Food and drink don’t come easily to the inexperienced. Within the first day of his time stranded in the forest it was made glaringly obvious that surviving in the wilderness wasn’t nearly as easy as he had previously thought.

With no flint he couldn’t hope to start a fire. Try as he might to start one using wood friction, that technique required a special skill set that he didn’t have. As a result food had to be sourced via foraging the surrounding woodland.

The woodland in question wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen before. In stark contrast to the barren and stagnant woods that peppered the southern front, the forest he found himself in was absolutely teeming with flora of all shapes and sizes.

Great gnarled oaks sprung from the earth, creating a dense canopy of branches and leaves that seemed to almost encase the landscape.

Winding roots snaked their way across the ground, curling and intertwining with one another. From them grew delicate little plants, some that bore colorful fruit, others, vibrant flowers.

Lush wild grasses and weeds blanketed the ground, only leaving enough space for patches of peculiar looking herbs and shrubbery to occupy.

Where grass couldn’t grow, rich communities of moss thrived. Where the moss couldn’t grow, some other unknown plant would try to.

The untouched nature, presumably undisturbed for centuries, occupied every space available. There wasn’t a foot of surface where some kind of life wasn’t flourishing. It gave the forest an overwhelming feeling of overgrowth and age.

Beyond that it was anything but stagnant. Whether it was a bird chirping happily from within the canopy, a rodent scurrying about in the underbrush, or even a colony of ants toiling away at the base of a tree, something was always happening.

It was a truly magical place, besides the fact that almost all the various plants were inedible.

Malt made this disappointing discovery while traversing the alluring forestscape. He weaved between trees, being careful as to not trample any plants along the way. The moist scent of the forest, the smell of damp wood and earthy soil mixed with traces of pollen and wildflower, were prominent all throughout.

Although it certainly smelled nice, there was nothing to show for it. Whenever he encountered an edible looking plant or fruit, he’d take a little nibble, only to spit it out shortly after.

All the fruits he found were hard and unripe, and in the rare occasion that he could get his teeth through the surface, he’d be rewarded with a mouthful of bitter sludge and seeds.

One fruit in particular, a giant berry that resembled an oversized white grape, seemed to be edible, and sweet at that. Malt graciously ate it, making sure to savour every syrupy mouthful. He wasn’t too surprised when his mouth started violently tingling a few minutes after the fact.

He also found a plethora of plants that resembled common herbs back on earth, mint and basil mostly, only to find that they too were inedible.

After hours of wandering, with his stomach growing louder each passing minute, he finally stumbled upon his saving grace.

In a particularly damp patch of soil and nestled between two thick tree roots sprouted a few hairlike sprouts. Intrigued, Malt tried to dig the roots out with his hands to find even more roots clumped together in the dirt. With one hefty pull, he uprooted the entire clump and was met with a strangely familiar sight.

In the center of the wad of roots lie a tuber that vaguely resembled ginger, much to his surprise. Seeing as it was probably the least alien flora he’d come across, he ripped the smaller roots off and gave it a thorough rinsing in a nearby stream.

Realizing at once that trying to bite it was a bad idea, he gnawed at the root with his molars to find that it wasn’t ginger. In fact it didn’t taste like anything he’d eaten before, it was a strange mix of raw potato and yam, all tied together by the overbearing taste of earthiness.

Regardless of the taste, it was definitely edible, and he couldn’t afford to be picky at that point. He foraged a few more nearby, making sure to take note of where they liked to pop up. Satisfied with his bounty he trekked back to his little cubby by the riverbank, gnawing at the root all the way.

That night he rested quite well, draped in a gambeson blanket and stomach full of tuber. Strange as it was considering his situation, he felt strangely tranquil there.

There was no risk of having to enter combat and the scenery was leagues more pleasant than on the frontline, in a lot of ways it was actually more comfortable here than it was there.

More comfortable than he’d been in a long time, he drifted off into a deep slumber.

