A fic that will be depicting travels of my oc Nermal Pennce, and to what lengths he'll go to survive, even if he craves death.
This crosses over from Flame in the Flood, to We Happy Few, to Starbound, all the way to things like SCP Foundation and then my own universes and worlds.
This will have time skips and such.
(Trigger Warning for the story as a whole, there will be smut, death, drowning, non-con, torture, gore, suicide, mind-breaking, fluff, hurt/comfort, healing. All the fun stuff.)
Nermal Pennce had started out alone to a degree in a slightly soggy den. The last thing his young mind had remembered was his mother leaving to fight a bear that had tracked them down. That had been days ago. He knows he was only recently weened off of her milk, but the knowledge she was dead had already hit him when the fighting sounds had stopped outside the den and the cawing of those dreaded crows had started, he spent his days crying and growing skinnier as his mother's corpse was picked nearly clean by birds.
The small rat-like being that crawled out of the den has the wild coloration of his dad, is what his mom had told him. Though with more of a drift towards silvers, browns, and beige colorations, the most black he had in his fur at that point were in the fur tips and around his eyes, tail base, and the tip of his muzzle. He had a strikingly pink tail, and equally pink extra-toed/fingered feet and hands, his eyes were a ring of a green so bright they practically glowed, the color surrounding it was red, like his mother's red eyes.
The first thing he saw when he got of out the den, aside from damnable sunlight, was the backpack his mom always wore, and two flesh-stripped corpses, both of which he recognized. His ears dropped as he took the bag, took a large sniff and huff of it, before looking at the bones of his mother, and the bear. Saddness and grief threatened to envelope him but he resigned himself to pushing it away in favor of survival.
He took the claws of both his mother and the bear. Her skull would take up too much room in the pack, and those empty eyes would give him nightmares for years if he took it anyways. He took some of the ribs, taking only one of the ones that seemed damaged the most. He wanted to remember the scar she had on her side and chest where this rib once laid. The other rib more intact bones would be good for tools. He continued investigating his mom's corpse with a weird sense of detachment and profound loss, he saw a nick on one of the neck vertabre... that explained why she stopped screaming... he took that vertabre and gave the forehead of the skull a sniff and small kiss before he went on all fours, and scampered off with the backpack on.
His ears remained perked and alert, as he ran away from the river side. His mom always told him it was important to be near the river, but that also doing so was dangerous since animals were attracted to it. It didn't help that following the river only lead wasteland anyways, so he figured he'd go into the parts of nature everything avoids, deeper into the wilderness. Where humans once resided before the Great Floods started happening and overtaking the earth that was once so populated.
Things were actually pretty plentiful, he noticed as he got deeper and deeper, not stopping for a good while until the trees got so tall he could swear they touched the clouds. He knew he could go deeper, discover more... but he also knew he couldn't, not unless he wanted to collapse from a mix of exhaustion and starvation. He panted a bit, looking around, ears perked fully as he quieted his breathing. He sniffed the air, nothing followed him, he wondered why and it made his fur stand up a bit but he was all too happy for the peaceful respite to give it too much thought. He was determined to stay.
He put the pack down, digging through it thoroughly at last, and coming up with some of the emergency jerky his mother's made. He ate some of it, just to finally get some food in his stomach. He dug through the various hand-stitched pockets and found myriads of herbs, ash cakes, and about five bottles, three of which had water, while another has some weird slightly brown liquid he remembered his mom said was in case you either of them got worms. He didn't know why she'd want to repels earthworms when they tasted good, but maybe there was some kind of evil worms that'll eat his toes and tail. The last bottle was empty.
He took one with water and drank only a bit of it. He had to conserve it since he didn't have the river nearby. He looked around, he couldn't afford to stay on the ground, or in a hollow underneath any of these trees, they'd be too big, their roots too dense or too close to dig through without trouble for him when he got bigger.
He remembers how to chew out hallows into trees, but... getting up there. It was doable, getting down however when he wanted was different. He dug down a bit, digging a small pit to stow the pack in, marking a spot near it before he went to one of the ginormous trees and started chewing small handholds into it, hours passed as he quite literally ate away at the tree trunk and up the tree, he was climbing it, slowly and steadily, while also creating the hand-holds that would allow him to climb down a bit easier. It also helped that as he did this he got to much on every grub and bug he flund, which only replenished his energy as he went.
He had the idly thought that his mom might possibly bap him for creating a permanent dwelling spot, but he shrugged it off. He was determined to stay. He could stay up for days, that much he knew, but doing so while working so hard to do this was proving difficult. He squinted up the far off branch of a tree, then made the mistake of looking down, which made him quickly avert his gaze from the far-off ground and start scratching, biting, and chewing away the tree in in ernest. He was determined to get to that branch, it was something that he needed, even if it was high up. An alcove at a spot where there's no branch to prevent you from falling out seemed like a dumb idea.
