Death and hunger

After exploring the caves for a while, something you do a lot, you are back to the jungle again.
All of the sudden everything feels different.

The trees look damaged. Dead insects are spread everywhere on the ground.
Sometimes you even notice dead animals.
And some of these dead looking animals are still moving a little...
They'll probably die soon, though.

This is really getting scary.
Should you really go further?
This can only mean one thing, right?
But you have to see it yourself.

As you go further, you also see some living animals.
So your worst fears might not come true.

But even most of these living animals don't look right.
And if they do they still move like they're crazy.
So you have to expect the worst...

You've been looking forward to tell your friends and your family about your discoveries and experiences in the caves.
But if your fears are valid, nobody will be there to listen...

When you finally get back to your settlement, it already feels weird.
Usually it's so lively, but now everything is silent.
The buildings are standing there as usual.
But there's not a single person around.

As you look around, there are some formations on the ground.
They look a little like humans.
Could it really be...

You look at a few more of these formations, and when looking at one, you are sure about something.
You just found the corpse of a good friend.

You immediately hurry back to your home.
You can't bear it any longer.
You don't want to find out about the sad truth, but not knowing might even be worse...

As you're standing at your home, you don't dare to go in.
But then you hear the quiet, faltering voice of a girl.

Leave!

Then you hear a cough and the voice is gone.

Is this...
Is your sister still alive?

You run inside and notice a person, coughing blood into her hands.
It's so much, the blood is dropping down from her hands.

Out of fright you back away again. Before you dare to look inside again, there's a knock and the coughing stops.

Now it's too much. You don't dare to go in anymore.
Your sister just died and there's nothing you can do!

That's too much. You don't want to be here anymore.
You just have to leave this situation.
You leave the building and your village and run away in panic.

This can't be true!
It feels so surreal. But you know, it's real. You will never see them again. Everyone you know is dead!

Where should you go now?
You decide to run back to the caves where you came from.
The caves you always liked to explore.
Where else could you go?

How can you live alone? Do you even want to live alone?

But there's no time to think about this.
You suddenly hear a weird noise, and it feels like you're being followed by something.
So you just keep running and don't think too much.

When you soon manage to look back, you are shocked.
You were right.
There's a dangerous predator directly behind you!

Actually it reminds you of a creature you already know.
It usually doesn't even attack humans.

But it seems confused.
It runs a little, then it stops and changes direction.
So it isn't even following you in a straight line.
But it's still fast enough to be a danger if it targets you, so you run as fast as you can.

Then you hear a loud bump.
As you look back, the creature isn't following you anymore.
It just ran against a tree and is falling to the ground.
It must have killed itself.

When you finally reach the cave, you don't dare to ever go outside again.
There has to be another exit, where everything is still fine, right?
A place without such weird dangerous creatures.

You wander around, but you only find exits in lifeless areas filled with nothing but rocks.

Once in a while you find some brooks and sources inside the caves, so you have enough to drink at least.

Exploring the caves is still kind of fun when you can ignore the whole situation.
If you think of it as some play with your... friends...
No, it doesn't really help.

But after some days you're really exhausted and you're starving.
You didn't find anything helpful.
No food, no exit...
And sleeping there is pretty uncomfortable.
Maybe a few days, and that's it...

So instead you decide to look for a nice place to spend your remaining time.
Since you don't need to find an exit, you just go deeper and deeper into the caves.

After some time you actually find some interesting place.
It's a beautiful spacious cave. Light shines in from above. A huge tree is growing in the middle.
Small brooks are flowing between the rocks. And a lot of grass and other plants are growing there.

You immediately run towards the tree, but it doesn't bear any fruits.
And the remaining plants also don't seem to be edible.

But you're still happy.
You sit down there, lean against the tree and relax. It's the place you were looking for.
You really missed nature. A huge healthy tree and no dead animals.
Maybe it's even better than the jungle. It's so quiet and untouched.

But without friends and family, without anyone to share this with, what's the purpose of being in this place?
Yeah, it's probably best if you just die...
At least you want to spend your remaining time here.

You just keep sitting there for hours. Sometimes you get up to drink something.
The only thing you do is sitting around, sometimes you get up and walk around.
And when it gets dark, you sleep.
You don't need to worry about anything anymore. Soon you'll die from starvation.

But for now you just want to have a quiet time.
You already accepted your situation.
At this place, everything is just fine!