[The Primeval Apocalypse] - Chapter Twenty (collaboration with u/hydrael)

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The Primeval Apocalypse by Robert Keene and Alex Raizman

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Despite the horrible condition of the corpse, there was still a little bit of loot on it. A couple of chunks of Gamey Meat would make a meal with the help of a campfire, but not more than that. It also dropped a piece of gear.

Adornment
Ambush Claw
+2 Climb

I wasn’t interested in reducing either my defense or my Detection skill for a little bit of Climbing skill. But it was something with value. If I found a group willing to barter with an exile, it would be good to have something to trade. I put it away.

All in all, the fight wasn’t something I could call a successful hunt. But it had been self-defense. Even if I wasn’t happy with what I gained, I still couldn’t complain about my survival.

Megantereons are social creatures. Despite their solitary ambush hunting method, they live in large colonies to share food and care for their young. Using the active form of my new Beast Hunter ability, I couldn’t sense any more hunters out and about—their high natural Stealth abilities rendered them invisible—but I could detect a small concentration of rambunctious kittens south of me. Another of the colony’s hunters had already brought its kill back and they were energetically ripping the carcass apart like tiny lunatics.

Turning north and heading directly away from the colony’s den, I put as much distance as I could between me and any future attacks by polydactyl monsters. There was no way of knowing exactly how far their territory ranged, but there was only so far such a small predator could drag a body my size back to feed the rest of its colony.

After about an hour, I finally elected to relax and take a seat with my back to a tree.

Originally, I’d wanted to find a spot where my detection radius didn’t pick up anything, so that I might be able to rest without worry. Then I tried to find a spot where there wasn’t anything larger than a mouse in range. Eventually, it became clear that such a goal was impossible so far from both Jamestown and the Mandrill settlement.

In the end, I had to resign myself to not getting real sleep. A combination of paranoia and unfamiliarity meant that I couldn’t really relax while I could still sense monsters lurking within my detection radius. There were only a few hours until morning, though, so I would just have to force myself to rest or else I was going to collapse during the day.

Noaich had no trouble sleeping.

When I called a halt to the nighttime hike, he curled up like a cat and knocked out immediately. I tried not to be irritated with him. He was basically just a little kid, after all. It was my job to keep him safe. And my hypervigilance was certainly seeing to that.

I watched various creatures wandering around me as I rested. It was mostly herbivores, trying to find a safe place to bed down for the dawn to avoid crepuscular predators, but a Daeodon did wander into range from the east, drawing my undivided attention as it moseyed around a few tree trunks, scratching the bark with its tusks before moving north.

It wasn’t until my scalp started itching that I realized that I was still covered in blood and gore. The itching was the system’s healing from rest finally kicking on, closing the wounds. After enduring it for a few seconds, I couldn’t stop myself and started scratching. The scabs from my natural healing came away, revealing unnaturally new skin underneath. I was already growing back my thick black hair on the new scalp, unnaturally fast.

The system was so weird about healing. The thing I missed most about civilization was obviously the internet, but not for the same reasons as most people. I could live without my webcomics and social media. But there was so much weirdness around the system, I really needed a gameFAQs forum post full of nerds arguing about how these mechanics worked.

As I rested, my hair grew back in to the same length as the rest of it—just long enough to start getting in my eyes—and then stopped abruptly. The other wounds on my arms and chest healed in much the same way. After about an hour there was not even the hint of a scar from them. The only scars or marks that remained were the ones I’d earned before the system arrived. Everything else was gone as if it had never existed.

But how? Why? What were the qualifications I needed to meet to trigger a resting heal? When I restored my hit points with Second Wind, or with my natural healing, I wasn’t made whole and unmarked like this.

And my previous scars were still around, but other parts of me had been healed. My asthma was gone. I no longer needed glasses, and my vision had continued to sharpen as time went on. But the crescent-shaped scar across the palm of my hand was still there. The faint surgical scar above my hip was the exact same length and depth as when I got it. Those hadn’t gone anywhere.

It was a mystery. And it was a mystery that I might never solve, since I was bereft of internet videogame nerds.

Time passed.

I was slightly concerned at how comfortable I was to be covered in blood and wounds for so long. There was a time in the early days of the apocalypse where I felt filthy if I had a little spatter of dried blood on one arm. I was practically coated in it now and just didn’t care. Necessity had finally won out. I’d adapted to the new world.

