Strength In Numbers:

Genesis February 18th, 0001:

Today I actually woke up later than usual, probably because I was more exhausted than usual after all of the running I did yesterday. (Although the 4-hour run was very exhausting, at the very least I was allowed to jog every once in a while when I couldn't go anymore, but while playing yesterday I was running non-stop while being high on adrenaline which led to me crashing really hard when said adrenaline went away).

Thankfully, by now everyone else had already gotten used to waking up without me being there, mainly because I had been getting straight to work on the house for the past couple of days as soon as I woke up, and because I already knew that there was no point in waiting for them to wake up as they had realized that there was no danger as long as they covered themselves with leaves and things around them.

Plus, all of the new things that we were building would probably work to our advantage as predators would associate certain things with human tribes, but none of those things were present here meaning that they would have no idea what our buildings and objects were nor their purpose causing for them to flee, after all no matter who or what you are deep down every living thing that can think logically is afraid of the unknown.

Today I began my workout with the plan to do everything except the 4-hour run before I went hunting for food with everyone. By the time I was done it was already 10:32 AM and I immediately ran over to the river in order to drink water, as I did though I suddenly remembered that I could carve rocks.

Why that had any correlation to what I was doing, simple, by being able to carve rocks and stones into the shape of bowls and small pots I would be able to boil water and no longer have to risk obtaining any diseases that may be found in the water stream, which was extremely likely because this river is probably filled with the feces of any animals that live within it.

Usually, I would have been disgusted at myself for drinking contaminated water, but at this point, I couldn't be bothered to care as I didn't have any other alternatives at the moment. Regardless, that would be for later, after all now that I was done I could finally get ready to join everybody for today's hunt.

Unlike all of the other times though, this time we had to move west from the fireplace mainly because after constantly going south to hunt we had sort of killed all of the Suri nests there, meaning that there would be no point in hunting south anymore, at least for a while. Regardless, it was all the same to me.

Although we had luckily not encountered a predator yet on one of these hunts, that didn't mean that everyone else hadn't started to get better at using their axes, after all, even if we didn't engage in combat often, we still constantly used axes, and some of them even occasionally practiced in order to improve their skills.

All in all, things went the same way they always did, and I was the one that ended up carrying most of the Suri sticks while the rest kept guard just in case we encountered danger. As we approached the fireplace though, I began to feel an extremely strong eerie feeling, stronger than any I had felt before.

I almost instinctively jumped onto a tree and dropping everything on the floor but I forced myself back into place, unlike before I was with a group now, and fleeing would set everyone off, after all to everyone else although I was not the leader per say, I was still the most knowledgeable, meaning that if I ran everyone would think that we couldn't win and could only flee.

I was on edge looking everywhere around me and getting ready to strike at anything that moved towards us. There was dead silence for a while until suddenly I heard the slightest movement and was lucky enough to sense that it was coming from behind me, and suddenly my entire world slowed down as I began to act on impulse no longer able to control my actions.

I grabbed the arm of Carlos and pulled him to the side with all my strength as I ducked before using the arm I was holding my axe with to push all of the Suri sticks I was holding forward before using my legs to push against the ground and launch myself backward, only being able to somewhat control myself again once I was in the air.

While everyone else turned around the giant green snake had launched itself at Carlos who was moved out of the way just in time to avoid being bitten by the snake, he still got hit by its body though. While it was in midair it saw me and redirected its trajectory in order to hit me, thankfully since it was already set off balance by Carlos, it was a little bit off course and I was able to barely miss its mouth before being hit in the head by its massive body.

I was barely able to use my axe to create a small amount of space between it and myself that I used to escape from underneath it by pressing the edge of my axe against its body only able to cut the skin. As I was trying to get away from it though, the snake twisted its body to try and wrap itself around me, unlike the last time it tried to attack though, I was not able to fully dodge its attack and had my arm constricted by it.

While this was happening, everyone else was attacking its body furiously in an attempt to kill it as soon as possible, something that was made evident by the eardrum destroying screeched coming from the snake. This of course caused it to start constricting its muscles even more and squeezing my right arm.

Before I could hear any cracks though, Carlos was able to hit the snake's body with enough strength to open up its body and strike bone. Causing the snake's lower body to abruptly stop moving followed by an unforgettable screech of pain that was only silenced by Josue hitting the snake in the head and finally killing it.