Day: 1180
Days Left: 4300
Lives Saved: 6
"They're what!" Annika hissed, doing all she could to contain her voice so that no one outside the tent could hear.
Talon rolled their eyes, tired of having to explain everything again. "They're still there; they haven't left the forest."
"It's been half a year!" Annika paced around the tent, constantly changing directions to vent her frustration. "Why are they still here? How are they still here? They must have run out of food by now." She then paused, glaring at Talon, who was sitting on the ground, fiddling with a shiny metal bracelet around their wrist. "You!" Annika pointed at Talon accusingly. "You said they had gone!"
"No, I didn't." Talon's face scrunched up, seeming to be disinterested in the threatening tone of their leader.
"Yes, I told you to keep an eye on them and inform me of any changes-"
"You said they would be gone after that blood moon, like for definite, so I stopped spying on them." Talon shrugged. "I mean, they did look like they were packing to leave."
"Why didn't you make sure that they had actually left!"
"Wasn't asked to do that. You asked me if I had seen them one day-"
"Yes, and you said they had left!"
"I said that I had not seen them because I did not go to see them; I was telling the truth, then you decided to declare to everyone that they had finally left."
"Because you-"
"Hey, all of you could wander outside and find out yourself! So stop putting all the work on me! I'm tired of it!"
Annika scowled, her hands on her hips, moving her coat just enough to reveal the gun in its holster hidden underneath. However, much to her anger, Talon seemed unfazed by the threat.
"What are we going to do?" Annika sighed, rubbing her forehead. She looked expectantly at Junior, sitting quietly in the corner of the tent.
He winced, not particularly wanting to join the conversation. "Well, it depends on what you want to achieve."
"What I want is for any threats to our group to be eliminated," hissed Annika. "They remained here for a reason, to take over our camp and get our resources, our food, our water, the Land of the Lost."
"If they are still here, then they must have their own food supply," said Junior.
"Then the Land of the Lost!"
"Nah, I don't think they need supplies," said Talon. "They've already made houses and tools without it-"
Annika turned slowly, staring at Talon. "They... what!"
"They've made houses, well... huts from the trees, like proper ones, not the shitty huts we tried to make. They look super sturdy and cosy too-"
"Why didn't you tell me this!"
"I tried to, but you started yelling at me about the other stuff before I could get to it."
Annika bit her lip, taking a moment to regain her composure. "What are they up to? Why are they here?"
"They've been here for half a year; I doubt they're of any threat," said Talon, resuming playing with their bracelet. "I mean, if they wanted to attack, surely they would have done so already?"
"Talon's right," added Junior. "Perhaps we should extend a hand to greet our new neighbours?"
Annika scoffed at the idea.
"Yeah, we could trade with them," said Talon.
Annika glared at them, dumbfounded. Their group was the most powerful in the sector, controlling the drop-off and the Land of the Lost. No one could gain their mask without them. So why would they ever need to trade with someone else?
"Those houses they made look so nice," Talon sighed dreamily. "We could ask if they could build us some stuff!"
Never before had Annika seen Talon look so enthusiastic about something. No, this was bad. If word got out about this, she could lose everything... everyone.
"We need to find out how they are building these houses without the land of the lost," said Annika. "And how they are surviving without any food packets." She paused, thinking. "Get Jules. I have a plan. No word about this, understood?"
Talon and Junior nodded, with Talon leaving the tent to retrieve Jules.
"You sure this is how you want to solve things?" asked Junior.
"You have a better idea?"
Junior shrugged. "Whether we fight or befriend them, there will be some form of conflict. It all depends on which one you think you can win against."
*
After declaring to everyone that he had to go pee, much to his friends' disgust, Kai paused in helping the current construction project and wandered away from the camp. In search of a secluded spot, Kai stopped as he heard something moving. He gazed up and saw, perched in a tree, a raven.
"Oh, it's just a bird," Kai sighed in relief, smiling as he watched the raven ruffling and grooming its feathers, occasionally hopping on its feet. Then his smile faded as he realised, "Wait-"
The raven rushed towards him, and Kai was knocked back onto the ground, his vision darkening.
