Ten Zero

I consider what I know, as I scour the forest for the materials for my lean-to. "My current running theory is that I was kidnapped, for some reason, then lost or abandoned in a forest, for some reason. Obviously the theory has holes, but I'm trying my best to find Occam's Razor. Again, for 'some reason', they left me in my work clothes, with all the stuff I had on me when I was poisoned in my house. What are the strikes against the theory, barring things that I'm missing or don't make sense? Well, it seems pretty infeasible for someone to sneak a poison beer into our fridge. Also, it would be very infeasible for kidnappers to get me out of my house without being noticed." I pause in my collection process. "Unless they didn't get me out without being noticed." I don't like that.

But there's no point in worrying about my roommates or... my wife. Right now, anyways. I have bottom tier maslow's to deal with right now. "So... the kidnappers get me, and then bring me somewhere. Running with that theory, I can't be far from Portland, because I would've woken up. Unless they kept me drugged with a different drug. Like being put under during a surgery. Although that requires an anesthesiologist and a whole set up. Is that realistic? I don't know much about anesthesiology, so we'll just assume yes right now, because that solves the question I had about the forest. Because this very much does not look like any place on the west coast that I've been to, or even heard of. Could they have gotten me out of the country? That seems like a stretch, they'd have to smuggle me out while keeping me under. So I'm likely somewhere in the US, although I still can't imagine what place looks and smells like this." I take a deep breath, and wrinkle my nose. I couldn't quite tell before, by the air itself smells off, like a building that is rotting away, or like a rusty machine, or something. I can even taste it at the back of my throat, and as the exertion from the walk and the lean-to building process has continued, I've started noticing it more and more.

"It doesn't smell healthy. If I were in a building, I'd leave, but I'm outside right now. This should be the fresh air. I don't really know what that means. If I could move away from it I would but I feel like I've been smelling it the whole walk. Maybe it's a factory nearby off-gassing or something? That's... still not great for the environment, but at least I'd be able to find people. So, I'm tentatively somewhere in the contiguous US, and for what is the biggest sticking point of this whole theory, I'm 'alone' in this forest. If I was kidnapped, and the kidnappers went through all that effort to get me here, why? There's no way I just... fell out of a plane or something. So I had to have been planted here." I stop again. I know that my imagination is running away from me but I can't help verbalizing a thought tickling in the back of my mind. "Am I... in some sort of lab experiment?", I whisper out loud. I look around at the uncanny valley forest, then look to the sky. I don't see glass, or screens, or anything that would insinuate I was trapped inside a bio-dome, but there was always a chance this was some sort of Maze Runner type situation. If that was true, then moving forward was the best course of action until I encountered a wall of some sort, and then I could maybe use one of the brownwoods to help scale it.

I hated that that was currently my most viable theory.

After about 2 hours of gathering branches and the like, I had finally assembled my lean-to. It wasn't going to win me any awards, but I'd already got my Star Scout badge when I was younger, and plus, as long as it kept me safe (or at least safer) from the elements, I figure it could be considered a success. Even though there is still a couple hours of sunlight left, I make my way inside, and seal myself in. I figure it's better to try to get some sleep now, based on a few factors. First, I was going to have a hard time getting asleep. I'm used to a cushy bed and a weighted blanket in an air conditioned room. I hadn't been camping in over a decade, and although all the mental skills were still there, the physical ones were not. I also knew that I would have a hard time staying asleep. I can be a heavy sleeper when I feel safe, but from my experiences of homelessness, I also knew that I could wake at the slightest sound or touch, and be raring to go in seconds. And even though I hadn't really seen any animals (probably due to how loud I was being), I'd occasionally heard birds off in the distance, so I knew there was definitely living things in the area. That also meant that once I fell asleep, there was a good chance that animals would move into the area at night, and so if I was going to be sleeping rough (in all senses of the word) I would want to make sure I could sleep for more time than usual, so as to be rested in the morning.