***

By the time dawn had risen on his fourth night in the forest, things were looking better than ever.

He’d amassed an impressive collection of edible flora through trial and error. A small, bright yellow flower that had a rubbery texture and tasted slightly sweet, a strange looking grass that tasted like lettuce, a soft white nut that was more or less a regular nut, he was becoming quite the questionably-edible wildlife connoisseur if he did say so himself.

Even his feet were somehow healing, surprisingly not infected at all.

Still no fire though.

Now that he could reliably source edible food, it was time to make his escape. Roots, flowers, and nuts were all fine and good but even he knew that he couldn’t live on them for any longer than a week before he caught some sort of disease.

He needed to get back to Dagridge.

The idea of just not going back had crossed his mind more than once. The only thing really keeping him from disappearing in the forest was his pseudo-friendship with the other two and the fact that he had nowhere else to go. Getting to Dagridge at least meant warm food and (relatively) comfortable bedding.

With this in mind he packed everything he had and prepared to trek off and into the woods, not that there was much to pack.

The plan was to wander off into the forest until he found a hill or mountain, anything tall that could act as a vantage point really. Granted, it was a pretty bad plan, but following the river back meant he would be back in Khod territory, and fighting off Khods with a dagger, an arming sword, and a handful of tubers didn’t sound like a blast.

After saying goodbye to his little cubby, all that was left for him was to go forward.

***

Once roughly an hour had passed, the surroundings had become almost completely alien once again. But not alien in the same way he felt once he first entered the forest.

While the scenery was the same the overall feeling of the place had become...uncanny, for lack of a better word.

The thing that he noticed first was the eerie silence. There was no chirping, no rustling, not even the breeze seemed to reach that part of the forest.

Once he made this observation, he came to the realization that he hadn’t seen a single living being for an uncomfortable amount of time. No birds, no rodents, not even insects were present.

Even the scent of the forest, the smell he’d grown accustomed to during the last few days, had morphed into something strange and unfamiliar. It was a smell that was definitely similar to the regular forest smell, but at the same time so different in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Besides that, the scenery was growing denser and denser the farther he wandered in. The trees seemed to be creeping closer, much to his unease he discovered that the blades of grass covering the earth were all pointing in his direction.

His unease was only heightened when he found that not just the grass, but nearly every plant in eyesight seemed to be leaning toward his direction. Even the flowers were facing him like a sunflower faces the sun, trailing him as he made his way forward.

He gulped nervously, eyes darting between the treelines, trying to make sense of the situation.

Just as an experiment, he began breaking branches and trampling foliage as he went along. After a few yards, he turned around to realize in horror that the path he’d created had completely disappeared.

No matter how bad his sense of direction was, this was way too extreme.

The irrational unease he felt quickly turned into a very real anxiety. Whatever was happening, his instincts told him that the situation had turned legitimately dangerous.

He brought his hand to his scabbard, ready to draw at a moment’s notice, and continued forward at a rushed pace. The way the trees seemed to grow ever so closer no matter how much he ran, the feeling that he was being watched by the forest itself, it was alarming.

It was getting darker and darker, and not because the sun was setting. It was, in fact, still morning after all.

The canopy was growing thicker by the minute, almost forming a roof at that point.

Wherever he looked the forest was drawing closer, like it was trapping him. The panic of claustrophobia was beginning to set in. Whereas he was originally in a relatively roomy space, he now couldn’t walk a foot without a a branch brushing against his body.

Each and every time a plant brushed past his legs, his hair would stand on end. He’d occasionally get the feeling that he was being watched. When he darted his eyes toward the location, he found nothing but stillness, only to feel the same distressing feeling elsewhere only to continue the cycle.

At some point he looked to his left to see a branch about arm’s length away. He then Looked right to try and find the source of another uneasy gaze, only to look back left and find that the branch was now only inches from his face.

That’s when he stumbled away and broke into an all out sprint.

