Falling asleep feels rather good, but falling awake is a completely different thing. Feels scary and unexpected, plus confusing. During the sleep I kept leaning to my right, until finally lost my balance and started falling. If you watched a certain movie about dream inside of a dream, you will know the falling chair theory they used there. The thing is, while you do wake up, it doesn't mean you will have the lightning fast reflexes necessary to regain balance and not hit your head on the fucking log you were sitting on. Best alarm ever - a log to the head, jolt of pain, a bit of adrenaline and not a speck of sleepiness in your eyes.

I automatically threw a few sticks into the fire while trying focus my eyesight. The fire didn't die out, so it seems that I slept for two or so hours - yes, my way of telling time wasn't quite accurate, but it's not like I could count down seconds and minutes the whole time, certainly not while sleeping. My fire was sort of accurate, which was enough for me - if it dies out - three to four hours have passed, if the coals are cold - even longer.

Soon the day would show it's colors and I could start with the survival tasks once again. More fishing, I couldn't be happier.

I stood up, scratched my head, somewhat taking the dirt and a few tiny pieces of bark off of my hair. The morning was here, my skin felt hot from spending a lot of quality time under the sun previously. Today I was determined to get some food, I would spend the whole day in the water if necessary. Having food right there in the water and not being able to get it was killing me. Yes, not the hunger, not the heat, not the fact that I was still wearing the fucking sack for pants, the inability to do something that I was able to do once. I was tilted for sure. Call me salt-master now. Does a salty person on-tilt care that he is who he is? Nope. He simply goes on doing what he was doing.. or that's usually what I did until I blew up in rage and go smoke to cool off my head. I was OK with the ridiculous situation, but wasn't OK with being outwitted by the fish. The longer it took me to catch a fish, the more energy I wasted for nothing - well you can guess the rest. Effectiveness of hunting goes down, my chances of living go down twice as much.

With a spear in my hand, I stood in front of the pond-lake. I already knew each and every reed that grew close to the shore, in fact, I was one step from starting to name the reeds that stood out from the masses. I could tell that it was a certain part of the lake just by the nasty smell. It was a bit different depending on the amount of reeds growing, the degree of bitterness to the smell of vinegar or rotten wood was different in the smell in different areas of the pond. In regards to the reeds - they were similar to cattail, but blackish in color, somewhat desaturated, dirty-green in color. They separated the shallow waters from the deeper part of the pond. I didn't go swimming in it at first because I was cautious, but right now only the smell of the water stopped me.

It reeked of rotten wood with a bit of vinegar in it, really doubt that people would be allowed to swim in something like that. What's worse - the water seemed oily, so the smell stuck to the body, and the sack-pants once wet smelled like I puked all over them. That's the main reason why I left the pants on-shore and stepped into the water wearing nothing but my birthday suit and a layer of anti-mosquito plant chew.

Failing three days straight - I didn't want it to happen. Lets say - hunger doesn't help with staying calm when you see food swimming around.

"The issue is.. they got smart.. or they were smart from the beginning and no-one actually ever hunted them before." - The fish in the pond-lake was moving quite fast in the shallow waters, spreading out. This way even a lucky shot was impossible - they were too spread out to hit one fish while aiming at a different one. To add insult to injury - they dodged my spear like ninjas. The moment sharp ends of the spear touched the surface of the water, the scaly bastards wiggled out of its trajectory. My throws seemed sluggish compared to their movements, but at least they didn't turn into logs or anything.

....

"How many throws today? Four or five hundred? Or a thousand? Fuck I lost count..." - the idea of taking count of the times I threw the spear in an attempt to catch a fish seemed like a good idea at first, however it soon became - "the amount I failed" and my composure began to slip away. I didn't get out of water to rest, seems like being pissed off makes the adrenaline cloud all feeling of tiredness you accumulate. For now of course, undoubtedly I would feel this passionate fishing bite me in the ass sometime later.

How many failed attempts are necessary for you to get angry while performing a task? For me that number was somewhere in the thousands, as I was boiling while going on with the now meaningless and rage inducing task. My face was quite red, either from the sun, or from the amount of blood that rushed to my head as I was getting angrier. My heart was racing, and the throws were performed with all the power I possessed, lacking the accuracy though.

