Chapter 3: Survival:

"Argghh...UGH! What the...fuck...hell?" Lieutenant Braddock had finally regained consciousness. He slowly began making do movements and trying to get an assessment of his current situation. The last thing he remembered was that he and his guys were knocked off of a cliff while inside that destroyed airplane. Braddock figured out that the impact of the crash must've knocked him unconscious.

To Braddock's horror, he realized that the plane he was inside of when he and his guys were trying to hide from the beast were gone, and he was the only one who was left. He could only think of two possible explanations: His crew had either thought he was killed during the crash and had left the plane to escape to safety, or wise case scenario that they all had been killed or mortally wounded.

But Braddock didn't want to believe that, especially the former. What now mattered the most to him was survival and escape. So Braddock's first order of business was to gather up some supplies. So to do that, he started by searching the formerly owned aircraft. Looking around the plane, Braddock had managed to find himself a radio.

He attempted to get it working only to find that it was completely useless as it was destroyed. "Ughh, damn thing's busted up and useless." Braddock chucked the radio across the plane and continued looking around for more supplies. Braddock eventually checked the cockpit's compartments.

To his luck he found sometime else; a dark blue 21st century glock nineteen pistol. Braddock was shocked at such a discovery as firearms didn't even look like this anymore. But is was one hell of a find and Braddock knew this. He reloaded the gun to see if it even still worked and to his surprise, it still worked. "Not a lot of ammo, twenty bullets, better make these shots count." Braddock then put the gun in his hand gun holster and carried on about with searching this destroyed plane for more supplies.

After a few more minutes of heavy searching, Braddock had cleared out the entire plane of its supplies. He had managed to find a discarded backpack to use to care all of his supplies. Among the supplies Braddock found were first aid supplies, a first aid kit, two flairs, a machete and a flashlight that could be attached to most firearms. After attaching the flashlight to his gun, Braddock was all set to leave this plane and hopefully find his way back to safety, whether it be back at home base or somehow managing to rendezvous with his unit and friends.

Braddock exited the plane. He had considered camping out in it for the night, but he decided against it due to it not being in a discreet area, and it being at risk of exploding due to the gas and fuel that were spilled when the unseen animalistic beast sent it free-falling off of a cliff.

"Okay, let's get this over with." He said to no one in particular. Braddock after about twenty or so minutes was now deeper into the forest, which meant that he was more at risk of likely being attacked by the forest's apex predators. It also didn't help that it had started raining even harder than it had throughout the entire night thus far.

Braddock pulled out his machete and began using it to hack his way through the heavily overgrown ecosystem. Braddock couldn't do anything but keep trekking throughout the night and hope to eventually find somewhere safe enough to set up and camp for the night, a location dry or shielded from the rain enough where he could fire off one of his flairs to signal for help, or even just outright rendezvousing with his guys, if any of them were even still alive and somewhere nearby.

There was a lot of shit racing through Braddock's mind right now, but for now, he decided to focus on one thing at a time. Yeah, things would come together naturally once all was said and done.

"Ahhh damn." After about an hour or more of trekking through the forest, Braddock realized one thing; he was starting to get hungry. Of all the things that could have happened to me in that moment, he envied that it had to be hunger of all things.

As tough and hardened as Braddock was, even he knew that no human being would be able to defeat and overcome their hunger for food. He knew for certain that sooner or later, he'd eventually have to settle down somewhere and find some sort of food.

Braddock also knew that eventually he'd have to start taking it easy and call it a night, but the only problem was that so far, there was no where safe, or dry enough for that matter, to set up a camp for the night. So until a reasonable location could be found, Braddock would have no choice but to keep on traveling and looking for a spot to set up a temporary safe haven.

The forest and rainy landscape were tough to get through for any normal man, but he wasn't normal. Braddock was the toughest of them all, and after all he wouldn't be a leading commander of an entire unit for no reason. Dedication, Endurance, Survival and Willpower were some of his best attributes. Not to mention his intelligence and mostly efficient decision making in crucial situations such as his current predicament. Hunger was getting to be a real issue.

That was until Braddock saw something up above. A tree full of what he assumed were freshly grown fruits. It wasn't a carnivorous meal, but he knew that in the wild without much resources at your disposal, you take what fate throws at you and make do with what you have.

"Jack-fucking-pot." Braddock examined the fruit tree more carefully to see if it was all real. They seemed very real indeed. The exhausted Lieutenant continued to observe the fruit tree and his surroundings. And to his luck, he found something else that would be a much bigger help.

A good size hollow dead smack in the middle of the tree. Braddock decided to take a look inside. A noticeable grin immediately grew on his face as he realized that the size of the hollow was big enough for an animal and a human being to reside inside. "Perfect...talk about icing on the cake." The Lieutenant dropped his bag full of supplies inside the hollow. He now had some fruit to eat and a place to sleep in for the night...and possibly even longer in the event that he could manage to find his unit or not.

Within the next fifteen minutes or so, Braddock had cut down a few pieces of fruit from the tree and placed it inside his hollow shelter to so he could eat it warm and protected from the rain. Braddock also made sure the fruit was safe to eat, remembering his training and reviews about some of this environment's natural wonders. With enough fruit to eat for the night, plus an entire tree filled with fruit and a solid shelter, Braddock decided to eat and then call it a night.

But before he did that, he remembered he had to let off a flair just Incase there were any other members of his unit out there who were traveling either alone or together. Braddock pulled out a the flair gun and shot it up into the air, igniting it. Once that was done, Braddock spent another chunk of time eating his fruit so he could at least go to sleep not on an empty stomach.

The fruit was so damn good it made him feel like he had died and been taken to some sort of paradise up in the sky. Whether it was his mind playing tricks on him, his high emotions or something, Braddock didn't care. Hell, he was just grateful for the fact that he wasn't going to sleep hungry and wasn't dead. He just hoped that everything would get back to normal and he'd find his guys soon. And soon thereafter, Braddock was sound asleep.

Braddock was still sleeping soundly. The heavy rainfall and wind of the night did not bother him at all as he was safely tucked away inside of his tree's hollow. It felt pretty damn good to be able to sleep warmly and dryly, like a normal human being. It was almost too good to be true.

Unfortunately for Braddock, the desperation for the feeling of comfort could also be a factor of liability.

The sounds of rain covered the approaching footsteps of what to be the local natives or villagers or etc. They were out patrolling the forest for any threats to their overall society and civilization due to the presence of bad human beings that waged countless war.

"Ma'am, we found another one. Sleeping inside the tree? How should we proceed? Lethally? Or Non-Lethally? It's your call mistress."

The Female leader of the tribe group gave her disciples an answer not to long after. "Non-lethally, his clothing is similar to the other Terran survivors we found and brought back to the village. We shall bring him back for questioning."

The male subordinate nodded and bowed. "Yes mistress."

The hidden woman gave one final order...

"Now, wake him up..."

A/Ns: Will Braddock live? Or be slain by these patrollers? I'm sure you can all get an idea of what's happening and who's behind this...