Chapter 1: Awake
Chapter 1: Awake
I felt comfortable but there was a slight draft. Gentle wind wafted over my exposed skin cool but not unpleasant. I reached out my hands to pull up my sheet and blanket but my searching fingers grasped nothing. I grunted in annoyance and turned from lying on my back onto my left side, placing my left arm under my head in my favored sleeping position.
Fine and thin strands tickled my nose so I reached my right hand out to snuggle my cat Max closer. My hand couldn't locate my best non-human friend and I cracked open my eyes in an attempt to spot him. My bleary eyes came to rest on healthy green grass, brightly colored flowers, and the cleft of a shapely pair of buttocks in front of my face.
Suddenly I didn't feel tired anymore.
I sat up with a start and examined the naked form of the woman in front of me, "It's not Danielle . . . OH GOD!" I began to panic.
Danielle had been my girlfriend off and on for ten years and had become my wife two years prior. She was the first and only woman I ever dated, kissed, or... had been with. I'd never cheated on her or been unfaithful in any way, apparently until right then.
I felt instantly nauseous, 'What have I done!' I mentally screamed at myself, 'Oh god, what the fuck did I do!?' I stood up completely and saw that I was likewise clad in my birthday suit. My brain decided that it needed to focus on something else and put my panic on the back-burner.
I raised my eyes to look around and my jaw dropped open in disbelief. I was standing in a huge field, filled with lush, verdant, green grass and wild flowers in a cornucopia of brilliant colors. Out in the distance in front of me was either woods or a forest but it was several hundred feet distant. I guessed the distance to be somewhere around four hundred feet. I looked to my left and discovered more trees roughly seven hundred feet away. I looked to my right and guess what, more trees. I put those around five hundred or so feet from me. I ventured a look behind me. The trees were substantially further away; I estimated a bit less than a quarter of a mile. I couldn't be certain but I guessed the trees were deciduous since evergreen trees tend to have a very specific shape.
What I saw beyond those trees certainly caught my attention. In Norfolk, where I work, the closest mountains are at least a four hour drive away. The lone mountain I was gazing at couldn't have been more than two miles distant.
Looking back down, my attention was once more drawn to the naked bodies in front of me, 'Wait! Bodies . . . plural?' I looked at the second naked person. The second person's skin was of a much darker complexion, athletically built, and male.
I could feel my eyes bulge as I recognized my co-worker, Spearman. Motion caught my right eye and I whipped my head the the same direction. I almost fainted when I saw more naked people stand up, just to my right, both women.
I took a long, slow look around the ground of the field and immediately felt light-headed, 'I'm standing... in a field... somewhere... with several hundred people lying on the ground around me... and we're all naked.'
One of the two, I will admit rather attractive, women to my right began screaming at the top of her lungs. I reflexively used my hands to cover my ears. The decibels of her screaming were enough to make my ears ring. The second woman almost instantly joined her friend in shrieking. The two of them combined had an effect which troubled me very deeply; many, many more people in the field began waking up. They quickly added their own voices to the screaming, drawing the collective noise into an absolutely deafening, chaotic crowd of fearful and confused voices.
I couldn't handle all the confusion and aural stimulation, it was completely overwhelming. My mind began to truly panic. I had to struggle against my fight-or-flight instinct. I screwed my eyes shut and clamped my hands over my ears all the more firmly, trying to gain a moment of clarity, no matter how brief it might be.
I remembered my Kung Fu meditation techniques and began taking slow, measured breaths as I tried to calm myself down enough to form a coherent thought. I'd be lying if I claimed I managed it immediately. It took what felt like hours to force myself to calm down. It was a sluggish, gradual process of slow, steady breathing. I withdrew my attention away from the world around me and focused on my own body as I closed off my senses from the chaos surrounding me.
I recited a movie mantra that I had, over the two years I practiced Kung Fu, modified. I had come to recognize it as a truth I could use when calming my mind. It would have sounded ridiculous to anyone else hearing it, but it was my mind and it worked, 'I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear distorts reality and makes wise men into bumbling fools. I will perceive the world as it is, untainted by bias or assumptions. I will act and react with poise, grace, and control for the benefit of those around me. Once I have mastered my fear I will remain... alive.'
