Chapter 9 - "The Chase." - Part Two
Alpha Date Year(002): 315,848 Day: 273/365
Even though J was ten, he could get up a shorter tree quickly if he had enough strength and there was enough space. But right now, he was climbing a tree that he needed to climb—one that didn't have as many branches and large trunks branching out—something just short enough to the ground that he could still climb up and use for protection, that's tall enough for the Mountain Hound not to reach. But he got hungry and decided to run and catch some food. Using the knowledge that he gained from climbing trees, instead of lunging towards trees, he began lunging at rabbits. This new method worked way better than before, where he only knew how to chase down and trap rabbits. He had been so hungry all day after all that exercise. He then learned what exercise meant that day. "Exercise means building or strengthening one's body by doing a lot of physical activity." But he kind of knew what it meant already. He spent all his time hunting, gathering, and trying to build certain things. He had learned just what exercise meant before he even learned about it. He had context. He could feel his body getting stronger, but it hadn't gotten strong enough—not nearly enough. But he still appreciated the strength of his body. He just needed more. He wanted to get stronger. He wanted to be strong enough that he could probably, maybe... kill one of the mountain hounds. He thought that if he just killed one, maybe his Uncle could give him a whole month instead of just a day.
J knew one thing for certain: that one core from that Mountain Hound would help him pay for so many things, and whatever he couldn't sell to his uncle, he could use the large corpse of that beast for new clothes or even for food…although it didn't look as appealing to eat as the rabbit did. Despite how much he liked the lean meat of the rabbit, he thought that the Mountain Hound seemed too muscular, and he didn't like the idea of eating something with fangs. It just made him feel weird. The rabbit had fangs, but they had never been as large or as...dangerous. Eating something that dangerous looked crazy to him…but he was hungry…so very hungry. This brought him back to his idea. When he went back, this time, and he reached the clearing, he made sure to double-check everything around him. He scanned the environment and focused on any noise that could have been a sign of a predator rushing through, or movements in the bushes that could be a sign that he was being hunted. He still saw the signs of Mountain Hounds, where their print and bodies had pushed through the bushes and trees, but now they weren't nearly as dangerous. Before, just having one of these sightings meant that they were going on a rampage. But now, they were more casually walking around and scanning for easy prey in small groups or by themselves. J then thought to himself that he must've been fortunate yesterday.
He then used the snare, and then, after a while had passed with no rabbit, a thought came to him, and he decided to use it a different way. So, he went somewhere, gathered the snare, and then decided to use the same method that the hounds used. The Mountain Hounds used a similar method that he used to capture the first rabbit, running it into a trap. "They can set traps, too, it's just that they don't use tools like I do. They just use their claws and teeth. They don't need tools; they already have all they need." Learning about this made him feel inadequate compared to the Mountain Hounds. They were just better hunters than him. And that made him sad because how could he fight them? He was so scared, too, and it didn't help. But even after all this, he decided to learn just what made the rabbits so special. So, instead, he set himself on the lower side of a hill. He then set his snare trap, this time, scaring the rabbit where he knew they would be coming. He didn't use any kind of food as bait, but what he did use was a scare tactic that honestly surprised the rabbits more than food could. You see, J planned to use the rabbit's fear to scare them up the hill, and then, using the snare, he would trap them and tie them down. And even if they ran down the hill through the brambles, he would be waiting. This would help him a lot because he found a proper clearing where he could do this, on a hill that was downwind but relatively not too bad.
Once he found this clearing, he then decided to scare a rabbit up the hill. The rabbit ran up, and he started to chase after it, but instead, he took a right turn, knowing that the rabbit would run into him. Up the hill, he then tried to grab the rope immediately, and once the rabbit was stirred and he realized that the leafy ground that was indistinguishable from a leaf pile was in fact a large tarp, and this caused the rabbit to be scared as he then ran down the hill through the brambles, just like J thought. The leaves scared and spooked the rabbit, even tangling inside of it, but it jumped out way too fast before the snare could snag it. And then it headed into the brambles and underbrush. However, unbeknownst to the rabbit, he was following the exact path that J wanted him to. And then, just when the rabbit was jumping down the hill, J caught it right in his hands. Holding the rabbit down, he then started to tie it up with some rope he still had in his hands from the tarp. This time, tying around its arms and legs, he constrained it around its ribs and lower half. J had caught another rabbit, but he was tired, so tired after all the exercise he had done to practice climbing that day. So he decided to kill it on sight once more. He then inserted his knife. It became so easy at this point, but he still hadn't caught many during his time outside the cave because he was busy researching them more than he was eating them. It was hard, but he had to wait out the entire day many times for various reasons, especially after his first encounter with the Mountain Hounds. He spent that entire day wondering just what he could do.
