Chapter Text
He opened his eyes.
Where am I?
He looked around. He was standing in the middle of a meadow, with tall grass and flowers abound, a few bees buzzing nearby, and, further away, a herd of sheep grazing from the one bare patch. He checked himself out: no visible injuries, but he was wearing a beige long-sleeve shirt and jean shorts. To his left stood another person. The guy had brown skin, black hair and, despite the sun beating down on them, a red sweatshirt with black pants. He too was looking around as if confused, and his name surfaced in the first man’s mind: Mapicc.
Mapicc finally turned around and noticed the man watching him. He startled, red eyes widening. “Jepex! What… are you doing here?”
Jepex. My name is Jepex? He couldn't remember. And, equally worrying, he didn't know the answer to Mapicc’s question. “I don’t know. Were we… doing something?” It was through some greater instinct, something not even his amnesia or whatever else it could be had taken away, that he knew: he and Mapicc were friends.
“I don’t know.” Mapicc looked around again. “I can't remember anything. But… I think we're friends?”
Jepex nodded. He was sure of that much, at least. “Do you see anything else around here?”
“I don’t think so,” Mapicc said. “Maybe if we walk a bit, we'll find something.”
“Sure,” Jepex said. Right now, he just wanted answers - and some food; his stomach growled as if he hadn’t eaten in a while.
The two friends headed in the direction of the sun, otherwise known as west.
They walked for about ten minutes, but everything still looked the same. Tall, lush plants, the occasional herd of animals or tree; once they even saw a pond, and Mapicc paused for a drink. Jepex watched from the side, mildly concerned that his friend was drinking random pond water. But since he didn’t fall over and die, Jepex figured it must have been clean enough.
“Look!”
Jepex was wondering whether or not he should have gotten some water himself when Mapicc’s voice startled him. “What?”
Mapicc pointed to a few branches on the ground, surrounded by leaves and splinters of wood. He held up one of the branches, showing Jepex the clean cut. “Someone cut it! That means there's people nearby!”
“Maybe,” Jepex said. It was clear that someone had cut the branch, but that didn’t mean they were anywhere close to them. He glanced up at the sky, noting how much darker it was than when they had started off. “We should keep moving; the sun's setting.”
Mapicc shuddered as he dropped the branch. “I feel like that's a bad thing. Is it?”
“It'll be colder,” Jepex offered halfheartedly, but he knew that wasn’t the source of his own growing apprehension. He wanted a weapon of some kind, something to defend himself with. What were our lives like before all this?
They kept walking, but there were still no signs of civilization. The moon was bright, so even as the sunlight faded away they could still at least see where they were going. Jepex found himself sidling closer to Mapicc, like he wanted warmth or protection or something - from something. The night was much quieter than the day. There were no more animals; they all must have found somewhere to sleep for the night. The only sounds that punctuated the grasslands were the occasional low growl or howl, and each one made Jepex or Mapicc or both of them jump. I really wish I had a weapon. An axe, or a sword… anything.
Just a few more minutes later, he finally learned why he was so jumpy. Mapicc screamed and flailed back, hitting Jepex and almost knocking him over. Jepex shoved him angrily. “What the-”
Then he saw what had caused Mapicc’s distress. It looked like a zombie of some kind, shambling forwards and making low growling sounds like the ones they'd been hearing. The zombie had tattered clothes and rotted skin, but what was left of its face was twisted into an unmistakable glare.
“Run!” Jepex cried, for Mapicc was frozen in place, staring in horror at the zombie. He grabbed his friend’s hand, and dragged him along. They easily outran that zombie, but there were more of them, no matter where they ran - all slowly moving towards the duo.
Jepex spotted a grove of trees - or maybe the outskirts of a forest - and ran towards it. Maybe they'll leave us alone if they can't see us. He crouched down behind a tree, and Mapicc followed his lead. They were both breathing hard, but neither of them could mask the sound. What if they hear us? We can't outrun all of them? He wasn’t even surprised about the existence of zombies - which and of itself was surprising, but maybe it was just survival instincts.
Something hissed and they both turned, but there didn’t appear to be anything there. Jepex scanned the surrounding area with narrowed eyes, spotting the flare of white too late as whatever creature had snuck up on them exploded. A low-hanging branch served as a sort of shield, but the explosion still knocked both of them back. Mapicc hugged himself as he stared up at the stars, mouth moving but no audible words coming out. Jepex was frozen in place, waiting for something else to show up, to explode or otherwise try to attack them… but nothing did.
After what could have been five minutes or an hour, both of them fell asleep.
In the morning, Jepex opened his eyes and immediately pushed himself into a sitting position, scanning the trees. No sign of any monsters - maybe they only came out at night? But more worryingly, he didn’t see Mapicc.
