Doctor Who: Test Runner

After my ‘the hunter becomes the hunted’ moment with the giant horned rabbit monster came the hard part of my hunt. Taking care of the body. Usually back on Earth, that wouldn't be a problem unless the body in question is human, but in this case… with said body being three times my size in length and just less than as wide as I am tall. Save it to say, I had to think pretty hard about what I could do to harvest or even transport the rabbit's body. I would be having rabbit meat for a week, and the only reason that it isn't longer is that I have no way to freeze the meat and everything left after that point would probably go bad.

My camp was a good ten minute minimum length walk from here, and I knew that because I had to walk up the largest hill nearby to get a good look around and spotted the top of my tent in the distance.

I didn't have any way to really carry the rabbit meat if I cleaned it where it died, and I would have to carry it in multiple trips even if I did.

There was a good chance for other monsters to come and strip the corpse clean or even just to check out the area soon, and they could be an issue if they are anything like the other monsters I had seen in Fera.

A lot of problems without any clear solutions. But I was a creative guy, so I put my mind to work to find the solutions. Problem one is transportation of the body or parts of the body. Problem two is that I had to leave the area as quickly as possible in fear of attracting more attention. The meat going bad was not a problem of the moment however so I left that one for later.

‘First things first, I needed to clean and cut the body to get the meat and possibly the fur. I couldn't take the entire body in one trip, so it's best if I get a move on with processing the body.’ I thought to myself as my mind started working on my problems and going over to the corpse. I carefully took the hatchet out of the beast's body and set it aside before I took out my knife and got to work.

While I worked on the body, my mind went over my problem and tried to look at it from all angles I could imagine and thinking of all the resources I had at the same time. I shouldn't try to bring anything more than I could use or needed, so I made a mental list of anything I could or should leave behind. The fur wasn't necessary for me right now. While the organs of monsters might have a use or something, I definitely did not know them enough to say that they would, or if they did the use if worth it. The bones could potentially be good resources for things like structures or tools substituting for wood or potentially metal, though generally bones were not that strong and there weren't many bones that I could think of a use for immediately. Sinew was probably going to be useful as rope or string so I will need some of that. The meat was definitely good to keep, maybe about a third of the entire amount of meat would be eaten before any of it went bad if I ate just rabbit for that time.

But that was also a good sized chunk. About three feet long and a foot wide if I boxed up that amount of meat. That was about a extra third of my body that I would have to take to camp, which was a good walk away. The weight aside, I couldn't just pick up a pile of meat that size with my arms and expect it to stay in one piece. I had to package it up into something, and that was the pivotal point of the problem.

I needed a pretty big bag for that. I could run to my camp and bring my camping backpack and stuff it full of meat and settle for the amount that would fit, which would be just less then the third I had thought I should get, but there were two issues with that solution. One, I couldn't just dump everything else out of my backpack as I didn't have anywhere else good to put all my stuff, and storing the rabbit meat inside my camping backpack for a week or more did not appeal to me. Two, I did not want to get my camping backpack all messed up and stained from holding all the fresh and bloody meat.

I could also cut off the hide of the rabbit to wrap the meat up in as well, but that has the issue of holding the bag of meat the entire walk, alongside the increased likelihood that I drop it by accident and get the meat all dirty. I could probably think of something to negate those issues though, so I decided to keep my options open.

Then while I was going over everything that I had back at camp, I remembered that I did have a sizable and empty black garbage bag. However, I did not want to try my luck to see if the plastic would be able to carry the meat all the way without tearing and it had the same carrying problem as the rabbit fur bag idea.

But with all those ideas in mind, I started thinking and I realized a way that I could combine my ideas to cover the downsides of my plans. First, I could put the plastic bag inside my camping backpack and lining it to hold the meat and prevent any potential leaking fluids from the meat, preventing the actual backpack from getting all messed up, and also providing a good way to store the meat once I got back to camp. I could also wrap up the rabbit fur in my arms to bring that along if I feel up to it, though that might be a problem as the amount of fur the rabbit has is a lot. I could make a rug from the rabbits fur. Probably best to leave it for now and come back to see if I can take it on a return trip.

I spent several minutes after that to clean the rabbit, focusing on speed as I was pretty sure that I had limited time, and causing it to go along quite fast for a body the size of the rabbit. By the time I had finished I had stacked up quite the pile of bloody guts, but I had also set aside quite a lot of meat and sinew on the layed out rabbit pelt that was ready for me to take once I was ready. I had gotten quite bloody in the process, but it was fine considering the state of the grass on the hill.

So I got moving my way to camp, though not as fast as I had hoped due to the fact that my legs were honestly a little worn out from running away from that rabbit before I managed to kill it in that stroke of luck. It didn't help either that the sun was bearing down in my eyes the entire way, despite my baseball cap, and the heat was incredibly high compared to every other day here.

