Xander started to make his way down the tree. As he passed Sam on the lowest branch, he happened to touch him while he was doing down. Sam woke up and looked around him and noticed that Xander was making his way down. He panicked for a little bit remembering what he heard last night but calmed himself down.

'Whatever it was, it probably long gone by now.' he said to himself.

"Good morning Xander," Sam said as he watched Xander drop down to the ground.

"Good morning, sorry if I woke you up. I was feeling a little hungry, so I was gonna go get some berries.," said Xander. "You want some?"

"I don't feel like eating right now, but do you mind finding a larger rock when you're walking and bringing it back?" Sam said. He was thinking to himself that he was being very paranoid but he couldn't help it.

Sam was a worrier, if there was a chance that something bad could happen, he would sit there and worry about it. Once when he was a kid, he took a sip of his friend's water bottle and it tasted weird, and when Sam asked about it to his friend, he said that it was poisoned. Sam couldn't tell that his friend was being sarcastic and started to think that he was going to die soon. For the entirety of the next week, Sam spent an hour before every night worrying about it and a week later he slowly forgot about it.

"Why do you need a rock? Are you gonna try to eat it or something?" Asked Xander, wondering why Sam could possibly need a rock.

"It's just in case a giant centipede starts crawling towards us while we're walking. We don't want it to alert any of its friends, so we would need to finish it quickly. I heard something last night which could have been a giant centipede, so I'm not taking any chances." Sam just shredded when thinking about it. He had a thing with centipedes. Whenever he sees one, there could only be one survivor, him or it. Sam could proudly say that he killed every centipede he came across.

"Okay," Xander noted to never mention any crawling insects to Sam.

Xander started to walk off towards where they came from last night. They were still sticking close to the mountain and following it around so it was very simple to navigate and even if it wasn't Xander was sure that he could find his way. He was always good with directions and even though they were in a forest where everything looked similar, he was confident that he could go to where they found the last berry bush.

On the way there, he found a large rock that he thought would be perfect for Sam. It was the size of a basketball so it would be fairly easy to swing and there was a sharp edge in one of the sides so it could be used to cut something as well.

He was just about to pick it up and move on when he heard a scream.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Xander could tell it was Sam. He debated with himself if he should bring the rock with him or not. If he brought it and it was a centipede attacking Sam, it would be very useful. If he brought it with him and it wasn't a centipede, it would only slow him.

After several seconds of thinking hard, Xander decided to bring it with him. The longer it took him to decide the slower he was going to be anyway so it was better to just take the rock with him and not worry about anything else.

He picked up the rock and started running towards the tree that Sam and he slept at.

Sam watched Xander walk off. He suddenly had a thought. In all horror movies, characters started to die off as soon as they split off. In this scenario, when one character stays behind and the other goes to look for supplies, one of two things can happen. The one that left or Xander would be attacked and never return or the one that stayed or Sam gets attacked and when the character that left or Xander returns, there is no one waiting for him.

Sam got up and stood on the lowest branch. He looked around himself. If a centipede attacks him, the only thing he could do was climb. Centipedes weren't fast climbers so if Sam went to the top of the tree and then jumped down, branch to branch, he could get away. He finalized his plan and looked around.

When he saw movement in the distance, he was so surprised, he froze. By the time he was snapped out of his daze, the thing was halfway to him. The only thing that he could see was the small bushes moving away as a shadow passed through them. He tried to find the creature that was causing the shadow but he couldn't find it. He could hear the bushes being shaken up, but he couldn't hear anything else, no paws hitting the ground or anything else.

He turned around and started to climb. His heart started to pound. He could barely remember his own plan that he came up with only a few seconds ago. Since he was so panicked, he wasn't very fast. He couldn't coordinate his hands and legs together. When he was supposed to be letting his weight be on his legs so he could go up, he was holding the tree with his hands too hard. By the time he was only halfway up to the second, the thing had already reached the bottom of the tree.

Sam was facing the tree so he couldn't see it happen, the thing paused when it reached the tree and crouched down. It then sprang upwards going past the first branch and aimed towards Sam. It used its paws to get higher and higher and higher. It was basically using the force from its jump to stick close to the tree and used its paws to go up.

As it was slowing down, it reached where Sam was climbing. It set its eyes on the right leg of Sam. It was thinking of taking a big bite of his foot and dragging him down it to the ground. With this in mind, it opened its jaw, filled with rows and rows of teeth, and brought it closer to Sam's right foot. Just as it was about to grab it, Sam moved. He brought his whole body higher.

