Life in the wilderness had a strange way of forcing people to do things that they normally would not do. Scott Hunter had finally reached the point where he could no longer ignore the needs of his body.

His stomach growled fiercely. The beast dwelling within demanded tribute. It had been quite some time since he had eaten and his body had started to rebel against his tyrannical rule. Scott staggered forward and began to look for something, anything, that he could eat.

A fallen log nearby promised all the insects that he could desire, but he wasn’t that hungry, yet. He could not trust the handful of berries that he had located, either. In short, he had no idea what he could eat here.

“Dammit...” This was too much. He had not eaten in days and the only thing he could find were suspicious berries and hideous insects. The water situation was much more of an issue, however. Scott did not know how long he had been unconscious, either time, but it had to be at least a day or two.

He ultimately had no choice. He would have to move on and hope for the best. Scott reached over and picked up a hefty looking tree limb. It would make a reasonable walking stick. He could not trust his legs to carry his weight fully at the moment.

The perpetually tired man struggled to move across the landscape of the alien forest. Movement was slow and painful. In some ways it felt like the first time he had come to this world. His stats had been very low and even walking had been difficult.

Luckily the forest seemed to be old growth wilderness. The brush was sparsely scattered and he could see where he was going with ease. If only he’d had an idea about where he should go!

Several hours passed during his journey. His hunger and thirst grew to fiercely demanding levels. Scott winced slightly after he turned over a rotting log. The squirming things underneath threatened to make him gag. He could feel the liquid contents of his stomach wanting to rise at the thought of what he was about to do.

“I hope none of you ugly little fuckers are poisonous.” That would just be the perfect end to an imperfect life as far as he was concerned.

Trembling fingers slid down into the space where the log had rested. Scott scooped up a fat grub-like insect that was roughly the size of his thumb. He pinched the head and it popped with a sickening sound. It was like some great wriggling zit had exploded between his fingers.

He shuddered briefly then wiped the destroyed insect’s body against his pants. The asinine desire to at least attempt to clean it off a little before sticking it in his mouth was nothing more than a delaying tactic. The idea of actually swallowing the hideous thing was almost too much to bear.

His hands shook as he raised the thing to his lips. Scott popped the disgusting thing into his mouth and tried to avoid tasting it by raising his tongue. It did not help. His entire mouth had become suffused with the taste of alien grub worm. The feeling of chewed grub in his mouth sickened him to no end. Some people found insects to be a delicacy. Scott found them to be disturbingly chewy.

He’d had to eat similar things in the army during SERE training. Surviving, evading, resisting, and escaping were all good training ideas... until you had to eat bugs from under a log.

Scott finished swallowing the tiny meal then made a sour face. Ah, sweet protein. The other wriggling and crawling insects that had lived alongside the recently deceased Mr. Grub tried to escape, but their fate had been sealed. He picked them up by the handful and popped off their heads. “What can I say? Life’s tough.”

After he finished his meal, and managed to keep it at least some of it down, he felt strangely better. The juicy nature of their plump little bodies seemed to have sated his thirst slightly as well.

After his meal, Scott continued his ceaseless march through the underbrush of the alien forest. He would get nowhere by standing still.

********

A loud sneeze erupted from abused nostrils. It was a harsh and pathetic sound that echoed through the air storm laden air. Scott huddled miserably within the boughs of an aging oak tree.

It was not the best place to be during a thunderstorm, but trees were everywhere in the forest. Where could he go to avoid one? Besides, he figured that if this was the one tree in the forest that was struck by lightning it would justify his belief that nature really did hate him.

Soaked to the bone, Scott could not help but find his situation sad and humorous at the same time. Just an hour before he had wished that he could find water. Well, he’d gotten his wish and now he was figuratively drowning in it.

He lifted a makeshift leaf bowl to his lips and drank deeply from the water collected there. It was something that he had rigged up a few hours prior. Earlier he had found a bush with large leaves that were naturally cupped like a bowl. He’d stuffed several of them together and used the result to carry dead bugs, but when it had started to rain he’d found a new reason to use it.

Scott sneezed again then sighed. This world hated him. That was the only answer.

The storm ended by morning and Scott had set out to find a better place to dry out. Eventually he had made his way to the edge of a high hill.

His clothes had been hung out to dry on the limb of a nearby tree. The world weary adventurer now sat on a flat rock, as naked as the day he was born, looking out over the valley below. It was another tree strewn wilderness but the slight clearing at the bottom of the hill provided a nice change of scenery. From this vantage point he could see for miles around.

He was so enraptured by the view that the change in the surrounding sounds went unnoticed. Insects stopped buzzing. The few birds he’d seen had stopped chirping. Even the ever present omnidirectional background music had changed from a soft melody to a more sinister tone.

