I looked over my right shoulder to see a mangy wolf. Its right eye was missing, and fur was hanging off it in sheets. The one eye that it had looked at me with emptiness.

I got a deep sense of dread from this thing. Dogs of all kinds bugged me, but this one was creepy. Not only did it look sick, but it also acted wrong.

I slowly moved the backpack from the ground to my left shoulder. I hazard a glance at the ground and saw more items there. A smaller bag that looked like a shabby bota bag from Walmart, a long stick, and several smaller items and pouches.

I looked back at the dog and noticed that while I had been looking away, it moved about ten feet closer to me. It wasn’t making any sounds at all, which worried me even more. I looked around to see if there were more but didn’t see them.

I shifted myself around to put the pile of stuff between the dog and me and shifted the pack entirely onto my back. Then using just my peripheral vision, I snagged up the bota bag and got its strap around my neck. Then I messed up. I looked down to see what else was there.

I heard the movement of paws on the ground, and I snapped my head back up quickly to see the dog at an all-out run at me. I grabbed the stick that was there and held it out in front of me. As I did, I saw that I was holding it backwards; the stick was a fire-hardened spear.

I spun the spear to point it at the wolf when I saw that it stopped again and looked at me.

The sickly beast didn’t move at all. Instead, its one eye unblinkingly stared at me. I started to kneel down to grab more off the ground when it began to move slowly towards me. Then, as I stood back up entirely, it stopped.

I tried again, but it moved closer to me. It was now just over 10 feet away. If I gave it any chance, it would be on me before I could do anything about it.

“Shoo!” I yelled as I jabbed the point at the wolf.

It didn’t make a sound, and it didn’t move. It was like it knew I wasn’t close enough to hurt it, and it didn’t care about me yelling.

“Shoo! Dog run!” I yelled again to no avail.

The nasty-looking wolf stood and started toward me with a slow walk. I began to back away because I was getting worried. It wanted me to move, and it wasn’t giving signs that it feared me at all.

As I backed up, it kept its slow, leisurely walk towards me. I noticed that the dog’s breathing was so shallow that I couldn’t even see the sides move. It just walked, looking at me. It’s one eye locked on me.

I backed up even more. The wolf’s speed didn’t change. It just walked up to where the stuff was and laid down. It didn’t even look at what was there; it just put its body over the last items that were on the ground and looked at me.

I took a step forward, and it started to stand. Whatever it wanted, it had and was willing to fight me for it. I wasn’t happy because I wanted what was in the small pouches, even if I didn’t know what was in them.

When I stepped back, the wolf settled back down again. I was stuck. I could attack the beast and hope for the best, or I could leave what was there and hope that I didn’t need it. I had a feeling that whatever I chose, I would regret it for a while.

I sided with caution this time and started to walk backwards away from the beast. When I put twenty feet between us, he laid his head down on his front paws like he was taking a nap and slowly closed his one eye.

I took a step back towards the wolf now that the eye was closed, and that eye snapped back open, and he started to stand again. I backed up, and he went back down.

I was done. I didn’t need what it was laying on, and I wasn’t about to try to fight it even though it looked half dead. I was worried about it being able to tell where I was so easily.

I headed off away from the wolf, looking over my shoulder every few feet, but it never moved. When I got out of sight, I turned around and walked normally but quickly, trying to put some distance between the gruesome-looking wolf and me.

After half an hour, I took the chance to sit facing the way I came with my back on a tree and look through the backpack I had been carrying. The wolf had broken me out of my musing about where I was and what I was going to be doing, but now that the danger had subsided somewhat, it was time to take stock of what I had.

I was bewildered about what I was wearing and where I was. I had furs on, which messed with my mind. Then when I looked closely at the fur backpack, I saw that the stitching was done by hand and was leather cordage.

When I opened the pack, I was thrilled to find that there were items in it. This, of course, should help me to some extent in getting to where I was going. So I started to pull out the things one by one to see what I’d brought with me when I escaped.

