Heart Of Void

'I wish I was as strong as tho-'

"AAAAHHH"

Nathan's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a scream that sounded eerily familiar putting a chill down Nathan's spine.

'Teacher has always said to keep calm no matter what, worst case scenario is that the fighters got overrun and now void monsters are tearing apart the village. I have to go outside to figure out what exactly is happening' 

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Nathan immediately got up from the ground and walked towards a wall that had a dagger hung on it. He stepped up and took the dagger into his hands, holding it very tightly.

He prepared himself for the worse, and then opened the door to go outside.

'Oh... my god.'

Nathan stood stunned, unable to react as he saw a giant purple Leopard 50 meters away tearing apart and eating Alex. What's worse, he could see Alex's eyes still moving, catching sight of him and shaking as if desperately asking for help.

'He's still alive... He's still alive.'

After a few seconds of being unable to react, he turned around and ran away as fast as possible.

His heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest, but he kept running without any other thought. He saw Jessica standing far away, frozen in horror at the sight of her torn apart twin, but he didn't stop for a second.

'I'm sorry... I'm sorry... there's no way I can help, I can only run to save my own life.'

100 meters, 1000, 5000. Nathan never stopped running no matter what. Screams of his friends, elders he knew and respected, his legs burning, his lungs feeling like they were on fire. It all didn't matter, he had to keep running.

After an hour of running and almost crossing 10 kilometers, Nathan tripped and collapsed on the ground, unable to even attempt to get up again.

'I-I t-think I'm s-safe.' 

After lying collapsed on the ground and panting for 15 minutes, he felt enough strength come back to him to get up from the ground.

'My current situation is absolutely horrible.'

Nathan was now stuck in a forest, with no food, source of water, clothes, or any sense of direction he should be going in except away from his village, and everyone he knew most likely dead.

'I'll be sad about it later, teacher would kill me if he knew I would cry instead of keeping a cool head and working towards my survival.'

Nathan decided to just keep walking in the direction away from his village. His current priorities are finding a source of water, all that water he sweated off himself during his run needed to be replenished.

'I'm not hungry at the moment so food will be a later thought. Thankfully, it's summer so I wont suffer too much at night, but I'll still need some sort of enclosure or wall so wind doesn't directly blow on me.'

Nathan kept walking in the same direction, paying attention to any sounds around him that could come from running water.

'I've always hated being dragged into hunts with teacher and him teaching me all about wilderness survival and hunting, but now these lessons are what will keep me alive.'

After walking for 3 hours, Nathan had found nothing, just an endless expansion of hills, trees, birds, and tiny animals that run up trees when they hear the incoming footsteps of Nathan. There were also delicious looking fruits, but his teacher had warned him that every fruit in this forest was extremely poisonous.

'The sun is starting to set, not good. I'll just need to keep walking anyways, I can't sleep without finding water. As for predators, I can only thank my luck that I haven't met any yet, but nighttime would likely be my end without a hiding spot.'

Finally, Nathan had spotted a river in-front of him.

'Yes! I found a river. Wait, what's that?'

There was a fox drinking water from the river right in-front of Nathan.

'This is my chance, the water will somewhat mask the sound of footsteps. I can't let this chance go!'

Nathan held his dagger tightly and hurriedly sneaked towards the fox, wanting to get to it before it finished drinking water.

'Clear your emotions, don't let any positive or negative emotions cloud your judgement, don't get excited or scared'

Nathan repeated in his head the mantra that his teacher had constantly repeated to him during every hunt he brought him with.

'Now!'

Nathan leaped on top of the fox, stabbing his dagger into the back of it's neck, instantly severing it's spinal cord and paralyzing it. He stood atop the slowly dying fox, wondering if everyone he knew was dead, just as this fox was.

'At least this dagger is really sharp!'

Distracting himself before he could breakdown, Nathan crouched down and started drinking water for the river to replenish his thirst.

After drinking water to his heart's content, Nathan looked at the fox's corpse before having a damning realization... He had to eat, but he didn't know how to make a fire.

He sighed before walking towards the carcass and preparing himself for the most disgusting meal of his life.

He skinned a part of the fox and tried to bite into it, but failed. The raw meat and connective tissue was too tough for his teeth, he couldn't even chew it so he had to cut the meat into thin strips with his dagger then directly swallow it.

After eating until he was full, most of the fox still remained but Nathan couldn't carry the corpse with him and taking any meat with him would only attract predators to the smell of blood on him. His hands and mouth were also covered in blood but he used dirt to rub most of it off, removing most of the smell.

It was now after sunset, with only a little bit of the sun's light left in the sky.

Nathan looked towards a nearby hill, spotting a big hole in the ground, likely a burrow belonging to the fox he just killed.

Before going inside the burrow, Nathan went to cut up some bushes with his dagger, and placed them around the burrow, making a well hidden sleeping spot.

'A perfect fit for my body.'

After checking that everything was in order. Nathan, too tired from the real life nightmare that he had just experienced, fell asleep instantly.