Eight: Chapter 4

My eyes were clear, my resolve steady. My arrival to this world had been accompanied by a series of narrow escapes—a baboon, a dragon, and poison—but that was the past. My future would be brighter, and I left the cave feeling confident for the first time in days—

—and immediately ran back inside, gagging.

I’d forgotten about the massive dragon turd left to steam in the hot summer sun at the far end of the Glen. I couldn’t smell it from inside the cave—thank you, waterfall, thank you—but the smell carried and hit me the moment I stepped outside.

Still, I was determined. If I could clean up my kids’ diarrhea and vomit, I could handle this. I held my breath, ducked out of the cave, and ran from the Glen as fast as my legs would carry me.

I retraced my steps to collect my digging stick and spear, careful every step of the way, especially at the top of the cliff where I’d been stung. Annoyingly, nothing dangerous appeared. I really wanted to stab whatever it was that had poisoned me. Still, it was probably better the journey was uneventful.

Shrugging off my annoyance, I went to catch a fish. It was time to eat something other than fennel and plums. I’d just have to make the too-heavy spear work.

I hiked to the area downstream of the Glen, giving a wide berth to the dragon turd along the way. There were a number of places where fish gathered, and I saw bass, catfish, and perch, along with smaller fish with dark orange scales that I didn’t recognize. I found a shallow spot and waded in, then waited for one of the fish to come by.

The area was shady and the water cold. If I hadn’t been so hungry, fishing there would’ve been pleasant.

A catfish wandered into the shallows. I jabbed, and it flicked away, faster than my spear. I spun to try again, but it was already speeding away downstream.

Come on, Ollie. Aim a little more ahead—to where the fish will be going, not where it is—and for gods’ sake relax.

It was something both my grandfather and The Land of the Living Lost’s bush guides had stressed—that there was a big difference between alertness and tension. The first was a friend and kept you aware of your surroundings, ready to take action, while the second distracted the mind, stiffened the muscles, and slowed down response times.

I took a couple of breaths and recalled being on the show’s set—joking around with the cast in between shots, pestering them with questions, and throwing myself into the work. Honestly, it felt more like play than anything else—often requiring intense effort and focus but still play.

The memory brought a smile to my lips and helped to settle my nerves. It reminded me to enjoy being out in nature, even when I was fishing for my supper.

Time passed, and the shadows cast by the trees slid across the water. I missed a few more fish, still accustoming myself to the spear, but I didn’t let it bother me. I came closer to hitting my mark every time, until—eventually—I speared my first fish in this world, a large-mouth bass.

I was feeling pretty good about myself, but then belatedly realized that I’d given my only knife away, which would make cleaning the fish… challenging. I checked to see if the spearhead would work, but it’d be too clumsy.

With a sigh, I looped the catch on a length of cord, and ate some plums and fennel greens for lunch. After the meal, I headed back to the Glen to make more prehistoric tools.

I was just sitting down to start on a new flint knife when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A quick glance around showed the otter hiding behind the waterfall to avoid the stink, and at the Glen’s other end a cloud of black flies was swarming the dragon’s turd.

Suddenly, a worm lifted itself free of the turd. It was pale, like bleached bone, and three feet long, with a long spike at its tip. It was soon joined by two others, and the three worms swayed as if scenting the air. They looked to be some kind of parasite… only super-sized.

I grabbed my spear.

The otter came out from behind the waterfall to observe the worms, her face scrunching up in disgust. She made a waving motion with her paw and splashed water in the worms’ direction. It was actually kind of cute.

She looked at me, looked at the worms, and splashed the water again.

“Wait, you mean me?” I asked, pointing to myself. “You want me to clean up the worms?”

The otter rolled her eyes and nodded. I felt like I was dealing with my kids, back when they were just hitting puberty. I could almost hear her thinking, Of course, duh.

Snark aside, the otter had saved my life, and the debt was bigger than the flint knife I’d given her. Whether she was an otter-person who happened to live in this Glen, or some kind of spiritual being, it didn’t matter. I owed her. Besides, even though the worms were big and gross, if I tackled them one at a time, it shouldn’t be that hard, right?

I cautiously approached the turd, and all three worms rotated toward me. Their spikes were as sharp as ice picks. The worms themselves were about three inches thick and segmented like earthworms.

I licked my lips, nervous. I took a step to the right, and the spikes tracked me. To the left, and they did it again. My plan to fight them one at a time failed before I’d even gotten the chance to try it.

Time for a new plan. My digging stick was nearby. I reached over and tossed it one-handed toward the turd. The two closest worms shot forward.

Holy hells, they were fast! They moved as if they’d been launched from a cannon.

One worm managed to pierce the spear with its spike. Its body instantly coiled around it. The other missed, but its tail curled to form a hook and caught the stick that way. The two worms squirmed, splintering the wood between them as they competed for position. The area around the base of their spikes opened, revealing circular mouths ridged with nightmarish teeth. The mouths flared open and the spikes clashed.

My breath caught, and I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t just walked up to them. I looked for the third worm, but it hadn’t moved. Was there a limit to the range of their senses? Had it only faced me because of the others? I didn’t see any sense organs.