I had no idea, even roughly, how long I stood there trying to force my mind to work past the constant bombardment of confusing, fear inducing stimulation, but at some point I reached a state of mental calm and began to think logically once more.
I opened my eyes and plotted out what I saw as the most useful course of action, 'Get to Spearman, then find the rest of the team and try to re-establish order. Telling panicky people to just calm down won't help. We need to distract them, even if it's with something stupid.'
I walked over toward Spearman. He was already crouched down in front of a woman. The woman had her hands covering her naked breasts while tears streamed down her face as she sat on the grass rocking back and forth. Spearman had her chin in his hands and had just made eye contact. I didn't know for sure what he was doing but his mouth was moving, even if his words were drowned out by the noise all around, I thought he was talking to her. Around the two of them eight other people were all sitting down with their hands in front of them. It honestly looked like they were counting the blades of grass in their line of sight.
I saw Spearman gesture to the grass between his feet and I put the pieces together easily, 'He's already found a distraction for them.'
The woman nodded tearfully and lowered her eyes then removed her right hand from her breasts, keeping her left arm covering them, and began pointing to each blade of grass as her mouth moved in sync with her hand motions.
Spearman looked around and our eyes locked. I could clearly see that he was calm. I stepped up to him and leaned in, next to his left ear.
"Have you seen the L. T. or anyome else from Security?" I had to shout to be heard.
Spearman shook his head then leaned over, putting his mouth next to my ear, "No. What makes you think they're here?"
"The people you've distracted are all from The Complex. You and I were at The Complex. Trust me, they're here." I had only just realized it myself but the logic was sound.
"If they're here, they're doing their best to calm folks down too. Let's keep going. We'll run into them eventually if they're here." he yelled into my ear.
I couldn't really argue with him, at least it was someplace to start.
As I pulled my head away from my friend's ear, I realized that the sounds of the crowd had changed. No sooner had I recognized and acknowledged that fact when Spearman tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward a large crowd of people off to my right who had formed a circle several dozen yards away. I recognized the formation of people instantly: a fight had broken out. I'd like to say I was surprised but in truth the only thing that surprised me was that it hadn't happened earlier. As it was I was merely slightly disappointed.
It was certainly a distraction, but definitely not the kind we needed and certainly not the kind we wanted either. On the plus side it seemed that the fight was distracting nearly everyone in the field as the crowd watching the fight was colossal. I figured that if we could get in there and break it up, people would simmer down.
I blew out an exasperated breath and pulled Spearman's head over to my mouth, "I'll clear the way. You break it up."
Spearman nodded and stepped behind me as I bent my knees and bounced a few times to loosen up, 'This is going to suck.' I thought to myself.
I had to line myself up quickly, fortunately the fight nearby had piqued the attention between the ring or naked people and us.
I began running, trying to build up as much momentum and speed as I could. My feet crushed soft grass and wild flowers as I dug in my toes for extra grip. I poured as much effort as I could into my legs as I leaned my right shoulder out. Spearman and I both knew from experience that people NEVER step away from a fight unless forced to do so. In this case, unfortunately I had to be that force. I reached full speed and connected my shoulder with a young African-American man's back. I plowed him out of the way as I hit the next person. One of the very few useful things about being as fat as I was is that I could build up some significant kinetic energy once I managed to get my massive ass into gear.
I heard pained yelling, cursing, and a scream or two as I barreled through people, trying to step on as few of them as I could manage. I knocked people to the right, to the left, and sometimes into the person in front of them. I finally made it through to the inside of the circle just as I tripped over some poor soul and fell, bodily, onto him. I looked up just in time to see Spearman vault over my prone form and enter the ring of humanity.
