The Last 100 – Ch.14

9/100

I sat by the fire and it burned nowhere near as hot as that number did. 9 people were all that were left of the human race. Of the English speakers only Jamila and I still used the world chat. We didn’t yet want to accept the likely fact that the others were dead. In all truthfulness we had already defied the odds by both surviving.

Jamila Deanglisa: So… How are things on your end?

I stared at the message, blinking several times before looking up from it and surveying my camp. It was a ramshackle affair. I chuckled slightly at the decrepit nature of my home. ‘Oh how far we have fallen. From great cities and mastery of the world to 8 people and me, living in a cave, surrounded by sticks and small fires.’

I had made the cave my base of operations, a place from which to conduct my, ‘hunts,’ building small fires had managed to fend of the cold and the smoke had warded off the few remaining insects of the wild. Not yet driven off by the relatively tame winter chill.

Off to the corner Wilhelm trotted back into the camp, a bush turkey in his mouth its black feathers dripping with sporadic drops of blood. He placed it before me, retreating into the cave afterwards. I could feel the fatigue in his muscles. He had been hunting food for the both of us ever since we had retreated to the woods. He was the reason we hadn’t starved.

I picked up the turkey, grimacing slightly at the unnatural jutting of its spine, ‘a clean break.’ I began to pluck the feathers in earnest, doing it clumsily, my fingers unused to the slight, precise almost loving movements required to do it well. I was not yet adept at this life.

Jack Casser: Can’t complain.

And I couldn’t, things were, objectively, good. I wasn’t going hungry, I wasn’t cold, I wasn’t as covered in filth as I once was, having washed myself in the stream. Still it didn’t shake the deep, seated unhappiness which had settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt somewhat disconnected from the actions my body took. As if I were a spectator to my own struggle, a witness, a plaything of the gods being pulled one way or another for their sick, twisted amusement. ‘Still, nothing to bother anyone with.’ I thought, pulling the last of the feathers from the turkey, grabbing a flint knife and using it to crudely gut the animal.

Jack Casser: What about you?

I was a slave to social norms, refusing, terrified to break from decorum, even now at the end of the world. Old habits die hard. And I was required to turn her question back to her. It didn’t matter that Jamila was even more socially inept then I was or that she probably didn’t give a shit whether or not I cared about her state of affairs as long as I talked to her. I cared. And so I asked.

Jamila Deanglisa: Really good! I’ve managed to start luring in some smaller things through one of the air vents and I made a sort of killing ground. Also…

On and on she went. I was amazed at how positive she could be in the face of all of this. Trying to dampen her enthusiasm was like trying to put out a wildfire by pissing on it. I mean for fuck’s sake if you scrolled up a small way you would find the last words of Robert Carter and she was still bubbly. I wasn’t sure how to feel about her.

I moved from the spot where I was gutting the turkey, Rising I skewered the now somewhat butchered animal and placed it upon a spit above my fire, my mouth moistening as small drops of fat melted off the flesh, sloughing off in the heat.

I moved over to another pile of raw materials, fibre, stripped from the bark of several trees nearby. Next, I tried to do my best imitation of Primitive Technology and began to clumsily twist the fibres together. Making a long length of string. It was slow mediative work, I reopened the chat and dealt with the salvo of messages from Jamila.

Jack Casser: So what’s your next move going to be?

I was curious as to what the girl was planning. While I attributed most of my survival to luck and much could be said of hers being due to the same I felt… Something else there. She had guns, she had knowledge, she was positive, and she had a fucking fortress. If mankind was banking its hopes on someone it wasn’t me, it was her.

Jamila Deanglisa: I think I need to start grinding some more stats, then IDK, maybe I’ll leave and try to find one of those unique monsters. Who knows maybe I can trap it here. Wouldn’t it be really cool to have magic, what else do you think it could mean by skills. The system said skills and spells when you asked it right?!

I could just feel how quickly she was attacking the virtual keyboard, beating it like a disobedient child.

Jack Casser: Yeah.

What followed next was gushing, lots and lots of gushing. I rose once again with about a metre and a bit of fibre string. I began to lash it to the ends of a worn, carved stick. Broke the last string needed a new one.

Wilhelm chose that moment to leave the mouth of the cave, walking up to the fire and sitting before it like a hungry child, pleading eyes and all. It forced a rare chuckle out of me and I smiled at him, it was a sad kind of smile, still, it had within it love.

I got up and walked back to the fire, checking the bird, burnt, again. Fuck. Strife hadn’t managed to make me a better cook, nor had any rise in stats. Hell maybe a skill might, I placed a bit of the charred, bitter meat into my mouth and frowned as I chewed into the tough flesh. Jesus at this rate I might actually take a cooking skill.

I scratched Wilhelm’s head as we ate, he was lying beside me, head resting in my lap. He was smiling, and I was feeding him food, both of us watching as the sun once more retreated behind the horizon, losing its battle for supremacy against the moon.

Jamila Deanglisa: What’s your next move, what are you planning?

I looked at the message and smiled, what was I planning on doing. I looked over the camp as I tried to think of a way to phrase it, to find words to parse out not just the actions, but the emotion behind them. I needed to know more about the system. I needed to know if there was a way to go back and, barring that, forward. Even depressed I was curious, I wanted to know, I needed to know. I needed to talk to the system again. And there was only one way I could think of to do that. Only one way to progress further and force the system to take note.

Jack Casser: Me? I’m going to kill a king.

I looked over the small bow I had made, its crudely carved but symmetrical arms, its clumsily woven but still strong string of fibrous cord, and its arrows, sticks hardened and sharpened in the fire and fletched with the black feathers of bush turkeys.

‘That’s right, your days are numbered, Jacks coming home.’ I chuckled at the thought, the sound was devoid of any mirth, all it had was anger, anger and determination. I looked at Wilhelm, he stared back at me eyes blank, but hard.

‘Don’t cheer too loud boy.’ This got me to crack a genuine smile and Wilhelm began to howl toward the slowly rising moon. Soon, soon we would go home. And we would find out just what the fuck was going on here after all.