"I hadn't noticed it yesterday"
"...when I took a look at the night sky, but..."
"..where's the moon?"
The moon, which should be displaying its naughtiness after the sun shifted to rest mode today.
Was nowhere to be seen.
"...could it be a new moon? Ha...ha ha.."
Badump!
...
Juan was suddenly feeling nervous; his blood were flowing more and more quickly to his brain.
His ears started to turn deaf coming from his loudly and rapidly beating heart.
He's on adrenaline.
Suddenly, he seems to have thought of a terrifying conjecture arriving at this point.
And this guess feels unbelievable and eerie to hear and utter.
"Could this world have no moon?"
A normal person suddenly finds himself in another world.
No people, mountains, structures.
or even animals except those fishes in the river.
At night, there's no ounce of existence of the moon above.
"There's no way a sane man would feel safe and remain calm during this time."
And that's indeed was currently happening to him right now.
He had just described his current situation.
In short, he was panicking and on the brink of losing his reason from fear, terror and psychological shock.
"But panic is difficult to suppress."
Juan didn't want to cry out loud for fear of attracting, unknown things.
He didn't want to make it worst.
He can never be sure no one is watching.
That's why, before, he could subconsciously make any accident and have regrets.
He had already mustered all the strength and courage he could gather to hold his trembling lips from uttering any sentence.
Juan did not know whether it was caused by the chilly wind or whether his fear kept on making him shiver.
But...
He tightly closed his eyes and hid his pale face under his weak arms, which were shaking uncontrollably even now.
Fear and darkness enveloped him, gripping his heart and making it hard for him to breathe more smoothly and loudly.
The moon's absence, the quiet and strange grassland devoid of any animal life.
All of this caused him to have a sleepless night.
It wasn't until dawn that he saw the first ray of the bright sun and felt somehow relieved.
He lifted up his face and looked through the gap in his arms to see the brightening horizon from afar.
When he felt the heat from those rays, that was when he relaxed and gave in to physical and mental fatigue.
"...it's already morning, huh. It's so bright. This time, I can finally rest and sleep."
Juan's bloodshot eyes slowly shut down tight.
The cold wind passes through the thin fabric of his pajama, making him curled up unconsciously because of the cold.
"...so cold."
...
Noon.
"This is the... third day... and I'm dying... from starving."
Juan laid down on his raft listlessly.
He lowered his head and used his hand to scoop up some water to his face.
It made him awake much more amidst his ongoing starvation.
Then after that, he scooped some to quench his thirst but not his hunger.
"At most... tonight...I might not be able to move anymore. This might be the last. Ugh..."
His mind was already wandering somewhere.
He can only gather his thoughts from time to time anymore.
If there's nothing to be done, he might really die here.
Splash!
"Ugh—!?"
Just as he was despairing at this time, wanting to gradually sink before his raft.
Juan suddenly heard a thud noise and somehow felt something heavy landed on his chest area.
His scattered thoughts gathered, and subconsciously, he forced out some determination to look down.
"... seriously?"
And then he saw a fish slide down.
At that moment, the flow of the river slowed down in his eyes.
The wind became gentle, and the already peaceful and eerie grassland became even quieter.
There was only one thought left to form in his mind at this time.
Food.
It was at this moment when who knew where he got the strength to move his hands at the speed much faster than he blinks his eyes.
Just to catch the nearly falling fish back on the river out of the raft.
It might be caused by adrenaline and the overclocking of his thoughts.
Got it!
He caught the fish and gripped it tightly in his embrace until it couldn't escape anymore.
Sweat subconsciously falls from his eyebrows, forehead, nose, sunken cheeks, and pale lips.
"...I....I....I got it."
...
A while later, Juan paddled the raft to the bank before he shakily returned to the ground and sat down.
Looking at the big fish in his hand, the size of his thigh.
Tears can't help but fall unconsciously from the edge of his eyes.
"Finally....such a long time...I can eat once again."
He wiped those tears away before he started to clean up the fish inside.
After that, he directly bit down on it's fresh fish meat, down to his throat and then stomach.
In this situation, he was already starving to death to even care about the taste of what he ate.
He doesn't even bother making it roasted because it takes time.
And surely, Juan hasn't thought it further.
The smell of his roasting might attract unwanted things.
Which he might have unconsciously avoided.
With the size of the fish flesh, Juan still ate half of it whole before he could feel his stomach crying out full.
"I'm saved... luckily."
He lied down on the ground and let himself relax under the sun.
Letting the warm sun bathe him face-up.
Looking up at the blue sky, Juan was in dazed.
This feeling of eating once again after three days of starvation.
Escaping death and being alive once more.
"Indeed, life is more beautiful and wonderful after a moments of life and death."
He murmured the words, which contained nothing but relief.
It washes away the accumulated stress and fatigue these past few days.
"But still, eating this fish raw...ugh. I better be prepared for what comes next after this."
And so he got diarrhea in the afternoon.
The recovered energy he had wasn't enough to push him straight like a rod on the ground.
Like a sneaky goblin in the bushes, he felt a little shy doing it in the wild.
"Ugh, I won't eat raw food anymore."
"Although a bit dangerous, if I wanted to traverse this grassland safely, I couldn't go on and get sick like this."
After washing up, he gathered a lot of dry grass and twigs around the dried shrubbery found around the corners of the grassland.
He was really thankful for the twigs and shrubberies around.
"Firewood check, sun check, grasses check, fresh half-left fish check. Time to make my first bonfire."
At the same time, he glances around at his surroundings cautiously.
"No unidentified object found. Well then, I hope no danger will come to me after the smoke rises."
And so he made a fire using the survival methods he learned long ago at school.
Though it took him almost an hour to do so, nevertheless, he started a fire and also roasted the remaining half fish he got.
"Gulp. Should I take a little bite?"
Asked himself while smelling the lingering fragrance and aroma in the air.
The bubbling oil oozing on its skin and meat.
Juan gulped subconsciously.
He was hungry once again.
"No, I can't be hasty. This journey is dangerous and long. I need to be more frugal with my only food right now."
After that, he wrapped the roasted fish in one of his clothes, which he ripped off.
It was from his long pajama pants.
Now his left, soft, white scalp can be seen attracting his attention every now and then.
"I'm a little whiter, wasn't I? And also quiet lean. No beer fat yet."
After reinforcing his makeshift raft, he once again rode it into the current and continued his drifting life.
"It's going to be night once again. Just thinking about the moon's absence is really scary."
"I wonder how many days I can acclimate to this new world with new rules and norms."
What comes next is once again a life-and-death survival.
Can he even sleep tonight? Alone in the wild.
Surely he won't go crazy right?
...
Night.
Just a few minutes after the last ray of the setting sun disappeared from the horizon.
"It's dark again," he murmured.
Juan laid on his back while facing the starry night sky.
The river's current continues to flow, bringing him along to where its destination lies beyond.
'I'm still nervous though, but... I had already recovered some courage after some time.'
It is what reality says: time can heal everything.
And also forgets about them as they get erased from history.
Even fear can only be cast aside after a long time.
This time, Juan made sure to harden his heart, find determination, and make a resolution.
'If I want to survive, I need to adapt to my current environment.'
However, he can't be a warrior who always moves forward to face all the challenges along the way.
Nor is he an assassin hidden in the dark, wanting to kill every danger.
Nor is he a manipulator who controls everything.
'Instead, I can be an archer. A smart one that prioritizes their position every time.'
In short, hit and run.