The croaking of a particularly large frog did not garner his attention at first. When it did register his eyes lit up. “Frog!”

He was not exactly interested in eating frogs normally. Still, they would definitely be a step up from grub worms and the damnable berries that gave him temporary, but explosive, diarrhea. He had been right to be suspicious of them.

Scott turned to get his whacking stick and came face to face with something truly strange! It was not a frog. It was a girl, sort of. She had the general body proportions of a well-endowed human woman. However, her eyes were roughly human sized but faceted like an insect. The strangeness did not just end with her eyes; she also had dragonfly wings and a scorpion tail protruding from her backside.

He did not even have time to scream before the strangely beautiful girl raced forward and grasped him by the neck. She slammed him heavily against the same tree that his clothes were hanging on. Insult was added to injury when the swift movement through the air caused his clothes to come loose from their precarious perch. They silently fell to the muddy ground below.

“Human iz pretty.” The insect girl held Scott against the tree by his neck. Her grip cut off his air supply just enough to choke him, but not enough to force him to lose consciousness. She leaned in and parted her surprisingly human lips.

Scott felt her warm wet tongue slide along his cheek, then up to his ear. “Make zzpawn with Dekoni huzzband.”

His eyes went wide as the truth of the situation finally became clear. The insect girl’s freehand moved down and firmly gripped his readily available man-hammer. Her body began to buzz and hum. It was like a weird cross between a bee and a fly. “Pretty human, Dekoni zzo hot.”

She pressed her heavy breasts against him and began to rub her body up and down against his chest. “Zzay you love Dekoni...”

Dekoni kissed him on the ear then gently began to stroke his shaft in a slow rhythmic motion. Her loving, but insistent, hand motion sent electric tingles along Scott’s spine. “Zzay it.”

Scott gurgled out something that she could not understand. Dekoni grew angry with her captive because he would not say the three little words that she longed to hear. Of course, Scott couldn’t have spoken even if he wanted to at the moment.

“Zzay you love Dekoni!” She screamed. The croaking sound in the background stopped for a brief second then returned with a vengeance.

He gurgled something once more and in a fit of anger she hurled him away from the tree. The force of the throw was enough to send him skidding toward the edge of the hill. Dekoni placed one hand on her curvaceous hips then pointed a demanding finger at him with the other. She whipped her tail back and forth twice and said, “Zzay you love your zzweet Dekoni!”

Scott’s throat was red and raw from her actions. She had left a ring of bruises on his tender flesh. He did not think that he would be able to speak at all, but something happened that changed his mind. A sudden arrival caused him to cry out, “Frog!”

“Frog? Why izz it that you zzay frog, huzzband?” The shockingly pink tongue that shot out and wrapped around her waist answered her question.

“Ahh, zztupid Mud Frog! Don’t interrupt Dekoni and Dekoni’zz huzzband!” The insect girl leapt toward the yawning maw of the massive creature. He arm shot out and powerful winds began to swirl and flow around her body. Just before she would have been swallowed whole, she unleashed a powerful gale force wind attack directly into its mouth. The frog’s body bulged outward comically then exploded. Chunks of gore and frog ichor showered the area coating everything in the remnants of battle.

“What is wrong with monzzterzz today? Don’t they know Dekoni izz trying to make zzpawn with Dekoni’zz huzzband?” She stood there for a brief moment basking in her righteous indignation then turned to check on her potential mate. Her precious little buggy heart sank when she saw that he was gone.

“Huzzband! Where did you go?” Dekoni ran to the edge of the hill and saw that her would-be baby daddy was at the bottom. Even now he was trying to stagger away from her with all the speed that he could muster.

She called out, “Huzzband come back! Make zzpawn with your zzweet Dekoni!”

Another tongue lashed out and wrapped around her waist. More frogs had arrived and she was forced to face them. “Zztupid Mud Frogzz! Dekoni needzz to get laid! Zzummer vacation endzz zzoon!”

“Keep running huzzband! Your Dekoni will find you after beating up thezze zztupid frogzz!” The girl shed a single set of tears at the loss of her chance to spend time with her beloved husband, but set about the task of teaching the cock-blocking frogs a lesson. Hell hath no fury like a horny insect woman denied the sweet touch of new husband penis.

Scott sneezed twice, hard, but staggered on. He was now naked. He was sick. Now he was battered again due to the rough slide down the rock-strewn hill. Still, for the moment he was safe. The insect chick hadn’t been eaten by that frog but she was still not following. It was probably the best way to end things. Dekoni had been strangely beautiful with her jewel-like eyes and amazing body, but she was obviously bat-shit crazy. For the first time in his life, he was happy that he’d avoided having sex with a hot girl. While it would have been nice to talk to someone and get some answers, something told him that answering his questions was not something that she would be willing to add to her current agenda.

