Chapter 4

Chase gazed up blankly at the sky. He had failed as a parent.

There were flames, softly crackling in front of him. His haul was much better this time, six legged-fish and a new one he found that looked eerily normal, it was a slightly duller shade of brown than their legged cousins, but otherwise it looked like a normal fish.

They sat in front of a rock, the fish laid out hadn't been prepared yet and he was planning on teaching Elie how to gut a fish with her new knife.

"You first want to cut off the fins. Two on the side, one on the top and the tail fin." He said demonstrating with one of the legged-fish.

"Now you try."

She took out her knife and tried to copy Chase's movements.

"You're holding your knife wrong."

She whipped her head around, "It has a name."

Chase felt a gut-wrenching sensation before finally giving in.

"You're holding your... that's not how you're meant to use Boner." He said, unable to look his daughter in the eye as he spoke. This is how he ended up looking at the clouds, wondering if Elian would have smacked him over the head for being like this.

He had been unable to get her to choose another name, and he was far too cowardly to even begin to explain why she shouldn't use that word. He considered just telling her that it was a bad name, but couldn't bring himself to do it. In his defence, it was a good name, just not something he ever expected to hear from his daughter. It was the kind of name you'd hear people make jokes about in pubs.

Although it took her a few tries, she eventually got the hang of gutting the legged-fish. Chase got ready to prepare the new fish he'd found.

"This is what gutting a fish normally looks like. Well, most fish can be gutted the same way but this is what fish from home look like." He said, dangling it in front of her.

She watched as he cut the fins, flaked off the scales and made a cut along the length of the fish. He opened it up to scoop out the entrails, but saw that there was still some muscle inside that was being held taut. He absentmindedly cut at the muscle only for the jaw of the fish to suddenly unhinge and a second smaller mouth with serrated teeth to emerge from deep within its maw. It snapped shut instantly as if having caught something. The pink gums extruded out along with the second set of teeth, giving the fish a terrifying toothy grin.

"Wow, I didn't know normal fish were so scary," said Elie.

Both of them had jumped when the mouth of the fish leapt out of its face.

"They... aren't normally like this."

Chase made sure to remove the head of the fish and bury it alongside the guts. Not because it wasn't edible, it likely was, but because if he didn't set some boundaries regarding what he'd eat, he would probably go insane.

He put the fish out to cook and went towards the forest in search of something they could use to make string or rope with.

There were a dozen or so plants with dry stalks he could use as the base for his rope. He started working away at pulling them out of the ground with little success. He needed some kind of axe, but making one was difficult without rope to tie the head to the shaft of the axe.

After struggling for a dozen more minutes he resigned himself to making an axe. He found the largest piece of flint he could by the riverbank. He came across a large flat piece that he could use and began chipping away at it with a smaller piece of flint.

He messed up and chipped off a bit too much on one side, making the axe lopsided and ugly. He tried his best to give it some symmetry. Every time he chipped away at it the flint cracked awkwardly to spite him. Eventually he couldn't take it and threw the flint into the river as hard as he could. The flat rock skipped a few times before dropping beneath the water.

Was it too much to ask for his tools to look familiar? Even if they didn't feel familiar in the hand, or cut at familiar plants. Just having it look symmetrical would ease him to some extent. But no matter how much he tried, the grain of the flint was too erratic. Eventually, he gave up on its appearance, instead trying to make it usable as soon as he could.

He split the stick he would use as the handle about a third of the way and wedged the large flint into the gap. He then tied off the top and bottom with wild grass, making sure it was as tight as he could get it. He swung it gingerly in the air a few times, and after seeing that it wasn't going to fall apart he started cutting away at plants with dry stalks, finding only those that seemed truly devoid of life.

By the time Chase had gathered enough the fire was already starting to die down. The sun was still high in the sky, but it was clearly making its descent. He dragged the stalks into the river, putting rocks around them to prevent them from drifting off, yet still letting the water from the river flow over them.

As he was making sure that everything was submerged Chase suddenly stopped and stared at the river.

He called out, "Elie... did you notice anything by the river?"

Elie had been busy making new cups and pots until now, her small handicrafts were lined up around the dying fire.

"Noooooo." she called back, the boredom in her voice evident.

But Chase couldn't pay attention to that at the moment.

"Elie, come with me for a minute. I need to check something."

Elie seemed happy to do something else besides watching clay dry. She skipped along to her father and grabbed onto his hand. They wordlessly walked down the river.

At first Elie didn't understand why they were just walking along the riverside. But after a few moments, her confusion turned into realisation, and with that realisation came more confusion.

"Dad, why is the river flowing the other way?"

Chase stood still and stared at a section of the river that was more elevated. He would have expected the river to be flowing downhill if the direction had switched, and yet right in front of his eyes the water climbed higher as it snaked its way into the distance.

Chase cleared his throat, "Let's go back to the camp, we don't want the clay to crack again."

As they made their way back, Chase tried to wrap his mind around what was going on in a way that would make sense. Every time he came to the same conclusion and each time he reached it his skin crawled even more.

explain this section better

There would be no way that a river could suddenly change directions like this, at the very least if the river started flowing back there should've been some flooding. Even ignoring how the river seemed to flow backwards overnight. The only way the river could have switched directions and still be flowing uphill was if they had somehow crossed the river without realising. But that didn't make sense either, the remains of the deer were on the same side as them, if they had moved they would have known... he hoped.