Despite my inability to fall asleep, resting did me good. The light didn’t change perceptibly at dawn, but the wildlife around me could tell. Animals in the treetops that were active began to settle down. Those that had been settled vanished from my notice as they engaged their Stealth skill to go for their morning hunts.

There had not been any sign of humans nearby, and that was a good sign. I was far enough from Jamestown that nobody was ranging far enough this way tonight. Either James had moved on to the Mandrill town, or anyone hunting for me had gone the wrong direction. Regardless, I would be out of reach forever soon; after a full day’s travel, nobody would be able to catch up to me so long as I kept moving.

To that end, I roused Noaich, dished out the two of us some of the smoked fish for breakfast, and got moving.

The fish was a nice start, but I was going to have to think about hunting soon. The case wasn’t bottomless, after all. Eventually our appetites would empty it. Sure, it could last a couple of days, but the sooner we began to supply ourselves with food, the longer we could make it last.

I angled our heading southeast. Hopefully, it would lead us wide of the Megantereon colony, but there was another need that wasn’t optional. If I had to fight off another lunatic cat monster, that was a small price to pay for survival.

My geography wasn’t good enough to know what the creek was called. It ran by Jamestown only a forty minute walk south of them, and every week an expedition would ferry loads of crudely-made barrels back and forth to keep the town supplied.

I made it to the water without facing any threats. Sure, I could sense another Daeodon to the east, carving up a fallen log and feasting on grubs, but it was more than far enough away for us to go unnoticed.

The creek was just shy of what I would call a river. Down where Jamestown drew their water from it, it was just over five feet wide, and about two feet deep, moving at a lazy enough pace that nobody could be carried away by it. Even that far from the mountains, it was usually still ice-cold from the snowmelt that fed it. Typically someone with a solid Constitution stat would just stand in the water and be handed buckets, filling them and passing them back.

The creek was very different here.

About two feet narrower, the water ran much faster here, carving a deeper bed through the forest floor. My Detection skill identified small shellfish living in the creekbed. I thought about the idea of diving down for them, but as I dipped my hands into the water to splash my face, I reconsidered. It was incredibly cold, and I wasn’t hungry enough yet to freeze for it.

I could see my reflection faintly in the water. It was still early enough in the morning to be pretty dark, but my sharp senses resolved the faint shape in the rushing water into myself. Even these few months since the apocalypse had changed me significantly. The formerly doughy shape of my face had been starved out of me, leaving sharp cheekbones and a well-defined chin on what had once been a very round and nonthreatening face. My close-cropped black hair had become a shaggy mop, soon to be demanding attention.

And my other features had hardened as well.

I had always been muscular—the physical demands of my job had kept me fit—but my muscles had been covered in a layer of fat from my habit of stress-snacking. Now I was still just as thickly-built, but it could no longer be mistaken for just being a big guy. I was visibly powerful. Though some amount of the change might be attributed to my increased physical stats instead of the constant struggle to stay fed.

As much as I might wish for a mirror for a better look at myself—and perhaps for a better chance at carving away my persistent stubble—that would still be low on my list of wishes if I could access a proper bathroom. I would kill almost every soul in Jamestown if the atrocity would give me access to a hot shower. All I could really do now is splash my face and hair with cold water and claw at the coagulated blood and gore to let it drift away.

Once I was a little cleaner, I dipped my cupped hands in again to take a sip. A nice cold drink of water refreshed me. The fatigue of missing proper sleep didn’t completely go away, but I felt ten times better immediately. As soon as I could, I plunged my hands back into the water to scoop up another gulp. Beside me, Noaich tipped his snout into the water and drank just as greedily.

I was starting to get used to my detection ability, and so I was aware of it when the nearby Daeodon finished feasting on grubs. It started moving towards the water, looking to slake its thirst as well. It wasn’t coming towards us, so I ignored it. It was probably the most dangerous thing I was likely to encounter in the woods here, but I could outrange its detection radius enough to steer clear of them even before the upgrade from Beast Hunter. I was pretty sure I could outmaneuver this one without trouble.

As I took another drink of water, the Daeodon stopped moving towards the creek. It froze, stock-still for a long second. It didn’t stay still for long, turning sharply and starting away from the creek.

First at a trot, and then gaining speed.

By the time it left my detection radius it was at a full gallop—a terrifying pace for the creature to set, given how destructive I knew it to be.

What was even more terrifying was the idea that something had set it off.

Something was coming this way.

Something frightening enough to drive a Daeodon to flee instead of fight.