I crept around the turd, moving as slowly and quietly as I could. The two worms fighting ignored me, but the one I was hunting spotted me when I got within five feet, just outside of my spear’s range. Its spike turned to point at my heart.

I held my spear too tightly, so I took a deep breath and forced my hands to unclench. Alertness, not tension, I reminded myself. And a new spear’s definitely in order. This one’s way too heavy—

Ack! The worm shot at me while I was still psyching myself up. My jab turned into an awkward ‘get away from me’ swing.

The worm curled around the spear’s haft and wriggled toward my arms. There was only a split second to make a decision. Either abandon the spear or—I jabbed, aiming at the worm’s tail as it searched for purchase on the haft.

I pinned the worm about two thirds of the way down its body. Undaunted, it surged at me, tearing open the wound. A bright yellow liquid spurted out, and the worm fell to the side, thrashing. I stabbed it twice more.

The segments around the worm’s wounds tightened, likely to keep the liquid from leaking out, so I stabbed and stabbed until it stopped moving. All my attention was on making the thing dead, and it wasn’t until I saw the tip of a worm’s spike poke out from the front of my shirt did I realize that the loser of the other worms’ fight had come my way and stabbed me in the back.

Horrified, I saw the worm curl up and around my body. The only thing that saved me was that it wasn’t quite long enough to wrap around more than once. Then my mind blanked as Meliune’s Blessing rolled through me.

I pulled the worm off, the spike sliding out my back. Dimly, I expected it to hurt, but it didn’t—not when I’d gotten stabbed nor when I’d pulled out the spike. There was no opportunity to wonder why, though, not with my thoughts buried under the blessing.

The worm coiled to wrap around my arms, so I spun, using centrifugal force to keep it away. I became dizzy, but whenever I eased up, the worm coiled toward my arms. So I stumbled over to one of the nearby trees and swung the worm at its trunk. The worm instantly curled around it, mouth flaring. I went back for my spear, then stabbed the worm until it was dead, this time keeping an eye on my surroundings.

For the third worm, I gathered a bunch of sticks and tossed them at it all at once. The sudden proliferation of things to curl around, pierce, and strangle seemed to confuse the worm and I stabbed it to death while it squirmed among the debris.

Afterward, I limped to the water’s edge and plopped down. Blood flowed from the wounds on my front and back, soaking my shirt, but there was still no pain. In hindsight, the worms probably used a numbing agent to keep their prey unaware while they were being eaten from the inside out.

The wound looked bad, and even worse was that I had no way to control the infection that would surely come from it. The worm had been living in turd, after all.

I had been optimistic earlier, and here I was about to die again. I might’ve panicked, but Meliune’s Blessing still had me in its grip. Only once it eased did I grit my teeth and check my Status.

The otter swam over and considered me with serious eyes. After a moment, she pulled a stone bowl from a pocket in her fur. I wanted to tell her that it was sea otters that did that—river otters didn’t have pockets—but given that we were currently living in fantasy land, I didn’t think the biology lesson would be helpful. Besides, I’d seen that bowl before. I held my breath and waited to see what she’d do.

The otter filled the bowl with water and gestured for me to take off my shirt. The water was cool on my skin when she splashed me with it. There was a brief moment of pins and needles, and then the coolness spread into me, easing the sudden pain.

I watched as the wound on my belly closed. “Wow.”

Oh my god, it’s real. Magic.

Yes, I’d seen it before, but the first time with the crow-person I’d been under the influence of Meliune’s Blessing, and the second time was during a near-death experience. Now, though, I was fully conscious and aware, and feeling utterly awestruck at the sight. I licked my lips in envy of the otter’s magic.

Not quite finished, she poured the remaining water into the pool and refilled the bowl. This time, I watched closely and saw the water flash with light before she used it.

The otter splashed my shirt, and the blood slid off onto the ground. She wrinkled her nose at me before dumping the rest on top of my head. She sniffed me then and, apparently pleased with her handiwork, patted me on the knee before diving back into the pool and retreating back behind the waterfall.

Dazed, I began to wonder how I might learn magic, or if there was a way for the otter to teach me. It was something to think about anyway, but first things came first. I checked my Status, and saw that the conditions section was empty.

I took a long breath and let it out. Safe. No bleeding, poison, or infection. I wonder if I got any experience points for the encounter? But no, there wasn’t a section for it on my character sheet.

I felt a little proud after winning the fight, and a lot of chagrin too. I would’ve died afterward if it hadn’t been for the otter. That was a sobering thought.

Now that the excitement was over, the flies surrounded the turd again. There were new areas exposed where the worms had extracted themselves, and metal glinted in the sun. Just because there were no experience points, it didn’t mean there was no loot.

With a grunt, I got up and cautiously approached the dragon’s turd. The smell was horrible, bad enough to water my eyes and tighten my scalp. The flies loved it though. They were each an inch long and as thick as my thumb. Even from five feet away, I could tell the flies were ugly, little brutes.

