The sun shone bright today, making the river glisten with dazzling sparks. The warm breeze made the trees sway in the wind, and the birds singing made the midnight's deafening silence disappear.
It felt nice to just lay in the grass sleeping till Ryan woke me up, nudging me that it was already midday.
I got up, sitting on the ground with ruffled-up hair and a sleepy expression on my face.
"Morning", I stretched my back with a satisfied grin "What is it?"
Ryan looked annoyed at me for some reason. He spoke, "I finished fishing and cooked up some food over the campfire..." he pointed towards the fish.
I slowly crawled over to the campfire, sluggishly taking a fish that had a stick through it. I nibbled on the fish, the skin charred by the campfires flames. The skin was bitter, but the meat itself was flavourful.
Ryan looked over at me, annoyed, eating his own fish. I looked over to him "So... you seem annoyed, what's wrong?"
He finished eating his fish and spoke, "You've just been sleeping all day ever since we got here, you haven't foraged, you haven't tried to go find anything. You just lay around till the food was ready. Of course I'm annoyed!"
I looked away, knowing that he was right... "I-i mean... I could fish for our dinner."
"Good, that's what I was hoping for", he exclaimed joyfully, handing me his makeshift fishing rod and happily walking away.
I held the fishing rod in my hand, looking down at it. I'm surprised he even caught any fish with this... let alone multiple.
I walked over to the river and sat cross-legged on a big rock with water rushing downstream in front of it. I felt the sun's warmth enveloping my skin.
'How am I even supposed to catch any fish with this rod, let alone with one arm...'
I extended my arm, trying to throw the lure into the river. My hand slipped, making the whole fishing rod fall into the water with a loud splash.
A moment of shock set in before I jumped into the river, trying to find the fishing rod. Some time passed before I accepted defeat and climbed back up to land, dripping wet and exhausted. Ryan came back with his hands full of wood that he found while walking around in the forest.
Noticing me, he burst out laughing, poking fun at me. He was away just for a moment and came back to me looking like some wet stray cat.
"Can you stop laughing, It was my first time fishing..." I told him with an embarrassed expression on my face. God, I just wanted to bury myself into the soil and disappear.
He sets up the campfire again. After I dried up a bit, he started making another makeshift fishing rod with some sticks and a string. He looked at me, telling me to come over.
"You should have told me you didn't know how to fish, I would have helped you."
I looked away, embarrassed, "You should have asked..."
He sighs after a long silence. He gets up, extending an arm to me, "Let me teach you how to fish this time".
I looked at him, his hand being so big like a parent's. I hesitantly took his hand. With a kind grin, he pulls me back to my feet, walking over to the river.
It was already getting dark as you could see the sun setting slowly and the moon rising up. The whole evening, he tutored me on fishing, which felt familiar for some reason.
As it was getting darker, I managed to catch my first fish, and as night rolled around, we sat near the campfire huddling up to the warmth as our fish slowly cooked over the fire.
...
Another day passed, gathering resources and eating fish. Though we started devising a plan on how to save everyone. Ryan said that there are 2 ways we can save them, either find something that has a really strong smell, that makes you shocked, which could help them snap out of it or put them to sleep and carry them out of the cloud of spores.
It sounded stupidly hard, not to even account for the creature we can't even see. But there's nothing we can do, Ryan has already gathered the needed plants and grounded them up. We smeared each of the plants on a cloth that he ripped from his shirt. One cloth to shock them awake and the other ones to put them asleep.
All you had to do was to put the cloth over their nose for it to react, yet seeing as everyone is freakishly strong and not in their right mind, they might try to attack us, or even worse, the creature controlling them attacks us.
It was not going to be easy to do this, but we have no other choice. I took my dagger, holstering it at my waist, and putting on my cloak. I looked towards the forest we were about to adventure into again, not knowing if we would get out of it.
The forests trees swayed ominously, and the forests darkness was calling us in. We started walking into it, the trees making it hard to see as the forest became darker and denser. We kept walking back to the old shack until we saw a thick fog.
I look over to Ryan, who is putting a cloth over his face to stop the spores from entering him. He walked over to me, tying a cloth over my face too, so I don't breathe in the spores. He signals to ready up as he starts running into the fog.
I nimbly follow behind him. I may not be strong, but I'm confident in my agility. It's getting hard to even see anything, only being able to see the distant light illuminating from the shack, we ran to it quietly.
As we got closer, Ryan signalled for me to hide. I jump behind a tree and peek over, seeing the red-haired jerk, Klein, patrolling the place.
Ryan signals me to go for it, so I cautiously sneak behind him as Ryan stands up, running towards Klein with his daggers in hand. Klein instantly noticed Ryan, yet he didn't notice me. Right before Klein could attack Ryan, I jumped onto his back, putting the only cloth that could shock someone over his face. He struggles like hell until he snapped back.
"W-what the hell are you doing little runt, get off of me!" He exclaimed.
"Shh, keep it down, and hold this cloth over your nose." I handed him a cloth as he understood that something was very wrong. Klein quieted down. He lowered himself to the ground. Ryan explained the situation to him.
We were ready to continue until we heard a sudden crack behind us, it was a quiet yet a dreadful inducing sound.
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine, feeling like I was in danger. I ducked down as my gut feeling told me to. A long blade sliced above me, where my head used to be. If I hadn't ducked down, my head would have been cut off.
I looked behind me, seeing Deep crimson eyes staring at me through the mist. Her face was as indifferent as always, ready to kill anything that came her way.