1 Prologue

A few things to keep in mind before starting:

If any dialogue is between single quotes ' ' then that was in the character's head.

If the dialogue was in double quotes " " then that was said out loud.

Thank you for giving this book a try!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was 2023, and the pandemic had finally finished. On a sunny day, 18-year old Alaukik decided to go for a camping trip in a nearby forest. He woke up early, packed all of his tools and left his house feeling excited about the day to come. He reached the forest by afternoon and looked around, only to see no one near him.

"Ahahaha! I knew it! Only I am brave enough to challenge this forest and it's various dangers. Mere mortals would never be able to set foot into it!" exclaimed Alaukik as he entered the forest.

While roaming around the forest, he also tried to search for fruits that were edible. Having done his research on what to eat and what not to eat, he felt pretty confident in his identification skills.

'Even if I don't have the status check skill or an identification skill to help me out here, I'm pretty sure I can find one or two fruits that I can eat… right?' He thought to himself.

Having read too many novels and binge watched anime, his head was currently filled with those kinds of thoughts. As he walked through the forest, he finally found an open space where he could set camp and spend the night.

'Gaaah, finally! Like, how long does it take to find open space in a forest?? Damn, if I knew I would have to walk for so long, I would've brought more food…'

By the time he set up camp and started a campfire, the sun had long set and the stars had started to shine brightly in the night sky.

'Ah, the stars look so beautiful without all the pollution in the city. Speaking of pollution, the air in this forest is so fresh, everytime I take a breath, it fills me with energy… but although all that walking still made me pretty tired. Let's quickly have dinner and go to bed.'

And so he set up his pot above the fire, added some water he found in a nearby stream, and started to cook some instant noodles he brought with him. He even added a few of the fruits he found in the jungle that afternoon.

' Next time I should come with somebody who can cook better, although eating instant noodles by yourself in a forest is also a … unique experience…? ' He thought, trying to avoid thinking of the fact that he didn't know how to cook at all.

After finishing the meal, he quickly washed up the utensils and then crawled into his tent, ready to have a good night's sleep. And yet, just as he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly heard the sound of something being torn very loudly. So loud in fact, that he felt that somebody had placed a speaker right beside his ears. As he got up and got out of the tent to find out which idiot was being so loud in the middle of the night, what he saw blew his mind.

Right there, in front of the camp, was a crack, a literal crack in space, pitch black in color with no way of knowing how deep it was. It felt so out of place there, that Alaukik thought that he was hallucinating from eating one of the fruits.

'This has to be a hallucination right? I'm guessing one of the fruits I ate was actually not meant for eating? But, I even double checked from the guide I bought that it was edible..' As he contemplated whether he was hallucinating from the fruit or whether it was an insect that bit him and caused it, he suddenly felt an attraction from the crack.

"You're kidding me right? It's pulling me in! Why did I want to brave the dangers of the forest!'

"Help! Somebody help! Aaaaaahh" He started screaming as he ran towards the nearest tree and held its branch to prevent himself from being sucked into the crack. While holding onto the branch for his life, he noticed that everything that entered the crack was shredded into pieces. Looking at this, he got so scared that his hands started sweating, and that was it. His hands slipped from the branch as he was sucked into the crack.

"Nooooo-"

Were his final words, as his body was sucked into the crack completely cut into pieces. As soon as he was sucked, the crack closed on its own, and if there was no tent and traces of a fire, it wouldn't even look like somebody had stayed here for the day.