“Mapicc?!” he shouted, jumping to his feet. What if they got him? What if something kidnapped him while we were sleeping? What if-
A branch snapped, and he turned to see Mapicc standing there. “What's wrong?”
Jepex sighed with relief. “Sorry. You just - when I woke up you were gone and I didn’t know where you'd gone.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Mapicc scratched the back of his head, looking ashamed for a second - but then he thrust what looked like a makeshift club at Jepex.
Jepex took it, holding it with two fingers and eyeing it suspiciously. “And this is…?”
“A pickaxe!” Mapicc looked much prouder than was warranted. “I found a stick and then I got a rock and tied it onto the end with a vine.”
Jepex took the pickaxe and smacked it against the nearest tree. The head fell off.
Mapicc looked disappointed - for about two seconds. “Well, it's because you’re supposed to use it on stone, not trees.”
Sure, Mapicc. “Got anything else?”
“Yeah, actually.” From the pocket of his sweatshirt came two apples, one of which Mapicc presented to Jepex. Half of it was still green, but Jepex took a bite and found it was mostly sweet. At the very least, it would help with his hunger. “So, what were those things last night?”
“Zombies,” Mapicc said helpfully. “And some weird explode-y thing.”
“We need weapons,” Jepex decided, handing his half eaten apple back to Mapicc and heading off in search of… things.
But of course, Mapicc ran after him. “Wait! The sun just rose a half hour ago - we have plenty of time to make weapons and try to find a village or something.”
Jepex sighed. “I doubt there's anything out here.”
“Come on! We only walked for, like, twenty minutes last night - we have the whole day now! I'm sure we can find something.”
“Whatever,” Jepex said, taking the apple back and sinking his teeth into it once again.
They walked for hours through the sun (unfortunately, Jepex did not see any ponds to drink from), their apples long gone. He would have had no problem killing any of the pigs or chickens he occasionally saw, but he had no weapon and no fire, and eating raw flesh from a bird he'd strangled to death didn’t seem like a good idea.
As the sun reached its apex and began to fall back down, even Mapicc was finally forced to conclude that there probably wasn’t anything nearby. “Alright, so how do we make weapons?”
Jepex contemplated this for a good twenty seconds or so, before finally saying, “We need to find a sharp rock or something. Then we can carve sticks into little knives or something.”
They had passed a stony hill not that long ago, so they backtracked to that. Mapicc found a few suitable rocks, which he stashed in his massive pockets, while Jepex retrieved a few thick sticks and one larger log from the trees surrounding them. The carving took a long time, and it still didn’t turn out as good as Jepex had hoped, but by the time the sun was starting to set they each had a knife, Mapicc had a spatula, and Jepex had begun carving the log into a giant axe.
Now that they knew what nighttime brought, the two simply hid at the bottom of the hill, cloaked by shadows. One zombie discovered them, thankfully before either of them had fallen asleep, but Jepex stabbed it while Mapicc dropped his knife and smacked it with his spatula.
In the morning, Jepex continued to work on carving his axe, while Mapicc searched for food. He came back an hour later with some berries and apples, and they spent a few minutes gorging themselves. Jepex was still hungry when he was done eating, but he still felt much better.
“We need to keep walking,” Mapicc kept saying, more and more often as the day wore on.
“Why?” Jepex asked, a touch ruder than was necessary. He was just getting tired of Mapicc’s constant nagging. “We’ve walked for hours and found nothing. You think another few will make a difference?”
“Maybe?” Mapicc shrugged. “Eventually, we’ll find something.”
“Why not just make our own place to live?” Jepex asked.
“Because - what are you even talking about? We can’t - we can’t make our own village or whatever.”
“Why not?” Jepex didn’t even know where he was going with this, but that didn’t stop the words coming from his mouth.
Mapicc’s mouth opened and then closed, as he fumbled for an answer. “Do you even know how to build?”
Jepex paused in his carving as he considered the question. “Yes. I feel like I do.”
Mapicc didn’t know how to respond to that either. “Well - just - whatever. If we don’t find anything today, we can find a place to settle down ourselves, okay?”
Jepex shrugged. “Sure. Let me finish my axe first, though.” The handle was going much faster than the blade.
Mapicc headed off, probably to look for more food or water or something. Jepex got bored and carved a name into the handle: Jep-axe. But he was finished soon enough, and he dusted the wood shavings off from his clothes and stood up, holding the axe at his side. It was about three and a half feet long. “Mapicc!”
A few seconds later, Mapicc burst through the trees. “Yeah? Oh - you finished! Well then, let’s go.”
The two of them set off through the trees, Mapicc’s pockets filled with fruit and Jepex balancing his axe across his shoulder. The sun shined down from above as they walked.