Looking up, beyond Spearman, I easily identified the two combatants. One was a young black man who loved soccer. He was 22 years old, stood 5' 11" and had short cut curly hair and brown eyes. I had spoken with a couple of times, he was a respectable man. His name was D'shawn Rollins. He had obtained a partial scholarship and had worked hard to pay for his continued education. His Major was structural engineering and by all accounts, he was doing very well with a 3.6 G.P.A. I was personally disappointed that he was one of the two people fighting, 'I suppose this kind of stress brings out the worst in people.'
The other young man was one of the rich caucasian kids who lived in The Complex, specifically one of the more troublesome ones. His name was Kyle Sterling. He was 21 years old, stood 6' 3" and had had jet black hair and green eyes. Kyle had a bad habit of thinking that the parking space closest to his room was automatically his and woe to anyone who thought otherwise. His parents had paid the people in the Leasing Office at The Complex to move the folks who had an apartment close to the parking garage so their son could have the whole three bedroom apartment to himself.
Kyle had been a proverbial thorn in the side of the Security team since he had moved in. He felt entitled to say and do whatever he pleased to whomever he pleased, consequences be damned. I had overheard from a conversation between Kyle and his girlfriend of the week that he was majoring in business finance. I didn't know what his grades were since he deemed himself too good to associate with 'the working class' but the frequency with which he partied and drank indicated to me that he probably wasn't at the top of his classes.
At the moment, D'shawn had Kyle on his back as he strangled the idiot. Spearman reached the two young men and struck D'shawn's arms, near his biceps, with his fingers. D'shawn's arms went limp and Spearman hauled him off Kyle.
I scrambled off the person I had fallen onto and entered the ring. I took up a prepared stance between Dshawn and Kyle. The crowd was more quiet since the fight was over, but some people were still cheering.
I could hear Spearman yelling at the young man he was restraining, "Hey cool it man! You almost killed this guy! What's your beef with him?"
D'shawn struggled a bit before he yelled back, "This motha' fucka' was tryin' to get past me and pushed me ova' onto one o' my boys, then turns around and calls us faggot niggers! I ain't gonna let nobody talk to me like that!"
I wasn't surprised, Dshawn's story was perfectly believable since Kyle was involved. My eyes turned to Kyle. He was coughing and gasping as he shakily rose to his feet.
Kyle's eyes burned with embarrassed anger, "One piece of nigger trash to hold another one." I heard Kyle say, "What the hell took you fuckin' rent-a-cops so long?"
The crowd went silent almost immediately. More than half the surrounding crowd was African-American and with the way Kyle was talking, they'd be willing to murder him because of his mouth in very short order. I walked over to Kyle and without any preamble whatsoever, I slammed the heel of my right hand into his nose, followed by my left fist plunging into his gut as I knocked the wind out of him. He fell back as blood from his nose flew over his head. He landed on the ground with his hands covering his face as blood seeped out between his fingers. I dropped to my right knee which happened to be directly on Kyle's ribs. He grunted and cried out as I leaned over him and spoke directly into his ear.
"Listen to me shit brain!" I hissed, "Do you see any cops around? No, you don't because there aren't any. You keep using racial slurs and I can't hold every one back from killing you. So... SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP."
Kyle groaned but nodded his head so I took my knee off his ribs, "Good. Now get up."
I stood back up and looked around. People were quiet but murmuring angrily, especially the African-American folks in the crowd. Thankfully before anyone could work themselves up, their attention was drawn elsewhere as a loud, sharp, shrill whistle pierced the air.
The crowd quieted down and behind Spearman people parted, revealing Richardson and Calvin. They made their way through the press of people and into the circle. The two of them stopped and took in what had happened.
Richardson looked terrible. Her face, arms, and torso sported ugly bruises and cuts. She had dried blood caking her hair and crusted in at least eight different places.
Richardson shook her head and began clapping slowly, "Brilliant." she said sarcastically, "Let's hear it for humanity. We haven't been awake for an hour and we're already at each other's throats. How about we take off our 'stupid suits' and 'ignorant hats' before we all end up dead. Let's just sit down and think about this logically, hmm?"
No one moved to comply, "Have a seat." Richardson repeated loudly.
