can see this’ll take longer, at least a couple days to get something usable. My muscles falter from the constant grinding and I bring it to a stop. I thump out the reeds with a stone like I did before, and spend some time separating the scaled hide from the feathered dinosaur flesh.

By the time the sun starts setting I’m absolutely exhausted. My hands hurt more than I knew they could and the pain radiates up my arms into my shoulders. I need a nap.

I make my way back to fire and find everyone cozied up in a circle. A couple of the guys work a hollow out of some stones. Cody, the Watcher, signals me over and hands me a rock with a water filled hole.

“He showed us how to boil water. I don’t know how he knows all this stuff, but by dropping pebbles from the fire into the water you can heat it up,” Trevor explains

With a shrug I sit down and drink the water. I’m tired, thirsty and hungry so I simply sit, drink, eat while I listen to the guys talk. Chris and Mike still won’t so much as look at each other but the conversation flows anyhow.

Little Mike stands up,

“We should look for a dungeon. With high-end gear we could crush all those dinosaurs and get stronger.”

“How about we don’t pick a fight with the man-eating monsters?” Trevor calls out.

“Look, I’m all for trying to get out of here, but right now, we’re lost with nothing but rocks for water and leaves for clothes,” he continues.

As I listen to them argue about what to do, I take stock of everyone’s appearance. We’ve only been here a couple days, and everyone already looks pretty ragged. Only Micheal has any spark to his eyes.

“Why can’t we all just work together?” I mumble into my drink.

As the conversation finally dies with the sunlight, I lie next to the fire and stare up at the stars. We’re all going to die here.

——-

“I’m starting to miss fast food, I could really go for a big greasy cheeseburger right now,” Trevor whines as I wake up.

Exposed skin near the fire runs hot, making the other half of my body feel that much more cold. I shift around next to the flame trying to warm up.

“Please stop talking about food, you're killing me,” Micheal pipes up

‘Crack-Snap’ echoes through the clearing, getting my attention. Looks like a group of the boys are breaking off tree limbs from the downed trees.

Ignoring the commotion I sneak off into the forest to relieve myself. Once that’s done I check over what I did yesterday.

As the sun continues overhead, I start to notice a horrible smell.

There’s no way one of the guys smell that bad, right? I ask myself.