But today, he decided to try out a new way to hunt the rabbits. This led him to discover a new way to hunt the rabbits more actively than before. Now, it wasn't just one or two parts; the rabbit could've jumped over the tarp and still escaped in some way, and even with the improved snare, it wasn't 100%. However, with this new method, he had multiple points, and while it did take more energy, it worked. He had multiple fail-safes. The rabbit could have been caught in the tarp if it had gone to the side a bit more. Or, if it didn't go through the brambles, then he still could pull the tarp into the bush, scaring it and cutting off its escape. Then, all he needed to do was catch it within the brambles. J needed to be quick, and it would be tricky, and the rabbit could escape. But the bushes were relatively low with brambles that could stab or poke him, so he still had a chance. But instead, the rabbit always chose to go downhill. Why? Because it gets scared waiting. Even after all that time, it would still get scared. It would run back if it could, but it still chose to go down the hill, luckily, because it thought it was an easy way out, and knowing that something was chasing it, it would almost always take the easy way after being scared.
So, noticing this, J took care of the rabbit using its fears and poor rationality. It couldn't know that it was a trap. It didn't know what it was. It was just there, trying to hurt him, to capture him, to consume him. Then, of course, the rabbit would take the hill, actually thinking it was a predator or something, yet the real predator was down the hill. The Black Rabbit would make a critical mistake. The rabbit can only go in one direction once it goes down the hill. "Although it's nimble and can hop to the side if it's being attacked, it's not nearly as nimble compared to when it's bounding through the trees on flat ground. The rabbit could move fast down the hill, but it couldn't stop as well because it was going down the hill faster than it normally did. Kind of like how the hound does it, but the rabbit is faster, and there's the problem: it can't move as well in different directions. So, using that, as long as I attack from one direction and can adjust from there, I can capture the rabbit, tie it down, and then it can't fight back. If I keep using this method, then I can maybe capture more than one rabbit. But it took a lot more energy, and I couldn't imagine doing this when I was this hungry. I was a bit lucky. I was relatively slow, especially during the first chase. I slowed down around the hill to catch it. Then, once I found the rope, I immediately sped up. And then I waited for it. And then I bounced off it. And I caught it. Now it's dead, and I have dinner."
J felt like he was making progress. But at the same time, he had to stay safe, and he was still scared of any beast that could come at him in the dark. "All the dangers that come in the dark are scary. And the night just makes me scared now. I thought the night used to be nice when I was with my uncle. But I was scared because I couldn't see. I wish I had my uncle. I have no one. In the dark, it's scarier. And I choose not to be scared. I decided not to be scared. Because if I were scared, then that meant I would freeze. If I froze and I was walking through the woods, it meant that I could be caught. It's better to keep moving. I then made it to camp, and using the rabbit, I harvested some new rabbit hide and made a good meal. And this time I had enough hide to patch up every kind of hole in the tent. All the holes and seams in the tent were okay before, but now they're completely sealed using the rabbit hide and the fine thread made from the dogbane that I found. I was happy that my last day before Uncle came back ended with a full meal and my being able to completely repair my tent.
After the tent was patched and everything that I needed to do was done, I lay down for the night, thinking I needed to start exercising the next day. I need to get stronger…I need to be better. I just hope that I can get strong enough to survive those beasts. Those hounds just live in these woods easily compared to me. They don't need to make traps; they simply take from their environment with just their speed and strength alone. Just how strong do I need to get to be like that…how strong must I be to be able to simply walk through the forest and survive like that? Do I need to grow claws and fangs, or even start running on all fours…I wish I knew how to get that strong, but I can only guess that by practicing running, jumping, climbing trees, and making traps that I can get strong enough to survive these woods. I wish Uncle had taught me more about how to survive in these woods, but he had only given me the basics; the rest I have to figure out for myself, or else I would die in these woods, either because of hunger…or from those hounds ripping me apart. However, despite all the running through the woods and trying my best to survive in these woods…after all the danger went away, I found one kind of comfort when I looked up into the night sky." The stars in the night sky above him were so clear, it was as if a veil of small lights draped across the space above him. Every part of that veil seemed to stretch on. Some bent, some turned, but they all shone so brightly. Impressive beyond belief. Stars. He knew what stars were. J remembered the stories that Uncle had told about stars guiding other people, but he'd always just loved to look at them. The night sky was beautiful. It was the one thing he could look at, even during the nights when he would want to stay inside the cave; he always tried his best to look into the night for those stars.
His uncle would also randomly join him sometimes, and they would sit there looking at the stars. "He'd say there were shapes in the stars. We never saw them: we only saw where the stars tried to make shapes. Though all the shapes looked funny—a lot of snakes, a lot of weird letters, a lot of shapes. Uncle told me how there were gigantic beings that lived there and ruled the stars, but I couldn't even imagine there was just a giant being in the stars. But no matter what Uncle told me about them, whether it was about stories to fairytales, they were still beautiful." At the same time, he just liked to look at them for what they were. They always helped light up the dark. It was even better when the moon accompanied them. He wondered if the moon was a star once. But his uncle just said, "No, the sun is a star. The moon is different." J was perplexed, wondering just what he meant by that. And then his Uncle just stayed silent, almost as if he didn't want to reveal too much of the world around him…almost like he wanted to hide as much as he could from J. This made J think, and he wondered, similarly to the way he thought about the stars, and was painfully curious about what kind of danger there was. Yet, even when J tried to question him more, the idea of the stars and the moon being dangerous? He didn't know that the danger lay in what each one represented in the night sky. What the stars meant. What the sky meant. What the heavens meant.