His eyes darted around like a madman’s, the uneasy gaze he felt earlier was now all around him. His breathing became ragged after only a few seconds of running, much to his dismay. His stamina and breath were draining at an unnatural rate.

Just as he was about to collapse, he suddenly entered a small clearing.

The moment he entered, he was greeted by a truly bizarre sight.

Lying against a wall of vines and foliage was a stagecoach. Not only that, but there seemed to be several remains occupying it.

The fully intact skeletal remains of a horse, still hitched to the wagon and all. Covering it was a dense blanket of thin green vines that looked as if they crept in from the surrounding forest.

Even more disturbing was the other skeletal carcass sitting in the coach’s seat, this time very much human. And on another level of weird was the fact he was still wearing fancy looking clothing, which was not damaged in any way. In fact it almost seemed new. Besides the fact that it was also covered in a layer of vines as well.

Hell, he was even still clutching the reins in his bony hands.

The scene was just so outlandish and out of place, there was no possible way that a wagon could (or should) be in there. The wagon was too large to even fit in between the surrounding trees. It couldn’t have been too old either, considering that the coach’s clothing was still new and that the steel stagecoach didn’t have a speck of rust on it.

Why were the horse and coach literally decayed to the bone then?

It then occurred to him that there was only one place that he hadn’t checked yet. The door of the coach was closed shut, the surrounding vines had surrounded it, as if trying to pry it open from the hinges.

Malt cautiously made his way forward and placed his hand on the brass handle before opening it with relative ease.

The moment the door swiveled out, a repugnant odor immediately struck him. There was no mistaking it, it was the scent of decay.

When he dared to carefully peek inside, he was met with an overwhelmingly gruesome sight.

Three corpses lay inside, all still sitting on their cushioned seats.

The first was a woman wearing an elegant red dress, though there seemed to be parts of it that were redder than the rest. She was slouched down, head in her lap and arms sprawled toward the floor.

Malt was almost sure that the worst scenario had already played out, but he placed a hand on her shoulder anyway, slowly lifting her torso upward.

He grimaced as her face came into view. It was already pale and showing spots of green and brown. Her eyes were completely devoid of life. Judging from her jewelry, dress, and noble features, she was definitely someone relatively important.

He leaned over to see the other side of her head, to which he saw that the hair around her left temple was caked in blood. The wall adjacent was splattered in crusty blood as well, making it apparent how she had passed.

Across from her was a man in similarly fancy clothing, only this one didn’t have any blood on him. There were however multiple scratch marks around his neck, telltale signs that he’d suffocated.

To what, Malt didn’t want to think of.

Finally, there was a small body lying against him wearing a small frilly dress.

Malt turned away, not willing to see any more.

He stepped out of the stagecoach and closed the door for good, denying the vines passage to desecrate the final resting place of the family within.

He was aware that the plants around him were probably closing in on him, but at that point he didn’t care.

What did it matter anyway? He’d just die and become feed for the plants regardless. What difference did it make whether it was then or sometime in the near future, after more panic and suffering?

He was tired, not only physically, but mentally as well. Who knows, maybe seeing that dead family was just what pushed him off the edge, the straw that broke the camel’s back, as some would say.

The image of the suffocated father crossed his mind once again. The thought of suffocating to death filled him with a heavy sense of dread. He’d rather take his own life than have to live through that.

He grabbed the handle of his dagger and unsheathed it.

Yeah, maybe ending his own life would be the better decision at that point.

He brought the tip up to his throat without any hesitation whatsoever.

From there he placed his other hand on the pommel, and prepared to push.

Just before he could do the deed, a shrill scream sounded off in the distance.

The scream startled him, bringing his senses back to him. He looked down at the dagger, horrified. He immediately flung the weapon away from himself and deep into the foliage before scrambling to his feet and sprinting to the voice.

He hadn’t heard anyone’s voice but his own in a long time, but he could tell that it wasn’t an animal’s call, but a bonafide person’s voice.

He desperately stumbled to the voice, because a voice meant a person, and a person meant his chance to escape had come.