The fished moved away from the mess I was making and swam closer to the fence of reeds, some moving into the deeper waters. Of course they would, I was this close to catching the food!

"Fuck it... fuck you and you" - My own voice seemed distant as I growled in whispers, my body was feeling sluggish and hot - sweat dripping from the tip of my nose. My joints were aching a bit, and feet felt a bit stingy. This added to the frustration and anger, enough to spark rage into combustion. The fish have gone too far, both metaphorically and literally. They moved to the deeper waters, where I could not reach them. What's more - I could even see them move slower there, swimming around as if nothing mattered in their life.

I was angry, almost to the point of fire spewing out of my ass. Step after step, I closed in towards the reeds barrier. Only one thing on my mind - kill the fish and eat them, even if I have to choke them with my bare hands and skewer them onto the spear manually. Moving deeper into the lake, first waist deep, then up to my chest - the water was kind of warm even at this depth. If I couldn't catch the water-dwelling ninjas from outside the water, then I will attack them where they least expect it.

I was too angry to notice that I was feeling sick my body trembling from something other than anger. I dove into the deep waters, immediately feeling my eyes burn. The feeling like when you accidentally get shampoo into your eyes, and I don't mean foam, I mean shampoo or a piece of lemon. If fucking stung, but I was a few meters underwater once I realized that I fucked up. How the hell was I supposed to strike a fish with a spear when my whole body is affected by the water resistance? My behavior was so irrational, that the fact that I didn't take notice on such a change had put me into a state of terror.

Something snapped and bit my right hand, the sound echoed in my head before pain struck me. I've felt sharp teeth pierce the skin and dig into the flesh. I nearly opened my mouth to scream, but was able to hold it, only puffing a few large bubbles out of my nose. My eyes opened in shock, the pain from the bite overpowering the stinging from the water. The size of the bite was around the size of a really big cat, however it wasn't any sort of fish, it was something different. I just had to jinx it.. why did I ever think aloud that there was no sign of this place being a fantasy world...

"A snake?" - My eyes made out the thing that bit me, it was still clenching my forearm tightening its grip and moving around. It looked like a snake with a clam for a head, ridiculous and at the same time somehow terrifying. I jammed my fingers into the gap between it and my flesh trying to force the mouth open. As I did so, I felt that it was indeed hard like a shell, with muscle lining insides of it's mouth.

"No..nonono" - My thoughts turned to panic as I saw the movement of its body, better to say - bodies. In the darkness of the murky waters, where its long snakelike body led to, was a whole bunch of movement. Not fish, but more of the same greenish-black looking snake bodies coiled into a huge mess. It was like vines - growing from somewhere deep in the water. Like tentacles lined with clams covered in thorns, they squirmed around as if feeling the water, mixing it. Everything about what I've seen was terrifying, but the biggest issue was - the size, all of the clam-heads which I could make out in the murky waters were quite a bit larger than the one trying to pull me deeper.

For all I knew, the one that bit me, was just a tiny sapling compared to the main stems. It was terrifying to think that these things will come at me and rip my body apart piece by piece. I cut my fingers, but kept trying to release my hand from the grip, feeling like a rodent caught in a mouse-trap. Using the bit hand as leverage, I was able to force the clam to open its grip a bit, that was all I needed.

I was finally able to rip the clam away from my hand, along with some of my skin. I still held the spear tightly, as if the badly sharpened stick could protect me. I could feel the water pressure at this point, my ears were ringing already.

My body kicked the water and I hurriedly swam up, accelerating towards the surface - which for some reason was really far away. The thing pulled me deeper before I even realized it, and the darkness was the only thing surrounding me. I swam like mad, trying to move as fast as possible, but another snap, a whole lot louder thundered as shock wave inside of the water. My left wrist was bitten by a force of a bear trap, large thorns missed the bone by a miniscule distance. It was one of the bigger tentacles, which I felt not only by the force it bit my hand, nearly breaking it, but also by how easy it started pulling me underwater. I felt water burn the inside of my nose, as my air supply was already at it's limit. The pain spread through the wrist, up my hand and into the shoulder, it was sharp and there was a lot of it as I felt my bones creaking at the point of giving up to the pressure and shattering like a wine-glass hit with a hammer.

