(Bringing your brain is optional. Read without worry, everyone, and come yell at me if it's no good.)
(Also: the players first appear in chapter 13. Game-skippers can jump ahead; those here for the game's story can take a look at the earlier chapters.)
Surging pain battered his consciousness like an ever-rising tide.
When he recognized that this agony came from every corner of his body, reason and sight returned to that body once more.
"Gonna die. This hurts way too much..."
The boy opened his eyes with his brows tightly furrowed. What greeted him was a gray sky that looked as though it hadn't been wiped clean. The memories in his mind were still merging and tangling together, leaving his thoughts somewhat confused.
Most of his bodily pain seemed to have been blocked out. After confirming that he was lying on his back, he instinctively reached out to push himself off the ground. Only after lurching did he discover that his left sleeve was dangling empty.
"...What's going on?"
His muddled thoughts left him unable to find any memory of losing his arm, but since his right hand was still there, he might as well stand up first.
But this attempt failed too. He looked down at his body, only to discover that his lower half was nowhere to be found. All he could see was a pink "rope" extending diagonally upward.
Memories of his previous life seemed to stir. He hurriedly looked around, confirmed that no lunatic was about to come out and fly him like a kite, then followed that "rope" with his eyes toward a spot high ahead.
One glance was enough for the boy to understand:
"No wonder it stopped hurting. My butt's up in a tree."
So the question now became: how was he still alive after losing an arm and being connected to his lower body by only a thread?
Just as this practical question was about to receive an answer, the large, leafless tree holding his butt suddenly shook. His butt fell from the branch and landed straight on the ground.
Good news-he was much closer to his butt now.
Bad news-the tree was freaking moving?!
Another leafless tree provided the answer.
Diagonally behind the boy, a large tree of a different species put down his left arm, then launched an attack on the tree that had claimed his butt.
The branches of the two leafless trees turned into tentacles and mouthparts bristling with sharp fangs. They tangled together in a brawl, constantly dragging, tearing, and biting at each other, each trying to uproot its opponent and pull it toward itself.
Holy shit, man-eating trees!
The boy understood his situation. He was prey targeted by two monsters, and his torn-open abdomen was the mark left by their division of the spoils.
Now neither side was particularly satisfied with the allocation, so they had come to blows. That made this the perfect opportunity to escape. He wasn't stupid enough to stay and watch two trees fight, although it really was quite a rare sight.
But to run, he first needed legs...
His left arm was behind him, his butt was ahead, and his head was in the middle. Which piece to retrieve first became a problem.
Looking at the butt still tenuously connected to him, the boy decided to first retrieve his completely bitten-off networking tool-his left arm.
His right hand grabbed the gray-green weeds on the ground. After squirming backward a few times, he caught hold of his left arm, its severed end bearing tooth marks, bone splinters, and scraps of flesh.
Then, using his left arm as a hiking pole, he wriggled over to his butt even faster. The whole family was finally reunited.
And then there was no "then."
The boy considered what he had just done and couldn't shake the feeling that he was a dish that had plated itself. He imagined that whichever tree won in a moment would be delighted to see this three-piece "meal for one."
As the battle between the two trees reached a fever pitch, the boy's will to live grew ever stronger.
As though possessed, his right hand brushed over the severed end of his left arm. A cluster of fleshy buds rapidly sprouted from the bright-red muscle, and even the already pale skin of the arm regained a faint flush, like a final rally before death.
The boy's brain worked furiously for a second. Then he dropped his left arm and brushed his right hand over the stump below his left shoulder. As a tingling numbness spread, he scooped up the left arm beside him and jammed the two together.
Even 502 superglue needed a minute to take effect, but blood and flesh needed only seconds to join.
Before his silent count reached five, the boy released the right hand gripping his left arm, because his brain had already regained sensation and control in his left hand.
After silently praising the holy faith of hot-swapping, the boy turned his gaze to his butt.
A way to live!
His left hand rubbed repeatedly over the flesh beneath his ribs, while his right "enchanted" the area around his hip bones at lightning speed. Amid a tingling numbness strong enough to daze him, he used both hands to hastily bundle up the "rope" and place it between his upper and lower halves. Then he grabbed his butt and hauled it upward with all his might, completing the most tragically heroic act of pulling on pants in history.
Reconnecting his upper and lower halves wasn't as fast as reconnecting his arm. A full ten seconds passed before the boy finally felt his legs again, along with his butt.
Scanning his surroundings, the boy confirmed that, aside from copious splashes of ketchup, none of his parts remained nearby.
Great. I've evolved from a meal for one into a value combo.
He sprang from the ground with the joy of surviving a disaster, elbowed aside the weeds and roots trying to coil around him, and ran with long strides away from the scene of the brawl.
Perhaps he hadn't lined things up properly while pulling on his pants, leaving him limping as he fled. But the speed boost granted by his will to live had reached its peak, leaving him barely able to feel pain or exhaustion.
After seven or eight seconds of sprinting, the boy heard two venomous roars behind him. They sounded as though someone had discovered that lunch had grown legs and run away.
He didn't dare look back. He ran toward a place ahead where the trees were slightly sparser, shoving aside and dodging the branches swaying in the wind, terrified of falling into another tree-shaped monster's trap.
After five minutes of sprinting, even with his will to live bolstering him, the boy finally and inevitably began to feel exhausted.
The moment that thought arose, his legs seemed to become cemented to the ground, and some of the surrounding weeds began to stir.
As the boy gasped for breath, a river came into view.
Both being torn apart and his subsequent sprint had cost his body a great deal of water. Regardless of whether the water ahead was safe to drink directly, having a river nearby was always a good thing.
Knowledge of filtration and boiling was resurfacing in his memories, making the boy increasingly confident in his survival skills. Bear Grylls's survival experience was about to shine in another world.
"Drip."
Just as he stepped forward, something warm seemed to drip onto his arm.
The boy looked down and saw a drop of blood trickling down at his wrist.
He immediately grew a little flustered, and the pain that had been blocked out began steadily intensifying.
My face!
Starting at his chin, his hands searched upward. Sure enough, he felt six or seven fresh, still-bleeding wounds on his left cheek.
But how? I clearly dodged most of the branches along the way. Even the ones I couldn't dodge, I batted aside with my hands. And I didn't see...
Wait, see?
The boy's heart tightened. His left hand swiftly followed the wounds on his face upward, and then he voiced a question from the depths of his soul in the wilderness:
"Where's my eye?"