The first thing that I removed was a large fur skin that looked to be a blanket or perhaps cloak. I looked it over and found a very primitive bone button and a slit for it to pass through. After I removed the fur, I found a few more items; the first was a large horn that had one end closed off, and the other end was warm. I knew from somewhere in my memories that this was a fire horn and that it would keep an ember hot and ready to start a fire for days. However, I also knew from my history classes that if this was a fire horn, then it would only last a few hours from the time that a coal was put in and it was too hot to carry. So one of these memories was wrong.

The next thing out were two small glass jars, each holding a black liquid. I got why I’d have a fire horn when trying to escape from someplace, but I was completely confused as to why I brought ink and the two quills that were next to the ink.

I then pulled out 10 tubes that each had a rolled piece of vellum in them. When I examined each one, I saw that they were all blank. Then I found a little four-ounce hammer along with something that looked like a very light punch. Finally, at the bottom of the bag, I found two books.

I pulled out both to take a look. They were both blue with writing down the spine in a language that I’d never seen before. While I could tell that the letters were static, they seemed to move some when I looked at them. It was a very odd sense, but that might just have been the way letters looked in this language.

These books had to be vital if I brought them when I ran, but I also brought blank scrolls and the means to write. This bag was odd and didn’t seem to provide much in the way of support for getting out of this forest. Which left me disappointed in my past actions in packing.

Even though I couldn’t read the outside of the books, I wanted to see if there was perhaps some clue as to what I was looking at when I opened them. Perhaps there would be a map or plans or something that would clue me in as to why I took these books.

I was squatting down by the bag when I opened the book. At first, nothing happened as I flipped a few pages trying to make heads or tales of what I was seeing. All the words were in the same language as what was on the spine, and there appeared to be no pictures or diagrams. However, after a few seconds of staring at the book, I saw a box appear in front of me.

Now, for everyone who’d say that they wouldn’t fall backward away from a text box in front of them, I’d like to say that they are a liar. The first appearance of something blue and glowing no more than a few inches in front of a person’s face elicits a kind of universal response of jumping back.

Since I was squatting at the time, it was more of a falling back and then a crab walking scramble back as I was chased by this blue light. It took me a few moments to come to grips that it was a text box pop-up and not something attacking me. However, during those few moments, I couldn’t claim to be proud of the behavior that I displayed as my voice might have gone up a few octaves as I swatted at the thing in my face.

The message, which showed very much like a HUD would in a video game, gave a straightforward message which was both easy to understand and hard to grasp the meaning.

Would you like to learn the Skill

Script?

YES

NO

When I looked away from the direction I’d been, the pop-up disappeared… Now I was sure that there were some people who’d be happy and try to convince themselves that they hadn’t just seen what they had seen. But, on the other hand, I tended to be more of the type that would see if they could repeat the process to get the odd thing that happened, to happen again. So I went back to the book and picked it up off the ground where I dropped it when I was trying to get away from the pop-up message and opened it again. After about five seconds, the same message came up again.

At this point, I was getting closer to the idea that I was some failed government experiment with new technology and that I might even be in some sort of field test. I had a built-in HUD that interacted with at least some parts of the world around me. This seemed to be something that was right out of SCI-FI. “Whoa, this is cool,” I muttered, catching myself just before it became a yell.

I took a seat and looked at the book again. It was asking if I wanted to learn a skill. So This had to be part of the testing that they were doing or that I was escaping from. Either way, I wasn’t sure what all Script should teach me. I already knew how to write in cursive, so that shouldn’t be what this was. Yet, it was something that I wanted to see if I could learn.

Perhaps they had a way to force knowledge into my head. If so, that might explain why I didn’t remember the past nine months or so; if they could put something in, then they could take something out as well, I surmised.

I looked intently at the pop-up and realized that I had no way to interact with it. I tried to poke the yes, but my finger didn’t touch anything. It was odd as my hand didn’t pass through the letters but beyond them. They were the top things in my vision and were also somewhat translucent. I then tried to say, “Yes,” however that brought no results. I then tried to focus my vision on the spot where yes was thought, “yes.” That last one is what triggered the reaction from the HUD.

Error as a Wild Human you're illiterate and

Unable to learn any skills from books until you learn to read.