I turned to face the monstrosity, only to find out it didn't have a face, just a solid bony-white shell. My body moved on its own, fear clouding everything and pushing me to act fast. Probably that's what matters when you look into the darkness which will be your death. I hit the clam monster with the spear, struck it inside of its mouth where soft muscle tissue was tightening its grasp on my arm. I couldn't break through the stone-hard shell with a stick, nor could I force it open. Piercing its muscle was the only chance I had, do it or die...no.. I'd do and die trying to survive.

It wiggled me like I was but a tiny rat in an eagles beak, but for a short moment it let the trapped arm go. It was enough for me to rush to the surface once again, feeling like my lungs were about to explode, my vision was getting a bit too dark. I was almost to the surface when another snap caused me to stop for a fraction of a second, as if stuttering before continuing further.

"It missed.." - my face broke the surface tension of the water, but I didn't stop, as I rushed through the water, the reeds and to the hard ground. It did follow as I heard it splash behind be, but I was able to move far enough for it not to be able to reach me. My feet felt the dirt, clouding the water as I ran tripping and falling, not caring to be silent. My gasps were deafening myself, but i fell onto the moss ten steps away from the shallow waters.

I lied on the dry crusty moss, which crumbled under my weight. My body shook in spasms as I coughed vomit-tasting water and tried to regain my breathing. I sounded like a strangled donkey, somehow there seemed to be no pain from my wounds. I blamed shock and adrenaline.

I tried standing up, but it was hard - nearly impossible to do right away. I pushed myself up from the ground - that's when I noticed something off. There was too much blood on the moss - as if someone spilled a tiny bottle of dark red paint.

"Something's missing" - the realization struck me as I looked at my left palm, which was bitten last. There was no pinky and the ring finger was also missing. Blood was streaming from the wound, but even as that I could see that only a piece of bone - half a stump of the third part of the ring finger- was the only bone left there. Some flesh and skin still dangling, but the bone is cleanly ripped out. The little finger gone completely, and there was only a tiny stump in the place where the finger was previously.

I rushed to the water stream that was just a few steps away to wash the wound, but just a few seconds into the process something flipped inside my head. The pain slowly started reappearing, I understood that soon I will be squirming in agony, unable to do anything but bleed out and die. On shaking legs I pushed myself through the bushes into the camp, for the first time being outraged by how hard it is to get through. The pain was near, but my mind was long gone, I could barely understand my own actions and logic behind them. My ears were ringing as if someone put a microphone to a speaker.

I grabbed the cloth the Numb-berries I gathered were wrapped in, some of them fell on the ground as I struggled to hold them in my shaking hand. Without hesitation I threw a handful of them inside of my mouth, my whole body was shaking - most likely from the blood-loss. As I chewed on them, I started to lose all sense in my mouth, but my head became a bit lighter, the taste was horrible and bitter, but that didn't matter at the time, I could cope with the pain - that's what important. I swallowed some of the chewed berries, spitting the rest on the Paper-leaf leaves, that I would use as a bandages. My mind began to float like a boat on waves, and I was barely holding onto being awake - it was just a matter of time until I lost consciousness.

Tending such an injury wasn't something I experienced, nothing came to mind, but I had to somehow stop it from bleeding. I forced the skin and flesh back together, covering it with paper-leaf bandage and tightening it as hard as I could. Numb-berry mush was forced onto the wound, making the pain go away for now. I applied layer after layer of bandages, until it looked like a ball rather than a hand. I then covered the right hand with some bandages as well, which just stuck to the drying blood, as the wound already started to clot, unlike the left hand. My whole body felt tingly from blood loss, but I forced myself to crawl to a bush, bringing a coil of cordage I made the other night.

I wrapped it around the branch of the bush, making a sort of a noose, which I used for tying the left arm in a vertical position, and then it hit me like a motherfucking truck. Both pain and something else completely.

The reality seemed to drown in thick sirup, crumbling away and running off into the sunset. My vision became blurry and twisted, the ground started to spin and I nearly thew up from the unexpected movement. Bushes were laughing, pointing their long fingers at me, while the fire giggled in its crazy laughter. My insides were on fire and I tried to scream, however it didn't work. Through the spinning vision I could make out the pale berries on the ground, they jumped in delight, looking at my misery. My throat wasn't there, they stole it along with my voice, and now they started crawling under my skin, stealing the pain away. The thieves, they were stealing everything from me.

