Chapter 3:The Search for Food

The sun was slowly rising, revealing a clear orange sky. Feeling the sunlight shining on his face, Dennis slowly woke up.

He sat up straight, scratched the back of his white hair and yawned. 'At least the sun is normal' he thought as he stared at the beautiful sunrise. Then, once he had fully woken up from his sleep, he quickly remembered something.

'Oh, right! I have to leave before one of those things spot me'.

He had temporarily forgotten the deal he had made with himself before deciding to spend the night in this cave.

'But what if there isn't anything in here though?'

He started to think, as if even the possibility of there being anything in this cave was not a sign to leave, especially since he now had an idea of the types of creatures that inhabit this forest.

After a little bit more thinking, he came up with a plan.

'Okay, I'll just look and see if there really is anything in here, if there isn't, I'll just stay here for a little while. And if there is, I'll either run away, or if it's small enough... maybe I'll fight it'

The boy really was brave, having such thoughts as if he actually had what it took to fight these creatures.

Now filled with fear, his heart pounding hard in his chest, he reached for his wooden stick, which had acted as a crutch for him the previous night. As tried to get up, however...

'Damn it! My leg's still a mess'

His leg, as well as all of his other injuries, still hadn't fully healed from his encounter with the giant centipede monster. Although, seeing as though he only really slept for a few hours, this wasn't a surprise.

Now going back to crawling, he took a deep breath and slowly made his way towards the rear end of the cave. Surprisingly, the cave was rather small, and Dennis quickly reached its end.

There was also nothing inside apart from himself and a few bugs, and once he found this out, Dennis breathed a sigh of relief, threw his stick to the side, and layed on his back on the ground, trying to calm himself down. After a few minutes,he fell asleep again.

***

'What the-'

After a few hours, Dennis felt something against his face. He reached for it, and found out it was a small black bug that resembled a cockroach in appearance. Luckily, Dennis was never afraid of cockroaches and he removed it from his sight without any problems.

He stretched, then looked for his stick and once he found it, used it to drag himself up again.

'Man I'm hungry'.

He limped towards the entrance of the cave, and was blinded the sun's rays . Covering his face with his free hand, he continued forth, beginning his quest for food.

***

Dennis slowly walked through the forest landscape, still wary of whatever he might find here.

He traveled in a straight line, not trying to lose track of his cave. As far as he could see, there was nothing but tall trees with no sign of fruit, he was even beginning to think about hunting the monsters lurking around here. Luckily for him, he hadn't run into one yet.

Some time passed and Dennis still hadn't found even a single piece of food, he was starting to lose hope.

'Seriously, with all the monsters here you'd think there were at least some corpses lying around'.

He had some occasional thoughts about maybe changing his course, but he shut those down as he valued shelter over food.

After some more walking, he heard some of the bushes rustling.

'Oh no not again, please please please tell me that was just the wind. I don't want to die.'

Dennis begged internally, even closing his eyes in hopelessness. In his current state, he could barely walk, he had to slow down his pace and rely on a stick for support. There was no way he would be able to outrun whatever had just set its eyes on him.

'Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!'

He turned around and limped back, quickening his pace, although he was still moving so slowly it could even be considered walking space. Yet still, every step he took shot a sharp pain from his leg to the rest of his body.

He didn't travel far though, as he tripped over and landed with one knee on the ground not long after. He pulled himself up with the stick and sighed, realizing that escape was going to be very difficult, if not impossible.

With the best of the two options in Dennis's mind now out the window, he had only one option left.

'Looks like I'll have to fight it'.

Dennis now limped closer to the bush, and once he reached a suitable distance for him to move, he kneeled down on one knee again, gripped his stick like a spear, and hesitated for a while, which was honestly a bad idea.

So far, whatever was in or around those bushes hadn't made a singe noise since then, or showed itself in front of Dennis. In this situation, you could say he had the advantage, unless the monster in the bush was just taking its time trying to scout Dennis.

Finally, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then pulled back his hand with the spear in it, lunged in between the bushes using his good leg, flung his arm and the "spear" forward, and hit.... nothing.

He quickly turned his head in every direction he could, trying to see if it didn't move anywhere else. He didn't see anything and after his mind processed that, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thank goodness it was just the wind'.

Or was it. After a few seconds, once he had fully calmed down, he once again heard something, although this time it was a lot quieter, and as he listened closer, he was able to hear a sound that sounded familiar to him.

'Is that... crying?'

What he heard indeed sounded like someone, or something was crying. It sounded like a muffled sob, he could hear whatever was there taking slow and quiet deep breaths, or at least it was trying to, with a soft whimper at the end of each breath.

Dennis grabbed his stick off the ground again and tried to track the sound, which he quickly found out was coming from his right. He slowly crawled to his right towards a tree, where the sound was at it loudest, and then once again prepared his stick for an attack.

This time, he did not hesitate. He lunged forward, circled around the tree, then reached forward with his free hand, trying to grab whatever he was about to hit, he did end up grabbing something, and with his right hand, he was about to deliver the killing blow.

But instead of delivering that killing blow, his eardrums were instead assaulted by what might possibly have been the loudest scream he had ever heard.

That scream was so loud, that it slowed down Dennis's attack long enough for his eyes to process what he was about to attack. And once he was done processing, he immediately dropped his stick.

'It's... a human... a girl!'

It was indeed a human, and it was indeed a girl,or at least it looked like one. Dennis stared at her a for a while, still a bit shocked. The girl had stopped screaming, and slowly opened her eyes, locking them with Dennis's amber colored eyes.

'Whoa, she's so pretty'

Dennis thought to himself as they were still locking eyes. The girl was indeed very pretty. She looked to be quite tall. Her face was clear and bright with soft facial features, giving her a nice glow. Her eyes were a sparkling green, and they had looked so shiny, it was almost as if she had stars in her eyes.

She also had long and messy black hair, with streaks of white on opposite sides of it as well. Her body was also really well shaped, with a slim and curvy physique. She wore a black hoodie, as well as white shorts and with white sneakers to finish her outfit off.

Now that they had both calmed down, Dennis took another look at her face, and from the puffy redness around her eyes, he could tell that she had indeed been crying.

"W-what?" the girl asked, her voice still weak and shaky

"Um, it's nothing, it's just... have you... been crying?" Dennis responded

"No... I haven't" She replied in defiance, turning her back to him while also wiping the last pieces of evidence from her face.

The two sat there for a while in complete silence. Dennis had completely forgotten about his hunger as he just sat there next to the girl.

Why he was doing that, he didn't know, perhaps he was just happy to meet another human in this strange forest. The girl was just sitting there hugging her knees. She spent most of her time staring at the ground, although she did take several glances in Dennis's direction from time to time.

After about an hour of sitting around doing nothing, Dennis got up, grabbed his stick and was ready to leave, but before he did, he turned around and said,

"Hey, so, I found a cave nearby. If you don't have anywhere to spend the night you can come stay there... although there isn't any food... or water."

The girl did not reply. She sat there for a few more seconds, staring at the ground, probably thinking it over, then she got up and walked towards Dennis.

"So, I take it that's a yes?" Dennis asked, looking for confirmation before leaving.

The girl however, still did not reply to him. She just looked to the side and nodded.

"Alright then, follow me"

Dennis walked ahead and the girl followed behind him, still remaining silent. Then the two walked back to Dennis's cave.