The sun was just beginning to pierce through the canopy when Ethan stirred awake. For a few moments, he simply lay still, staring at the cracked ceiling of the abandoned house he had claimed for shelter. It had become familiar over the last days: the beams tangled with vines, the faint smell of damp earth clinging to everything, the way faint drafts whispered through the cracks in the rotting wood.
But habit—and survival—kept him from resting too long. He pushed himself upright and reached for the rusty sword that rarely left his side. Before anything else, he had learned to scope the area. He moved quietly, step by step, making a circle around the ruin. His eyes scanned the overgrowth, ears tuned for rustling. Each morning was the same ritual: confirm nothing had shifted during the night.
He had read enough stories to know danger could strike when a person grew complacent. Monsters, bandits, or worse—though so far he'd seen only small, skittering creatures near the outskirts of the village. That didn't mean the bigger things weren't watching from a distance.
Satisfied the area remained undisturbed, Ethan returned to the ruins, gathered his things neatly, and began the second part of his daily routine.
Food.
The stream wasn't far—a fifteen-minute walk through twisting vines and roots. Ethan had cleared a faint path during the last week, marking trees with small scratches from the tip of his sword so he could navigate quickly if he needed to retreat. The woods had a way of confusing him, but now, with his crude markers, he rarely strayed off course.
The stream's water sparkled in the early light, cold and fast-flowing, and most importantly, clear. He crouched low, scanning the banks for movement. He had learned on his first few trips here: predators came to drink too. He didn't want to meet them face-to-face. After waiting and observing, Ethan finally stepped into the shallows, his makeshift spear in hand.
The fish-like creatures darted in the water, shimmering faintly under the surface. They were odd things—like Earth fish but with sharp ridges along their spines and glowing eyes that made them look almost alien. The first time he'd caught one, he'd nearly dropped it in shock when the thing let out a strange screeching sound before dying.
Now, though, he was used to them. He adjusted his grip on the spear, waited patiently, and struck with a practiced thrust. The creature writhed, but Ethan yanked it out of the water quickly. It wasn't a big catch, but it was food.
He set it aside and repeated the process until he had two more. Enough for the day.
Caution still dictated his movements. Once he had his catch, Ethan knelt and refilled his plastic water bottle from the stream, filtering it through a cloth he kept specifically for that purpose. It wasn't perfect, but so far, it had kept him alive.
Back at the ruins, Ethan cleaned and cooked the fish over a fire he'd carefully built in a stone-lined pit outside the house. The smell was sharp, oily, but strangely comforting. It grounded him. Every bite reminded him that he was surviving.
After eating, he rested briefly, then turned to the part of his day he had come to both dread and anticipate: practice.
The rusty sword felt heavy in his hand, its balance far from perfect. Paired with the small battered shield he had found, he looked more like a child pretending at knighthood than a warrior. But appearances didn't matter. What mattered was building strength, building coordination.
Ethan had no teacher, no manual—just his own body to rely on. He started slow, practicing basic swings. Vertical, horizontal, diagonal. Then thrusts. He worked on raising the shield in time, even though its weight strained his arm.
Sweat slicked his forehead as he repeated the motions again and again. Sometimes he would add footwork, stepping side to side, forward, and back. The rhythm of practice became its own kind of comfort. He didn't need to be perfect—he just needed to be ready enough to survive one bad encounter.
When his arms began to ache and his grip faltered, he lowered the sword and forced himself to take a break. Overdoing it could be just as dangerous as not training at all. Out here, an injury could be a death sentence.
The day passed slowly. He scavenged through the ruins during the afternoon, hoping for anything useful. Sometimes he found scraps of rotting wood, sometimes old tools too rusted to matter. Once, he thought he heard distant movement in the trees, but nothing approached.
As night fell, Ethan returned to his firepit, sparking a flame with his lighter. The glow pushed back the darkness, though it also made him uneasy—what if it attracted attention? Still, he couldn't sit in the pitch black. The fire was a risk he had decided he had to take.
He cooked another small fish he'd saved and ate in silence, the night alive with strange sounds. Chirping, croaking, things moving in the underbrush. He tightened his grip on the sword as he listened, his eyes darting toward the shadows. Nothing came too close, but sleep did not come easily either.
Before lying down, Ethan did what he always did: another slow circuit around the ruin, sword in hand, making sure nothing had crept close while he was distracted. The night was unnerving, the ruins darker than they seemed during the day, but the ritual gave him a fragile sense of control.
Back inside, he stretched out on the rough floor, the sword kept within arm's reach. The world outside remained alien, dangerous, but for the moment, he had a pattern. A system.
Wake. Patrol. Fish. Train. Watch. Survive.
He repeated it to himself like a mantra as his eyes drifted shut. For now, it was enough. For now, he was alive.