Wilson and Otto von Chesterfield, Esquire, continued down the paved road that ran through the land as soon as the sun was up. Wilson's head felt even more muddled than it had the previous day; though having his new friend in tow did help to lift his spirits somewhat, it proved impossible to completely shake away the feeling that something was squeezing his brain.
After just a few minutes of walking, the verdant land gave way to a drier type of grassy land: the grass was yellow-orange and longer - more like straw than yard grass - and while clumps of usefully tall grass grew everywhere, there were no other plants to be found, save the occasional flower. There were a lot of rabbits, though - while it was clear that there were no carrots to be found nearby, there were at least a dozen rabbits within Wilson's field of view edging around their holes, nosing at the ground.
It was then that Wilson noticed that the rabbits' eyes were pure white, the same as those of the spiders and frogs. Surprised, he took a closer look at the next redbird that flew by - for birds were still plentiful in the world, wherever he was - and saw that it, too, had pure white eyes. The next crow to pass was the same.
Interesting.
Wilson glanced back at the Eye Bone, which he held in his right hand (he was ambidextrous, but his left arm was a bit stronger than his right, so he wanted to keep it free); it had a pupil, like eyes were supposed to, but had he seen eyes on anything else here that weren't just white orbs? He couldn't recall…
Oh well, he decided; it's no reason to not keep moving, at least. I should keep an eye out, though…Maybe whether or not something actually has eyes depends on whether or not it's friendly?
Or maybe it doesn't mean anything at all; how would I know? he thought resignedly. Then he kept walking.
There were a lot of rabbits - more rabbits and their holes came into view with every step Wilson took into the field. They all quickly scurried away when he came within a few steps of them, but after days of eating nothing but berries and carrots, he found himself wishing more and more that he could catch and eat one.
He stopped when the more verdant land he'd been in was out of sight. The footstep sounds the rabbits were causing all around him were getting maddening, and his headache, while it wasn't quite worsening, was getting harder to ignore. I don't need my science machine for this, Wilson thought; I can make something to catch those rabbits all on my own. He started pulling grass and twigs out of his pockets - any other material seemed like it would be too bulky or heavy to be practical - and as Otto von Chesterfield stood beside him, using the eye on the bone to watch, Wilson managed to put together a rabbit trap. He was careful to weave it real tight, so that no small animal would be able to escape once tangled in it. Then, remembering how all rabbits immediately fled to their burrows at the arrival of dusk, he carefully placed his creation over a rabbit hole that was right next to the road he was following, its rabbit having edged far enough away to not be alarmed by Wilson's presence.
And now we wait, Wilson thought, standing back. He did want to keep moving in the hopes of finding a way home, but he didn't know if he would ever be coming back this way again, and he needed to see his invention work.
A couple more hours passed before dusk fell. As Wilson predicted, the moment the sun began to dip below the horizon, all the rabbits squealed and scurried for their burrows; the unfortunate owner of the rigged hole triggered the trap instantly, getting hopelessly tangled in the net of grass that fell onto it when it knocked one of the support twigs out of place.
In a flash, Wilson ran over and picked up the trap, extracting the rabbit from the tangle. He gave the trap to Otto von Chesterfield, then held the rabbit up by the ruff of its neck with the thumb and first finger of his left hand.
"Do you like science?" he asked the rabbit out loud.
The rabbit trembled in his grip.
Wilson hesitated; the poor thing was cute, after all, and completely helpless besides. Still, he was hungry for something he could sink his teeth into, and it was just one rabbit of dozens; a single rabbit wasn't important in the grand scheme of things. So, with a sigh, he took hold of the rabbit's body with his right hand and its head with his left, then quickly twisted its neck a hundred and eighty degrees. With a very tortured squeal that ended with a snap!, the rabbit died.
Wilson looked at the corpse in his hands for a moment. He felt bad, but not too terribly so - while he'd never murdered a living thing so blatantly before, as a scientist, he'd put various small rodents through far more gruesome deaths. At least I was gentleman enough to not make the poor thing suffer, he told himself, and he quickly built a fire and started preparing the rabbit to eat. If any of the transpiring events bothered Otto von Chesterfield, the rotund creature gave no indication of it.
