Life was something that happened around me.

That’s what Brie said the morning we broke up. And she wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t that nothing had happened to me, plenty had in fact, and a week before the breakup, my life had been running rather smoothly, deteriorating relationship aside. But I realized later that was sort of her point. It had all happened to me. At me. Sometimes I felt like I had graduated high school, blinked, and ten years had gone by. I had a good job, a home, a fiancé, and in the future lay a dog, marriage, probably a kid or two. Nothing to complain about, and definitely better than a lot of people ever get.

But all of those things were happenstance, or decisions other people made for me. None of them were my own. Like a Sims character, I was living my life, unaware that some entity beyond my world was deciding what I do, and dropping me in the pool before removing the ladder so I drown because I’m incapable of climbing out any other way. That last part in a strange way felt like a fitting metaphor for my current situation.

Brie had a point, and I knew that. So it felt good that the decision to break up was mine. She hadn’t said much after I blurted it out, the shocked expression and mouth agape conveyed more than she could in that moment. It was a long time coming, we both knew it, we just needed a couple of raccoons to speed things along.

A weight had been lifted off my shoulders that day. It was replaced by a new weight, but it was a different kind of weight. The weight of breaking up and deciding what to do with the house, and telling our families the wedding was off. But it was a weight I chose. That’s the difference. That’s when I could say I finally made a real decision for myself. When I finally did something about… well, anything.

The next decision I made was to buy that plane ticket to Cuba.

You win some, you lose some, I guess.

I shook my head and set the javelin aside. That’s right, a javelin.

A stick, actually. Carved to look like a javelin, with one end sharpened to a point, any protruding descendant branches carved off and the body smoothed as best I could. In the end, it looked like something made by someone who vaguely remembers what shop class was like.

My first javelin was a lot like everyone’s first paper airplane. You can throw it forward, but that bitch is gonna swing back around and poke your eye out. I practiced for a few minutes, throwing it at a nearby tree and watching as the wood wobbled and turned, the side of it bouncing ineffectually off the trunk.

So maybe more of a spear. A close quarters thing, where no throwing is involved. Yeah. Sure.

I set the spear aside and got to work on another javelin, focusing this time on better aerodynamics.

Because I had myself a plan.

Big Bird needed to go down, and the only thing that would reasonably work without getting myself killed would be projectiles—a sentence I never thought I would utter.

Grrnnblrgh, my stomach complained.

I acknowledged it with a grunt. Yeah, Big Bird might make a hearty meal, too. He no doubt tasted like chicken. The thought instantly made me think of my little niece stumbling on me by the fire, Big Bird’s legs over there, his head over here, and her terrified shriek as she saw me stuffing his foot in my mouth, my cheeks covered in blood and plastered with little yellow feathers.

I was no hunter, though. No farmer, either. I could pick things off the ground, but I set the odds at an even fifty-fifty that the first thing I scooped into my mouth would be fatally poisonous.

The first real javelin was done, the weight of it feeling much more stable. I threw it at the tree and it flew straight this time. One down. I had five other branches I had gathered that had a straight enough shape, and was about to start work on the next one when I remembered the mushrooms in my pocket.

I brought them out to examine. They were safe, at least. Now that I had a second where I wasn’t running for my life I unfurled the poem again, and read it over with renewed clarity.

Two lines stood out:

You will tell him what you eat

And he will tell you what you are

I smirked at the mushroom caps. A mother’s warning. You are what you eat. It didn’t click until now that the noxious gas ability had come immediately after eating the first mushroom.

Food gives power. Thematic, sure, but figuring it out didn’t actually get me very far. What happens if you eat two mushrooms at once? What other kinds of food give you abilities? What are they?

My mind churned with the possibilities.

I had some experimenting to do.

SNAP!

I wheeled around, nearly toppling over. I watched the darkness with the wide-eyed intensity of someone who just lost sight of a centipede in their room.

Grrnnblrgh, my stomach cried a little louder this time.

“Shut up,” I whispered, and grabbed a burning stick from the fire.

Shadows peeled away as I shuffled away from the campfire, brandishing my torch with a shaky grip. The knife occupied my other hand. One foot at a time I explored the darkness, sweeping the fire from left to right, sending shadows scurrying away.

SNAP!

