'Where am I?'
Ransom asked as he felt like his body was run over by a truck. He was beaten all over, he smells like shit and blood has dried on his skin.
Yet mysteriously, all wounds on his legs, chest, and head were no more.
"Ack!"
He tried to stand up but he feels too weak to do so. He was starving and needed something to eat.
After a couple of tries, he's on his feet now. With his vision slowly brightening, he saw grasses as tall as him all over. Suddenly, he remembered everything that happened last night.
"We rode a plane to Japan. Then a white light struck the plane. The green monsters, goblins, massacred everyone. Mom died, father died..."
He paused as he immense himself with the intense emotion of losing his loved ones.
"The plane crashed. I saw that monster eating my mother's arm and killed it, I killed it. I run through this forest, the forest saved me."
"I'm alive."
The last sentence turns into a whisper.
Ransom is a child who has experienced many things even before these event. The therapist said that he's on a higher scale of pessimism. Yet weirdly, in addition to his high I.Q., he has a very strong mental stability, a trait the King clan, and his father's family boasted of.
He first assessed the situation he was in.
'The goblins, they're still roaming here. The top priority is to survive until I get rescued.'
He walked out of the grasses until he saw a clearing. On his left is a big cave, and on his right lays animal remains.
At that point, Ran's whole body tensed up. He has nothing on his mind but one-word "RUN!"
But unfortunately, he's trapped. He has nothing to run to.
He has fallen into a 3 meter pit. The sides are slow, and although he still hasn't tried climbing, he already knew he have no chance to climb with his current state.
'Just how long have I slept to be this hungry. I can eat a horse!'
In addition, even if he managed to get up, there were still the goblins. They were still fresh, the memories of that night. Hidden deep within his heart is the fear of the ferocious man-eating goblins.
Confined with the reality of his present situation, he moves with extreme care. His first destination is the animal remains.
The remains are in terrible condition. The oldest is just bone and all. While the latest is a horned deer with a huge chunk at its neck.
The blood has already dried into black colour. Flies as big as his nails are flocking and buzzing as they watch Ransom approach.
'Sh*t, that's one big bite. This is definitely a bear. But why did it leave its gain lying here outside? And based on its smell, it must have been basking here for 2 or 3 days already.'
Although curious, he stopped approaching the corpses, instead, he eagerly reacted to a bunch of purple ball-like things on the bushes near him.
It has shiny skin and looks appealing to the eye. Ran can already imagine the juices coming from these fruits once he bites into them.
He almost failed to stop himself from taking a bite of the fruit. He came from the Philippines, he knew lots of fruits but he has never seen anything like this. For all he knows it might be poisonous.
'No, this isn't it. This isn't it.'
He calmed his crazy heart as plethora of intense emotions attacked him from every direction of his mind.
He almost burst out crying. He's thirsty, hungry, lost, lonely, he has nowhere to turn to, nowhere to hide.
Suddenly, he think he saw a twinkle from the entrance of the cave. He squinted his eyes, and saw it.
'There's water flowing from the crack there! I've only noticed it now due to the sunlight being covered by the trees!'
Slowly, he approached the spot. He saw a noticeable crack at the bottom until the top of the black stone that made up the cave. When he touched it, he realized that the stone is very hard and cold to the touch.
Without a second thought, he starts licking the minuscule amount of water coming from it for a while. He suddenly felt alive and refreshed!
'Did something happen to the inhabitant of this cave?'
His heart beats like crazy as he took a small peek at the insides of the cave.
Wooosh.
It's cold. The eerie silence and pungent smell filled the atmosphere of the cave. It's too dark to see anything. Yeah, too dark, it almost feels like it's... empty?
Slowly, he moved inwards as the darkness slowly engulfs him. The cave isn't that long, soon, his toenail hit a stone almost making him shriek in pain. But what's more shocking is the body of a 9 feet grizzly bear laying in a pool of its blood. Its body was pierced by a big stalagmite and buried by huge stones.
'As I thought, It's a bear. Based on the wounds his prey took before they died and the fact that he let his prey outside without putting them inside his cave means something has happened to it.'
He approached the body and examined the area.
'It looks like he's sleeping here in this cave when an earthquake turned the structure of the cave in shambles and thus the stalagmite pierced its huge body. It seems like there are signs of struggle, but in the end, he couldn't endure the stones dropping unto him as he was buried alive...'
Without realizing it, he's already dazed as he realize the cruel side of nature. He's thankful that the Bear is dead, cause if not, he's the one who's dead. Yet he's also remorseful of the undeniable fact that he's alive because the one who should have killed him is dead.
'Thank you Mr. Bear. I'll make this cave my home for the time being and treat it in respect. Forgive me, I won't be able to bury you today, but I'll bury you soon when I've settled down.'
With that thought in mind, he drifted into his unconquerable state of sleepiness.
...
The cloudless sky makes way for the moonlight to shine without hindrance.
The sounds of the night breeze grazing on the large grasses together with the sounds of the tree leaves flapping and an indescribable guttural sounds coming from within the unknown forest.
His dreams rotates around this pit, a never-ending nomadic life. Forever in this cave but truly has no permanent place.
A couple of hours, a snoring Ransom awoke from a robotic voice coming from somewhere.
[Time until the second Ascension - 27 days and 5 months. Survive with all you have Ransom King!]
[ *Profile*
Name: Ransom King
Title: Survivor of the First Ascent
Level: 1
Ascended: ×
*Status*
Strength: 4
Agility: 6
Fortitude: 4
Psyche: 8
Free Stats: 2
*Abilities*
None]
Ran was flabbergasted by the dizzying white screen in front of his eyes. Without giving him time to process everything with his sleepy brain. Another screen popped in front of him, this time there was a 60 seconds timer and the words are in red.
[× Ascent Gift: Choose from the 3
*Abilities*
*Items*
*Free Stats* ]