*
When Kai came, he found himself sitting on the ground with a rope tied around his chest and arms to a tree.
"He's finally awake," said a voice.
Kai squinted, his vision still recovering and then saw before him three people, people he recognised; the leader of the other group with the green scaled monster mask; the bald guard that had a plain mask, the colour an exact match to his skin; and a person with messy black hair that Kai saw in passing.
"You..." Kai mumbled, unable to form sentences completely from his aching headache. "Where..."
"Looks like you did quite a number on him, Talon," said the leader to the black-haired person.
The person shrugged. "Easy than I thought it would be."
His vision finally returned; Kai noticed a raven mask on the person's person.
Of course, he thought. How could he have been fooled so easily? There weren't any birds or other wildlife in the Eternal Abyss. His attention to the woman with a green scaled mask. "You're the leader of..." Kai's vision swirled.
"That's right," she said. "My name is Annika. What's yours?"
Kai hesitated, about to answer truthfully, then remembered that these people had kidnapped him. "Riley Jackson," he eventually replied.
A smile spread across Annika's lips. Kai was unsure if something malicious hid underneath or if Annika was just bad at being friendly. "Well, Riley," began Annika. "From one leader to another, I-"
"Leader?" Kai laughed, then stopped, seeing the serious faces of Annika and the other two. "You think I'm the leader?"
"Are you not?"
Kai clamped his mouth shut, realising that he could potentially endanger one of his friends. "No, I am- I- I am the leader, me... Riley Jackson."
"So, he's not the leader," mumbled Talon.
"Then who is?" pressed Annika.
"No, you got it right the first time," said Kai quickly. "You've kidnapped the leader for some reason." He forced a laugh. "Are you taking me as a hostage? Going to threaten my friends for something?"
Annika crouched down to Kai's level, her grey eyes piercing through her mask. "Why are you still here? How? You must have run out of food ages ago."
Kai swallowed, knowing that he should definitely not mention Ivette's Abyss Plants. "As I said, we know ways to make food go further. We would have told you the secret, but you refused to trade with us-"
"And what about these houses? How are you making them without tools? Without the Land of the Lost?"
"We make our own tools, just as I said we could. We use the forest around us; you know how people did before we invented machines. We've gone back to the stone age."
The leader frowned, standing back up and glancing away in thought.
"Look, I'll forget about this kidnapping thing," Kai said. "How about we try out that trade deal, huh? We'll teach you how to bulk up your meals and to build tools and houses- or build them for you if you wish, and in return, we just want to the location of the Land of the Lost."
"You do not want food packets?"
Kai hesitated. "Uh, yes, that too."
The leader was silent for a moment, considering, then said softly. "I apologise; there was no way of knowing if your group could be trusted."
"It's alright." Kai shrugged as best as he could whilst tied to a tree.
"And it seems you can't." Annika motioned to the bald guard.
"Wait, what are you-" Kai squirmed, but the rope that bound him was too tight. The man approached and took out a knife from his pocket.
"You must be stealing our food somehow," said Annika. "There's no other way you have survived here for over half a year without packets. Either that or you are lying. Has one of my people been secretly trading with you?"
"I swear we haven't even been anywhere near your place!" Kai flinched away as the knife drew nearer to his face, but he could not escape.
"Perhaps you are cannibals then? Regardless, we will find out soon."
To Kai's surprise, the man used the knife to cut a piece of Kai's hair.
"It'll just grow back," Kai said in confusion.
"I know, that makes it even handier," said Annika. She placed a hand on her subordinate's shoulder. "Jules here is going to take your place; I hope you don't mind."
"I do mind, actually," said Kai.
The mask Jules wore on the side of his head blinked in light for a brief moment before it spread and enveloped his body, and before Kai stood a humanoid, clothless, with no eyes, nose or mouth, just skin where they should be. It didn't even have any nails, hair or genitalia.
Jules lifted the clump of hair in the air, hesitating, before the skin where his mouth would be tore open, and he dropped the hair inside. He chewed for several uncomfortable seconds before swallowing.