Concerned about the possibility of worms or other such parasites or toxins in the raw meat, Wilson took the biggest single chunk of meat he could get on a bone and threw away the rest of the carcass, then roasted the meat over his fire. The resulting amount of meat wasn't very substantial - barely more than a mouthful, really - but it was still meat, which he hadn't even had the option of having for far too long. Of course, aside from cooking it, he had no way to make it very fit for a gentleman, but it was better than nothing by far.
The morsel tasted about as good as Wilson expected - meaty, but rather bland. He was about to wash it down with a handful of raw berries, when he thought of maybe cooking the berries, too. Why not? he thought, and he grabbed a bunch and roasted them. The result was a rather amalgamated mass of red berry mush, almost reminiscent of jam but not really; whether or not heat had improved them wasn't something Wilson could be sure of. It tasted a bit better, though, somehow.
Then, night fell.
Is it just me, or is dusk getting shorter? Wilson thought - he could have sworn that he'd had more time to prepare for full night the first time he had seen dusk come. He looked up, and was surprised to see that, in spite of the fact that the darkness of night was no less absolute than ever, there was a half-moon clearly visible in the sky. How does that not provide any light? he wondered.
Now that he thought about it, the night air felt a lot warmer than it had during his first night in this pseudo-world, too. Are there seasons here? he thought. Varying lengths of day- and night-times, varying temperature, possible moon cycles indicating months…Everything implies seasons…
…Is there going to be a winter?
That possibility was worrisome. At the very least, it meant that, if he couldn't find a way home soon, he might have to create a permanent settlement. He might also need to create warmer clothing, some way of stocking food…
His train of thought was derailed by a threatening sound in the distance. It sounded like the roar of a vicious animal - not a spider, and not whatever he had heard that one time he'd been caught in the pitch-blackness of night, but something else…
"Did you hear that?" Wilson asked Otto von Chesterfield.
The living chest was fast asleep and didn't respond, but Wilson heard the sound again. Then it came again…and again…
Wilson nervously edged closer to the fire, reaching into his pocket for his spear. The noises sounded distant, but he had a feeling that whatever was making them would reach him sooner or later.
The night passed without any other incidents, though the noises started to sound closer by the time morning came. The fire was still burning at daybreak, if only just, Wilson noticed, and he'd only put one pinecone on it to keep it going during the night. The nighttime has definitely shortened, he thought, and that implies that right now is about the equivalent of summer, or approaching it…and where there's a summer, there's a winter. I wonder how bad it will be…
He stroked his beard, trying to decide what course of action he might need to take and how soon, and doing his best to think in spite of the threatening snarls that were sounding closer and closer…
…Wait. Beard?
Suddenly noticing what he was doing, Wilson froze, then carefully felt his face. Yes, he had grown a beard, in the space of only five days. It felt significantly long, more than long enough to cover his face and then some. He took hold of a single hair and pulled it out so he could see how long it was. Surprisingly, it was about two centimeters, maybe a bit more! That's definitely a much faster hair growth than should happen in so few days, accelerated time or no, Wilson thought.
Even during his most intensive work periods, when he got so involved in science that he neglected hygiene, his beard had never grown this long without him shaving it off. Oh, he'd long known about his ability to grow significant facial hair, and while a certain length of beard was gentlemanly to an extent, he had found that having long hairs on his face was rather hazardous to the scientific process - there was just too much risk of them accidentally catching on fire or getting stuck in the mechanisms of a machine he might be trying to make. Out here in the wilderness, he wasn't sure how much of a hindrance his beard would be, but in any case, he had no means of shaving it for the time being.
Suddenly, Wilson noticed that the snarling noises in the distance had stopped. Then, he heard heavy panting and barking, as though from a dog. He turned around, and was confronted by a huge black hound dog running straight for him!
