User blog:Narcoblix/The Lone Warrior

Prologue

Blood began seeping from the gaping gash on my forehead, trickling fast enough that a metallic taste began to form in my mouth. I held my hand up above my brow, trying to get a feel of how badly I had been gorged. Naturally, I couldn't feel a thing with all the adrenaline now pumping through my veins. I pulled my hand down, now hald-covered in my own blood. I got dizzy at the sight, but I held fast. The crimson blood was almost the same shad of the now twilight-turning-afternoon, each little dribble of the blood sparkling with every ray of sunlight that hit it.

The Teraphyx was now roaring with contentment, my only ally now scraps in its meal. It took maybe a good two minutes for the Teraphyx to have striped clean whatever meat lay on what used to be Ian's arm. I had to look away before I screamed, vomitted, or maybe even did both, because either way the Teraphyx would have remembered that I wasalso in the arena. I would need every precious second of whatever time I had to form some kind of plan, no matter how stupid.

I looked around desperately, trying to find some sort of rock to smash the Teraphyx's skull in, or maybe even a pointy stick to to poke out the ghastly beast's eyes. I searched the pool of salty water next to te tiny bay, then out of desperation, I started to dig in te sand. realizing this was getting me nowhere anytime soon, I began to ponder on my odds of survival in hand to horn and hoof combat.

That was when I saw it. Near the entrance me and Ian first entered the arena in, there was a torch mount sticking out of the wall. The torch that lay nestled in the iron mount was still unlit, sadly, but the mount itself had a peculiar design to it. Along the outside of the interlocking strips of iron that held the torch in place, there were spikes that looked almost kin to to that of a speared wall back at Mainland. Assuming I wasn't going crazy and could actually haul the mount out of the wall, I could actually stand a chance against the Teraphyx.

There was one major flaw to the plan, though. The Teraphyx was still gobbling up Ian's motionless corpse in the sand by the entrance, by the torch mount, by my only opportunity for salvation. I began to grow furious. Why did I have to be thrown in here defenseless? Why is it that because of me, Ian is now shredded to bits by the hands of that god forsaken Teraphyx? Why, why. WHY?! In a blind rage, I let out a gutteral roar that sounded across the arena, loud enough for the Teraphyx to look up stunned from its meal, and I charged towards what I knew could mean certain death.

Chapter 1

I straight up love the smell of fresh mud and grounded berries in the morning. When I woke up before dawn, the usual brisk breeze carried  itself over the island. As I had done a million times for the past two months now, I went and checked on our fireplace, making sure we still had an ember left in the hearth. It was a pain trying to restart a fire without using some flint and still, but rather a firemaking bow that had been hastily made.

I lucked out, seeing not only one ember in the center of the fireplace, but multiple dozens. I congratulated myself on my luck, bu then remembered just how unpredictable a fire could be. Even in its current state, this fire could go out within half an hour if I weren't careful. Shuffling over to my makeshift tent of leaves and tree trunks, I collected my last bundle of sticks. I gingerly breezed back over to the fire to find that all but one lone ember had burned out, the final piece of burning timber surrounded by its dead bretheren.

Without thinking, I hastily threw my entire bundle of sticks into the fireplace, only then realizing how dumb I was. I slowly set into a crouch with my head in my hands. Why I hadn't set out the bundle into smaller portions, I don't know, but I was now witnessing my final fuel source going up in flames. It would last at the most an hour, under the best conditions, but I was hopeful. Besides, I only needed one hour to finish up a smal hunting trip.

On that thought, I got up from where I was crouching and made my way back to the tent. The tent was really nothing special, other than the fact that it belnded in so well wtih the enviroment. It had four walls of wood forming a square, with a rugged rectangle cut into the side of one of the walls. The roof was made of leaves, naturally (that pun dough), that let in light and warmth during the daytime. It also served as makeshift toilet paper. Life got rough if you went hunting without toilet paper.