章節 5: A Human’s Guide to Life
Traditionally, humans would cook their food. This was not because it "tasted better," or the "texture was better." No. This was done out of necessity.
Eating raw meat was dangerous. This was because raw meat could contain all sorts of organisms that live inside it. Infectious diseases, tapeworms, and other nasty things would reside in it while raw. But there was an east solution to this! Put direct heat onto a desired meal, and it would kill any potentially dangerous organism that lived inside it.
The same thing happened with salt. Salt wasn't just applied to food to make it taste better. It was used as a preservative. Beef jerky was invented by salting a cooked strip of meat, which would make it last longer, so they could stockpile on food.
All this was done out of necessity. But on a planet where organic matter doesn't decay. On a planet where there is no dangerous organisms that live within the flesh of another. These necessities are no longer valid.
After the rapture, no bacteria remained. Food poisoning was no longer a threat. Food would never spoil again. The question is, would you adapt to the current conditions, or would you stick to tradition?
Deep in the Sierra Nevada mountains, food was scarce. Even before the rapture, it took a certain type of person to be able to scavenge enough food to survive on their own. Hunting in and of itself was a skill most were not privy to.
But now? No one will be able to hunt again. All life had been killed off. Now it was a matter of locating a corpse, and harvesting it for all it's worth.
A lone Lurker was staggering through some shrubbery. It was having trouble maneuvering through the dead foliage, its limbs getting caught on everything in its path.
The Lurker was gradually getting more frustrated. Instead of simply planning out it's route, it would brute force its way through, which just ended up getting it more stuck.
It began lashing out at anything in its way, curving its claws into sickles and slashing the foliage. The pain and suffering those claws had brought onto the life forms of the world were now being wielded to fruitlessly slice through the obstacles it faced. It was truly a sorry sight.
Drawing a breath, there came an exhale off in the distance somewhere. The Lurker snapped it's head toward the source.
The foliage was too dense to see anything. But it should be able to sense it. Perhaps it exhausted it's energy to be able to sense what it was. For right now, it could only suspect there was something there.
Without warning, there was a thump. It sounded like something being released, the reverberation of a string being a heard very clearly.
Something was propelled toward the Lurker, and it whistled through its torso, entering through its left side, and hitting with a loud crack, a tree on its other side.
Something was wrong. Something was missing. The Lurker felt around its ribcage for the core, but it was gone. Its vision became blurry as it felt itself begin to flake.
The Lurker observed what hit the tree. A long wooden shaft stuck out of the tree. There was a nock on the tip of the backend of it. An arrow.
It looked back to where it heard the exhale. Still nothing to be seen. It hung its head in silent contemplation. Incomplete thoughts, unorganized by the core, raced through its mind.
The Lurker seemed to accept its fate, and it flaked into nonexistence.
As the Lurker disappeared, metallic parts clicking sounded through the area. The string on a crossbow was pulled back and locked into the latch. The person operating the crossbow placed an arrow on the barrel and slid it back through the flight groove and into the retention spring.
They wore a solid brown pants, and heavy jacket. The zipper was closed, and it was buttoned up. The jacket had a hood, which they wore over their head, and they concealed their face with a gas mask. A belt wrapped around their waist, over their jacket. Black gloves covered their hands, keeping them at a reasonable temperature. On their feet were black heavy duty steel toe boots. None of their body was exposed. You couldn't see any skin. They even wore a second, puffier jacket underneath their heavy one, making them appear bigger than they were.
The person stood up and made their way to the tree which the arrow stuck out of. They grabbed it and pulled, but struggled to get it out for a second. They placed a foot on the base of the tree, and forced the arrow out. They stumbled backwards, not preparing themselves for the arrow to release suddenly. The arrow had snapped in half. You could hear the person click their tongue in vexation.
They removed the nock and the bullet point and discarded the shaft, throwing it away carelessly. They put the parts into their chest pocket, opening the Velcro, placing them inside, and closing the pocket.
They'd have to collect some more sticks to make into new arrows, which annoyed them.
They made their way through the forest in search for something they found. The person was starving, and they had found the carcass of a deer earlier, and they were trying to find it again.
This person had a superb sense of direction. They could remember each step they took to get somewhere, and they were doing his that. Retracing their steps.
They looked for a particular land mark. It was a real obvious one too. Not just an unusually large rock or tree or anything like that. It was a road. They found the road, but before walking across it, they looked both ways. No, this wasn't to watch out for cars, but rather to watch out for apostles. They liked to travel along this road. It was easier than walking around the forest, and that poor Lurker the person had shot learned that the hard way.
They crossed the road and went back into the forest on the other side. Now they really knew where they were going. They came across a clearing, and in the middle were multiple deer corpses. A buck, doe, and two adolescents.