I considered washing off my blood soaked hands in the lake, but begrudgingly decided against it due to the fact that I would be getting them bloody again very soon. I went up to the tent and grabbed out my camping backpack, before proceeding to dump everything out into the tent to empty it and grabbing the folded up trash bag as I headed out, zipping the tent up behind me. I then started walking with the backpack and garbage bag in my hands, one hand shoving the black plastic inside while the other was already zipping up the bag before I slung it onto my shoulders. It felt a little odd without the usual weight behind it that it had since I got it.

I walked to the hill where I had killed the rabbit carefully because I wanted to take my time to make sure that there weren't any monsters around, but I still made good time and reached the spot in about fifteen minutes. The rabbits' remains were undisturbed from how I had left them when I returned, which was a relief. I took a knee on a spot of grass without any blood on it and took off my backpack to get it ready for holding all the meat.

What followed after that was simple. I took the plastic garbage bag out and opened it up, placing it inside the camping backpack to act as a lining for the backpack to keep it clean and to keep the meat easy to take out, then I got to work collecting the meat and the sinew into the bag. It was pretty easy to do and after a few minutes of placing chunks of meat and piles of sinew into my backpack I reached the neck of the bag. I lifted up the camping backpack experimentally to see how much it weighed, and I was not surprised I had to put a lot of effort to lift it into the air. There was enough room in my camping backpack to fit a child into with ease, and I had filled it up to the brim with fresh meat. The thing probably weighed around the range of an average man.

I could lift it decently enough if I was using both arms, but it took some effort. In the end I hoisted the bag of meat onto my back, almost staggering against the added weight. I could walk to camp with the large bag of meat, but it would not be fun.

As I started walking away to my camp however, I realized how much I had misjudged my assessment. It definitely was not fun, but that was not the best description of the next twenty minutes. It was literal torture. By the time I got to camp, the late afternoon sun had caused my entire body to go red and get covered in sweat. My legs were burning with an intense fire. I was gasping for every breath. I was a mess.

I let the bag of meat off my shoulder as soon as I had reached camp and sat down heavily on the wooden log that acted as my stool to recover. “I… am not… doing that again… anytime soon.” I moaned out as I rubbed my sore legs and wiped the sweat from my face with my equally soaked leather jacket’s sleeves before peeling off the jacket a second later and tossing it against my tent.

I spent the rest of the afternoon resting, though I did eventually get up to walk down to the lake eventually to get cooled off and clean up a bit. I didn't feel particularly brave so I decided not to test my luck and actually go into the water, but I did take the time to scrub off the rabbit blood and splash some water onto myself while wishing at the same time that I had another set of clothes I could change into.

Normally I would be fine spending the time to take off my clothes and wash them a bit in the mostly clean lake water, but I did NOT want to end up fighting off some beast without any clothes on. That would be too far. Eventually I would end up washing them, I knew that for a fact, but it would be later when I was about to go to sleep for the night and had less of a chance to encounter a monster while naked. Despite the fact that a good amount of predators were nocturnal.

As soon as I had refreshed myself a bit with the cold lake water, I did not spend the time resting as I had been doing before. It was definitely evening by that point, and so I had to set up a fire and cook up the meat that I had pushed myself so hard for.

As a side note, I managed to think of a way to increase the amount of time I could hang onto the meat without it going bad. Because I had the meat in my plastic garbage bag, I realized that I could tie up the open end to seal the opening off. That led me to think of places I could store the meat to keep it cold. Then I remembered a book I had read where they found a solution to my problem in a similar environment. I could toss it into the edge of the lake to keep it cool. So that's what I did. I of course set up a few stones to make sure that it couldn't roll away or something with a few stones, but that led me to the moment I found myself in.

I had a fire in front of me soon enough, but then I realized that there was a small problem with cooking up the rabbit meat. I didn't have a spit or anything similar. The most I had was a small pot that I had used before to boil some lake water to refill my water bottle. In the end I decided to just put a smaller chunk of meat that I cut off a bigger chunk in the small pot and just place that directly into the fire. After about half an hour of cooking the soon sizzling meat later and I was chowing down on my rabbit steak while watching the sun go down. The rabbit meat was absolutely delicious. Maybe it was the amount of work I had put into this one meal, but it tasted like the best thing I had ever eaten.

In that moment I realized something that hadn't quite clicked before. Despite the new environment and the encounter with the beast of a rabbit earlier, I was strangely at peace with my situation. It felt familiar to my long vacation survival trip into Canada’s wilds, despite the new beasts that made this land home. The trees and plants were similar, this sunset was almost nostalgic, I was sore all over from hard work. Yep, everything seemed to add up to a normal end to the day, despite the contents of said day. I could easily see this place becoming home to me.

It was on the final day of my first week on Fera before I knew it, and I was sitting on my stool eating some more rabbit for lunch. The last four days hadn't been very eventful besides the occasional sighting of beasts in the distance. I didn't waste any time though, as I had plenty to do now that I had a decent supply of food and access to water. Namely creating a weapon that I could use to kill monsters more easily, and exploring the immediate area to see if there was anything else of interest nearby. The exploring was the easier of my two tasks, and went by without a hitch. Though disappointingly I didn't find anything of particular interest. Mostly just the occasional interesting plant.