Even now with the beast being this close to him, he didn't realize it. It was due to luck that he moved then. Even now, he didn't know the consequences of what would have happened if he didn't move.

The creature was startled as it realized that it missed. If Sam had moved before, it could have changed its aim, but now it was too late. Its momentum was out and it was starting to fall back down to the ground. But there was still something that it could try. Its left paw moved towards Sam's right leg. Its claws were already out as they were used to make it grab onto the tree bark better so that it goes higher.

The paw got closer and closer. This time there was nothing that could keep Sam from getting injured. He couldn't move his legs since they were as high up as they could be. If he wanted to be higher, he would need to move his arms up but he didn't have time for that. The claws reached Sam and they tore through his pants and skin like they were nothing. As gravity brought the creature down, its claws also followed. By the time the claws were, had left a deep scratch from below Sam's knee to just above his ankle.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Sam screamed. He could not help it, the pain had been unexpected. He thought that he had more time. He had a fairly high pain tolerance, a skill that was credited to the multiple fairly major injuries that he had gotten as a kid and a teen, but no amount of pain tolerance could help him deal with unexpected pain. The scream had been mostly because of surprise.

Sam clenched his teeth and kept climbing. If it could reach him once, it could do it again. Every time he moved his leg, pain bombarded his mind. He couldn't think. He could barely climb. His speed has slowed even more than before.

'This is not working,' he thought to himself. He could have imagined it but he heard a sound below. Most likely the thing reaching the ground. If it did the same thing again, he could get even more hurt than he already was.

He made up his mind and bit down on this tongue, hard. Sam could instantly feel the pain and taste the blood. He focused on that pain and forgot everything else. He started to climb and when he could feel the flash of pain, it wasn't as bad as before. It didn't make him stop climbing.

That was enough.

The creature looked up after it landed on the ground. It could tell that Sam was still within biting distance. It moved away from the tree so that it could use its speed. It started sprinting as fast as its legs could go. When it reached the tree, it jumped. Its claws came out and it used them to grab onto the tree better. It used them to propel forward. By the time it reached the first branch, it noticed something. The human had started to climb. Before, it could see him unable to move because of the wound. At this rate, the human would be out of its range.

"ROAR!" It roared as loud as it could, hoping to scare the human into stopping, but it didn't work. The human hadn't even flinched and continued to climb.

It reached the highest it could and as it had estimated, it could not reach the human. It started to fall back down.

Sam reached the second branch where Xander slept last night. He pulled himself up and sat down. The thing could possibly reach him up here but if it could it would have when it was jumping. Sam spit out the blood in his mount and looked at his leg. There were three deep scratches doing all the way down to his ankles. They were deep enough to reach his bone. Blood was flowing out from the leg very quickly. Already, it had made his pants damp with blood. Sam took off his jacket and shirt. He ripped out the sleeves on the shirt. With his new warlord power, it was easy. He, then, ripped the long way through the sleeves for both of them. He put them on top of each other and ripped them again. Now, he had four long pieces of cloth that he could use to stop the bleeding.

He grabbed one and wrapped it around his leg. Bracing himself he made it as tight as he possibly could and made a knot so it would stay tight. The pain made it almost impossible for him to concentrate on the knot but he got through it.

'Three more times,' Sam thought to himself.

After Sam repeated the process three more times, the wound was completely covered. The blood had also stopped flowing out.

Sam calmed himself down and started to think. He looked down from the branch and saw the thing that attacked him. It was completely black and large. Looking down, he started to feel a very strong emotion start to emerge within him: anger. It was aimed at himself. If only he hadn't been so stupid, he could have started climbing as soon as he saw movement and he could have stayed calm and climb faster. Sam could only blame getting injured was on himself.

When he looked at the animal down below, Sam could only feel his competitive spirit coming out. The animal down below was smart, very smart. Its plan was perfect, with no flaw. The only thing it didn't consider was Sam's paranoia. If its plan went well, Sam would now be dead and when Xander returned, he too would get killed.

"It's my turn, friend. Let's see who's smarter." Sam said with a smile. He felt a strange calm go through him. His heart calmed down and even his injuries stopped being so painful. It took him a few seconds, but he had it, his next move, the one that determined if he and Xander died or not.