Sleeping in the back of the cave was a beast. It was a bear, but it was bigger than any bear Ivan had ever seen. It was bigger than four grizzly bears combined. Its fur was thick and black, and its massive chest rose and fell with deep, powerful breaths.
Ivan couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't even think.
"S-shit," he whispered, the word catching in his throat.
He forced his body to move, taking one slow, silent step backward. Then another. Leonardo, behind him, also started to back away.
CRUNCH.
Leonardo stepped on a dry twig. The sound was like a gunshot in the dead quiet of the forest.
Ivan jumped, his heart leaping into his throat. He spun around and glared at Leonardo, his eyes wide with panic.
"For fuck sake," he hissed in a loud whisper. "Watch where you are going, please."
Leonardo nodded, his own face pale with fear. He started looking at the ground with every single step he took.
They backed away from the cave entrance, their movements slow and careful. Once they were a safe distance away, they turned and ran. Again.
Ivan's lungs felt like they were going to explode. He had been running and fighting for those days more than this body had experienced in the past year.
They finally collapsed at the base of a large tree, gasping for air, their bodies trembling with exhaustion and fear.
Ivan threw himself onto the ground, his back against the rough bark. He stared up at the canopy of leaves, his mind a mess of despair.
'This is the worst situation we've been in,' he thought, his chest aching. 'We don't even have a firework. If anything happens to us now, we're completely fucked.' The feeling was horribly familiar. 'This is almost like the first life. Why can't I change anything? I take different actions, but I still fall into the same outcome. Failure.'
---
Back at the new, larger camp, the mood was completely different. The smell of roasting meat filled the air. After a hard fight and a successful hunt, everyone was in a good mood.
Everyone except Orion.
He sat a little away from the main group, poking at the fire with a stick. He hadn't touched his food.
Marcus, who was tearing into a large piece of grilled beast meat, noticed him.
"What's up, Orion?" Marcus asked, his mouth full.
"Uh... nothing," Orion mumbled, not looking up.
Marcus swallowed. "Don't tell me 'nothing' when you haven't even eaten. Don't take me for a fool."
Orion sighed. "It's just... Ivan. I wonder where he is, that's all."
Marcus took another big bite, chewing thoughtfully. He looked at Orion's worried face. "Well," he said finally. "Since we have nothing else to do today, you can go check on him."
Orion looked up, surprised. "Huh?"
"What's with that reaction?" Marcus said. "I'm not a dictator."
his friends started laughing. Even Orion couldn't help but let out a small laugh.
Marcus's face turned into a playful scowl. "Huh? I'll kill all of you, you pieces of shit," he joked. "I'll show you what happens when I try to be a dictator." He emphasized the point by taking another huge bite of meat.
Orion felt a little better. "So, I can really go look for him?"
"Yes," Marcus said, his tone becoming serious again. "But bringing him back here is another matter. I won't accept him back into the camp."
Orion's smile faded slightly, but he nodded. 'That's fine,' he thought to himself. 'I just want to apologize to him. I said some unnecessary stuff.'
"Lucinda," Marcus called out. "Go with him."
Lucinda, who was sharpening a knife nearby, looked up, annoyed. "Huh? Why me?"
"I trust your sense of direction," Marcus said simply. "And you can remember the way back here."
"But that's more work for me!" she complained.
"Lucinda," Marcus said, his voice low and dangerous. "Argue more, and I'll tie you to that tree for the whole night."
David chimed in. "It's okay, Lucinda. You really do have a good sense of direction."
Lucinda muttered, "Fuck you guys," under her breath, but she stood up. She grabbed her pack. "Let's go, Orion. I don't have the whole day."
Orion quickly stood up and followed her. She didn't seem very approachable. In fact, she seemed really hostile, walking ahead of him without a word.
They walked in silence for nearly an hour. Orion was starting to lose hope when Lucinda suddenly stopped.
"There," she said, pointing.
In a small, messy clearing, was a single, lonely tent.
"Should we... check?" Orion asked.
"Of course we should," Lucinda said, already walking toward it. "Maybe he left something valuable."
She went straight inside the tent and started searching. Orion followed her and immediately recognized some of Ivan's things.
"It's Ivan's tent, I'm sure," he said.
Lucinda came back out, empty-handed. "And where the fuck is he?"
"And how am I supposed to know!" Orion shot back, frustrated.
Lucinda shrugged. "Whatever. Let's go back."
"Can we wait a little?" Orion asked. "Maybe he'll come back?"
Lucinda let out a loud sigh. She walked over to the berry bushes Ivan had found and started eating from them. "Fine. Ten minutes."
Orion waited. He kept looking around, hoping to see Ivan walking out of the trees. But Ivan never came back.
Then, the sky started to change. The light blue faded to a dark gray. The air grew heavy. It was going to rain.
"Orion, we need to go back," Lucinda said, her tone serious now. "Now."
Orion looked at Ivan's empty tent one last time. He felt a pang of guilt. He walked over, collected the few things Ivan had left behind, and put them in his own backpack. He used a rock to draw a big "O" in the dirt near the tent entrance. As a message.
"Yeah," he said, his voice quiet. "Let's go."
---
Ivan was sitting on the damp ground, his back against a tree. He was waiting for Leonardo, who had gone to pee somewhere in the bushes.
He looked up at the gray sky. 'Rain?' he thought. 'I thought it was the third day when it started raining. I was always sure that I survived two days, and the third was when the rain and the bad things started.' He shook his head. 'It seems I was being delusional. I only survived one day and got my ass kicked on the second. Pathetic.'
He was still confused, but he blamed himself for remembering it wrong. His perfect memory of the future wasn't so perfect after all.
He was lost deep in his thoughts when he was broken out of them by the sound of footsteps.
"Took you long, Leo," Ivan said without looking up.
He looked back to face him.
But it wasn't Leonardo.
A girl was standing there. She was holding a sharpened spear, the point aimed right at his face. Behind her stood another girl, holding a crude bow with an arrow knocked.
"Give me all you have," the girl with the spear said, her voice cold and steady.