After a moment, the humanoid shrunk in size to Kai's height and body weight then changed to having Kai's tawny-beige skin. A set of dark brown eyes emerged, a nose, lips, and ears, and then Kai's uneven and horrible black haircut sprouted. Soon before Kai was himself in all his nudity, which made him highly uncomfortable despite it being his own body; perhaps it was because it was being paraded around so unashamedly.
"Strip him," ordered Annika.
Reluctantly, Talon and Jules, now in Kai's image, took Kai's clothes, and the doppelganger donned them. They gave the real Kai a blanket to cover his modesty.
"One last thing missing," said Annika, snatching Kai's red woollen hat and placing it on the fake Kai's head.
"They won't believe you're me!" spat Kai.
"Do you think you have his speech pattern down?" Annika asked Jules.
"Hi there, I'm Riley Jackson," Jules imitated Kai's voice. "Yeah, got it."
"They'll notice you're fake for sure!" Kai shouted as Jules took the goblin mask, attaching it to his stolen belt. "They'll come looking for me!"
"Find out what their food source is," ordered Annika. "If they're plotting to attack us, we need to know."
The Kai doppelganger nodded, giving the real Kai a glance before leaving in the direction of the camp.
"They'll all figure it out!" Kai cried out. "You'll see!"
*
As Jules walked closer to the camp, his legs became heavier, his feet struggling to lift and take another step as his anxiety kicked in. Of course, this was not the first time he had used his shapeshifting mask to infiltrate another group, but this group was far larger than any before.
Talon had provided him with as much information as they could. Which for Talon's lethargy and preferring to give the least amount of effort for everything boiled down to:
There are about twenty of them... I think...
They've built houses and tools and stuff...
And made a river...
I dunno...
At the very least, Jules now knew the name of the person he was pretending to be: Riley Jackson, who was not the leader despite being the primary spokesperson for the failed trade agreements. Jules wondered who the leader was. The tiger lady? The headless horseman? Or perhaps it was someone he had not yet met. He hoped he could stay under the radar until he worked out everyone's names and Riley's relationship with them.
With the camp in his sights, Jules took a deep breath in and as he took a step forward when something wrapped around his ankle, tugging before his whole body was flung into the air. He screamed, wailing his arms as he hung upside down, several feet from the ground.
There was a stampede of rushing feet, and a crowd gathered around, looking at him. There was a collective sigh.
"Again! Seriously!" groaned a woman with long black hair. "This is the seventh time! Why can't you just remember where the traps are!"
"Sorry," Jules whimpered, swinging back and forth on the rope. "Could someone help me down, please..."
After he was returned safely to the ground, a man with fluffy black curls styled into a short mohawk patted him on the back, his eyes softening with concern. "Hey, were you alright?" he asked softly. "You were gone for so long. We were about to send out a search party."
Jules hesitated, seeing everyone else looking at him for an answer.
"I..." Jules began, and then something clicked inside his mind: courage and acting skills took over. "I just took the biggest shit I had ever seen! I mean, it was a right monster-"
Everyone groaned and left in disgust.
"You should have all seen it!" Jules continued. "I mean, I kept on wiping, and the smell- I think it might be explosive diarrhoea-"
"Please stop," hissed the woman with long black hair.
"Hey, I was asked." Jules shrugged.
The man with the mohawk laughed slightly, then ruffled Jules' red woollen hat. "Well, so long as you're safe."
"You worried that I got kidnapped or something?" Jules joked.
"More like accidentally fell a pit and couldn't get back up."
His genius strategy having worked, Jules was left alone, perhaps because the others did not want to be near or smell someone who just had explosive diarrhoea.
With everyone leaving him alone, Jules could explore the camp without notice. However, as soon he passed the trees into the large clearing that the camp occupied, he froze, glad that no one was watching him as he could not contain his expression of awe. Talon had said they had constructed houses, but Jules was expecting them to be crude wooden huts, not... not this!
The camp looked just like some medieval village, the small houses constructed out of numerous wood planks and smothered in mud, leaves, and moss to cover the gaps, as well as roofs and functioning doors and windows. Not only were they solidly constructed, but Jules could see the detail in the arches and the frames; patterns had been chiselled out, each house with individuality. In the centre were five campfires, each with a pot hanging above using a construction made of twigs. Jules peered into them; a few contained what seemed to be bark that had been boiling until it became soft; one was primarily food, the pot labelled with a symbol of a chef hat, and the last were just water.