I kept my distance and scanned the surface of the turd. There were bits of metal poking through, including what looked like the base of a pommel and some chainmail links. There were bones too—a portion of a skull with an eye socket full of black flies. Some poor soldier had found their way into the dragon’s belly. Fascinating.

Don’t get me wrong—I was horrified too—but there was a reason I’d ended up working in documentaries. Ever since I was a kid, I’d been interested in learning about the world—the things in it and how they worked.

I backed off and circled around the glen to look for the right tool for the task ahead. It didn’t take long to find a long branch—straight at one end but with an elbow at the other I could use as a hook to pull and push the turd apart. When I got back, the swarm was thicker than before. There were so many flies crawling over each other, the turd’s surface rippled.

Grimacing, I poked the turd with the hook to clear space around the pommel. The flies reacted instantly, the black wriggling mass lifting into the air to swarm the hook. The branch shook as bits of wood fell to the ground.

I freaked out and dove for the water. I’d just avoided one brush with death. Why risk another? Besides, if the flies could tear apart a branch, I shuddered to think what they’d do to the soft flesh of my face and neck.

What a mess. The flies were safe enough for now at the edge of the Glen, but that would change when their eggs in the turd hatched. Who knew how big the swarm would grow then, or how it would disperse, if at all?

I needed to regroup.

First, I would finish making a knife. I still needed it to gut the fish… the fish… the fish that I noticed was now missing. It must’ve torn away from my belt in the scuffle with the worms. I scanned the area but didn’t see it.

The otter met my eyes, as she took bite after slow bite of the bass I’d caught.

All at once, the adrenaline keeping me going dissipated. I was tired and hungry, but I wasn’t going to begrudge the otter the fish. She’d saved my life twice over. I’d just have to catch another one.

I shook my head at how worn out my eight-year-old body was. It was just that morning I’d woken up from being poisoned. My mind wanted to go blank, but I still had a lot of daylight left. I had time to finish the new knife, go fishing, and then… and then I’d finally eat something other than fennel and plums.

The hunger must’ve inspired me, because I caught three fish in an hour’s time—two bass and a catfish. I was tempted to try for more, but was starting to feel woozy. My hands trembled as I strung a cord through the last fish’s jaw and hung it with the others on my waist.

Back at the Glen, I ducked into the cave to get the fire started. I knelt beside the kindling and closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to steady my hands. When I opened my eyes, I saw the otter across from me. Her eyes were so clear; I hadn’t noticed that before. I thought she’d go for the fish at my waist, but she just watched me.

It took about thirty strikes of the pyrite on flint for a spark to catch. I blew on it too hard, though, and had to start over. Fortunately, the next round only took about ten strikes, and this time, the ember grew and flared as intended.

Once the fire was safely going, I turned to the bass. They were easy to clean. All I had to do was cut open the belly and clear the innards. I drove two thin stakes through the fish lengthwise, then stuck them into the ground next to the fire.

The catfish took more work, as I had to pull the skin off, while also being careful of its barbs. A pair of pliers would’ve helped, but they weren’t something I could make from flint. The resulting filets were… let’s be generous and call them uneven. I staked and stuck them beside the bass.

The otter watched the whole process, a drop of saliva hanging from her mouth.

“They’re not ready,” I said. “Just give them a little more time. Half are for you. That’s why I caught three.”

The otter glanced up, but my words didn’t register. She went back to staring at the fish, her paws clenching and unclenching.

“Please,” I said. “I need to eat some too.”

She didn’t even look up, so I waved my hand to catch her attention and pointed to a bass-and-catfish-filet combo. I gestured that they belonged to her, then I pointed to the rest and gestured to myself.

Stars filled the otter’s eyes. She excitedly gestured to her portion and made a motion that resembled eating.

I nodded. “Yes.”

She smiled and patted me on the knee, like a parent proud of her child.

Honestly, I didn’t know how to respond to that. I was sixty-four years old on the inside, but the otter, if she was in fact a mystical being, could be hundreds if not thousands of years old so maybe the analogy was appropriate after all. I was just glad she understood me.

We both hovered over the fish, and when they were finally ready—I dug in, burning my mouth and hands, but I didn’t care. The fatty skin and the tender, oily flesh were delicious. My belly warmed with every bite. The catfish was drier—the bottom feeders were notorious for being riddled with parasites, so I cooked them longer—but even they were satisfying to my protein-and-nutrient-starved body. I would’ve rolled on the ground in joy, if not for the danger of dirtying the fish or setting myself on fire.

The meal was everything I’d hoped it would be. Don’t get me wrong—I would’ve loved salt, pepper, and butter to go with the fish, but given my circumstances, the meal was perfect. I ate a whole bass and half the catfish, all on my own.

Afterward, I lay on my back. The otter lay beside me, watching smoke rise from the fire. I had a full belly, and all was good with the world.

Well, not all. Outside the cave, a cloud of black flies hovered.

In a little while, I’d get up and work to replace my hand ax. Then I’d gather more wood for the fire overnight. And after that? Nothing. I needed to rest and would deal with the flies tomorrow.