My face tasted of blue and the sky sounded like cheese, the whole world made so much sense now, and I was so ridiculously blind this whole time. Everything was flowing and dancing around me, but I was just sitting there spectating. I could see myself staring at myself, I could hear my hair grow out of my head.

As I saw my face drip away into the ground, the truth presented itself to me, the fire shaped itself into different figures. My thoughts became visual and tangible, I could taste my fear - it was a bit sour and metallic, or that's blood.

The whole reason the fish were acting the way they did, as well as the smell of water - it all came to me. Yes, the flying beaver-pig was right, I was stupid not to notice, but now, now I was smart and flowing through the cracks in the ground like freshly grated cheese on hot spaghetti.

The fish are working for the clam-plant, it's all their intricate plan to bait me into the deep waters, and the pond is not a pond - it's a giant stomach, waiting for walking candy to drop itself into it's grasp, where it will drag you down and slowly melt you away. The fish started acting strange because the plant told them so, it could tell someone was hunting in the stomach, so it told them to lure me in. It poisoned me to lose my mind, that mad plant. It took my sanity away so that I was dumber than the fish, it took my time away to make me hasty, it made me crave for more of that delicious meat so that I jump into the deep waters where it could reach me..

Everything started to move faster, speeding up like a crazy merry-go-round. I wanted off, I was falling to the ground from my seat, my feet turned into mashed potatoes. I didn't feel them, the same as I didn't feel anything else, only my face was above the anthill. I was laughing silently as the tiny legs dragged me deeper into the ant-city, eating out my eyes. I didn't feel anything though, it went dark and silent all at once.

....

I felt something go up my throat as I barely turned my head and felt vomit flow through my open mouth and nose onto the ground. It was still dark, I understood nothing. Fucking hospital, was I in a hospital again?

The light turned on as I forced my eyes open, seems like my eyelashes got glued shut - hurray, more pain. My head was ringing and I had the worst hangover ever, everything was wobbling and spinning as if I was on a boat, seasick and high at the same time. My body ached all over - as if I was beaten with iron bars, it seems I've been moving quite a lot when I lost consciousness, or even before that. The ground was beat up with marks from my feet lining it in a completely chaotic pattern - feet covered in dirt and only god knows what else. I didn't think about that.

I freed the hand I tied to the bush to lessen the blood flow to the wound, it hurt a lot - but mostly from the skin that had rope burns on it. I knew that it would hurt, didn't mean I was appreciating the feeling though. The whole arm was covered in red leaves, which were greyish when I tied them around the wound beforehand.

"I thought dry blood was brownish in color..not bright" - Well- the forearm was half brown from the blood that dried on it, so I seemed to have lost a lot of it, the leaves however were a bit of a mystery at the moment. A mystery I didn't have time to unravel.

I was sweating like a waterfall, unsure if from the pain or the numbing berries that caused me to suffer the aggressive high. Don't do drugs kids - some distant voice rang inside my head, far away - just a recollection of something I heard a number of times- enough to get tired of it.

I felt sluggish still, but that was understandable, I wasn't sure how I was able to still remain conscious. That could wait, I had other things to worry, first - how the hell was I supposed to walk if I was unable to stand up. My feet were shaking - void of any power, and as I couldn't stand up, had to move through the bushes on my knees, forcing my way through.

I made it to the stream, avoiding to look at the pond. Fuck the pond, fuck the fish and fuck the thing that dwells there. How mature of me, I know.

I lied there, letting the cold water flow around me, sipping as it touched my lips. Yes, just laying in the way of the water, with my head on the ground, sipping water together with bits of earth, I didn't mind - it was still the best thing ever. Only now I was able to tell that the water I considered clear- had some slight taste, I couldn't tell what it was exactly. I was thirsty as never before, and the taste qualities of the water didn't matter to me, so I drank as much as I wanted to before sitting up.... well.. trying to sit up, it would be a pain to watch this pathetic struggle. I had to change the bandages... probably, but first- clean the wound somewhat. I wasn't a doctor, so whether it's a good idea to touch such a wound - I didn't know.

The stream filled with dirty blood from the bandages as I was letting them soak, which would allow me to remove the leaves. One by one I unwrapped them from my arm, but I didn't expect what I saw.