A shape fell from a tree and landed with a thud and a brief turquoise glow near my foot. I grazed the flickering light over the ground and saw a grouping of three oval shaped balls, blunted spikes covering their surface. Gazing up to where they had fallen I spotted two more of them, tightly hugging the tree just beneath its leaves.

“Fruit?” I wondered.

They were like coconuts, I quickly learned. I tried prying one open with my fingers, which did nothing. Smashing it against a rock was useless, as was trying to cut into it with the knife. Even setting it on the ground and smashing my heel down hurt me more than it cracked the fruit. If the inside was anything like a coconut, there would be water. Water I needed.

But nothing I tried could put a dent in it. I had rolled all three fruits over to the fire and turned them around in my hands, looking for weak points, cracks, anywhere I could get a decent hold of. Thin grooves across the surface lit up turquoise whenever I hit it with any kind of force, but those grooves didn’t seem any easier to break into. They were obstinate little things, and their spikes were surprisingly sharp, my thumb learned.

Something thundered in from the dark. I stood, cradling one of the fruits under my arm. These might make better projectiles than my flimsy javelins. The thumping grew louder until it quieted again, slowing just outside the veil of light.

There was a growl, and then the creature walked into view. It emerged, sniffing the ground, before looking up at me with two small glittering black eyes. I had shifted to the other side of the fire, keeping it as a buffer between us.

Thankfully, it didn’t appear to be a Frankenstein recreation of a children’s show character.

Its body was massive, low to the ground, built muscular like a bear, and covered in as much black fur. Enormous paws announced its presence with each booming step. Puffy ears flopped to the side of its head, like a beagle. I had to admit, it was actually kind of cute. If not for the shape of its head.

The skull flattened and protruded out over the brow between its eyes, angling down like a bony scythe and looking just as sharp. A similar bladed feature extended upwards, curving back toward the head and giving the whole thing a decidedly terrifying appearance of a battle-axe.

Creature Discovered

- Axehead Bear -

Challenge: 3

I know, getting creative with our names, aren’t we? Large and terrifying in shape, this largely docile creature has little issue scaring away potential predators. Though very shy, they can be provoked, and little needs to be said about their goring capabilities. Let it know if you’re due for a colonoscopy.

The prompt did little to get me to lower my knife and spiked-fruit bomb. As the creature ambled forward, sniffing here and there, I circled the fire to keep it directly on the other side. The creature sniffed, pawed one of the fruits laying on the ground, and then brought its axehead up and back down. The fruit split in two as it it were made of cheese. A smoky cloud hissed out of the fruit carcass, billowing around the bear’s nose. It sniffed the air, grumbling happily. The bear moved to the second fruit, cracked it open with another quick swipe, and inhaled the contents.

I held up the last fruit to the bear, still using the fire as cover. “You wanna crack this one open for me, buddy?” I asked, presenting it as an offering. A sign of peace. Friendship, if I was lucky.

The bear huffed and stamped its feet. It snorted excitedly when I rolled the fruit to it. Whack. With frightening precision, the third fruit cleaved in two. I was acutely aware of how human head-sized they were.

As I moved closer to it, the bear stepped over its snack and growled.

“Okay, okay,” I said, shifting back with raised hands. “No sharing. Got it.” Well, there goes that proposal.

The bear growled stubbornly, then finished its toke. Is it getting high? Looking around for another fruit and seeing none, it turned away from the fire, crouched low, and barrelled forward.

The flat of its head slammed into the base of a tree, shaking the earth and nearly tearing the trunk out of the ground. Two more fruits tumbled to the forest floor, which the bear quickly finished off. After it was done it gave me one last disinterested look, then lumbered away, deep into the woods.

Grrnnblrgh? It sounded almost like a question this time.

I put a hand over my belly. “Yeah, your turn,” I told it.

Axehead bears. Big Bird. I squatted next to the fire again and finished off another javelin. There was no telling what sorts of other predators were waiting deeper within the island, but if what I’d seen so far was any indication, I was woefully underprepared. Javelins weren’t enough. I needed something bigger, something stronger, something to end Big Bird’s tyrannical rule of the sky.

I was about to set off into the night to find food when I felt the first drop of rain.

At first I thought it was my imagination. The second drop hit my arm, and when I looked up to the sky, the third landed in my eye.

I turned to the fire.

Oh shit.