It took the rest of the day and a healthy chunk of the night to finally get to a suitable branch. The first one he picked had looked and sounded good but his instincts told him not to trust it, so he followed his gut and had gone for a higher branch, which also has another branch directly above it a several feet upwards. He looked at his handy work, and with a groan he climbed his way down, sniffing out the spot where he hid his pack, and digging it up. He dusted it off, cleaning it, and he opened it to drink a bit more water from the first jar he was working on. He made sure everything was packed away securely before looking up at the tree and sighing in agitation. He went to the tree and started the climb back up, much quicker since he had the hand-holds now.
Once at the spot he outlined, he started scratching, clawing, biting, and digging into the tree with only slightly renewed energy. He had the idea to dig in first, then down into the tree a bit to make sure he didn't roll over and out in his sleep, then he climbed up and dug out a taller ceiling. He was preparing for the future, making sure it was taller for when he grew up, if he's gonna make it that far. No. He was going to make it far, he knew it. He was gonna stay put, only go towards the river for meat, pelt, and water. Out here he had wood, flint, he might be able to scavenge cloth from old buildings on the sides of the river, plenty of cattails and other plants from what he could see while up so high. Heck, with the trees here, he might be able to find crow eggs and feathers, that'd definitely be useful.
He had gone quite a ways away from the rivers and onto the mainland. After he had spent precious hours working on his tree hollow, he realized he might need not only drainage but a cover so he wouldn't get washed out of the tree if he slept during a storm, it's happened before where him and his mom would awaken outside of their dens soaked. On rare occasion they'd get trapped and wake up sputtering as they got out of the flooded ground. Those got rarer and rarer as he grew but it had still happened. He remembered another water related incident as he dug.
Him and his mother had made a burrow that seemed to be nowhere near the river, heck, it was even on a hill. But the river grows and grows, perhaps in a decade he'd find himself having to leave his tree, regardless though, the river had swallowed him and his mother for a bit, it was terrifying trying to get to shore. Drowned rats would've been the most apt description of their appearances at that time when they finally did make it to shore.
He shook his head as he worked, he didn't need to be reminiscing so much. His ears went a little flat, tail dusting out bits of bark and wood from the hollow. He started to whittle away in a circle, at the edge and lowest part of his new home, creating tiny holes with his claws that lead out of the tree. He could fit the end of his tail into the holes he made, he nodded to himself with his handiwork and sighed loudly, finally flopping down in the middle of the hollow, taking care not to be too careless with the pack... speaking of which, he took it off and placed against the wall, nosing it gently to get the faded whiffs of his mother's scent. He closed his eyes, curling up his body into a ball as he took in the scent. He could feel tears coming back, especially since now he was hydrated and away from the accursed river.
He did his best to remember everything, every single thing his mother taught him, words, mannerisms, survival knowledge, medical knowledge, how their kind lived before the floods, how things worked before the humans started leaving in ships for some far off promised high-ground or space, he couldn't rightly remember which. He was always curious, and it didn't help that his brain took to memorizing everything so we'll, he could recall nearly everything he's ever come across perfectly, his mother told him it wasn't normal but it was still good for him to have the ability to remember so much. It definitely made fatal mistakes rare and lessons much easier to teach but it came with the embarrassing ability to have your failures permanently etched into your head so every time he thinks of them it makes him cringe...
Nermal shuddered. Never again will he wipe with those red and green vines on the ground. So. Itchy. He shook his head a little, trying to will his mind into sleeping. He hugged his mother's old bag close, eyes closing as he willed his body into relaxing. He fell asleep just as the rain started hitting his little section of the mainland.
He spent his days foraging, not the metal working type, the looking-for-food type of foraging. He had good luck with a distinct lack of wolves and bears, avoiding them as much as he could given he wasn't an adult yet, he couldn't fight them tooth and claw just yet. The fact he occasionally saw an old white wolf stalking after him on trips where he was out for weeks was a large discomfort but for some reason it never went after and attacked him. He figures he might be too cute for death yet. He went out and came back to his tree stronger and with more food and supplies than the pack or his natural pouch could handle.
It wasn't until a few dozen days of rain that hadn't stopped and he was home-bound that finally started digging into the supplies to a degree. He could tell it wasn't gonna let up anytime soon, but as he went out to check he noticed the clouds were an odd color, it made his fur stand on end and his whiskers quiver. His tail wrapped around the tree branch he walked out on, just in the nick of time. The clouds seemed to pause in their shifting, some switching places, some changing hue, things got hot for a split second, then all the water fell in a series of sheets that soaked him to the bone and left everything covered in large swaths of water that seemed to act more like gel with how it simply didn't flow. He felt something in him shift and change for a moment, and he felt a new and bizarre understanding fill him for a moment, before things suddenly righted themselves.
Water evaporated rapidly back into clouds, trees were shifted back into place, crows cawed as if nothing happened, and he could feel the water evaporating from his fur. He saw a humanoid shape in the air from a distance, grizzled and old, and he kept his eyes on the back of their head as he retreated back into his den. He watched them leave his sight, a weird shudder going through him. He felt... different? Violated in some weird way, but the feeling was quickly losing its steam, he clenched his paws, tail lightly thumping the wood he sat on. He decided it was time to move on, the sound of water in the distance only urged him on, the river was flowing different again, it might over take this area eventually, he didn't wanna stick around for it. A few hours of hard work on a new den, or drowning because he didn't move out, pretty easy choice for him to make.
