GAME OF THRONES : SELECTIVE EVOLUTION - CHAPTER 1 (Patreon)

The morning had dawned unbearably cold. A cold that hurt my bones with every breath taken, it took me a while to process this bit of information, firstly assuming my air conditioning was simply going full throttle, but as the seconds passed, it was evident something was very wrong. 

Frowning, I opened my eyes to try and see what was happening, begrudgingly might I add, it was my day off after all. But what I saw left me stunned; the moment my eyes opened, I was confronted with a landscape painted in its entirety of a haunting white.

In fact, I was somehow laying on the ground face half-buried in the snow, as snowflakes fell into my face, cooling my face even more with each passing second, as I, in an utter loss for words, stared at what was in front of me without a single thought in my mind.

In a way, one could say I was rebooting, so to speak. Giving my befuddled brain time to take this and make something out of it.

A few moments later, after my brain had finalized the rebooting process; I started to question everything, starting with the most important question of them all, how the fuck, I had ended up here?!

It was summer, for fucks sake.

And even in winter, I had never seen so much snow before.

Pushing those questions aside, I focused on what I could see, but no matter where I looked, the white landscape of confusion welcomed me with a rather ominous tone.

I was ashamed to admit it, but I was rather afraid as of the moment.

“What in the fuck happened to me?” I stammered thanks to the cold that was freezing my balls, getting into a sitting position, which didn’t help with the whole ball freezing situation.

Then, I started to check my body that ever so slightly sunk into the white snow, leaving a sizable mark in the otherwise very symmetrical painting of white that engulfed me.

And surprisingly enough, I was okay.

There was no pain, nothing of worry, just the cold, reminding me I was in the middle of nowhere, with no explanation why.

In my pajamas to add salt to the injury.

With no idea what to do, I stood on my feet and began to look around once again, maybe in a futile attempt to find something I hadn’t before, like a child opening a fridge twenty times expecting something to change. But as I expected, the only thing my eyes found was that white scenery that had awakened me.

And the occasional tree every now and then.

Beyond that? Nothing, only silence.

My body heat slowly declining as the precious seconds passed in the stark white hell that surrounded me ruthlessly; I found myself face to face with a difficult decision, what to do?

I had no experience whatsoever to know what to do; for fuck’s sake, the most snow I had ever had shovel was six inches deep! This shit hellish environment looked like a polar bear would jump at me at any moment.

Maybe whoever kidnapped me wanted that to happen.

Oh god, I will be an episode of Criminal Minds.

Shaking my head at that rather dark thought, I started to ponder what I was to do, but nothing came to my mind. So I elected to simply walk; after all, doing nothing was not the solution either.

And in a situation like this, I had to do something, anything.

“Fucking… cold!” I stammered, trying to say something to no avail while looking around, hoping that perhaps this was a joke of some kind and that someone would soon jump to tell me everything was okay while laughing so that I could beat the crap out of them, old mafia style.

Though, in a rather cynical way, I felt that was not the case.

Sighing, I began to walk as I decided to focus on my inner thoughts and not on the unbearable cold that was slowly eating away at me. Asking myself questions like, what had happened? Why was I here? 

Anything was better than focusing on the ever-growing cold that was already shaking my bones to the core.

Maybe this wasn’t the healthiest approach to my situation; who knows? And honestly, who cares? Well, I do, but in any case, this helped me fight against the agonizing cold, if anything in mind, and that helped a bit.

Who was I fooling? I was probably going to die, wasn’t I? The cold already hurt in my skin like a dagger peeling me layer by layer, and I had just begun my journey to God knows fucking where…

The more I walked, the more evident my chances were becoming. I had to find civilization soon or die… all in a matter of minutes before the cold claimed my life.

This bleak thought made me laugh, not in a warm way, but in a sarcastic tone. Then, with a sigh, I shook my head, resuming my walking, deciding that if I was going to die, I would do it walking for personal achievement.

Also, I supposed that if I was going to die, the view wasn’t so bad.

It was certainly better than dying in the desert, at least for me; never one was for the whole sand thing; it gets everywhere, and not in a good way.

Besides, the white of the snow was almost soothing in a rather strange way.

However, this beautifully symmetrical painting of death was not all perfect, for, at a distance, something caught my attention, something that broke the canvas.

“What is that?” I wondered with a short stammer, approaching the thing that had broken the monotony of my surroundings, a dead animal, probably a prairie dog by the looks of it.

Though I wasn’t an animal expert, to be sure.

I chuckled, staring at the little thing, wondering if I would end like the poor critter, laying in the cold snow, dead, body totally stiff and motionless.

I certainly didn’t want to, but seeing how my pajama was made for the hot weather one would expect on a Texan summer, aka some shorts and a t-shirt, well, my chances were slim.

For a few moments, I simply stared at the animal pondering in pain, somehow feeling myself getting lost in this seemingly simple act.

As a new feeling entered the mix, overriding my fear, anxiety, and most shockingly, my cold. That feeling was overwhelming hunger; it was sudden, it started like any hunger, but it grew fast, to the point I felt my body palpitating like a heart.

“What?” I rasped, clutching my stomach; the hunger, it hurt, it hurt a lot, like nothing I had ever experienced, even the unyielding cold that once scared me paled in comparison, heck I would take twice the cold if that took this new feeling away!

This couldn’t be normal!

“Hells, I’m going crazy,” I laughed, the hunger growing with each passing second; at first, it was passable, but now, I almost felt like a Ghoul of some kind from Tokyo Ghoul.

Desperate, I kneeled close to the animal and tentatively poked it, and it was indeed dead, not taking a nap.

I stayed there, looking at the animal, trying to fight my hunger, but my hunger was ever-growing and growing until there was nothing more, but it, as it had overridden every rational instinct within me as I caved to my desires.

So with my hands in a frenzied move that felt feral in essence, I grabbed the deceased animal, opening my mouth, as the beckoning urged me to bite it, to eat it, to consume it.

And without any further waiting, in a feral-like way, I brought my teeth on the little critter’s stomach and started to devour.

It felt furry, dry, and it tasted like crap, but surprisingly it felt good, like nothing I had ever felt before; it felt liberating.

In a world of my own, time passed, until eventually, I found myself staring at the empty spot the animal had previously occupied, I had eaten the entire thing, and I hadn’t even noticed.

Finally, in control of my bearings, I started to ponder in shock and minor disgust about what had happened, but those thoughts were soon silenced when my brain was flooded with knowledge about something new, knowledge about the animal I had eaten.

It wasn’t a prairie dog; it was an arctic squirrel.

But that wasn’t all, somehow, in a rather mystical way because I had no other way to describe it; I was now faced with a new choice regarding the animal, it seemed.

Because I had to pick something from the animal to take with me, something that made that animal, well… him.

“Well, I am definitely not in North Dakota anymore,” I chuckled, seeing the options, or rather, feeling them.

I mean, I couldn’t really see anything but the snow and the animal, but I knew I had to pick something; it was an odd feeling. So, of all the things the animal had to offer, I picked the one I felt would work the best; I picked his cold resistance.

And as soon as I picked that, well, my sudden knowledge of the creature vanished, and the cold that once hurt me simply felt like a normal winter, still cold, but not painfully so.

“Yes,” I nodded, brushing one of my hands against my hair in an exasperated manner, “I am definitely not in North Dakota anymore, or earth,” whatever was happening was either a dream or magical, and if it was option B, well, earth was not an option, the only magical thing we fuckers have is beer and anime.