It was an immediate regret.

My heart was beating rapidly, fear gripping my chest. There are a hundred different things that could go wrong and end with me dying. Me landing wrong, the birds returning, the lake being shallower than what I was expecting, or even not being able to swim due to some mystical magic shit. Oh god, I really hope I survive this.

I zoomed ever downwards, the fall seemingly taking hours, constantly moving my body to try and be as straight as possible. I squeezed my eyes shut.

A sudden feeling of my toes hitting something, then them tingling, and finally coldness. The water surrounded me on all sides, beckoning me to come deeper into its depth.

I ignored the call.

With a sense of urgency I pushed my body to its limit, breaking through the surface of the water in seconds. I hurried to the edge of the lake, I landed fairly close to the shore, throwing myself out of the water and onto the shore made of dirt.

I made a decision then: to never jump from a ledge without clearly thinking about what I was doing. I could feel my heart thumping against my chest heavily and rapidly, with it slowly dropping down to a normal level. That was stupid, what I did. I could of died in some many different ways, or hurt myself. Not even thinking about the animals (or monsters?) that could of been lurking in the depths of the lake.

Sitting up, I brushed my wet hair out of my face. Damn. Something else I should of thought of; my only clothes were now soaked. No matter, that only cements the promise I made to myself.

I looked up at the ledge where I jumped off, the wall of rock leading to the top was smooth; as if it was cut by a knife. So no going back up. With my heart calmed as it could be, I pushed myself out of my sitting position and started to head away from the lake.

After a short walk, I reached where the birds were, feathers were littered on the ground and scratch marks filled the dirt ground.

Oh.. HELL YEAH! In the ground was a small hole, filled with many small eggs. The eggs were a multitude of different colors: blue, pink, purple, and white being the most common.

They really just left the eggs like that though? Were they not worried about potential predators? Looking around I didn’t see any birds around, so they must not have planned on being gone for long…. Which means I gotta take these things and get the hell out of here.

I took off my wet T-shirt and started to shove as many eggs as I could into the makeshift bucket that was my shirt. I don’t even bother to count the number of eggs I threw inside of my shirt, instead, I sprinted back to the lake, to only fly past it. I wanted to move as far away from the bird’s nest as possible, which means I needed to move as far as I could in the short amount of time I probably had.

I continued running, and running, and running… without looking back. Never look back when you run. Probably. My sprint turned into a run, then my run into a jog, then when I couldn’t even jog no more, I walked.

--

Two hours later I was done. My legs were on fire and my stomach was begging me to eat, to eat the eggs and be done with it. Of course, I ignored it, but it was hard. I was starving. Like close to passing out starving. Since I was done running I turned around, looking at the lake that was far in the distance. I couldn’t see the birds, so that’s probably good.

My only goal now was to get to the forest and find some way to make a fire. I just really, really, wanna eat these eggs. Preferably without it being raw.

--

The walk to the forest didn’t take long, just a few minutes since it kept growing closer and closer to the plains that I was running on, but something I didn’t take notice while running was the sheer size of these trees. They easily stood over 100 feet tall. Their trunk was straight and thick, with the bark being a rich dark brown color. It was simply beautiful. I’ve never seen trees like this in the past, so to be so close to one was quite amazing.

Small shrubs grew on the forest floor, blanketing the area in a mix of forestry colors. I would admire it further, but hunger calls to me. I immediately set to work collecting any kind of twigs or branches. The dry leaves on the ground would make for great tinder, I hope so at least. My plan for starting a fire was basic; copy that of the great wilderness survival shows. It’ll probably work… right?

With my T-shirt-made basket- around one arm, and a small number of twigs in the other, I moved further into the forest, searching for a place to make camp.

Acott Myers Level: 0 Race: Human Mana: 10/10 Status: Strength-9 Constitution-7 Agility-6 Dexterity-6 Intelligence-11 Wisdom-8 Skills: Rock Climbing:1 Meditation: 1 Effects: Hunger Fatigue