He started mindlessly putting things away, a grimace on his face. He didn't realize he had packed everything until he didn't have anything left for his hands to grab onto. He looked around in confusion, he thought he had more, maybe it somehow fell out of the tree with that weird end to the storm. He huffed and started making his way down the tree with his pack on.
He couldn't see any missing items on the weirdly dry ground when he looked, so he shrugged off the weird incident. Maybe it just seemed like he had more, he was small, he chalked it up to him being young and excitable, though he knows there was more than what he could put in his pouch and pack, he pushed the facts out of his head. No time to dwell it. He heard the howl of wolves in the distance, and he not only started going more inland, but southwards, travelling in the direction the river flowed.
He picked up food as he went, lucky to find mulberries, corn, abandoned houses with either food or supplies to fix whatever he needed to fix. He had been mindlessly putting things he got from an abandoned house away when he finally noticed what was going on. He found his pouch empty, until he reached in and pulled out a piece of lumber, he put it away, only to not feel it again.
He wondered if this is how his mom carried so much. It just, disappeared into her pouch, she did always make jokes about it being bottomless but he didn't think she was serious... it didn't seem right though, there were limits to his mom's pouch, so why didn't his have any? He tried to stick his head in to check, only to find a sea of fur and darkness. He got his head out of his pouch and his ears went flat. He didn't know where his stuff disappeared to but he know he always had it on him when he needed it. He didn't wanna just brush this off though, it felt important.
He tried to think of what he did when he put stuff away in there, and he found he simply didn't, just did it, as if it was instinct to just put things away like that, but the primary action was him putting things away. He tried then not to think about anything too hard regarding putting himself away like some common piece of string, and tucked his head into his pouch with his eyes closed, he felt a pulling sensation, and a weird tug on something in him, and when he opened his eyes he was met with a vast blank space, not dark, not necessarily bright, but it was white, it didn't seem to have a discernable floor, but all his items were static in the 'air', all in varying positions and scattered. He didn't like this for a multitude of reason, most of which was regarding the lack of organization of this weird space he found himself in.
Temperature simply didn't exist here for some reason, air didn't seem to be an issue, neither did wind, his tail twitched and he was starting to organize everything in this weird space, finding out quickly that there seemed to be infinite room. He didn't want anything to go too far though, he didn't know what would happen if he did put it somewhere far.
Once things were organized he closed his eyes and tried to think of being out again. Like a mouse leaving a drawer. When he opened his eyes he could feel the wind on his fur again and the smell of the forest hit him in the nose a bit hard as reality reasserted itself to him. He sneezed and his nose twitched a bit. He looked around, eyes readjusting to everything, he noted that his fur looked quite a lot cleaner and a good bit of it had fallen on the forest floor in heaps at his feet. He had no idea what happened but he definitely felt cleaner he guessed. It was weird to smell himself all over the ground, and he still wondered how it happened, but he had to keep moving south and inwards.
He found himself growing just a bit quicker as time passed. It had been about several months since he decided to keep moving, and he found that he liked to keep moving, especially since it kept him away from the wolves for the most part. But today there was a reason to pause the the walking. He smelled rats, and not just any rats, but his own kind.
He felt a mix of hope and despair, his mom told him he was one of the last, what if it's true? He shook his head and started sniffing around, scent marking things, hoping maybe something would notice. He eventually dared to go into a burrow and when he saw bones, clumps of long-dead fur, pots, all kinds of paintings and works, stitched books, he started taking everything he could with tears in his eyes. He wanted to keep as much of this as possible, it's obvious this colony had been dead for a long time, the only bodies preserved were those that had gotten buried in their dens, children that had been in their mother's pouches or in sealed pots that he found, and very rarely did he find a crude wooden coffin or a decayed nest of leaves near the surface that held bones.
He put them away in his "infinite cupboard" and organized them as he learned to do over time. He also learned that whenever he went in it sloughed off all of his dead loose fur and dirt and such, leaving him fluffy and clean, though, not knot-free. He silently hoped it wouldn't strip the corpses, he didn't think that'd be something he could deal with.
He was partially enraged, partially numb, and partially depressed. A very volatile mixture of emotions. He didn't realize he had been digging and sniffing in circles around the encampment as he lost himself in his feelings, mindlessly searching for some hint to life, finding only remnants and pieces. His ears were flat against his head, tail dragging behind him. He lifted it, it wouldn't do good to leave a trail, he had done enough here. He looked up at the sky, locating the sun quickly, and he listened for any faint sounds of the roaring rivers in the distance, he could hear it faintly, there must be a bend in the river that cuts into the land in the distance. He spared a last forlorn look at the encampment he looted, scented, and tried to preserve to a degree. He left very few skeletons, something behind so maybe, with the scant chance there'd be more of his kind, that they'd recognize their kin and his scent and fur as being one of them. He shook his head, he figured he'd regret leaving marks later, but that was a future he'd have to prepare for if he settled down.
He swiftly left, south-bound, the same way the river flowed.