When they returned to their camp Elie added some more wood to the dying fire.

Chase sat next to it as the renewed flame warmed him, one lick of heat at a time. His hand which was wrapped in a type of medicinal leaf looked mostly recovered to him now. When he last saw it his hand had some bruising that would prevent him from working, by now the bruising had turned purple and the effect of the herb was wearing off.

Chase untied it from his hand and flexed it, he felt a dull ache that radiated from his palm, it wasn't as bad as he'd expected from the amount of redness he had seen. Both of his hands were quite worn from chipping away at stone, bone and wood, he could already feel new calluses forming.

The plant he had used to relieve his pain were called Barrow Nettles, a small green plant with leaves that curved in a way that made them look like a wheel barrow. It had fine hairs all over it that would make you itch at even the slightest touch, after some time it would cause numbness in whatever it had stung. It was a pretty good remedy for pain if you could tolerate the initial itching.

It especially worked well on small insects, they would go numb, unable to run from the poison and die, then slowly get consumed by the barrow shaped leaves as they closed up. They would fill up with a sweet smelling sap, the kind that you should never drink.

If Chase was still in his village, he would have been able to sell it at the apothecary for a decent price, if he was lucky he could trade it for some dried cloves of cinnamon.

As he was thinking of the aroma of cinnamon, he smelt the mouth-watering smell of cooked fish and made his way over to the fire.

"Come on Elie, time to eat."

They sat by the fire and began devouring their meals, like before Chase tested the new fish for poison before confirming that it was fine. The flesh was a tad firmer than the legged-fish but had a much weaker taste, to the extent that he felt like what he had in his mouth wasn't food. Elie tried some but preferred the legged-fish, without the legs of course.

Chase stared at the pile of fish bones they had left behind and fell into thought. They couldn't eat fish forever, if they wanted to try and look for a way out of the forest they would need to leave the riverside. He would soon be able to get a bow and snares once he was able to make rope and string. The only issue was that he wouldn't be able to hunt enough to feed the two of them consistently, it wouldn't be a problem if he could set up a dozen snares wherever he went, with some planning he could bag at least one piece of small game.

But this probably wouldn't work, he had to take Elie along with him. To trek and set up a dozen snares is a significant amount of work. Not to mention he would need to stalk and observe the game nearby, as well as try to find trails where he could set his traps. He might be able to manage, but there was no way that Elie had the stamina for such a task, for a moment he considered carrying her on his back but shook his head in resignation. He had carried her for several hours just recently and had yet to fully recover from it.

He must always make sure to keep some stamina in reserve for a dangerous situation. He hadn't seen any other signs of wolves, but whatever killed that deer could also kill them if they weren't careful.

If they wanted to survive in this forest, they would need another source of food, one that was less arduous than setting up snares and more consistent than hunting with a bow. He would have to find some plant they could safely eat.

He remembered that there was a hunter from the neighbouring village that had mentioned how to identify edible and medicinal plants once. But he could only remember short snippets of advice that he wasn't even sure were what the old hunter had said. The only thing he was sure of was that the hunter had warned him to look out for milky sap, this was an almost definite sign of poison.

Chase wracked his head, trying to remember what he had been told, but came out empty handed. He resigned himself to carefully testing whatever they decided to eat. He looked around for a plant that appeared familiar and came across one that had a leafy, spinach-like appearance. When he pulled it the plant looked quite normal and didn't let out any type of sap that he had been warned about.

He pulled off one of the leaves, staring at it with a sense of apprehension. A mistake could spell his death, so he tried to be as cautious as possible. First he held it up to his lips, after a few minutes of nothing happening Chase felt slightly stupid. Elie came up to him and just gave him a confused look.

"What are you doing?"

"Testing for poison." He mumbled from behind the leaf.

She looked at the plant he had pulled out up and down with some discontent, "Are we going to eat that? Couldn't you have picked something nicer. Like strawberries."

"Do you see any strawberries?" Chase said, rolling his eyes.

Elie looked around but was left disappointed. "Can't we have berries then?"

He shook his head, "I can't be sure they aren't poisonous, never eat them even if they look safe."

Elie was grumbling about her not being able to eat berries whilst Chase tried to recall the next step. He remembered the hunter had put it inside his mouth and after a while started chewing. He put the leaf in his mouth and let it sit there. In the meantime he looked to see if the stalks had softened, he shuffled them around so that they were soaked through evenly.

He would be able to strip the bark down and use the fibres to make rope and string. As he was absentmindedly working he tried to ignore how uncomfortable it was to keep a leaf in his mouth. After a few more minutes he didn't taste anything off or have any reaction so he timidly started chewing, the first felt fine, the second was the same, but by the third chew he felt that something was wrong. A burning sensation spread through his mouth that made him spit the leaf out into the river, he rinsed his mouth and spat again.

This time it came out red. He kept rinsing his mouth again and again. A frantic fear filled his mind.

Elie stared at him. With trembling hands she grabbed the plant he had dug out and threw it into the forest. As if keeping it far away might help the situation.

Chase wasn't paying attention to her, he just needed the burning to stop. He didn't know what to do, would he die like this? To some stupid mistake? He kept cupping more mouth to his water like a man dying of thirst. There were tears in his eyes that seemed to just disappear into the river as he splashed more water onto his mouth and face.

He would live.
He would live.
He would live.
He... would live.

He must live.