//------------------------------//
// The Scorched Hill 
// Story: Survive 
// by Narlepoax III 
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note position of sun. then note cardinal directions. then note where those are in relation to stream and its current. for future reference




East is to your right, upstream. The sun has been obscured, by the jungle, and the hill. But, if you remember correctly, it's roughly 7:50 AM. You've got hours to spend, but your stomach insists that you spend the first ones looking for food. Unfortunately for your stomach, you've got some things to do that can't wait until you've found food, namely:




Take bathe. Reapply mud




You reek like blood, sweat, and bile. Wandering around like this is basically advertising to any predators around that you are an easy meal, and you don't want to be seen as an easy meal. You drop your crutch, and kneel down next to the creek, again. You scoop up handfuls of water, and splash them over your body.

You begin with your armpits, reasoning that they probably smell the worst, out of all the parts of your body. The water rinses away the sweat, caked on from the yesterday's chase. Patches of dirt still remain under your arms, and the ophiotaurus's blood dried on quite firmly. It will take quite some effort to get yourself completely clean.

You spot some coarse sand, at the very bottom of the riverbed, and scoop some up. It will make scrubbing the gunk off of your skin much easier. You scrape at the grime on your arms, chest, back, and legs, stretching to get to the hard-to-reach areas. It takes a while, but you finally manage to scrape all the filth from your skin, leaving you pink, and raw. A quick rinse, and you're completely clean again.

That whole ordeal took about fifteen minutes, but you can definitely say it was worth it, to not be disgusting. And now you get to make the whole thing not matter, by smearing mud all over your body.

The mud here seems to be siltier that further downstream, much finer. As such, it feels quite nice against your skin. The paste-like substance just glides into the nooks between your joints, and the whole process is quite soothing. It feels especially nice, after having just rubbed your skin raw. Once you are covered again, you decide that you've had enough of this "nudity" thing, for now.




make new leaf skirt




You grab your crutch, stand up, and hobble back over into the tree line. You spot the kind of fern you need almost instantly, now that you know what to look for. It's right under a vine-covered tree, which makes things even more convenient. After testing it's strength to affirm, one hundred percent, that you have the right plant, you drop onto your backside, and start cutting leaves. You sing another song, as you work. This one is quite beautiful, and strangely catchy.

Once you finish singing, you figure that you have enough leaves to work with. You tie the stems into loops, and shuffle over to the tree, without standing up. You select a vine of proper length, cut it down, and clear the leaves off. You start whistling a new melody, as you cut the proper length for your waistband. Once you have it, you coil up the rest of the vine, estimating around twenty feet to spare. You gather up the fern leaves, loop them into the waist cord. Now you'll have to stand up, in order to get the skirt around you properly.

You grab the crutch, already becoming tired of having to do that, and put the coil of extra vine onto it, so that you won't have to bend over, once you're up. With that done, you pull yourself to your feet. You put the stone knife in your mouth, and lean into the crutch. Then, you wrap the skirt around you, and repeat the actions you did first time. You tie it on your left side with a square knot, securing it to your body. Then, you pull the excess cord over to your right side, slip the vine coil onto it, and tie it with a figure eight knot, making it so that it wouldn't just fall off, but would be easy to untie, when you would need to. Finally, you take the knife out of your mouth, and slip it into your brand new "belt". Five more minutes, well spent.




The next step would be to reconnaissance the immediate area and search for a reliable source of food.






You should continue up stream as you've already made sizable progress in said direction it simply would not make sense to squander that progress with time waiting backtracking as well as any chance of finding that pigmy village, 




You limp back down to the stream bed, and take a look uphill. It would be a shame to lose all the progress you've made in this direction, even if it would be easier to go downhill. The pygmy pony's village could be up there, and you really need help, in your current condition. Something has to be up there, the pony wouldn't have come running this way, if there wasn't. Mind set, you begin your journey, doddering up the slope at a slow pace.

It takes a bit to find the best technique to use your crutch, while going uphill, but you eventually slip into a rhythm, and your mind starts to wander.




Ponder on who you are on the inside. Who you would like to be and who you are not.




You think of who you may be, as a person. You know that it's folly to try remembering anything specific, but the decisions you made in your previous life must be influencing you, in some way. You know that you hold vast stores of incredibly detailed information, so maybe you were a scholar. You've yet to see any kind of limitation to the knowledge you have, but there probably is one. No one knows everything.

Your body seems to suggest a life that was far from sedentary, so you at least worked out. You don't know anything about yourself, just that you know a lot about other things.