A few took the hint but most remained standing. Seeing the lack of capitulation, Richardson gestured to Calvin. Calvin grinned, took a deep breath, and I covered my ears knowing what was to come.
"SIT DOWN!" he bellowed.
I could suddenly see the tops of everyone's head. I stepped toward Richardson and Calvin. D'shawn had calmed down so Spearman let him go.
Richardson began addressing the gathered people, "First things first, everyone here is naked. You can't stop anyone from looking, besides every one of you should know what male and female 'bits' look like. There won't be any touching though. If you touch without permission, Calvin has no problem breaking an arm. Secondly, we're all in this together. I don't know if anyone has connected the dots yet but everyone here was also at The Complex. Everyone here was neighbors so we're gonna work together and help each other out. Third," she gestured with her arms, "Look around you!" her voice began to rise, "Where do you plan to sleep, huh? I don't see a McDonald's around here, what do you plan to eat?"
No body had a snappy comeback for her questions. Reality began to sink in as people craned their necks and began looking around.
The rest of the Security team walked up in single file, weaving between the people. They were too far away for me to make out very many details but I easily recognized their profiles.
"Calvin, motion everyone else over. There's a lot of people here." Richardson said.
They looked like hell. Every one of them except Joyner, Ludwig, and Brinsin were sporting cuts, bruises, and scabs, many crusted over with bits of blood. Allow me a moment to describe the rest of the team.
Cessely Richardson was a twenty-five year old mother of two who worked for two different Security companies. She was a rock of good sense with a no-nonsense attitude but an absolute heart of gold. She was an attractive dynamo of a black woman who carried enough force of will to routinely cowl much larger men into submission. Since she only stood 5' 3" that included most men. Her hair was shoulder length and straight, her eyes were deep brown, and her face was petite and pretty. Many men had assumed, erroneously, that because she had a pretty face she had no spine. They tended to figure it out once she planted a foot upside their heads for sexual assault.
Next would be Bobby Jewel. Jewel was the oldest of us at forty-two. He only stood 5' 8" but he carried himself like he was 10' tall. His build was this but covered in lean muscle that made his arteries and veins very pronounced. He had light brown hair and brown eyes, he kept his hair short and cropped in a military style. It was appropriate considering he was a former NAVY Hospital Corpsman. He had a healthy balance of professional conduct and goofiness. He endlessly flirted with the college women but in a respectful manner. Despite his somewhat carefree outward attitude, anyone who knew him, recognized his serious attitude in regard to his job. Personally, I envied him. He tanned very well for a white guy, whereas I just burn.
Masonete was one of those rather quiet, unassuming people that most folks tended to ignore. What most people failed to realize was that he literally saw and heard everything around him. Standing even with me at 5' 11" he could be intimidating when he needed to be, thankfully those instances were few and far between. His hair and eyes were jet black, his hair length very short. He was thirty-seven years old, had an average build, unlike my chunky butt, however he and I were close work place friends. I had once teased him saying that he could be invisible without even trying. He had playfully punched me in the arm when I added, 'as long as you don't smile'.
Mike Spearman was our youngest Officer at twenty-three. He exuded, nay oozed, mediocrity. He was of an average height at 5' 9", average build, average looks, drove an average car, and was of average intelligence. In truth he was anything but average. He was friendly and personable as well as serious and professional. He was the type that if you didn't know him really well, you would think we was a lax officer who was, 'your buddy'. He was the third newest of our team but he had already proven his worth. On his fifth night working at The Complex, there was a two-on-two fight in a hallway. Spearman, to everyone's amazement, jumped right in the middle of the brawl and as he put it, 'knocked some heads' which turned out to be four unconscious residents and one slightly winded young black man in uniform.
Raymond Ludwig was thirty-nine years old, white like me, and worked at a seafood restaurant full time as well as The Complex full time. Ludwig was 6' even and thin like a bean pole with dark blond hair cut nearly to his scalp and deep blue eyes that pierced the soul. Ludwig was always smiling and quick to laugh, he had to be. He was a single father who had endured a hard life and worked even harder to ensure his son didn't have to go through the same thing he had. He was always calm, a good trait since he carried a gun. He was, by far, the most organized of any of us. Simply put, he knew his job and he did his job, end of story.
