The next few days were August's most fearful, along with being some of the most agonizing days of his life.
He spent the first day in the hollow bush, too afraid to step out. So he stayed alone with his thoughts.
The Bush was cold and lonely, barely wide enough to fully hide him while he laid on his stomach, leaving only enough space to move around ever so slightly. August took the opportunity to evaluate his current condition, doing anything to keep his mind off what had happened.
He wasn't injured thankfully, he had sustained nothing more than a few scrapes and scratches from running through the thick brush. The cold, damp soil he was pressed against probably wasn't doing him any favors terms of infections though.
He was down to four swords, it could have been six, but he wanted the sword that stuck in the behemoth's eye to stay there for as long as possible, his retribution. August couldn't bring himself to attempt a resummon of the one he had gifted to Alia.
Maybe somewhere deep down he hoped she would use it to escape.
Of course he knew better than to believe in the impossible now, but he allowed himself that thought. To him, it was nothing more than hoping to not have been the reason for her death.
The thought disgusted him, he resented himself to an insurmountable degree for what he had done, especially while the wounds were fresh.
The second day, he stepped out of the bush for the first time. All the monsters he had seen had gravitated towards the clearing, which left him much open forest to explore.
He was still struggling with his emotional state, but he would need to do this to survive.
He spent much more time looking at the forest that day. Maybe it was due to him searching for something to distract him from his thoughts.There were plants that he had seen back when he was with Alia, but new species as well.
He saw what looked like a mutated Venus Flytrap consuming a large, dog sized beetle. Near a stream further away he witnessed a small wolf with reflective fur get snatched away by another reptilian bird.
After witnessing countless more creatures and events, August finally came to what he now thought was an obvious conclusion.
Whilst following a massive lizard from a tree, carefully tailing it as it came to what seemed like a ring of golden yellow shrubs. August watched as it slipped expertly between the branches and entered the ring, making a variety of strange, low screeches. It sounded as if the beast was calling for something, or somethings for that matter.
That something came soon after.
First, there was a rustling, then came the first, the second, and then the third. Soon the lizard was surrounded by eight smaller ones. Each of them was only a fraction of the larger, and they hurriedly scuttled beneath the creature, feeding off of it.
It was then August realized that this world was not simply hostile and dangerous. It was an ecosystem, thriving in it's own right. These monsters– a word he was becoming more apprehensive with using– were simply living as they always had.
The flora and fauna of this new world, the habitats and homes of these creatures were not changing. They were returning to how they were, these species were native to this land.
He was an invasive species, and if he knew anything about invasive species, they had to evolve or die trying.
On day three, his rations ran out.
August had traveled quite a bit from his original starting point, which meant that the greenery around him had changed as well. None of the berry bushes and fruit trees he had originally foraged from seemed to make their home here.
He did continue to search for alternatives however. At first he found a similar bush of blue berries with yellow leaves, those burned his tongue.
Then he found a tree adorned with Pear- like purple fruit, but it was also inhabited by another reptilian bird that seemed to have made a nest there. So he waited, and waited, and waited some more.
After a few hours the hunger became almost unbearable, and he worried his growling stomach would give him away.
But he still had to wait some more.
Soon the creature must have felt hungry itself, because it scanned the area with it's beady, soulless eyes, searching for something. August didn't know whether it found that something or not, but it flew off to search for it.
And then he made his move, scaling the tree precariously, almost falling more than a few times in his weakened state. But he eventually made it to the lowest hanging branch of the tree, where the fruit looked a little green, clearly unripe, but he was much too starved to care.
He picked the closest one, biting down into the fruit. Soon a sweet taste cooled his mouth and a comforting sensation enveloped him.
Then his newfound solace was broken by a twisted feeling. If August was right and not hallucinating from starvation, something was writhing around on his tongue– multiple somethings in fact.
He hurriedly spat out the bite of fruit, and to his horror, the endocarp of the fruit was not solid, but made up of hundreds of worming apparatus stuck to the inner region of the skin.
August did not eat that fruit.
He continued to search, the more he hunted, the hungrier he became. His mind wandered back to Alia, and how thankful he was that she had searched for food for him while he was asleep.
He did not allow himself to linger on that thought however, as it was much too painful and incited feelings he'd much rather bury.
The more he searched, the more apparent something he had not wanted to admit became.
If he wanted to continue living, he would need to go back to the clearing, back to where the monsters waited.