Chapter 2 - Nowhere to Go (1)

The sun's warm rays heat my face. And the bright red flowers are so beautiful in these grassy plains.

But, I don't know what to do, and I have nowhere to go. I'm lost like a kid in the mall. I still remember my brother leading me away from my dad, trying to get me lost and scared. Bad memories, but not the ones I need right now.

I'm here out in the wild- and no amount of boy scout training I did in the past could help.

My stomach aches, I need to eat something. There could be some berry bushes or some kind of fruit I can find in the forest.

I don't want to know if death is permanent here. But, I'm in a game... But, it's in real life. I have a headache for sure.

This sucks. I take off and run in the direction of the forest, but something on my back is slowing me down. I turn my head around just enough to steal a glance at my backpack. That gives me a sigh of relief, I have a means of transporting things.

Looking inside I see a thin slot my laptop used to inhabit and a water bottle. It's a black thermos water bottle, and only half full. If I had to guess, that's enough water to survive 4 or 5 days.

I can't live like this, I'm lost in the forest with nothing surrounding me. The large leaves of these thin dark trees block all sunlight from reaching me in this dark forest. But at least I won't get a sunburn deep in this place. If I were here on vacation, I would've enjoyed it, my whole family would! I guess enjoying nature was in my genes. But now, now I'm not as happy as I would've imagined. Probably because I'm going to die. Just the thought of my muscles, bones, and flesh absorbed for nutrients gives me shivers.

I have to survive to see my family and live happily again. It could be possible, just not as easy I would like it to be.

Why don't I see any other humans- is it just me here? Am I the only guy here? Where are the others? Does that mean I'm alone? I hear gasping. But not from me- I'm just sad, not anxious. The gasping is from something else. The sound keeps getting louder and louder. I glance to my left. Nothing. A glance to my right. Something. I see a figure coming closer and closer in the distance. Too bad all I can see is a shadowy figure because of all this shade. Wait... This figure looks human-shaped! Thank goodness I'm not alone.

As it gets closer, I realize it's moving pretty fast.

This blond-haired short guy crashes into me—small enough to be mistaken for twelve—tripping me onto the muddy dirt.

He continues to run.

"What was that!?" I shout, my hands catching my fall, but now I have mud on my hands. I use all my energy to run up to him and shove him. Hard. He topples quite easily, like a domino.

I remember that big people fall the hardest. Makes sense, because this short kid fell like a feather.

"You didn't have to push me back! That was an accident!" He says with a pint of urgency in his voice, his thick eyebrows slanting down towards his nose. He tilts his head and raises his hands in a quick motion. "Just focus on running!"

"Running? Running from what?" Confused, I look back to where he tripped me, instead of my handprints on the dirt, I see a large wolf-like creature with black fur, eyes filled with bloodlust, horns on his head. It has black fur, with some parts of the wolf, namely the claws and the tip of the tail, colored with radiant firey glowing red. HOLY MOLY I GUESS I'M NOT GOING TO DIE SLOWLY. It pauses to look at me, looking like it's scanning my body posture, seeing if I was prey or not. Before it could finish its observance, I was already running, sprinting away and far away at that from death, the silent reaper itself.

Now I'm the one gasping loudly.

BAM BAM BAM, it's the sound my feet hitting the ground makes, I put huge force into my legs, making sure every step counts because it does. Every step matters. One wrong step and boom, I'm one step closer to death.

I wanted to ask the shorty about this demon of a wolf, but I was too out of breath. I thought I was a stay-on-task person, but right now, my mind won't stop thinking. Nevertheless, I just kept on sprinting.

Muffles of swearing can be heard when I or the short boy trip on the occasional but annoying root or stone that sticks out of the ground. Hoping the wolf hasn't gotten closer because of it, I would steal a glance behind me while picking myself back up.

I don't know when the wolf would stop chasing us, but we both knew that getting caught meant getting eaten. It seemed like the large wolf wasn't tired, it was slow but persistent, while we were exhausted.

I've been running for a while, more than I could count, which would've made my high school gym coach proud.

My legs were getting numb, but I definitely wasn't as tired as my wolf-bait friend here, looking dead. He must've been sprinting for a way longer time than me. I'm starting to see the light at the end of this tunnel of forests, and no, I don't think I'm dying. We run into the bright sun, into grassy plains with red flowers.

The sun's just making us sweat more, and that's not helping us. But the large ass wolf, well it certainly doesn't want any vitamin D, that's for sure.

It's avoiding the sun.

The wolf-bait boy glances back only to see we aren't getting chased anymore. He walks right beside me and stares at the wolf, which is now probably finding easier prey in the dark forest. The black-furred wolf just stopped chasing us when it got too close out of the shade. Wait a second...

No shot. No actual shot. WE BEAT THE WOLF!

Let me confirm my suspicions.

"Do you think the wolf evaporates in the sunlight or something?" I ask while turning my head and looking at Mr. Wolf-bait, who was in fact panting and coughing.

"Duh! What are you? Sherlock Holmes!?" He says sarcastically, with a hint of relief. "It doesn't matter if he dies in sunlight, what matters is our organs weren't eaten as it's delicious dinner."

He looks at my backpack, then me. "Speaking of delicious dinner, got any food?"

"I got no food on me. Only some water, wolf-bait boy." I sit down on the grass and look up to the sun, now halfway till noon. Sitting down gives my legs the rest they needed.

"Don't call me that dumb nickname!" He elbows my shoulder, easily making the weak tired me tumble down, with my clean face greeting the dirty grassy soil.

It's hard to talk when my mouth's blocked with the unmoving ground. I get back up in a sitting position with a push-up-like motion. Now I can speak. "It's a fitting nickname, what do you mean?"

"The name's Zion, and not wolf-bait boy wimpy dog-dinner dude." He remarks at me.

"I'm Theo. And hey, I only called you wolf-bait boy, not everything else, stop making me look bad."

"Look bad in front of who?" He says, trying to act tough, but with the sun hitting his face, blinding him, it only makes him squint his eyes. It makes him look like a funny idiot. "Ugh, the sun's so bright! I just want to eat some ramen!"

Wolf boy Zion has a stomach never staying still. In contrast, I have a mind always thinking, never staying in one place. It might make me good at math, but in conversations I overthink. A lot. Though it's has been less of a problem the more I've talked with friends.

The realization hits me, there's a chance this idiot and I are the only people here, in this weird dumb crazy fantasy-like world. Frick, why do I find the weirdest people?

Zion notices my mood and tries to cheer me up. "Hey, you played any games?"

"Yeah, mainly adventure and MMORPG games, why?" Thinking about the games I've played back in high school brings a grim smile onto my face. The same feeling when listening to a nostalgic song. I always loved fun things. Well, not always. It was only after-

"I'm just asking randomly. Though I've played lots of MMORPG games too!" Zion replies happily. His hands are shaped like he's holding a game controller, pretending to play games.

I do the same, and no, I'm not a kid with a crazy imagination, I'm just bored. Maybe I am a kid mentally. I wouldn't know myself.

We start talking on and on about games, and these happy conversations block out all the worries at least for a little longer. Every so often Zion would slip a thought about eating something, from sushi to hot pot, he would be hyper focused on eating. He seemed to know every food.

I never was a foodie, always rushing to finish my food. Maybe it's because I didn't want to sit with my brother. Maybe a little...

I worry a lot, and I know I should stop, but thoughts can't stop themselves. I have worries about having no food and having nowhere to go.

Having nowhere to go, but somewhere to run.