Chris Vacca was my brother-in-law. Well, honestly he was my wife's sister's husband's brother, but it's close enough. He stood 5' 10" with a stout and sturdy build. He was twenty-eight years old and sported a goatee and full mustache. His almost black eyes peered out through his bushy eyebrows, giving him a naturally intimidating presence. He was freakishly smart however, a literal genius with electronics and mathematics. Despite his somewhat fearsome appearance all the residents of The Complex liked him immensely. He was warm, friendly, personable and had a quick wit combined with a disarming sense of humor. He was also doggedly persistent, often stubborn, and willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure the safety of others, even at his own expense.
Darryl Hord was a Marine through and through. He had been an aircraft firefighter in the Corps and sported a firefighter's build. He was twenty-six years old. He stood 5' 10" with deep green eyes and strawberry blond hair, trimmed to Marine Corps standard, 'high and tight'. He was generally a very pleasant person to be around however, when things got serious, so did he. I'd seen his demeanor go from, 'casually chatty' to, 'get the fuck out of the way so I can do my goddamn job' in half a second. He was an intense person once a task was set before him and he pursued it with a type of single-minded, unrelenting persistence and tenacity a pit-bull would envy. The reason for his intensity was that he actually, really, truly cared about people.
Once everyone had gathered around and sat down Joyner took over,
"Alright, just like Richardson said, we don't know where we are, we don't have shelter, we don't have food or water, and we don't have clothes or tools. First question, does anyone here have survival skills or better yet survival training? If you do, raise your hand."
I counted forty-three hands raised, Hord's and my own included. Joyner motioned for everyone to come forward into the circle. The people who raised their hands were all men. Joyner went from person to person inquiring about how much each individual knew. The process took quite a while. Fortunately Joyner already knew Hord's and my capabilities.
Within a few minutes, one young man stood out from all the rest of us. His name was Jason Campbell. He was an extreme camping enthusiast who was majoring in ecology with two minors, one in chemistry and one in zoology. Jason was a young caucasian man I already knew well. He was 19 years old and stood 5' 10" with shoulder length light brown hair, brown eyes and had an athletic build and angled face. He was friendly enough but rather shy.
Joyner singled him out and motioned for the rest of us to sit down, "You're the closest thing we have to an expert here so help us out. What would you suggest we do?"
Jason looked embarrassed but cleared his throat and spoke loudly, "We should use Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs. The main things we need to secure are water, food, shelter, and safety. We should divide up into eight groups and head in the directions of North, North-East, East, South-East, South, South-West, West, and North-West. We can use the sun as a compass. I don't know exactly what time it is here but there is no dew on the grass which means the sun has already evaporated it. The sun is not directly overhead so I'd say it's somewhere around two or three in the afternoon. Using the sun as a guide, West is that way." he pointed with his hand, "The things to look for are streams or rivers, preferably streams, any fruits, vegetables, nuts, tubers, or game animals like squirrels, rabbits, and so forth. Also keep a sharp eye out for natural caves or anywhere we could take shelter; be sure to collect leaves from different plants you find. Collect rocks that are fist-sized or smaller as well as small logs. Use long sticks to feel out any place that might not be safe to step. Above all else, be careful. There might well be predators in these woods and don't eat or drink anything until you've brought it to me and I make sure it's not poisonous. One last thing, watch your step. We don't have shoes and even a small cut can become infected quickly and for god's sake don't go to the bathroom in a river or stream. Dig a hole, do your business, wipe with leaves, and cover it up. Does anyone have any questions, if so please raise your hands."
Several hands went up, Joyner pointed to a young woman, "Yeah, what are we supposed to do if we're attacked by a bear or some shit?"