I do my best to get comfortable in the lean-to. At first, I think to take my jacket off and ball it up to use it as a pillow, but if I did that then I was missing out on the warmth that it provided, and that was much more important than a bit of discomfort. I eventually find myself on my back, hands behind my head, and I watch as the sunlight slowly shifts through the small holes in the the lean-to. "I don't know how long I'm going to be here", I think, listening to the sounds of the wind. "I can hope for a quick end to the situation, but there's a good chance that I'm going to be here for some amount of time. I need to think about my pyramid". In my case, it was similar to Maslow's, but if differed in a few respects. Obviously water, food, shelter in that order was the most important, but beyond that, I also needed to account for withdraw from medications. "*'m going to have headaches, and trouble focusing from the ritalin withdraws. The caffeine withdraws are definitely going to be worse. But in both respects, water and rest will help. If I can make a cache of food and water, then I can have some downtime to try and deal with it. But I may have to just power through it. There's not really withdraw symptoms from HRT, but my emotional state is going to be all over the place", I chuckle, "although that's pretty much where we are now. Obviously, long term that can be an issue, but if I start developing osteoporosis after being in the forest for 40 years or something, well...", I sigh. I don't like having to consider the fact that I might be here forever, but it's important to set immediate, short, medium and long term goals. I want to believe that I can find my way back to civilization, but the amount of infrastructure that would be needed to pull of a kidnapping like this is just... worrisome. But at least, one day one, I don't need to give it more than a passing thought. I can almost see the sun beginning to set through the branches of my lean-to, so I turn my mind to attempting sleep. If all goes well, I'll be able to get a full nights rest, and I can start looking for water right as I wake. I squirm and wiggle, doing my best to get comfortable up against the roots of the brownwood, and close my eyes.

---

My eyes open for the fifth time tonight. It's likely just something wandering around like the last few time I woke up, but in this case, as I bleary peek through, I can see that the sun is just barely starting to rise. I could do with a few more hours of sleep, but time waits for no one. I wait until I hear the scuffling of the animal move away, then slowly come out of the lean-to. Like all the other animals I heard around that night, I didn't do anything to try and scare them off or alert them to my presence. While none of the footsteps sounded particularly heavy, I hadn't really wanted to peek my head out to find a bear or something instead of a rat or fox. As it left, I listened to the direction it meandered, and like the other four times, I heard the animals move from 'my northwest' to 'my southeast', or vice versa. I figured that meant that there was a 50% chance that water was one of those directions, and since I was already heading 'my north', I figured it made sense to course correct slightly and continue on my route. "No time like the present", I think, as I stretch next to the lean-to. I don't have food or water, nor do I have any other tasks I need to attend to, so it makes sense to just start off right away. I look around camp, trying to spot a trail left by the animals, and find a few subtle furrows left on the ground. It looks kind of like something dragging through the dirt, possibly a tail of something low to the ground. More confident of my heading, I start off through the bushes.

"I hope there's water, and that this isn't just like, the route that this family of beavers or whatever tends to wander in", I think, as I wriggle my dry tongue around in my mouth. I can taste that weird moldy house air in the back of my throat, and I can't seem to generate any spit. I keep at it, while keeping an eye on the ground, just in case the animal veered off at any point. I'm no tracker, but the animal wasn't trying to be sneaky, and I'm taking my time, so I feel pretty confident that I would notice if the path suddenly vanished on me. As I keep my head down, I start to hear the wind pick up, but for some reason, I don't feel the breeze... wait. "Is that running water?" I think to myself, smile forming, unbidden on my face. I pick up the pace, moving by ear now, as I make my way closer to the clearly bubbling and rushing sound of a river or creek. And, as I round a tree, I see it. What appears to be clear, running water. There's even an animal drinking out of it right now-oh wait. "That's dinner." I realize. "This is a crazy stroke of luck, and if I don't kill that rabbit... jackrabbit? If I don't kill that jackrabbit, I might be subsisting off of berries or something for the time being." A small part of my mind reminds me that I hadn't seen anything that I would consider genuinely edible since I've been here. No berries, or any recognizable edible leaves, or anything. I watch the jackrabbit as it's face is in the water, and I try to formulate a plan. "Alright, I don't have tools, so... maybe I can crush it's head with a rock? If I get a heavy enough rock, and I'm quiet about it, I could sneak up on it maybe. Or maybe I should just wait for it to head back to-" my thoughts comes to a screeching halt, as the jackrabbit leans away from the water. It has three arms.

Why does it have three arms? WHY DOES IT HAVE THREE ARMS? "What the fuck?!" I scream, forgetting for a moment to be quiet. It's head snaps up to look at me. "Shit," I say, realizing I might lose my chance for dinner, and I start to look for a heavy rock, but I realize pretty quickly that the rabbit creature isn't fleeing. It takes a step towards me, and... hisses? "What the fuck is wrong with you!?" I shout, because the damn thing had sharp, needle like teeth in it's mouth and it hissed at me and now that's getting closer, I can see that it doesn't have fur like some sort of naked mole rat or something and suddenly, it's in front of me, and I don't have a rock. This wasn't the plan.

I decide to abort the plan, because I'm not even really confident that I should be eating this irradiated rabbit creature, and I try to make myself big to scare it off. "Hey!" I shout, arms up wide in the sky. "Fuck off!" I bellow. Instead, it just leans down close to the ground, the third arm growing out of the center of it's chest pressed against the floor, looking almost like it's laying down in front of me. It's lips peel back, and it's eyes look at me as it snarls and hisses again. I can see those teeth much closer now, and it's very clear they are predator teeth. But like, predator teeth on crack. "RAH! GO AWAY." I shout, as I take my jacket off to wave it at the creature. But as I go to make a motion in it's direction, it springs towards me; the legs and arm positioned against the floor giving it an almost sprinter's like stance used to it's fullest advantage. It closes the gap between us in an instant, barely giving me enough time to start to step away from it. As it leaps towards me, it's mouth opens wide, and I just barely manage to get my jacket in front of it. The resistance of my jacket slows it enough that instead of tearing my throat out, it instead gets a chunk of my waist.