Sat beside one of the pots with the boiled bark was a young woman with long golden blonde hair and freckles scattered her entire body, almost resembling dirt in how much they clustered together. But what Jules could not stop staring at were her hands, or rather her lack of hands. One arm appeared to have been severed up to her elbow, the other to her wrist. Where her hands were missing were replaced with wooden prosthetics. These wooden contraptions had three blunt branch prongs on the ends; the closest Jules could compare it to were tripod legs that could be easily moved and bent. These homemade prosthetics were strapped to her arms with rope that wound around her arms and connected to a shoulder pad.
This didn't look like any prosthetic Jules had seen, or at least without his memories, what he could imagine them to look like. Did someone make this for her?
Using the three-pronged hands, the woman scooped out the boiled bark and placed them on the ground to dry. Next, she picked up the ones that had already dried and began plaiting them together to create rope.
"Oh..." Jules mumbled under his breath. So that was how they were making their own tools. They make rope out of the bark.
Despite having technically six immovable fingers, the woman was somehow able to plait the bark quickly, perhaps due to numerous practices. She glanced up and caught Jules staring.
"Shit," he grumbled, glancing away, finding something to occupy himself with, but she merely smiled and beckoned him over with a gesture of her hand.
Reluctantly, Jules obeyed and sat down in front of her.
The woman retrieved a whiteboard that hung around her neck. After adjusting the prongs on her right hand, she placed a pen between them and wrote, 'are you alright?' Her handwriting was far neater than Jules' despite the wooden prosthetics.
"Yeah, I'm alright!" replied Jules with a slight stutter.
'Trap again?' The woman giggled silently.
"Yep, happened again." Jules laughed, glad that this Riley Jackson was the clumsy sort. "I don't know why I keep forgetting where they are."
He paused. "Do you want some help?" He motioned to the bark. His main goal in this infiltration was to learn how this group was making tools and houses without the Land of the Lost, and a part of their success was their handmade rope.
The woman smiled. She peered into the pot and then pointed over to the trees.
"You want me to collect more?" Jules asked slowly.
Fortunately, his interpretation was correct. He wandered over to a nearby tree, hesitating.
Was there a specific way to collect bark? What if he did it wrong? Would they know he wasn't Riley? But then he remembered how Riley seemed to be constantly forgetting the traps and assumed that if Riley did fail at something, that was normal.
Jules retrieved a knife from his trouser pocket, glad Riley had one on him already; otherwise, he would have to work out where they kept their equipment. With the knife, Jules shredded off more bark and returned to the woman, who carefully placed them in the boiling pot of water.
He watched the woman plait the bark before attempting it himself. Any activity, regardless if he had done it before, was challenging with someone else's hands, in someone else's body. This Riley Jackson's fingers were much shorter and stodgy compared to his long and slender fingers. Occasionally, he would forget this difference and fail to grab something, the length of his arms having shortened.
But he was happy about one difference: he had hair in this form. Yes, it was badly cut, but it was still soft and smooth, long enough for him to brush his fingers through. Jules could not stop himself from touching it, wanting to take the annoying red woollen hat off; however, Talon had mentioned that Riley was constantly wearing it.
Great, Jules thought. I finally have hair, but I have to wear this stupid hat over it.
After plaiting the softened bark into a rope in silence, the woman stopped and reached for her whiteboard.
'Not talkative today?' she wrote.
Jules saw the look of concern on her face, assuming that Riley was usually pretty talkative. He shrugged. "Sorry, I had something on my mind." He regretted saying this as the woman tilted her head in interest.
"It's nothing," said Jules. "I... You know you sometimes try to think about your life before the Abyss? I got lost in one of those thoughts. I dunno." He shrugged. "I think it was because of all of this plaiting... it felt familiar like I've done it before. Maybe I had a little sister- or maybe even a daughter, whose hair I plaited." Jules showed off his rope-plaiting work. "Clearly, I was not the best at it," he laughed, which caused the woman to laugh too silently.
And the award for best actor goes to... Jules for his outstanding performance in improvised bullshittery!