"Good question. If you see any predator yell it out, huddle together, use rocks and branches to make a lot of noise. Hopefully you can scare it off. Should you actually be attacked, go limp and play dead. Everyone else, close in. Yell, scream, wave your arms and try to get the injured person away. I'll admit it's not a perfect plan but it's all we can do for now." Jason explained.
The young woman's mouth hung open for a moment before she exploded into ranting, "No fuckin' way! Uh-uh, ain't happenin'! I ain't gonna get ate by no fuckin' bear! Fuck that shit! I'ma wait right here where it's safe!"
"Then you'll be alone and easy prey, plus you won't get any of what we may find. Simple rules, you don't do your part, you don't eat. You want to starve to death, it's your decision but everyone needs to do their part." Joyner said calmly but firmly, "We're going to be operating by the Code of Hammurabi. I'm not going to babysit lazy people, you can do what you want but the rest of us who want to eat are going to help."
The young woman was eerily quiet. The other hands that were formerly raised, were suddenly nowhere to be seen.
"Why should we follow you? Who put you in charge?" I couldn't identify the speaker, there were too many people, but I knew what was coming.
Joyner, though, was utterly unperturbed, "That's actually a good question. It means that you're thinking and in a situation like this, thinking minds are exactly what we need. Let me answer your question with a counter question. Do you have a better idea than what we've proposed?" he asked, spreading his arms, "If so then I welcome the additional input."
A second voice broke the silence, "How about we jus' stay put? Someone's bound to find us."
"How long do you think it'll take someone to locate us? We won't even register as a blip on most satellites. I mean you can stay here and hope for the best, but you're more likely to die from dehydration. Depending on where we are, even if someone deployed a rescue team now, it might take them several days to get here, wherever here is. Do you really want to risk dehydration and death on a hope when we could be doing things ourselves?"
A new voice spoke up, "Erebody don't gotta go walkin' around an' maybe gettin' hurt an' 'erething. How 'bout YOU go an' we'll stay 'ere."
"You heard 'im the first time. Be lazy and you don't get nothin'." Calvin bellowed, "What is it 'bout that sentence that ain't gettin' through yo heads? We all gotta provide a service for da group to survive. What are yall goin' do? Huh? Subsist on belly achin' and whinnin'? Get yo' shit togetha' an' man up'. Whatchu plan to do?"
"Nothin'. You can't make us do nothin'." a different voice said.
"Then you get nothing! Your call!" Masonete yelled with an exasperated expression.
I was surprised. Normally Masonete was quiet as a mouse, especially among large groups. Everyone on the Security team knew if he actually said something that wasn't answering a question, by god he felt very strongly about it.
No one said a single thing as rebuttal. None of us expected to hear one, but we all knew exactly what the silence meant. The dissenters seemed to thankfully be few, but there were undoubtedly many silent ones as well. We all shared a quick, concerned look. The look was brief, but we understood the undertones and subtleties of it: we're going to have big trouble very soon.
We all knew human nature well enough to understand the unspoken message from the dissenters: you can't make us do anything, anything you have, we can take.
Not only were we going to be fighting for our survival but we had a new enemy, greed and laziness, the oldest enemies of any society.
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Yeah... in a situation like this, today's society shines through. If tomorrow nothing would be in the shelves of the supermarket, people would go apeshit and start to loot places rather than to grow food.
The wise and prepared mind would have plenty of supplies and could live with that in case of a crisis like a natural catastrophy, but the average Joe on the street keeps the supermarket for granted.
And in this case there aren't even supplies. they literally start from scratch; with nothing but their bare hands. I wonder how long it will take until the worlds oldest business surfaces.
So the question is how will the theives be dealt with, if we are going by that code I believe, IIRC, many missing hands will happen.
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I fucking love realism.
Hammurabi's code? That is a very very old code.
What in the name of the Emperor happened? A flash of light and now everyone's in some sort of field!
The biggest problem I would have with being in this situation would be the fact that they're all naked
Seems a bit cynical, but I'll read on for now.