They stood over the deer and crossed their arms. They hadn't decided which one to take yet. They examined each one, weighing the pros and cons each one. The adults would be harder to carry home, but they would yield a lot of food. The little ones would be easier to carry, but they wouldn't give as much food.
This was a tough choice for some reason. Their indecision was making them anxious. In a final decision, they compromised on taking the doe. It was slightly lighter than the buck, and would be easier to carry, and also yield almost as much food.
They dug their hands underneath the doe, sliding their arms under and picking it up. It was extremely heavy. They almost dropped it, but they managed to perch it around their shoulders, holding it by its legs.
They made their way back to the road. It was hard to walk in a straight line with all that weight, but they trudged along despite that.
They really wanted to get home quick. Nothing good every came of staying out longer than you had to, so they hustled back home. They strode out into the road without looking. They felt a tingling in the back of their neck. They sensed something.
They hurried onto the other side of the road and hid behind a tree, dropping the deer onto the ground. Peering out into the road cautiously, the person saw nothing. Not a soul in sight. But they waited. They felt the presence of something. It was making its way toward them.
The road which curved down a hill, concealed whatever was making its way up it. The person squinted, trying to see clearly through the gas mask they wore.
They could see something. It was slowly approaching, walking up the hill. It's head was the o my thing visible. Then it's neck, torso, and then legs. This was no apostle. It was living. Breathing. It was human. They could see it was a man. His face wasn't concealed by anything, and much of his skin was exposed. Tears in his clothing left much open. He must've been cold.
They hadn't seen another living person in years. It had been so long. They got excited. They walked out from behind the tree and into the road. The man was looking down at his feet, but he saw the masked person walk out from the forest. They both stopped in their tracks.
Lucas had been making his way up the mountain for some time now. He had walked many winding roads. He would look down at the view from the roads, many having steep drops for a couple hundred feet. He used to shiver at the thought of accidentally falling down, but now he felt nothing.
Walking uphill was so tiring. He had slowed to the pace of a turtle. He had no energy, and barely any will to keep moving, but he kept on anyway. He had been at this for a little over a day now, walking up the mountain.
He had finally found some level ground, seeing the road had flattened. It was more or less a straight path now. He didn't have enough strength to carry his head up while walking anymore, so he let his head hang. He watched himself take every single step. He would count the number of steps he took in order to keep himself awake. He was at two-thousand four-hundred seventy-three steps now since he started counting.
As Lucas got on the level road, he saw something move in his peripheral vision. He looked up to see an apostle standing there. He stopped in his tracks. No… wait… He rubbed his eyes and took a second look. It wasn't an apostle he was seeing. It was a person. He could see they were fully clothed from head to toe. Nothing was exposed. He couldn't make out what was on their face, but it had to be a mask of some sort. His eyes were too tired to make out what he was seeing completely.
The person carried something. They had a strap on their shoulder which was connected to what looked like a crossbow. They didn't have their hands on the crossbow, so he didn't think they were a threat as of yet.
Lucas suddenly felt weak. He stumbled back a bit before falling onto his side. He felt his consciousness slipping into obscurity. He didn't realize it at first, but just before his went unconscious, he figured that amidst all his thoughts he must've forgotten to breathe.
The masked person hiked over to Lucas' unconscious body. They looked back at where they had dropped the deer, and back at him, conflicted on whether to bring him, or the food.
But it had been so long since they saw another person. They had thought they might've been the last one alive until they saw Lucas. The masked person ended up taking Lucas, prioritizing him over the deer.
Lucas seemed to be in critical condition. They lifted his eyelids, seeing that his eyes were blood red with a lack of moisture. He clearly hadn't been sleeping. When they picked him up, he was surprisingly light. They didn't know it, but there was nothing inside him that he consumed to weigh him down in the first place.
His mouth was dry and his hair was greasy with excess sebum that had never been washed out. His hair was tainted brown with the amount of dirt and dust in it. His blue eyes stuck out from all the red. He was reasonably lean, not skinny, or fat.
They carried Lucas on their back all the way home. There were no difficulties or encounters with apostles along the way. It went smoothly.
Nothing ever went smoothly. This idea of a smooth journey was foreign to Lucas. He was ready to wake up in a ditch, or with a knife in his neck, or something of that nature. But to his amazement, he woke up tucked under the sheets of a bed. He had been stripped down and was just in underwear now. He felt clean, as if he'd been washed while he was out.
He saw something by his side. A chair rocking back and forth. Someone was sat on the chair. It was not the same person he had seen. They wore jeans, and a black v-neck shirt. Silky black hair extended down to her shoulder.
No… It couldn't be… was this…?
(Lucas: "Liliana?")
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