The weeks passed as Mo Chen slowly adapted to life in the wilderness. At first, he needed at least an hour to make a fire; now it took him less than ten minutes. He had also managed to craft basic soft clothing although ugly, due to his lack of skill, but functional.
His most impressive feat, however, was a simple wooden bow. Crafted out of a two-meter-long sturdy stick from an oak-like tree and string from the inner layer of its elastic yet strong bark, it came with painfully fashioned arrows and spears each taking up hours and tens of attempts for a barely acceptable product.
Food however, remained a big challenge. After suffering food poisoning four times in a row, he finally discovered a potato-like crop that could be eaten, albeit bitter. And even that sometimes was hard to find, He also managed to hunt a few birds, though his aim with the bow was poor due to lack of training.
Most of the meat spoiled while curing, leaving him with roughly half a kilo of jerky.
'I need to find other creatures, lest I go insane' he thought.
Boredom gnawed at him constantly.
"If this continues, I might become the first insane psychopath in this new world" he chuckled at his own joke before walking back to camp.
Upon arrival, he looked over his shelter in all its so-called glory.
Between four enormous trees stood a simple wooden structure made of sticks and vines. In front of it was a campfire with a stone pot suspended on two wooden poles. To the left, a drying rack, and around the base, twenty buckets, five baskets, and eight bottles stacked together, all sheltered under a large wooden roof to slow deterioration.
"Ah yes… home sweet home. The only thing missing is a fucking bed and toilet," he muttered, chuckling darkly.
After standing still for almost an hour he suddenly shouted with a frustrated expression.
"Ah, fuck it all. I'm going to try to find an exit from this damn forest. Who gives a fuck if I get killed by aliens when I might die of boredom?"
By now, Mo Chen was 90% sure he had been transported to an alien planet for unknown reasons.
As the last traces of emotion melted from his face, he calmly collected all the dried food and put it in a small sack made from birch bark. He holstered his bow and twenty arrows, strapped two spears to his back, and filled water bottles for the journey. Then, he started a fire… and burned the entire camp.
"Now I have no place to return to and have alerted any intelligent beings to my location."
Why such self-sabotage? Simple: he needed motivation, and he gave it to himself.
As the flames consumed the camp, he picked the opposite direction of the wind and walked without stopping.
Approximately a hundred meters away from the burned camp, the sounds of birds vanished, replaced by an oppressive silence. Not even the omnipresent rustling of leaves could be heard. Yet he neither panicked nor was he nervous after all, he had been here tens of times before.
'For some reason, everything becomes silent in this part of the forest… other than the occasional intrusive thought.'
As he delved deeper, or perhaps further outward, he began hearing sounds again. Sadly, they were not pleasant.
Whispers, at first faint so faint he mistook them for his thoughts, steadily grew louder as he moved deeper, eventually forming incomprehensible words.
"Impossible. I should not be experiencing hallucinations until the third month of solitary survival. What is happening?"
He clenched his teeth and forced himself to move forward.
After roughly a hundred meters, shadowy figures began appearing at the edges of his vision, there was even mouths and eyes carved into the surrounding ancient trees.
The whispers, combined with the shadows, made it feel as though hundreds of demons surrounded him, attempting to drive him insane.
At some point, he forgot he was even moving forward, entirely focused on resisting the whispers.
Then, without warning, the whispers became voices, and the shadows solidified into devils.
"Why live? Nothing matters in this forest!"
"You will never find the exit! You will never go back to your home!"
"Isn't it all boring? No intelligent beings remain on this planet! Why not die and feel the last shred of peace?"
The voices crescendoed, and after what seemed like hours he endured yet at last Mo Chen snapped.
"Look here, little fuckers! If you told me that shit a couple weeks ago, I might have listened but you tell me to kill myself now? Of all times? It means I'm close to the exit, bitches."
Without hesitation, he punctured his eardrums, causing blood to trickle out. The voices lessened, though they did not vanish entirely remaining like a whisper but unlike last time he could make out each word.
'Fascinating… this is not caused by my own mind, but by the environment. It now makes sense why no birds or land animals inhabit this area. They must have starved or died trying to escape the forest…'
Although he might have snapped, that release of emotion allowed him once again to become as calm as a lake but he couldnt help but let a bit of madness creep in as he resisted the remaining develish influence.
A massive grin slowly spread across his face, and his pupils transformed into slits.
As he moved, a soothing sensation emanated from his abdomen and spread throughout his body. He barely noticed it, mechanically walking while resisting the endless madness.
Gradually, small particles appeared in his vision, shimmering with a multicolored hue.
Yet without stopping, He ignored them as if they did not exist.
After what felt like hours, the voices stopped, the shadows vanished receding into themselves, and the sound of birds returned. Yet he did not stop he kept walking, walking, as if he was a puppet that felt no pain or fatigue, blood trickled from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth onto his shoulders and chest in torrents yet steps remained steady until, without warning, he collapsed.