Kyle hesitated for a while.
‘No!’ he thought, angry at himself. ‘Don’t do this shit! You literally had several brushes with death today! Don’t fucking do this!’
Yet, Kyle’s body kept bobbing up and down like a dog that was excited to go on a hunt.
He really wanted to get more of that turtle juice.
‘Stop being a dumbass! You’re going to get yourself killed! Ignoring the turtle is the smart idea! Body, listen to your brain!’
At that moment, another thought entered Kyle’s mind without even knocking like a decent thought.
“You should listen to your heart more, Mr. Freeman. Mind and soul are a team, not enemies,” Magic Woman repeated in Kyle’s mind.
‘Nobody asked you!’ Kyle thought in anger.
And yet, Magic Woman’s words wouldn’t leave Kyle’s thoughts.
“Argh!” Kyle shouted as he violently ruffled his hair in frustration. “Fine! But if I die, it’s your fault!”
He tightly gripped his metal rod and slowly traced his way back.
Kyle quickly saw the tree that the turtle had bitten earlier. There were some slight chips in its bark, but that was the only trace the turtle had left behind with its ferocious bite.
‘These trees are something else,’ Kyle thought.
As he kept tracing his way back, he also noticed something else.
‘Oh, it’s night,’ Kyle thought as he looked at the moon peeking through the tree crowns. ‘Didn’t even notice.’
‘Wait, how did I not notice that?’
Kyle blinked a couple of times as he looked forward.
‘Everything’s basically black and white, but I can essentially still see everything. Freaky!’
‘Is this also part of the Predator’s Being? Can I see in the dark like a cat?’
‘This is so weird! I can’t see any color, but everything’s still so clear!’
Kyle shook his head. ‘Don’t get distracted! You’re about to be murdered by stupidity! At least face your death like a proper idiot!’
He kept walking and quickly noticed the tree the turtle’s head had hit.
Kyle turned his head, and sure enough, he could see the big turtle shell from where he currently was.
‘It’s still here,’ he thought in a mix of frustration and excitement. ‘Why couldn’t you have just left?’
He crept forward very slowly, trying his best not to make any sound.
Sadly, he wasn’t used to sneaking around the woods, and he made plenty of noise.
Kyle could see the turtle head slowly moving out of its shell before going back in.
Its eyes had opened for a moment, and Kyle could tell that its eyes were still fucked.
‘Fucking dumbass forgot it can’t see and tried to look around.’
Kyle waited and watched.
‘Huh, it’s not coming back out. Probably doesn’t want to get turned into a shish kebab by ramming into a branch.’
Kyle became a bit more courageous and slowly circled the huge turtle shell from a distance.
‘That thing’s huge!’
The turtle shell was an almost perfect sphere with a diameter of about five meters.
‘But that’s still not big enough. How can it fit all of that neck in there?’
‘There’s a joke about a turtleneck sweater here, but I can’t construct it for the life of me.’
‘Is its neck just really stretchy, or is it just all neck?’
‘Also, the shape of the shell is super weird. I don’t think turtles are spherical.’
‘Is it a snapping turtle worm?’
Kyle tried to make sense of the turtle.
‘I mean, if it’s a snake or a worm, its body would have followed me, right? But when it turned back to fuck off, it kinda just pulled away. Wouldn’t a snake turn around?’
‘I never saw the turtle’s ass, which means it didn’t turn around.’
‘Does it even have an ass?’
Kyle counted the holes in the big shell.
‘Head, two arms, two legs, tail… another tail… a higher tail?’
Kyle blinked a couple of times.
‘Why does this turtle shell have so many holes? There are even holes near its top!’
Yet another thought barged into Kyle’s head.
It was the image of a sea anemone.
‘Kinda looks like that.’
Then, the image of a moray eel lurking in a cave entered his mind.
At that point, the two images fused together, and Kyle saw a moray eel popping its head out of the tentacle holes of a sea anemone.
Kyle blinked a couple of times.
‘That’s weird.’
‘Who designed that thing?’
He shook his head. ‘Anyway, I should get back on topic. Gotta get that sweet, sweet turtle juice!’
‘But how?’
Naturally, Kyle didn’t dare approach the big anemone stone that was the turtle shell.
Even though that thing was blind, it was still fast and probably furious.
Kyle looked around for stones but couldn’t find any.
‘You would think that there would be stones all over the forest, but nooo, not in this forest, apparently,’ he grumbled in his thoughts.
Kyle walked away from the turtle shell and grabbed a small branch of a tree.
He tried his best to tear it off, but he just didn’t have the power.
‘This branch has a diameter of less than an inch! That’s fucking tiny! Why is it so hard?!’
The next moment, Kyle took out his metal stick and rammed it into the branch.
CRK!
The bark cracked, but that was it.
‘These trees are really hard!’
Kyle kept striking the same spot repeatedly, and he slowly made progress.
After striking several times, Kyle slipped.
The gem of the stick turned, and the stick started to give off a sound similar to a drill.
Sure enough, the first sound was accompanied by the sound of something being drilled.
Kyle regained his footing and watched the sharp tip of the metal stick shaking at insane speeds.
‘Kinda looks like a vibrator,’ Kyle thought.
Then, he looked at the crevice the stick had made in the branch.
Kyle slowly moved the metal rod to the branch.
CRRRRRRRRR!
The metal rod cut through the branch, and the branch fell to the ground with a weighty thud.
‘Huh,’ Kyle thought as he looked at the vibrating metal stick. ‘Is this thing a drill?’
A moment later, Kyle’s breathing quickened, and he swiped the sweat off his forehead.
‘Man, drilling sure is exhausting.’
Yet, despite doing nothing, Kyle’s breathing became heavier, and he became even more exhausted.
A moment later, he looked at the drill.
‘Oh!’
Kyle immediately let go of the drill.
As soon as the drill left Kyle’s hand, it stopped buzzing, and it fell to the ground harmlessly.
As expected, Kyle started to regain his strength.
‘This thing is using me as its energy source!’ he thought as his energy started to return.
‘Also, I’m now hungry again. Great…’
After a bit, Kyle carefully took hold of the drill again.
He activated it for a moment before deactivating it again.
The image of the corpse on the hill shot through Kyle’s mind.
‘Was he a miner or something? Would explain his lack of shit to own.’
‘Hah! A predator finds a miner in the wilderness. Proceeds to grab his stick. Good joke.’
Kyle amused himself with his newly created joke for some seconds before sighing and looking at the distant turtle shell.
‘How can I use this drill to get to that turtle juice without dying?’