Immediate, sharp, tearing pain like I've never felt before shoots up my side, and I can feel the pain signals trace around my entire body as though the pain is ricocheting within me. I go to scream, but all that comes out is a gasp, and a croak, as I try to both breath in and out at the same time. The act makes me cough, which causes the pain that was bouncing around in my body to pick up it's pace. The jackrabbit-creature, having torn through my clothes and flesh fully, lands on the ground behind me, snarls, and leans down into its runner pose again. As I do my best to keep an eye on it's position, I can feel the pain and fury and rage mix together inside me, and every muscle in my body screams at me to kill this thing that just took a bite out of me. "I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" I roar, throwing my entire body onto the ground on top of the jackreature, with my jacket outstretched in front of me. I hadn't consciously made the decision, but I knew that my goal was to get it wrapped up as best I could in my jacket, so that I could... pummel it with my fists? I guess?

The jackreature clearly hadn't expected me to effectively spin and fall on top of it, and it's runner pose was only really mean to send it forward, which in this case, meant right into my arms and jacket. But any animal designed to do one thing, does that one thing exceptionally well, so even with my attempt to catch it off guard, it still reacted quickly. It bounded forward into my waiting arms, as I was still mid fall, causing me to try to wrap it up while at a 45 degree angle to the ground. Of course, my jacket is effectively a flat piece of cloth, and if you've ever tried to wrap something up in a blanket to catch it, you know how tricky it can be to keep all the sides closed in a way to keep your quarry contained. I hadn't intended to wrap it up in the air like this; my goal was to have my jacket on top of the jackreature while I laid on top of my jacket, where I could hold all the sides down against the ground. But the position I found myself in was precarious, and even though I did manage to briefly have a hold of it, I knew it wouldn't last for more than a second. I did my best to capitalize on the situation, as I instead shifted my grip on the jacket so I could slam it down onto the ground, using the jacket and my body as a sort of fulcrum to deal more damage to it.

As my grip shifted and the jacket (and I) came down on the ground, the jackcreature managed to wriggle and squirm it's way half out of the jacket, so unfortunately, I wasn't able to bring the full force of the slam to bear. However, I'm 6 foot 1, and my arms were stretched out about another foot, and I was using literally every bit of muscle I had against an animal that couldn't weigh more than 100 pounds at best, so it was with a bloodthirsty satisfaction when I heard a sharp crack and a screeching whine from the jackreature as it impacted the ground. Of course, this maneuver did leave me in a bit of a precarious position (on my face in the dirt), so I immediately resorted to trying to scramble back to my feet, so that I could prepare for the next attack from the jackreature. As I got to my hands and knees though, the pain that previously had taken a backseat in the priority of my mind shot right to the number one spot again. Tears came unbidden to my eyes, and I couldn't free a hand to wipe them away, so everything became wobbly and wavy, as though I was trying to see through an improperly formed window pane. "Fuck fuck fuck you little shit I hate you god I hate you I want to tear your FFFFUCKING head OFFF AGHHHH," I screamed, the pain forcing the words out of the animalistic part of my brain and into the thick, moldy house like air between us. The jackcreature did not respond, and it wobbled as it made its way up onto its two legs. From my best guess through my funhouse mirror eyes, the crack had come from some part of it's upper body, possibly it's chest or one of its arms. But the wooziness it displayed likely came from some sort of concussion, as the front half of it's body was what was sticking out of my jacket as it hit the ground.

It looked at me, wary and unsteady, but no longer tried to hiss or snarl at me. Instead, it began to make it's way into the underbrush around us; slowly limping off, as though deciding that I was no longer a meal worth fighting for. "Haaa... ha...! Bitch! That... is what... you get...," I panted, the exhaustion and pain from the wound making it difficult to speak. I do my best to get standing, but instead just end up falling on my back, my side gripped tight. "Woo... indomitable human spirit baby...," I mumble, my mind jumping between things too quickly for me to grasp on any one idea or subject. I know that I need to get to the water, to wash and tend the wound, but the 15 or so feet feel more like 15 miles, and as I'm coming down from the adrenaline, I can feel exhaustion creep up on me. "I can't fall asleep...," I mutter, as an intake of breath from the pain instead becomes a yawn. "But I can probably close my eyes for a moment... to... gather my thoughts."