23 Food problem

His punch hit the crate, and once Mark removed his hand, he saw the result.

"That's explain why I'm not bald yet," said Mark aloud, seeing almost the same thing as before. The punch hit the crate and formed a crack in the wood, showing its contents. There was nothing new, all the same. He didn't gain any super strength after eating half of that snake.

'Now that I think about, the first time I ate, it was if I was starving for weeks, I could not even control myself.' though Mark while remembering the vomit show.

~sigh~

Mark sighed, and let the matter go. He had too much things to do, and the clock was ticking.

After putting down the fire and going about his daily things, Mark went to sleep, because in the next day he would need to catch something, otherwise he would have to ration food, again.

"Surrounded by crates filled with food and here I'am, with nothing to eat after tomorrow."

...

In the next day, even before the sun rose, Mark was already walking in the forest, because today he needed to catch something, or at least find enough edible plants.

"How I will deal with this in the cities? I can't stay in forests forever," asked himself Mark while checking one of the traps, his new power didn't allow him to eat army rations because those were all made before the apocalypse and he could not be sure of the precedence of the plants used to make the army meals too, if people in the kitchen mixed old rice with new rice he would vomit black in the canteen.

"Fruits in general are a big not too, not that I would be able to buy them in the cities," said to himself Mark, seeing that the trap was not even triggered by an animal.

~sigh~

After walking a bit, Mark checked the other trap too but found nothing there, both were not even triggered, "It seems the beasts indeed made a clean up here before leaving, this part of the forest has nothing more to catch, and the few animals that may still be around have enough food for them, and they don't need to not take risks on traps now that the number of animals is lower."

Thinking about that, Mark decided he would need to move more to the center of the forest, but the problem was, if he moved closer to the forest center, he would be further away from the trucks, and if the military came when he was inside the forest he could miss them. He was not sure that once they came, they would stay a night or would immediately depart after taking the supplies.

With that dilemma in his head, Mark suddenly lost the motivation to continue hunting, and sat on a rock close to him.

He knew what he had to do, but he was not willing to, because he would need to take too much risks. He would need to live with what he could hunt, sleep in the open, and always be on guard against beasts.

This new 'power' of his, was more restrictive than Mark initially thought, and also, the gain in strength was not in an inhuman level, he was stronger, but it was not akin to a superpower but more like a really strong man, after all, Mark knew people who could do the same he did without any 'special ability', break wood with punch was not a godly level of power, but the restriction in what he could eat were extremely problematic for him.

'One thing is to live in the open in the old days, but now? With beasts and mutated animals lurking around? But I can't go back to my base now. There is nothing to hunt around there.'

Thinking about that, Mark remembered that the next base was four days of vehicle ahead. 'If the next base is four days ahead by vehicle, that means it somehow connects with this forest I am now, or at least is close to it.'

Thinking about that, Mark started to do some math in his head to see if he was right. 'The next base must be two thousand miles ahead, or maybe three thousand miles, but not more than that,' concluded Mark.

'If I walk 10 miles a day, that means 300 days.'

~sigh~

"It's almost a year living alone, in the woods, hiding from beasts," said Mark aloud, thinking that his plan to walk toward the next base was a bad idea already. It was that, or starve to death on his previous base.

~sigh~

"What to do?" asked himself Mark, as if trying to decide, but just as he was asking himself that, he heard a familiar noise coming from the trees.

~caw~ ~caw~

It was the same crow. He followed Mark whenever he went into the woods.

Mark looked at the crow and his eyes moved to the crow's paws, those shining little things that could cut a rope, and Mark suddenly thought of something that he was not considering all this time, the abilities.

"Right, I will not be doing nothing during this time. I will hunt mutated beasts, and if I'm lucky, I will come across one that somehow helps me to shorten the distance like fly, teleport or speed. Any of those things will help me, and if the next base is close by the forest as I think, then I may have a chance to live there."

Mark was considering all of that, because he knew the army would send a new mission from his previous base, and the mission would continue his previous route, but he could not live for four days without food, that, without considering all the beasts on the route and if he reached the next base alive, he would still need to have some energy in his body to hunt something, and last, if the next base was really close to the forest as he thought.

With all of that, plus his immediate need of food, Mark decided that today he would depart.

"I think it's the only way, right crow?" asked Mark, still looking at the crow.

~caw~ ~caw~