1. think on religious or some form of symbolism that matches your tats




And then there's these new markings on your skin.

They seemed to emulate traditional Native American tattoos, but you don't know which tribe. Possibly Polynesian? You know that tribes used tattoos as a way to determine the identity of the individual who wore it. They would be used to mark someone's social class, clan, and even which local tribe they hailed from. Sometimes, tattoos would be used to confer divine blessings, or even heal the person.

...

Heal the person. These marks have significance to the healing of your wounds, there's no doubt about that. But exactly how do they relate? How did you come by these markings? Did your slaying of the ophiotaurus really give you supernatural powers? The very existence of such a beast was supernatural. Would it really be such a logical leap to say that the prophecy about it was true?




A good thing about that battle is that you proved to the jungle that you are a worthy opponent, and one to be feared. You whould be left alone for a while.

However, keep in mind that slaying the beast does not give incredible powers. It's burning its flesh that does the trick




Yes, that's right. Thinking more on the prophecy makes you realize that your exhausted mind failed to bring one detail to light. The prophecy stated that whomever could kill the ophiotaurus, and then burn it's entrails, would gain the power to kill the gods. But that just made you more confused. If it wasn't the ophiotaurus that healed you, what did?

The sudden increase in illumination pulls you from your reverie. You look up, and see an end to the tree line. You've found the edge of the forest! You increase your hitched pace, shuffling forward with enthusiasm. Luckily, the early morning light is dark enough that exiting the forest does not blind you. You take a look around the new location you've found.

Packed earth is exposed to the elements, the only coverage being a thin layer of saplings, and other newly sprouted plants. The sparse and ruined remnants of tree trunks protrude from the ground, only about three or four feet each. The wood on them is exposed to the air, grayed from the beating of the elements. The stream continues uphill, disappearing over the hill's ridge.This appears to be the recovering remnants of a disastrous fire.

Noticing no immediate danger, you decide to hobble further into the fire scar, following the stream uphill. The tree stumps are spaced far enough apart so as to allow you to see the forest's edge wrap around the hill. The further you go uphill, the more you can see over the trees. Directly in front of you, a tree covered hill top begins to emerge from behind the jungle. You continue following the stream uphill, groaning every time a rise gives way to another rise. Surprisingly, though, you never become fatigued.

Eventually, you find the spring from which the stream flows. It's embedded in rock, spouting forth from some kind of underwater river. Clearer than glass to the very bottom, you can easily see the stones piled on the bottom of the spring. That means that you can also see what makes them odd. The colors of the stones vary, you can see light pinks, bold purples, dull greys, and pale tans. But, the oddest part, is that they all seem to hold the same oblong shape.

You limp over to the spring's bed, and kneel down next to it. The rocks are mostly arranged near the shore line, so it's easy to reach in, and pluck one out. The first thing you notice, is how light the stone is, the thing is almost as big as your face, but it only weighs as much as an apple. It's much thinner than it is long, and longer than it is wide. If your optimism was correct, this seemed to be a stone knife core. It looked to be made from chert, but who would just leave stone tool cores laying around in a spring?

You spotted more cores of chert, as well as other stones. Obsidian, flint, ignimbrite, onyx, opal, and even petrified wood. All knappable stones, all made into stone tool cores, and all soaking in the water of this spring. This is the greatest discovery you've made since waking up in this jungle. If you're correct about the nature of the stones, you've just found a cache of ready to shape tools.

Someone must have put these here, it's inconceivable to think that nature could have shaped all of these cores, and arranged them in this fashion. But who could have done it? You think once more of the pygmy pony. It seemed to be heading in this direction, but you can't see anyone. This clearing seems to have been abandoned for quite some time.

You look uphill, maybe there is a camp nearby, and you just can't see it from this angle. You should hike up to the top of the hill, and get a better perspective on this place. You replace the stone underwater, stand up with your crutch, and start shambling up the slope. The shadows of early morning are bold against the ground, but it's light enough to see where you're going.

The sun blinds you again, once it pokes up over the trees. You look down at the ground, to keep the sun out of your eyes, but keep moving. It takes few minutes, but you finally reach the apex of the hill. You turn your back to the sun, and take a sweeping look at the hill around you. You notice one thing that's odd, from your new vantage point.

Far off, and down hill from here, a ring of white sand borders the greenery of the jungle. Beyond the thin strip of sand, cerulean water continues on, as far as the eye can see. The arrangement of land and sea completely surrounds you, on all sides. You are on an island. When you check east, behind you, you also notice one other thing that seems off about this place.

