Ayyy, sorry for the almost week-long hiatus, got a bad case of the “Wow I’m lazy as hell and really don’t want to do anything today” and “Wow, that’s a lot of work days…”. Let’s just say that I’m already getting that feeling that people get in college once they realize that they get no break at, and I’m not even out of high school. (To be honest, at least with my job for how low wage it is, I can still say at least it’s partially morally right in some more abstract ways). and that plan for a survival guide is right now on a back burner until I completely update this (micro?) series.
Part 4:
Manik woke to the damp surroundings of her newfound home, with the ashes of last nights fire laying in the wood stove beside her. Well, a newfound home wasn’t the exact word for it, but it was her newest so far. Was it a Saturday? Sunday? Manik couldn’t tell; she could tell that it was almost 8 weeks since The Cataclysm had started…
Those 8 weeks were by far the longest of weeks of her life and weren’t exactly the easiest either; she couldn’t even remember most of them either but she could at least recount:
In her first week, it was all about food, because Manik already had more than enough water from the crevice. It took her a while, but she finally got desperate enough to crack open a pine cone and cook the seeds inside, which felt energizing and refreshing at the same time. Manik dropped everything she was doing and grabbed her pack to harvest the nearby pine trees for everything they had on them. She then started the strenuous process of cooking every single one, which helped her learn a lot about cooking too.
Solving her dire food situation, Manik decided she had to learn a lot more about her surroundings and survive the harshness of the forest. In the meantime, she decided to pick up a book about sewing to take up any little free time she had. One of the patterns in the book gave Manik a genius idea: Duffel Bags! More storage for more food and loot with no drawbacks! Manik Quickly set off to put her pattern together and crafted a rather crude duffel bag. Once she placed it on her back she finally started to feel the encumbrance setting in as she felt it harder to move around her home as easily.
In Manik’s second week, she was steadfast on finding out if maybe there was a city to the northern parts of the road she had not yet found. She packed with herself a ton of the pine nuts she had cooked in the aforementioned week, her slightly damaged cudgel, and finally picked up her new duffel bag for the journey.
Along the way she found a strange almost demonic-looking dark humanoid looking over the bodies of some nearby survivors. When Manik approached, the thing quickly shuffled away without a single demeanor of hostility. Manik hurriedly searched the bodies- sure being a scavenger wasn’t her way of doing things- but humanity was a far cry from its honor-bound systems. Searching those bodies, however, wielded herself a new knife: Metallic- of course- but with a curve at the end of it and sawteeth on its spine; and of course some clothes for rags she could use on other sewing projects.
Surprisingly traveling down this endless road didn’t scare Manik too much, she had seen shit in that first week of just trying to scrape by in… Westfield? was that the town? Manik couldn’t remember exactly, she knew she wasn’t forgetful, but something in her mind tried to block out the memories of her past. Her daydreaming brought her to another group of corpses with lab coats and some sort of mold nearby. This time, when approached, the mold slowly fled from Manik… So Manik decided to try and give it a few smacks with her cudgel for cathartic relief. While stumbling around, Manik gave a good thwack on the mold, but then saw near the grass by her foot a shiny stick in the field of bodies. She approached cautiously and picked the object up, it seemed to be a staff with an engraving of “L-Stick” on its side.
Sorry, these past few days I’ve had more time to play some CDDA and have made some strides, (from where Manik is at currently, 30 days have disappeared in a few hours with no end in sight) so I’m taking a super lazy path of just making an update rather than just some stories from her days…