The weapon was a bit of a difficult task however. I may have had some practice and experience with crafting things in general, but I did not have any experience crafting stone age weaponry. I would have to make a weapon from stone and wood of course because there isn't exactly a source of iron or steel around here.

I would use bones from the rabbit I killed as that would have been easier, but I was not feeling great about my chances to make it there without encountering a beast. It didn't help that my predictions were correct and I have seen several scavenger birds come and go from the area from a distance. I wish that wasn't a problem, because using those horns on the rabbit would make great spear tips, but it was too big of a risk to actually go to collect some of the remains. So I decided to wait a while longer until I started making bone weapons.

So with a rough plan in mind for a stone tipped spear, I began to work. The shaft of my spear was the easy part, and came out looking decent from one of the long logs I had gotten from my quest.

After I had the long wooden handle however came the part I wasn't quite sure about. Making and sharpening a stone tip for my spear. Now, I could have tied my hunting knife to my wooden shaft but I decided against it for multiple reasons. Firstly, I wanted to be able to use my knife for carving any future woodworking projects, and secondly I needed something to cut up and process any monsters I hunt.

I was planning to attempt to chip away at a spear tipped shape rock to give it an edge, like I heard about a few times when people were talking about first nations people making themselves weapons, but once I got started I found it was not as easy as I thought. I broke several rocks just trying to find out which rock was stronger then another, then once I found out which types of stones would be best for my project I spent close to two days working slowly on forming my spear tip.

In the end I managed to make something that should work, a larger thinner stone in the shape of a leaf spear blade with two notches on either side of the blade to attach the stone to the spear shaft with my string.

So with both halves done, I moved onto the next tricky bit of the process. Rope made from the rabbit sinew. I knew how to make it luckily enough, so I moved onto that step quickly. I took the unprocessed sinew and separated it into the strands of fibers before I started to weave it into a cord that I kept adding to until I had a few feet of cord.

That part of the process was honestly a bit therapeutic and went by quite fast with me ending up with my end result towards the end of the day, giving me just enough time to carve the notch into the shaft and then placing the stone spear tip into it and tying it up firmly as I could to keep it all together. By the end of the sixth day I had been on Fera, I had finished my stone age spear. It was pretty decent work, and I was quite proud of my work. It was about six feet long, and the stone tip was quite sharp and strong. A good hunter's weapon.

With a decently ranged weapon at last, I had to consider some things. Mostly I just considered whether or not I should go explore a bit farther out to see if there were any other monster homes or burrows around the area. With my new weapon I was feeling a bit braver, so I decided to go through with my small expedition after I had completed my survival quest for the week and completed the in-universe quest.

So I was now spending some time at my camp eating lunch on the last day of this week, waiting for nightfall when I expected the quest to be completed.

The meal went by rather quickly and I spent the rest of the afternoon looking out at the landscape around me to look out for anything unusual out of the ordinary green plantlife. I saw nothing all that afternoon, but that didn't last until the sun went down and in that evening I saw something that was way out of the ordinary.

I saw a speck of white moving its way across the landscape, fast as a train as it moved steadily towards the lake from its position a few miles off to the left side of the hill my camp is on. I stood up as it moved closer, and I could barely make out what was coming closer as it moved to a spot along the hills to the bank of the lake. It looked like it was about as tall as me, but it also looked to have four legs. I could see its white fur glinting like silver in the sunset. I could see the dull yellow glint on its head. It was a horse. Not just any horse though, as it was moving incredibly fast even for a horse galloping. Then there was something else that set it apart from your average horse as well. It had a bright shiny horn on its head.

“Is that a unicorn?” I asked, absolutely perplexed as the animal moved to the lakes edge a little ways away and dipped its muzzle into the lake and started drinking.

Against my better judgement I started to creep forwards towards the beautiful animaI, grabbing my spear as an afterthought. But I wouldn't need it. How could such a beautiful animal attack me? And how could I attack it?

As I approached the horse-like animal it seemed to notice me as well, and I could feel a sense of welcome joy permitting from the animal like friends seeing eachother again. I smiled at the feeling and approached the beautiful animal steadily.

The unicorn then seemed to grin at me, and I grinned back. Until something inside me snapped me back to my senses and my grin turned to a look of horror. The unicorn was disgusting, covered with mud and with dirty white fur with patches of red. Blood was all across its body. But there was not just blood on its fur, no. Blood soaked muzzle and teeth as it bared them at me. A red horn that was still dripping. Red eyes like that of the rabbit I killed.

I stumbled back as it turned its body to face me. “The hell was I thinking!? What happened!?” I shouted to nobody but myself as the unicorn dipped its head down once more, horn facing me.

Right before it charged however, I heard a loud ping that made me look beside me to see a black screen that appeared with white words on it.

Quest ‘Survive for one week.’ has been completed.

Rewards obtained: You continue to live. First off world quest.

Then in a blink of an eye I vanished from Fera, leaving a very confused and annoyed unicorn behind me that was just denied its next meal.