5746582 all of the minecraft players are having a field day
Already tension building among the ranks! Pretty accurate to how younger people would look at authority when not being forced to follow. The whole naked bit is interesting. Do clothes not cross dimensions? Though, I do have an issue with this chapter: information overload. When addressing those that weren't introduced in the last chapter, their entire summaries of who they are as people were listed off one after another, with no break to get back into the story. It was quite jarring, to be honest, though I suppose with that many characters, the info has to get out there, somehow.
Still keeping my interest. Will read on.
Oh, hey, look at that. One chapter later, and all that architecture is gone, anyway. Instead we get another info-dump. Yay! Characters this time, so this is at least slightly relevant. I'm still not going to remember any of it, but whatever.
So, no one's actually going to bother asking whether anyone saw what happened? I mean, they just skip straight to exploring the wilderness, without taking the time to verify that they do not, in fact, know where they are?
Huh.
Seen a few other comments along this line, but you gave another information overload, characters this time. Not saying it's a bad thing to have details, you just seem to have a habit of putting a bit too much. If you want people to read stories in their entirety, please go over your work and ask yourself, "If I was reading this book, would I want to sit here and read through half a dozen character descriptions before we actually got to any form of plot?"
See what I mean? Anyway, great work other than that, and given this is most likely going to be a reoccurring theme, I'll leave off commenting on the info dumps in the future. Anything else is fair game though.
Alright, now that we have that out of the way, I'll see you next chapter,
Shadow Quill, Messenger of the Moon.
This chapter flows like horseshit up a hill.
It doesn't.
Also- your survival plan is awful. Number one, one team should be in camp trying to start a fire, number two, you stay fairly still at first to avoid losing people, number three, saying "bring back any leaves you find" is a great way to have a serious poison oak/poison ivy issue, number four, not a single second is spared to injuries or illnesses, which, considering we know there were injuries at the end of the previous chapter... Oh, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs has FUCK ALL to do with survival. In reality, priority one is water, then shelter(which IS safety), then food, in that order. That means you need fire and a water source, firewood to keep the fire going, and some form of container.
Oh, and finally- that bear advice is a great way to get mauled. Puff out your shoulders, hold your arms wide, slowly retreat while making yourself look big, and for GOD'S sake don't look them in the eyes. Plus, bears are unlikely to attack- they're scavengers. Wolves, on the other hand...
8946878 Nice to know who to go to if we ever find ourselves standed somewhere. These people are not perfect, nor did they plan any of this. They did what they thought best, so fucking what if it's not what you would have done. Did you miss the rage warning near the story description, jackass? I guess your little snowflake mind just couldn't handle somebody doing something different and it 'triggered' you. Grow up, you pussy. You're pretty harsh for a guy who can't even write 10,000 words or make a coherent story. Try giving advise instead of whipping your tiny little grain-of-rice dick around.
8948464
8946878
Hmmmmmm.....
5746582
Yeah, this is why I live on a farm.
6802638
Well, going by the intentions of the author, not even the guy we are reading through the eyes of knows. That's the whole point.
6332424
And realism indeed it is. None of them have any clue what they are doing, so they are doing what the human race has always known. Survive. It honestly makes sense.
8948464
Wow he is going to need a freezer in the shape of a cast for that tirade of burns
You know what? Screw what everyone else is saying. I love this story so far, and by jove it's far better than most of the stuff I've seen on this site. Is it perfect? No, but I think it's pretty darn good.
Statement: I vote we burn the heretical scum that think themselves entitled to that which they haven't earned.
*Sigh* oh c'mon universe we don't need a human blueblood
That is like the blackest text I've ever read. Like 200% N***a
Heh... This is a serious disaster! How many people did you say were there? And all naked. Of course, there are movies or TV shows that show a similar plot, when a group of people must face sudden problems and show their survival skills. However, I have never seen this particular detail that people would be naked. I can only imagine what the ponies must experience when they meet these people.
Well, that's a good start to this story.
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I agree, Maslow's hierarchy , about how people decide and not about optimality.
Actually laziness is the new trait. When a human was not busy surviving, he was bored and always tried to do something. Greed, or rather envy, has really been with a person from the very beginning. Even monkeys can be jealous.