Well, hound dog for lack of a better term: While it had a snout and vicious teeth, and though it barked like a canine of some sort, it had no distinguishable head or neck, and its legs were rather stubby - it sort of looked like an over-simplified version of a hound dog. Still, the fact that its head and body were one and the same meant that its mouth was huge.
Wilson wasn't as scared as one might expect. Yes, the hound thing was intimidating, but he had a spear, and when it came right down to it, the hound also looked kind of silly. Besides, no gentleman would cower at the sight of a mere dog.
"You ain't nothing, hound dog!" Wilson shouted at the beast as it ran straight for him, growling and baring its teeth. He readied his spear, and just as the dog reached him, he slashed at the beast, deliberately going for the eyes (which, he noticed, were pure white), as the eyes of an animal are almost universally a weak spot. The monster flinched and whimpered, then regained its stature, opened its huge jaws, and bit Wilson.
Wilson cried out with pain as razor-sharp teeth tore at his flesh. It incapacitated him for a moment, but he managed to get himself together and stab at the hound again. Go for the eyes! he reminded himself. He stabbed a third time, but the hound didn't even seem to weaken - it opened its mouth wide and took another bite out of him; again, Wilson screamed as bladelike teeth ripped through skin and muscle.
Frantic now, Wilson jabbed at the creature's eyes again and again, too panicked to even try to run. After two more stabs, the hound suddenly gave a loud cry, then keeled over, dead.
Wilson panted from a combination of fear, exertion, and adrenaline. After a moment, he looked at his wounds, gingerly putting a hand over them. They didn't look nearly as bad as they felt - they felt deep, but they were bleeding surprisingly little.
Then, Wilson heard more barking.
He turned around, and there was another hound dog running at him, identical to the first. Wilson didn't even have time to think "Oh no" before the beast was upon him.
This time, he quickly ran out of its way, narrowly avoiding getting chomped on again. Then he turned around as the hound started barking and slashed at the empty white eyes. When the hound flinched, he struck again, then quickly retreated, again avoiding getting bitten. Becoming more confident with his rhythm, Wilson jabbed at the hound twice again, then retreated, then came forward and stabbed one last time, and the hound died.
Throughout the entire battle, Otto von Chesterfield stood by, silent and complacent.
Wilson took a minute to catch his breath, looking around warily in case there were more. When none appeared, he sighed with relief. The movement caused pain to lance through his body, and he winced and turned his attention to his injuries again, this time inspecting them closely.
The cuts were, indeed, very deep, but there was barely a trickle of blood flowing out of them. Wilson worried at first that he might be bleeding internally, but the more he inspected and prodded his injuries (painfully), the more he got the impression that his blood was simply refusing to flow in directions it shouldn't.
Different dimension, he reminded himself. Fake dimension. I suppose that explains my beard, too…I wonder what else will happen in this place.
He looked at the corpses of the two hound dogs he had killed. Maybe I could use them for meat? Wilson thought, and he got down beside one body and tried to do what he could with it. What he got was a very large hunk of meat that would have seemed like a good harvest, if it wasn't for the fact that the flesh was purple, and the skin beneath the fur pitch black.
Ugh, Wilson thought as he thoroughly examined the meat with all his senses; I'm not sure I should eat this. Still, maybe I'll find some other use for it at some point? He had the space to carry it, and he didn't know what he might find a use for, so he tucked the meat away in his backpack, then got another piece of strange meat from the other hound's body and put it away as well. Then, he picked up the eye-on-a-bone and his spear, gave his strange injuries one last pat, and was about to continue walking down the path when he saw a strange shadow in the distance.
It stood out against the golden color of the wheat, but it didn't seem to have any particular source. Wilson squinted, disturbed that he couldn't make out any fine details - his eyesight was 20/20. It looked like…some sort of serpentine creature?
Wilson blinked, and the serpent-like form made a slithering motion and disappeared.
He stared at where the shadow had been. His head was aching. Am I going insane? he wondered.
He sighed; in any event, it would be best to keep moving. "Come along, Otto von Chesterfield," he said to his companion, then resumed walking along the paved road.
The fuzzy creature hopped along behind him.
