Heart Of Void

RUSTLE

Cold and afraid, Nathan snapped his eye open at the sound of the bush around his burrow being disturbed, It was still nighttime, but he felt somewhat rested so it was safe to assume he got a decent amount of sleep.

His body had started to release adrenaline, he was finding it hard to keep his breathing quiet and his body from shaking.

Nathan tightly gripped his dagger as he slowly crawled outside of the burrow, trying to be as quiet as possible.

As he peeked his head out of the burrow, his saw a pair of round, golden eyes, appearing almost shiny as they reflected the moonlight, staring directly at him.

Nathan's body jerked in response, pushing away all the bushes he set up and immediately standing up. After clearing the bushes, he was able to see the entity more clearly.

'That's a leopard.'

He was staring directly at the leopard, and so was the leopard. Both started slowly circling each other at a snail's pace, closely observing the other's behavior for a sign of weakness.

"AAAAAAAHHHHH"

Nathan shouted at the leopard, hoping that a loud noise would scare it off. Unfortunately, the opposite seemed to happen.

"GRRR"

The leopard growled and moved forward, as if sensing the fear developing inside its target.

'I don't want to die! that thing is going to kill me.'

Overwhelmed with a feeling of dread that struck his very soul, the fear of death, his eyes left the figure of the leopard, and he shifted his weight onto one foot, ready to sprint for his life... A fatal mistake.

Closely observing him, the leopard took notice of the instance of weakness. It instantly took advantage of the opening, and leapt onto Nathan as he was turning around to start his sprint.

It's claws made a slash running from Nathan's left shoulder to his right leg.

Nathan fell over with the leopard now standing on top of him, bringing its head down to bite his neck and finish off its prey, but with the dagger still held tightly in his hand, Nathan stabbed upwards into the leopards abdomen, while using his other hand to push the leopard's head sideways away from his neck.

Despite stabbing the leopard, it did not budge an inch, continuing to try biting his neck to finish the kill.

'Die! Just die, you fucking monster'

Nathan began to repeatedly stab the leopard, hoping for it to die before his other hand could tire out from holding the leopard's head back, just as his hand felt like it was about to give in, the leopard collapsed onto Nathan, it's body twitching several times before embracing death.

Nathan rolled the corpse on top of him to the side, trying to calm his nerves and breathing.

Cough cough cough

'I'm alive, I'm still alive!'

He dragged himself towards a nearby tree, resting with his back leaned against it, barely catching his own breath, staring at the endlessly expanding forest in-front of him, wondering if it would've been better if he had died just then.

However, before those dark thoughts could start consuming him, waves of radiating pain came from his chest. With difficulty, he took off his shirt that was soaked with blood, and stared at 4 huge lines of slashed skin, spanning from his shoulder all the way to the opposite leg, still bleeding copious amounts of blood.

'Damn it, this is bad... but still salvageable, I think.'

Nathan got up and walked towards the leopard's corpse, and started skinning it. Thanks to his teacher, He already knew the basics of butchering a carcass.

After skinning the torso and head of the leopard, he then wrapped the skin around himself tightly, functioning as a way to put pressure on his wounds to stop the bleeding, and an insulating coat to replace his blood soaked shirt.

Nathan then closed his eyes and took a deep breath, preparing himself for what comes next.

He cut up the carcass and filled his stomach with as much meat, fat, and blood as it could handle. Gagging with every bit he swallowed.

'Never did I think I would be praying for a bit of salt and pepper. This is disgusting... but the threat of starvation is a good motivator for swallowing anything!'

After washing away the traces of blood that were on him in the river, he resumed walking in the same direction away from his village.

'I need to find civilization fast, hopefully a city, I've heard that the empire of Bellator accepts anyone as a citizen as long as they show strength, whatever that means... hopefully me surviving this is enough of 'strength' for them.'

Nathan kept walking... for what seemed like forever. After all, he could do nothing but keep moving and pray to a higher entity that a city full of food, water, and shelter magically appear in front of him.

****

Later that day, Nathan was looking worse than ever. He was dehydrated, hungry, tired, smelled of rotting meat, and a little crazed, seemingly more similar to a walking dead than a human.

'I haven't found a single damn animal this whole day! How is this possible when I've covered so much ground?!'

Taking a look at the setting sun, Nathan sighed and collapsed on the ground.

He was truly and utterly exhausted, walking almost 60km was taking up a ludicrous amount of mental and physical effort, never mind the sheer amount of precious calories he just burned.

He wanted to keep walking to find a way out of this hell as fast as possible. However, he did not have the mental nor physical energy left to even think about getting up. His body was running on fumes at this point and it desperately need rest.

'I want food...'

Nathan had one last thought, before drifting off to a not so peaceful sleep, full of harrowing and terrifying nightmares... not so different from his reality.