Chapter 5-Embers of a new crucible

“Muahahahaa!... COME TO—” *RUMBLE**SSSHPAAASH* “–AAAAAAH! I DIDN'T MEAN IT DON'T COME!” *SPLASH*... “Sometimes… my genius scares me.” The past few days have been very, very hard. I lost count of the number of sighs I did from how hard it was… But I have improvised! Adapted! Overcome! I Am!... not doing very well, but I believe I managed to climb the food chain of this shitty forest! I somehow haven’t gotten sick or cold so far, so that’s a plus. As for water and food… I can safely drink rainwater that accumulates on leaves or from the pond. And for food… I made a makeshift fishing pole using the leftovers of the desecrated fish I ‘killed’. It’s made out of one of the giant fish's spines and sinew. I don't have any bait, and don’t know how to make one, but that doesn’t matter. According to plan, I sourced our nearest green friends so they could be sacrificed. The process went like this. At first, I tried to find a large, sturdy branch. The trees are too tall for me to just climb and break one. All of the ones scattered on the ground are too flimsy or too short to work properly. I debated whether I could use vines to tie them together, but when I tried to do that, they didn’t have enough grip and ended up snapping in my hands from too much force. If I wanted to make a fishing rod, even if it's one-use only, it needed to be at least sturdy enough for me to whack something and not disintegrate in my hands. I tighten my grip. I didn’t want to use the stick that I used in my first ever kill– Flashes of viscera and blood. The impact of brutality against flesh traveling through my arms– I shake my head… call me crazy, but this stick is my stick, it fits perfectly snugly on my hand. And, even after all the violence I committed with it. Not even a crack or chipping, it's still as hard and sturdy as ever, maybe it even got harder over time. I don’t know. Anyway, as I was saying, I didn’t have anything of suitable girth and length that satisfied my needs. So I resorted to using the self-sustaining supply of Fish Spines. I only needed to find more of those poisonous frogs to bait the fish, and I was set for the time being. “Even in death you shall still serve…” I muse to myself and to a frog that was still intact after being honorably discharged as fish bait. I tie it down on another bait-pole, as I have come to call them, since I'm not really ‘fishing’ with them. *sigh*... “It has been some time now since I started settling down in this place… I don’t like it butt I got used to the… food. The first times were somewhat traumatic, but after a while, I got used to being constantly dirty and the grotesque sights. The unused bones and scales don’t go away, so the place is decorated with the consequences of my labor. I’ve even made a fence. Purely aesthetic, though, anything in this forest can just step on it and it comes falling.” I sit down and stare at the pointless… pointless things I have done around this place… The skull ornaments… the pile of discarded frog biomass… The failed attempts at starting a fire… The crude drawings made out of blood on the trees… and my greatest creation: the clay blanket… “I… I need to move, to move on– to move forward, to get the hell out of here!...” I collapsed on the ground… *sob* I miss my bed… my warm meals, my family, the warm touch of another living being, the fights and discussions I had with my friends, the annoying alarm clock, the same dull breakfast I ate every morning, the sound of rain hitting the shingles as the cars passed by… “…I need a plan. An escape plan… a life plan… heck any sort of damn plan will do!” Day by day. I feel my mind crumbling away from the stress, from the loneliness, the lost sleep from the little sounds in the middle of the dark forest, the faces I drew to pass time staring down at me, the dried blood filling the air with a stagnant smell. Every time I ‘dismantle’ a fish, every time I hit one of those frogs, a little bit is chipped away. I gaze into the water’s reflection. I see a child, dirty beyond measure, with dark circles under her eyes and messy hair hardened with dirt and leaves. Slowly, trembling, I touch my cheek. She touches hers, her face void of any emotion yet filled with exhaustion and empty hope. I slap the water, banishing the reflection, and look away… The moon shines brightly, and the wind carries the sounds and smells of the dark forest. I take a deep, deep breath… Try to ignore the smell of death sticking to me. Close my eyes. Focus on the grip of my fists and the weight on my feet. The swaying of this– my tail. The wind in my ears and the solidness of the horns adorning my head. The faint buzz of mana in the air, which I had ignored for so long. I exhale. “Haaaaaah… I have been stalling, wasting time, making empty promises to feel better… being a utter and absolute fucking fool! Trapped inside the box, limiting my options, narrowing my view…” I heft my trusty stick, carry it close. It hadn’t failed me before and shan’t fail me now. “I’ll have all the time in the world to cry, to complain, to curse and end the lineage of whoever put me here… later.” Now… “Now it’s time to get serious, to be crazy, destroy every obstacle, to grab those lemons and make life fucking take them BACK!!, rebel against the world and nobody is going to stop me.”