So Do You Truly Wish To Be Here?

The gator really put a number on me. The indents in my teeth were more or less still a mystery to me.

I didn't quite have an idea as to what they actually did but they were just there, minding their own business, making me question if they were going to be an issue to my dental care.

The kid and the deer were still there on the bank of the pond, looking at me struggle to drag the corpse of the gator out of the now excessively murky water.

I groaned at my back killing me and my bloody fucking arms starting to ache when I just fucking started to drag the damnable beast.

But the again, I am an old man, and despite the fact that I may have regained some of my years, it doesn't change the fact that I was here, dragging a body to go and do whatever it is I needed to do.

And what I needed was a source of food. It took me nearly a fucking hour to get that thing on the bank as it made me heave and ho all the way to the end. When it did reach the bank, the little one walked up to me with the creature's slightly mangled heart in hand.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll live, child, I'll live."

"Hmmm....meat."

"Yes, meat. Meat that you can and normally should eat."

"But the voice says-"

"Don't always take the voice's suggestions as gospel, child. The gods are just as fickle and sick as the rest of us, if there are any in this world."

"What if there aren't any gos?"

"Gods, child, not gos. And more or less, if there weren't, then I wouldn't be here. Well, not right now I suppose, but time is an odd little mistress that I would like to call myself familiar with, but that would be a lie."

She just stared at me as she handed me the heart as I rolled my eyes, got up, patted my hands dry from the various fluids and sediments on my hands, and received the heart of the beast.

I gulped at the smell, which made me confused since I actually smelled the bloody thing, and bloody it was. It still had a little bit of blood in itself.

I was already thinking of the more artisanal ways to make this thing into a form of euphoria when the deer bleated. Deers, they may be somewhat similar to goat, but I'm pretty damn sure that they don't bleat like one.

The thing walked over to the carcass as I got closer as well. It blinked slowly at the gator as it lowered it's antlers and head, and poked it straight through its eyes.

"....."

Yeah, speechless. Must be some old trauma, or something, if a wild could actually get trauma. I walked over to the creature, and got some ropes from the pack.

I decided to just hogtie the thing and drag it to wherever the deer's little safety zone was in this forest. It was a better choice than blood and dirt-filled pond water that hasn't been properly settled down yet.

Considering that there are a lot of strange things in this world from the way that animals can turn elements into fucking ammo, well, I would also be hypothesizing that the water may be contaminated with some more concerning things.

The deer looked at me as I flipped the gator over, which made the pain in my lower back intensify as I remember that I still haven't removed my body from the mouth of the beast.

I sighed, seeing the blood dripping out of the gator's mouth as my corpse was also in there.

A gator and a crocodile have rather similar features, with the only thing that was different about them was their respective quarries. If they were going to hunt something, they were going to hunt something big and worth it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this might be more effort than it's worth, but then I'll retract that, since it's a real big Betsy we're bringing over.

I had spices, yes I do, and I was going to use them very generously when I eat this thing. I can almost taste the fucking roasted heart of the beast. I linked the rope to the bag on the deer and to myself, so we would both be dragging the thing.

I know that this was a stupid idea, and that I should bleed the meats first before we take its parts and go. But I was already getting hungry, and our food supplies weren't stellar.

If I could smoke some gator meat and be able to season them as well, gator jerky didn't sound all that terrible. And this thing was a real kicker, so yeah, I'll take my chances.

The kid was just on top of the deer, looking around with amazement as I let the deer lead us to wherever it did stay in. Sadly for me, it was just an open area and not much of a cave or hole in the ground.

Sure there were some sticks and stones laying around, but plain open spot within the forest wasn't all that great as it seemed. I wanted to try and look for a better spot, but it was nearing the middle of the day, and I had a giant alligator to butcher up.

So I unpacked, pulled out the serrated axe, and kept the fact that this could easily attract stronger predators to our location in my mind as I slowly but surely started on this beautiful beast that nearly murdered me.

The pure pungency of the thing nearly made me want to vomit, but I kept at it, making sure to go for belly areas for initial consumption, while the more meaty parts were halved off and made into smoked delicacies.

Well, I say delicacy, it's more along the lines of decent enough to be rations. In any case, I got some of the more fattier cuts into a good enough campfire, and using some stripped sticks that I hoped to God were more than clean enough from the snow covering them and melting to be clean.

And when it was cooking, I popped whatever joints I could and moaned from how good it felt. Gods this was going to take me so long to do. The kid was just off in another spot, petting the deer as it allowed her to touch it.

She was getting a bit more aloof as far I can tell. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing however. The melting and burning fat sizzled when it hit the burning flames, producing a peculiar scent as I just considered it to be a delicacy instead.

I would absolutely kill to have some American spice mixes right, or maybe some Mongolian ones, but I wouldn't know how the Mongolian spices would taste, seeing as their spices are more for four-legged mammals that know how to properly run than a predator that's not had too many changes over millions of year.

And the Americans have some certain experience with crocs, so they'd have a spice rub for gators as far as I know. And yes, America was still standing when I was in prison. Funny enough they somehow straightened the hell out and started to make things less of a fucky wucky.

It surprised most of us in the cell block when the news came on the telly in the cafeteria. I even remember Jack smiling at it, saying that this time his kids might just have a chance. Poor bastard's been there in the clink for more years than I would've liked to count.

