11. New direction
Gareth could faintly smell an earthy scent which was a constant reminder that he wasn't dreaming and had finally stepped out of that dangerous desert.
Continuing south he began to see the alien flora native to this planet. The most noticeable were rock shrooms. They were hard as rock and as tall as 5-6 meters. They needed to be boiled a long time before they were sold enough to be eaten. Gareth had no intention of getting them as he had no tool to begin with.
Other flora included a satellite dish plant that's enormous satellite leaf collects dust, spores and pollen. It secretes a kind of digestive juice that dissolves the pollen and spores it catches.
A special red weed called dew drops the height of a human ankle had pear shaped sacs attached to a stem. Inside the sacs contained a special digestive juice, any small insect attracted to the red drops would become stuck and slowly sink into the red sack and swallowed. The sac had a strange membrane that could keep liquids inside while allowing solids outside to go inside.
Gareth was not an expert of flora, he was a soldier. Still he had been taught survival skills such as identifying what was some common edible and inedible plants and animals.
Right now Gareth had entered a rocky region and he had to be alert to avoid rocks that would occasionally fall down cliff faces. The ground was fairly uneven with extremely scarce flat patches, not only did he have to be wary of his footing in case he fell and injured himself further he had to watch out for the innumerable crevices that he had to walk past as some would harbour ambush predators.
It was more dangerous when he climbed up or downslopes or went through narrow passages as they were the favourite places predators like to hide.
Suddenly he heard a rock shift and he instantly hid behind a tall rock. Peering out of the corner he saw a small strange beetle just put in the open. It lazily crawled through the rocks as if it wasn't scared of any danger. Gareth immediately knew something was wrong and didn't move.
A frog like creature half the size of an adult about a meter in height revealed itself from its hiding place above Gareth. It's vertical mouth was where it's chest was and it hopped towards this treat.
When it was close enough it stood on its hind legs opened its mouth revealing some very sharp teeth and a long tongue shot out towards the beetle.
It successfully latched onto the beetle but suddenly realised it could not pull the beetle towards its mouth. It then realised it was tricked and wanted to flee however the ground began to shake beneath the frog and a large cavernous mouth burst out of the ground and immediately chomped on the doomed frog.
Blood and guts squirted out of the mouth and soon the creature that caught the frog appeared. It looked like a eel except it was very short. It had small powerful claws that surrounded its neck that was used to dig in the ground.
It constantly munched on the frog very messily at that, the crunching of bones made Gareth imagine how easily he could've been the one eaten.
Gareth waited for the eel thing to disappear however the eel had no intention to do that and instead lied down lazily on the ground and slept.
Having no choice Gareth waited an entire day before something happened. He was resting behind the rock when he heard the sound of flesh squelching and rocks tumbling down. The eel was oblivious and was still sleeping, soon a huge shadow shrouded the eel and it was jolted awake. It made a strange chattering sound and tried to flee however numerous red tentacles swarmed the eel and hoisted up, Gareth didn't dare look what happened to the eel. He could her the squelching sound just on the other side of the rock and the struggling eel.
On the other side a huge mass of tentacles supported by 4 strong legs was currently destroying the eel. The tentacles literally tore the eel into tiny pieces while still alive and shoved the pieces into the centre of the ball of wriggling tentacles. This disgusting action lasted for half an hour before it went silent. Gareth held his breathe he could hear the squelching sounds coming closer to him. He soon saw a tentacle appear from the corner of his eye. Sweat trickled down Gareth's face, the tentacle began feeling around and began to approach Gareth. Just as it was bout to touch Gareth, a noise in the distance alerted the strange beast, Gareth recognised the sound for it was an explosion. It was still far away but it had managed to distract the monster. It soon retracted its tentacles and wondered over.
Gareth waited for a few minutes before letting out a sigh of relief. Soon he heard another explosion and recognised that it must have been man made. He then knew that he would soon meet another fellow human. He turned towards the direction the sound came from, east and began his journey towards the source of the sound not knowing that he was heading towards a war.