Day One - Part 2

[Strazio Rockwell]

Fire was difficult to create without any supplies, but Mara had taught me several useful tricks. Even with my survivalist training it was difficult to build a fire with one arm. Eventually I was able to get the beginnings of a fire and silently cheered to myself. The next step was preparing the fish. I had no desire to eat scales or guts, but I lacked a knife to prepare it. I crawled towards the edge of the beach and shifted through the sand and rocks. A nice sharp piece of shale or something would do the trick and I was fortunate enough to find one.

Preparing the fish was easy, I had done it a million times in my youth and it was like riding a bike. You run the blade against the scales, peeling them off and then you cut the fish down the belly and remove the unwanted innards. All-in-all it took me only a few minutes to prep the fish and throw it on the fire. Rather than sit and waste time watching the fire I decided to try and find a makeshift weapon. I took a few moments to grab a long thick stick from the nearby treeline. It was about five feet long and incredibly straight, almost a perfect spear. I checked my food and then began to whittle the end of the stick into a point using my sharp rock.

There was something calming about the whole scenario. It had been a while since I had to camp out in the woods and it brought back nostalgia. Mara and I had roamed the wilderness for years, the cities didn’t take too kindly to a rogue hexbreaker and magus so we had to live off the land. In those years we had grown close, closer than I had ever been with someone, except for maybe Valerie. We knew each other inside and out, it was almost as if we were siblings. We were battle brother and sister, bonded with the single purpose of hunting down Damien Alabaster.

My nostalgia trip was cut short as I noticed my fish began to burn. With my good hand I pulled it from the fire and set it on a nearby rock to cool. The half-burnt fish smelled delicious and my stomach twisted in knots with anticipation. As the cruel mistress fate would have it I wasn’t the only one that thought the fish smelled divine. A deep growl made my skin crawl as I looked behind me. A snarling wolf had stumbled upon my campsite and decided that my cooked food was his.

“Oh come on, fuck off you mangy bastard” I growled right back at the beast. It was none too impressed by my failed attempt at dominance and it lunged. I had managed to turn around before the wolf had bowled me over. I offered my busted arm to its snarling maw and it gladly chomped down. A bloodcurdling scream erupted from my throat as the wolf tried to tear the flesh from my broken arm. Running on pure instinct and adrenaline I reached out for something -- anything to defend myself. I gripped a nearby stick from the fire and without hesitation I bashed the beast against the head, sending cinders everywhere. The blow dazed the wolf and allowed me to crawl away from it before it could steady itself. I kicked at the beast and tried to do my best to keep it at bay. “I’ll rip your fucking throat out!” the beast had pissed me off, but despite my impotent rage the snarling wolf did not stop its assault. The creature backed off to ready another lung and I dove for my newly fashioned spear. It leaped forward at a blinding speed and with a silent prayer I raised my spear towards it.

A pathetic yelp called out as the beast impaled itself on my weapon. Warm blood dripped on my chest and I breathed a sigh of relief. I heaved the beast off of me and stabbed it one more time for good measure before the adrenaline faded and the pain hit me like a truck. My arm was in worse shape than before and it hurt more than anything I had ever experienced. I curled into a ball and gritted my teeth, trying to internalize the pain.

“Why can’t I catch a fucking break?” I whimpered pathetically and rolled over onto my back. There was a silver lining however, I now had enough food to last me for days. Wolf meat wasn’t exactly ideal, but I couldn’t afford to be picky. Fuck my arm, at least I had food and a weapon. Night was coming and I crawled back over to my fire. As much as the warmth of a fire would be comforting I couldn’t afford to be spotted while I slept. I kicked sand onto the blaze to extinguish it and began to tear into my cold fish. It tasted like sand and fire, but at least my belly stopped grumbling.