No, the fingers didn't miraculously grow back, I am not as lucky. What surprised me was the net that separated itself from the last paper-leaf I removed. Like someone glued a bunch of string to both my hand and the leaf.. It was a fibrous net that held the skin together tightly, coiling inside the wounds and piercing skin and flesh.. It could be bad, in fact it looked gruesome and dangerous, but it held the severed skin and flesh together on both of the wounded hands - the idea of a plant growing into my body was a bit scary - but I feigned ignorance.

There was more to it though. The edges of the wound secreted transparent fluid that hardened as it came into contact with the air, but got soft as it touched the water and washed away quickly. It looked like wax, and probably was the only thing that kept me from bleeding out dry, then again.. if something as viscous was flowing though my veins - how the hell didn't it clog anything.. causing me to die.. like hell I knew.

"...fuck.." - was the only thing that I could whisper while grasping the whole situation once more. I nearly died twice that day. I ate some dangerous plants while being half functional, which probably was the reason for the insanity that followed through the night.

"I could have cauterized the wound.." - something like that was possible, but while suffering from deafening pain you don't think about causing more harm and pain to yourself. I didn't.

It took some time sitting in the cold water until I was able to pick myself back together, the close call was a dodged bullet, but I doubted anyone could dodge a bullet twice in a row. I had to reapply some fresh bandages to the cleaned wound, then think some more.. my head was still killing me, so thinking was a struggle. I walked in and out of the camp in the bushes, a bit hesitant as of what to do next.

"Where did I leave my pants?" - I walked along the shore, looking for the place I took my pants off. They were left on the moss, yes walking with my ass exposed all this time, not the top priority to notice it right away. As I've put them on, I remained in place, sitting on the moss, looking at the top of the trees. I quickly glanced towards the water, then away, the pond was a lot more dangerous than I thought.

"Fuck the deep water - I won't take a single step into the pond"

The fish were bait, the whole pond was an enemy waiting for its prey.. They avoided me when necessary, inviting to hunt when they moved slower. The issue is - why did I fall for it? During the trip everything seemed to make perfect sense, now - I needed more than just random assumptions. The answer came to me eventually, the theory at least.

The only time I've started losing my mind, was when I remained in the water longer than half an hour or so. It was probably the effect the acid-juice of the plant had on me. Losing sense of time to get more intoxicated by the contact with the juice, get agitated to follow the bait, be intoxicated to act irrationally, be weakened by the poison so that the giant Trap-Plant could drag you in and feast on the fresh flesh. Craving for the fish after you eat one also helps with catching prey. Nature is scary- and this fantasy nature is even more so terrifying.

I sat there, looking at the arm wrapped in bandages, thinking that everything could have been worse - far worse to be honest.

"I can do with three fingers on my left hand, not like you use the other two all that much.. It could have bitten me somewhere else, which would be a lot worse. Taking a foot off, or biting my dick.." - the last thought made me shudder, yes, definitely I was lucky.

The shock was subsiding and gradually completely winding off from my head, that's when real questions were asked. I rushed to my camp once again, as I thought of one detail - I didn't know for how long I was knocked out..so the fire could have died out... that would be a disaster. Or not. I could try making the fire with only one hand, but I would prefer not to. Needless to say - I nearly tripped over a few times, my muscles still sored and lacked any energy..flailing around the whole night was tiring.

In the pile of white ashes I was able to dig out a few slightly-red coals. My heart nearly stopped when I saw the fire as it was just a little white hill that was just slightly warm to the touch. If I was late to get to them, there would be no way to re-light the flame, not in my current condition.

"Thank god and praise the sun.." - I rushed around the camp as much as I could possibly manage to, however soon a small flame signified success of my attempts to save this little ray of hope.

Now was the time to get my shit together. Seeing a person die was shocking, but nearly dying myself was a true wake up call. I thought survival skills will improve as I go on, but in reality I had no time for that. I had to think everything through and be a lot more careful.

"...next day after the incident.." - I've started to count days, as I lost track before - that day was the starting point of the true beginning of my survival, well the beginning of the true life here. The shit just got real, even though I couldn't even imagine how real it would get, or even worse - how unreal all of this was going to become.