Day 7

Today Ari agreed to showing me around the forest, and where all the other "players" are. Amazingly, she knew where the base to every person was except one, and had a general idea of what they would be doing at certain times of the day. I'll start by writing about the first camp we came across, which was home to three different guys from the same area in real life.

"Keep following me, Red. We should get there in less than a minute if we keep up this pace."

"What? We only left the tree house five minutes ago... How did we get there so fast?"

"Hehehe, I already told you how. I know all the shortcuts and secret passageways in this entire forest, so when it would take a normal person half an hour to get somewhere, I can make it in just a couple minutes."

"Jeez, you must have been exploring nonstop before I met you... wait a minute, if you've explored the entire forest, does that mean you got to the end of it?"

"Well that's hard to answer because there isn't really an end to it. When you go too far away from- well I'll tell you about this later. We made it to their camp!"

A sad place to be cut off at, but it's not like I could do anything about it, or they would've heard us. We were on top of a small mountain that their base was built next to for extra cover.

Their campsite was made up of three small wooden tee-pee's with a large fire in the middle. Over the fire was a fat pig roasting on a spit, and encircling their campsite was a continuation of the deep river by the tree house, but here it was a lot wider. At first glance it seemed like they must of put a lot of hard work into tidying everything up and making it as neat as possible, but after seeing the people who inhabited it, I began to doubt my previous thoughts.

I couldn't make out any exact details, but they looked like what would be typical scum in the real world. They were all wearing simple baggy shirts with ripped up jeans, and had super greasy hair that made me wonder what was living in their heads. They were gathered around the campfire punching each other and making jokes about how they were "gonna kill ever'body in tha game and cum out on top," or something like that.

"So what do you think about them?" whispered Ari as we walked away.

"They're definitely bad news. You really need to stop coming down here to spy on them- if they got a hold of you it would be really bad."

"Hehehe, I'm super glad you're worrying about me, but don't let it get you down! As long as I stick to my hidden path, there's no way they'll be able to find me. They're not that smart either; one time I hid near a tree and kept throwing pebbles at them. It was so hilarious!"

"Well then at least make sure you stay in hidden areas if you ever explore without me. We really need to be able to rely on each other for help if we want to make it out of this world in one piece."

"Oh, you really are worrying to much. Just let yourself have some fun! I bet all the guys back home would love to be stuck in a forest with no one but me!"

*sigh "Please just remember to be careful. Every time we talk about other Players, you act like you want to bring everyone together and throw a party."

"Hehe, you're so funny, Red."

"I really didn't want that to be funny, but whatever. Are we almost there?"

"Yeah, try to keep quite now. We're entering his territory."

At first I wasn't sure what she meant by his "territory" since the forest belongs to everyone, but I found out soon enough. About one out of every ten trees in this area had a ring of wool tied to them in the center, showing that this area belonged to whoever it was that lived here.

We got to his base of operations less than a minute after seeing the first wool-ringed tree. There were wooden sticks laid against a very large tree trunk, creating a sort of semi-circular lean-to with a bed of dead leaves and dried grass under it. A few meters away from the lean-to was an open area with a large log on it's side that had bowls of berries and water on it.

Next to the log was a guy a few years younger than me. He had thick straw-colored hair, and was wearing a plain brown tank top with baggy dark-green pants. On his feet were brown boots that went up half way to his knees. I couldn't get a good glimpse at his eyes, but I think they were a light shade of blue. His right pointer finger had a small silver ring on it that he kept rubbing with is left hand.

"Hey Ari," I whispered as quietly as I could, "do you know anything about his ring? He's paying a lot of attention to it."

"I only know as much as you when it comes to that. He's had it since I first saw him, and he never takes it off his finger no matter what."

"You said you don't know where the last person is, right?"

"Nope! I think it's a girl, though; she was in the mountain base with us when we were teleported here."

"Okay then, let's head back home and think about everything we've seen."

"Aww, I wanted to go for a swim in the river with you-

"I'm going to stop you right there. You do realize that we're stuck in some unknown world with dangerous creatures and other people that want to kill us, right?"

"Well yeah, but it would be fun! Besides, I always used to take baths while I cleaned and dried my clothes off before I met you. If I don't do it soon then my clothes will get dirty."

"Hahaha! You're a really strange girl, did you know that?"

"Well fine then! Laugh at me all you want, I'm going to the lake to clean myself off while you scribble in that dirty book of yours!" and with that she stomped off.

It's not that I don't like the idea of taking a swim with a girl, I just hate wasting time when I have so much to think about. Also I don't want to be in a position where we are the only two players left and we're best friends to the core. That would make things way over complicated, and I have full intentions of beating this stupid game and knocking the life out of whoever sent us here.

Since I put everything we know down on paper, I think I'll go to sleep now. I forgot how quite it was with no one but me in the area, and I'd like to use the peace while I can. Good night to myself and Ari, and I pray for gaining more progress in the morning.

A/N: If anyone was wondering about the rapid increase in story length per day that seems to be happening, I just wanted to say that I will still be trying my very hardest to make sure that every day there is a new entry for me to upload. If another day comes out that is 2,500 words or more, I'll just split it up into multiple sections like day 5, and release them at different times. Any Reviews or PM's are greatly appreciated, and I always read them even if I don't reply!