Came in for a quick job on some bank and ended up getting ditched by his mates, sheesh. But when he was in our block I was more or less surprised that he got life in the first place. I had some frags, yes, but he was just a crew guy, didn't even take any hostages out.

I welcomed him personally, with him being a little terrified that I was the one seeing him, but after a couple minutes of talk and reassurance about the block, he simmered down. Hell, he was a damn good cook when it came down to it.

I remember that man making a mean pot of chicken noodle soup. I almost miss him. Shame that he got transferred to the block in the first place. Never really knew why they sent a low heister in the same block as life-long prisoners.

He ended up trying to plead for probation and somehow they actually allowed him. Granted it took him a decade, but when the time came we all celebrated him getting out with a carrot cake.

The man was smiling ear to ear with tears while eating it. I even handed him one of my books. He looked a little confused at first until I told him to read a specific page for a surprise. A year later, he was a man with a clean business and an even cleaner home.

Yeah, I had some little stashes hidden around everywhere in the globe, primarily in the Americas, but I do have them rather spread out.

As I just about finished reminiscing the past, the meat was already nice and ready, with the fat rendered just enough for it to still be palatable. Now mind you, there were certain cuisines that I enjoyed, and other cuisines that I didn't enjoy.

Filipino cuisine is the sort of cuisine where you will be fed until you're fat enough by their standards. American cuisine comes more along the lines of, it's so unbelievably delicious but also unbelievably unhealthy.

Spanish is sorta fancy, so is French. British cuisine actually feels light to me, and thank whichever god could being this world, because sometimes you need a little palate cleanser every once in a while.

The French Polynesian cuisine was simple, but ultimately helps in bulking a man up enough to carry entire banana trees. Plus their moonshine is just scrumptious. Even the Mahus can absolutely break my spine, but they gave me a nice hat when the trip was over.

I've all around, and yet I ended up making a deal with a goddess to another reality where I don't have any information, no caches, no nothing. Life is outright just weird in that regard, isn't it?

The gator meat, yes I forgot, good, not exactly like Cajun good, but it was more or less acceptable. The less fatty meat was going to be smoked somewhere else, because I have little to no clue if I could get myself a big enough leaf to make a smoker.

The sky was slowly becoming orange with swirls of white and blue contrasting it. The night was coming, and I don't think this is one that I'd like to be spending on the ground. I nudged the kid, who was chomping on a claw and pointed at one of the trees.

The deer on the other hand, was relaxing and occasionally putting it's head up to see if there were any threats nearby. I didn't really care for it all that much to be honest, it was an animal that we only really decided to just allow to be with us for the short while.

If I did actually care for the thing, well, let's just say that we wouldn't be scaling a tree again like my great great ancestors that came far before me, and left way before me.

The kid still had a little bit of ribs with her as I picked her up and quickly got us up into the tree, all the while making sure that the axe with me wouldn't fall down while I climbed up.

She didn't seem to care too much when I picked her up, so I didn't mind either. But then once she was out of meat she looked to me and noticed that we were already in the foliage.

"Old man, why are we in branches?"

"You forgot a "the" in between "in" and "branches" child. And that's because there might be other bad things that could try to hurt us. It's not safe for us until you're strong enough to protect yourself, and I can't sacrifice myself right now.

So this? This is what we'll be doing for the time being until you can kill a creature by grabbing, throwing it into the air, and letting it die from falling."

She blinked a little as she threw the bones and claw away while the deer was still lazing on the ground, near meat and fire, which are two very very big beacons for other bigger and beefier predators to try and kill us.

I made sure to grip the axe nice and tight, just in case something really stupid could occur. And that was what I did for hours on end, even after the fire finally died down, turning into ashes and embers. Strangely enough there weren't any flies that were going around the gator.

I can't really find the correct words to describe what happened next, but the deer started to float in the air. The night sky was slowly but surely starting to float, and a nigh infinite amount of stars just started to burn brighter for whatever bloody reason.

The stars within it's body got brighter and brighter, while the black faded away for whatever bloody reason, and it's antlers, oh boy the antlers.

They were a silverish color with golden highlights and lines running along them, as it made a golden symbol on forehead of the beast.

The little one was more or less concerned by what was occuring, so I just made sure that she didn't get any more harmed by telling her to stay in the tree as I jumped down and inspected it even better.

Okay, strange fire-looking things near it's hooves, the bloody thing flying up into the air, and it turning into something that looks even more bloody mythical as time goes by.

I swear to any bloody god that I feel like I don't have the time to be acting as old as I should be, the kid's most likely older than me, and here I am still trying to get a good enough grasp on this reality.

Oh yeah, and the deer looked straight down at me as it took a step in the air towards me. Suddenly I feel like something was pushing down on me, making me fall to the ground. I clutched onto the axe and did my best to use what strength I had from killing the image from my "realm".

The deer still kept walking, inching it's way closer and closer to me as I tried to look up at it, giving myself a crook in my neck by doing so. Then, as if it was all just a dream, the deer stopped and I was able to stand again.

I quickly did my best to take up a stance as the deer walked to me, not feeling the same pressure on my body as I did back then.

'Hello.'