New beginnings for a wander are nothing new. You walk and walk till your bones ache in nerve pinching pain. Your ears blister with sunburn. You tell yourself that snap was not a tendon in your right leg. You finally succumb to the heat and blackout.
A sharp ring in your right ear awakes you from a ghoulish nightmare of a giant dinosaur skeleton. You are alone, barely clothed and almost certainly the only survivor remaining in a never-ending wasteland of sand, rock, and anguish.
You pick up some razor-sharp flint and brush a few partials of sand off them. In the immediate foreground is a tree with branches about the right size for a spear shaft. You mash together some plant fronds to form lashing. Cheers of glee as you hold proudly, a very crude, brittle--spear. That will not last very long in a fight is now tightly grasped in both hands.
Many exotic and beautiful creatures wash over your mind like fireflies dancing in an evening cool breeze. You start to regain your barring and look for a place to create shelter from. Along the way, you manage to craft a crude pick and hatchet for gathering more resources.
Along with a waterfronts edge, you noticed a massive landmark ahead of rock. Surely even in the darkest of times, you will be able to recognize it and find your way back home. So you start the very grueling task of gathering lashing, thatch, and wood to form an island hut like the floor, ceiling, and walls.
With so much natural material in the area, you start to hum to yourself as you over create a structure that would fit an entire tribe. If it wasn’t at such high-risk of a wind blowing it down or any weak creature just wondering close that would destroy your new home it would have been perfect.
Several days go by and you could not believe the luck you happen apron. Apart from having to create no less than ten wooden spears to fend off from the local wildlife of small birds and some very frail raptors you are still alive. Gathering hides right off the bones of vanquished dinosaurs. Chopping down small but supple trees and finding some strange mixture of berries in the bushes for subsidence. You laugh at the thought a single bite could kill you, or at the very least knock you unconscious for days if biting into the wrong fruit.
As the days blend together into long nights of scary sounds and wind blows in and out of your leaky hut like a gale force wind no stronger than a butterfly flapping its wings. You start to question the lucidity of living in just a thatch hut. The light in campfire filchers out once again and you find yourself falling asleep.
Awakened for the third night in a row now to a strange ghoulish sound you pray not to be on the dinner menu tonight. Thoughts cross your mind of reinforcing the thatch floor and walls in the morning with stronger wood for added protection. Eyes feeling heavy with sleeping dust from a long day in the sun building. You pass out again.
With the sun rising over the horizon you notice the immediate area has finally been plunder of all resources. Not a single frond lies in the waste of failures in experimenting building objects. With a bag of spears in hand, you march further and further down the beach collecting this or that to bring back and make the hut’s walls even stronger. As you daydream during your now daily task of the building you can’t help but return to the image of a giant dinosaur skeleton. Why was it there buried in the sand? How did it die? Did it have a family—kids??? If something that powerful died; then, extra measures must be taken since there is no one else out there to help if help is needed.
Over what seems like weeks now you have noticed ghoulish sounds get closer and closer but only at night. During the day they seem to just be remains of a nightmare. Almost as if they do not dare be awake during the day out of fear from the sun god striking them where they stand, and scorching the lands of Ragnarok.
This time you don’t just wake up during the night from night terrors. You jump straight as a board. That was wood cracking and did you hear a “DANG IT” as the sound of human flesh crashes into a bed of sand. I am not alone!!!! I am not ALONE! I AM NOT ALONE –you scream.
As startled as you are you. He seems even more as you offer what little hospitality left remaining in this place--left overcooking on the campfire. Questing to yourself if the heat has finally corrupted the innermost part of your membrane and this is just an illusion of life other than the dinosaurs around.
You can’t help but marvel at the rag dolled sleeping habits of this new survivor into what is now a tribe of two. No longer wondering if other humans remain in this place. Along with an array of the never-ending flow of questions. You don’t dare ask yourself or speak out loud.
Information
Fanfiction written about my adventures while playing Ark: Survival Evolved in the expansion Ragnarok.
All Screenshots were taken by @enjar in the game Ark: Survival Evolved and edit with Lunapic
