13 Hiding

Mark sighed heavily and started to walk in the direction of a small rock he passed a few steps earlier, the rock was not huge, it barely reached Mark waist, but was the best he had now.

'Here we go,' said Mark to himself, hitting the ground with his feet, but he was not pissed, he was just trying to see if the ground was soft enough.

'Dammit', the soil was just like the entire region, a bit rocky, there were tons of leafs above it but the soil itself was hard. 'I can't dig a hole in here, not with my hands at least.' Mark didn't have a shovel, but he had something similar, a bayonet, it would take much more time than a shovel or digging with his hands if the soil was soft, but it was what he had, if Mark didn't have a bayonet he would probably use his knife or even grab a hard enough stick and poke the soil to make it softer.

A bayonet was just like a small knife that was attached to the tip of the rifle during the second war. With time and more modern weapons, it became obsolete. Only with the coming of the invaders, bayonets started to be used again. The advantage of using a bayonet to dig the soil was that bayonets were a rounder so they could fit at the tip of the rifle, and because of that, Mark preferred it over the knife to dig the ground.

...

Half an hour later, and with his face, hands and clothes covered by Earth, Mark finally stopped digging the ground. 'That must be enough for today,' said Mark to himself, inside the hole that went just a little above his waist.

Mark jumped outside of the hole he just made, grabbed a lot of dead leafs from the ground and made a small pile by the side, then went around the big rock that stood by the other side of the hole and slid it to cover the hole.

Once the rock was over the hole, Mark grabbed his rifle, two sticks he found around, and a few pebbles and, using his rifle as a leverage, he raised just a bit of the rock, just enough to fit the smaller stick he had.

'The hardest part was done. Now let's get the rest done and maybe I can become a gravedigger in the next reincarnation. Nah, better, a graverobber, that's where the money is,' said Mark to himself, seeing the result of his effort.

What Mark had made was similar to a trap, but instead of trapping a beast or an animal, he would trap himself inside. That was the best that he could do for today to survive.

Mark repeated the same process once again and the gap between the rock and the ground increased and now was barely enough for him to enter the hole, but Mark was not going to enter now, first he needed to prepare himself and the terrain around him, or in other words, cover-up all the mess he made, and make it look normal. that's because beast could smell, hear, and see just like any human, the only difference was that they were not that used to Earth like an animal that grew on it, they couldn't differentiate the smell of a human from one of a pig, but they could spot huge discrepancies.

Thinking of that, Mark grabbed the leafs and put where the rock once stood, covering the rock original spot to feel similar to the rest of the ground, then he grabbed soil from the ground and a bit of water and passed over his body and clothes, then he closed his backpack the best he could and threw inside the hole.

'I think it's all ready. Now let's get a burial,' joked Mark with himself. It was the best he could do today. The rest was up to luck.

Mark slid inside the hole, pulled his rifle inside, and with the maximum care he could, he removed the stick while still trying to not be knocked out by the weight of the rock.

~slam~

That was the worst way of hiding in a jungle, not because it was hard, all the ways were hard, but because it was the less comfortable of them all. It was dark, wet, and barely passed enough air.

It was akin to been buried alive.

The cold immediately assaulted Mark as he started to tremble while holding his legs, he was almost in a fetal position inside the hole, 'What a way to die' he thought, but kept trembling and the complete darkness didn't help either, it was extremely annoying for Mark to not be able to see an inch in front of his eyes.

Mark wished he could knock himself out now, that way he would wake up and feel better, but this way, with cold and hunger and without being able to sleep, it would only make him more and more tired as time went by.

He knew this would not work in a long term. This was his way of living enough to see the sun in the next day.

He hoped that once the tank was out, the beasts would linger around for a few hours to a day and then leave the area because they would not have a reason to stay around the edges of the forest, where there were fewer animals they could eat.

...

Time passed and Mark tried his best to resist the urge of leaving the hole, he was not sure how many hours had actually passed since it was hard to keep track of the time inside the hole with not a single spot of light, but he was sure that the day was coming, because he was starting to feel a bit warmer than before.

The big question now was, 'Should I stay or Should I go?', he loved that song. It was one of his favorites, and what would be of the apocalypse if Mark could not even do bad jokes with his favorite songs.