That sun is at least three times as large as it should be.

The revelation stuns you. You know how big the sun should be, and that is far too large. How is this possible? Surely, such a large sun would change the way the world worked? The blasting heat would boil all the liquid water away, making plant life as you know it impossible. Is that why the heat was so intense in that clearing? Why isn't that heat pounding on you now? It honestly doesn't feel that hot, right now.

Actually...

Why isn't the heat pounding on you right now? You distinctly remember being overwhelmed by the incredible power of this massive sun, the first thing you woke up. In fact, the heat was literally what woke you up, in the first place. So why don't you feel it anymore? This whole thing is becoming too much for you to handle. You have to sit down. You turn away from the massive sun, and drop down onto the charred earth.

The sun... The sapient pygmy pony... The ophiotaurus...

Is it possible that you aren't on earth anymore? All these things that don't exist back on earth, or are just plain incapable of happening... Could you be on another planet? It's theoretically possible, even if you wouldn't have any kind of clue as to how you left earth, or how you came to... wherever this is. If you are on a different planet, is it possible to even get back home, without knowledge of how you got here?

Suddenly, you remember what you've learned about the cosmos. One galaxy holds up to four hundred billion stars. Most of these stars have planetary systems around them. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, most of which have planets. Your home is just one out of trillions, maybe even quadrillions, of planets. Is there really any hope of going home, if you really are on a different planet? It would be like trying to pick one specific water molecule out of the ocean. Will you ever see another human being before your life ends?

You will never see those friends of yours, ever again. You will never see your family, or even just a random stranger. You will never laugh with someone else. You will never be able to share someone's sadness. You will never find love with someone. You will never see someone smile at your presence. You will never even be graced with someone's contempt at your existence. You are completely, and irrevocably alone in the world.

Your dark thoughts are interrupted by the distant sound of thunder. You snap your head up, and see dark clouds, rolling in from the west. Lightning streaks through the storm head, and rain falls thick upon the ocean underneath. If it continues on it's current path and at it's current pace, the storm will arrive on this island in roughly thirty minutes.

Maybe you could just sit here, until the storm hits. Maybe you could be struck by lightning, and your life would be over, just like that. You wouldn't have to be alone, anymore.

The sunlight finally peeks over the hill, striking something white, buried in the dirt. The object is round, and quite large. It's roughly the size of your head. It looks sort of like the back of a skull. Despite your foul mood, your curiosity was piqued by this strange object. You struggle to your feet, and stumble down the slope to where the object lay. The strange item was buried about halfway into the ground, so you had to bend over to pull it out.

It was a skull.

Definitely not human, though. The eye sockets are far too large, and far off to the side of the skull. There is a pronounced muzzle on the face, though smaller than most animals you know of. The lower mandible was missing, but you could tell from just the upper teeth that this creature ate mostly grass and vegetables. Flat grinding teeth, long front incisors, and nearly non-existent canines. The temples were directly above the eye, suggesting ears that mount on the top of the head. It kind of looks like a cross between a human skull, and a horse skull. Again, the pygmy pony crosses your mind.

The skull is rather small, though, if sapient encephalization quotient was to be reached. These eyes are incredibly large. Tack the muzzle on, and the body would have to be very small, to allow for sapient-level intelligence. The pygmy pony definitely had a small body, it came up to your knee. If it had a head the size of a human, and a body the size of a small dog; large eyes, nose, mouth, and ears could be easily fit onto the head, and still leave room for a large enough brain to support sapience.

Looking into this skull's empty eye sockets reminds you that you aren't completely alone out here. The pygmy ponies now not only represent help, but your only chance at social interaction. Though it might not seem very important to someone who is constantly surrounded by other people, social interaction is essential to maintain one's sanity.

You bend down, and return the skull to it's place in the ground, making sure to put it back into it's original position, to avoid being disrespectful. You take another look at the scorched hillside, noticing many more bones in the sunlight. Tiny rib cages, spines, pelvises, and leg bones. Broken, whole, half buried, and just lying open in the sun. A macabre amalgamation of death, strewn about the ground.

Many creatures died here. Could these pygmy ponies be the ones who put the stones in the spring? What happened here, that so many of them are dead? Was the fire to blame for this pile of bodies? Why was the pygmy pony trying to get here? How will your survival plan change, now that you know that you're on an island, and not on earth? Where are the pygmy ponies now? Are they all dead?

The storm is looming over the horizon, marring the blue sky with black clouds, and angry lightning. Whatever you're going to do, you'd better do it fast.




What do you do?