*********

A wooden shaft whipped through the air with incredible speed embedding itself into a nearby tree. Scott rolled to the side once more as another projectile split the air. He was being herded, that much was obvious. Each of the wooden projectiles had barely missed him. Given his current body condition and lack of martial prowess there was no way that he was narrowly avoiding the death missiles using only his own power.

A phantom blur mocked him at the edge of his peripheral vision. His attacker stayed outside his field of view, but allowed him to catch a fleeting glimpse of her form. Whatever she was, she was fast.

Arrows pierced the forest air and chased him through the wooden lanes. Whenever he tried to veer away from her designated travel plan, an arrow would scream out and just barely avoid piercing his flesh as a warning.

Soon the sound of flapping wings and the piercing cry of a hunting hawk split the air. It was joined by more of its kind. Scott was forced out of the woods and into an open clearing.

He staggered to a stop and stared up at the sky. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of birds of prey circled overhead. Interspersed among the birds were a number of humanoid forms.

A multitude of screams bore down on him from the legion of predatory avian monsters. He fell to his knees and clutched his ears reflexively as the dire cacophony overwhelmed his senses.

He shrieked in agony as a wooden shaft violated his left shoulder blade. He looked down and saw the extent of his injury. A shaft of wood roughly the thickness of a pencil had punctured the meat of his shoulder completely. It not stuck through the left side of his chest and poked out several inches from the front of his body.

His breathing became labored and tears began to blur his vision. The hateful screams of the predatory birds combined with the overpowering agony of the arrow protruding from his chest were too much for him to withstand. He could feel his life starting to slip away.

It was then that something truly bizarre happened. The light of day died away and he was left in near-perfect darkness. Only a singly light was left to shine down from above. It provided light that allowed him to view a small circular space surrounding him, but provided no further illumination. The world and all its terrors grew silent. Only the sound of his beating heart could be heard as it echoed in the stillness. Ba-bump... Ba-bump...

Scott’s ragged breathing eased a bit and he could draw in breath without pain. Then the sound of his breathing joined the rhythm of his beating heart. After that, his breathing and heartbeat were the only sounds that he could discern for a while.

The silence was broken by a soft, feminine, whisper. “Is this truly all you have?”

Scott did not answer her, he could not. The voice continued to speak. “You who crossed the threshold... You who dared to trespass on my beautiful wilderness... You who have chosen the hardest path... Is this the extent of your power?”

His heartbeat became erratic. His breathing began to worsen and become more difficult. Strength rapidly left his body. Scott could barely keep his eyes open, now.

“What a fragile creature. Did you truly think that you would survive with such pathetic power?”

Finally, Scott found the will to reply to the voice’s taunts. “I’m not dead, yet.” His labored breathing made it hard to speak, but even if those were the last words he would ever voice in this life, they were good words.

Harsh laughter erupted from all directions at once. The scorn of her mocking laughter echoed in the darkness for several seconds before she asked, “You are surrounded on all sides by a legion of bird monsters. You have an arrow sticking out of your chest. You can’t even stand up. How are you not dead?”

“I’m not dead until I am dead.” He did not know where those words came from, but he felt them to be true. He did not want to die in this alien world. He didn’t want to give in and be eaten.

The laughter came again, but this time it was a soothing lyrical sound. “It’s too bad that your body is weaker than your spirit.”

Scott fell forward and began to pant. He could feel the life draining out of his body. It would not be long now.

“She dreams about you, you know.”

The gentle tone of the voice drew Scott’s attention away from his approaching death. “Who dreams about me?”

“You forgot about her already?” The voice seemed angry at the idea that he had forgotten the one that she was talking about.

“The only person I know here is Scarlet and she doesn’t answer when I call.”

“She doesn’t? That’s strange.”

Scott’s vision began to fade once more. Even the miniscule light shining down on him in this abyssal darkness was no longer enough to allow him to see. “None-none of it works. I can’t even use my skills.”

The voice did not answer immediately. The silence took on a tomb-like quality that made Scott wonder if he had truly died.

When the voice finally came again it did not seem happy. If anything it seemed angry. “Poor child, what has become of you? Your soul is twisted and corrupt, yet the corruption is not born out of any fault of your own.”

Scott had no idea what she was talking about and did not have the strength to answer even if he did. His body grew heavy and he fell to the ground. His eyes began to glaze over as death swiftly approached.

The voice spoke once more, this time in a soothing motherly tone. “Rest dear one, this is not the end. You are stronger than I thought. You will receive my blessing. Rest, rest for a time and do not fear the fangs and claws of my children.”

Then even the sound of his breathing and of his heartbeat came to an end. The light shining down on him in the darkness faded away. In the wake of its passing nothing remained.