Chapter 5: Chapter 5 Forest Survival With Lili.
Six winters had now passed since her birth within this world. What year it was she didn't know, but to her it was year 6 according to her Lili calendar made in the honour of her mother Lili. Of course she would have made the year number a lot bigger according to her mother's age, that is if she just knew how old her mother had been.
Now it was summer again and due to the rain the forests had once again been covered in a thick cloud of fog. Due to it she could hardly see five meters in front of her.
Because of this, foraging for mushrooms in the forest was totally out of the question and so instead she had decided to go have a small dip at the lake. Though before that she couldn't help but go check on her simple fish trap within the shallow waters of the lake.
It was a simple circle of stones that had a single opening from where the fishes could enter and exit the circle of stones. However with some bait she could make the fishes stay within the trap, and then with a single large stone she could close the exit off, and then the fishes were easy pickings for her and her trusty wooden spear.
Although that day it seemed that no willing participants had swam within her trap just yet. Her developing her spear fishing skills would need to wait, and instead it was finally time for her to go swimming and workout her ever developing muscles.
Taking off her primitive looking rabbit fur two-piece clothes, Lili then jumped into the shallow bit of the lake that came dangerously close to her private part that was still but a slit, just like what girls had. Standing there she showed a victorious smile and as she looked into her own reflection she did a little flex to show off her muscles.
By now she was already over 100 centimetres tall and had a fit body with somewhat visible muscles. Even her beautiful light blonde hair had grown long enough to coming dangerously close to her butt cheeks that were quite round and nice. She could even see her abs quite clearly and the V shape under them that led to her still invisible manly bit.
Also her legs were starting to become quite shapely, although her upper body was slacking behind quite a lot. Her arms had gained some small muscles, but her chest was the real worry for her now. Instead of seeing manly pecks, she could now only see what looked like small and round man boobs. By now they were like two small mounds of freshly made dough that she could sink her finger into some way before feeling her muscles underneath.
This she just couldn't understand, she was training daily and eating organic healthy foods. But still she had these small boobs and even her butt was a bit bubbly and shook when slapped. Even her legs had more fat to them that they should have had. By now with how much she worked and trained she should have been full of muscles and looking like a real little manly beast.
But no, instead of becoming a manly beast, she had instead started developing an hourglass shape to herself and began looking more and more like a cute little girl. Just where were her manly muscles, her pumping veins, her dick, and even her skin was smooth and perfect with no calluses on her hands or anything manly at all.
In fact more than anything she looked like some spoiled rich kid who definitely didn't look like she had been living for the past six years in a forest. Her teeth, her skin and her everything just looked too healthy, and she was so soft and definitely way too cute.
In fact looking at herself now there really wasn't anything manly about her to be seen, if anything she was starting to look more and more like her mother and maybe even better in terms of her feminine cuteness.
Her eyelashes were long and girly, her deep blue eyes were big and cute, she had a small button nose, full lips and well honestly just a cute appearance that seemed to just scream out I'm a girl.
Even if she were to cut her hair, which she wasn't going to do because her mother had said that she should let it grow long, but even if she would nobody with a brain could ever honestly mistake her for a boy. She just looked way too much like a girl, even her dick was not to be seen anywhere still. By now she was honestly starting to really find it hard to keep telling herself that she was in fact a still developing boy.
But still in her past some people did say that if you really believe something, then it will become like so. They said that if you really want to be taller for example then your body would make itself slowly start to grow, also stretching and hanging from bars helped in that apparently. Although how would she turn her feminine looking self into a big boy, this she didn't know. However she was an optimistic person and so she definitely wouldn't give up on herself being a boy just yet.
Still as depressing as her girlish looks were, it wasn't all that bad really. After all she wasn't a baby anymore at least. No more was lifting sticks as hard as it had been back then, no more did she struggle to walk, run or even do a single pull-up, no more was she weak like back then and incapable of doing much of anything.
In fact back then due to her weakness she hadn't even been able to move her mother's rotting corpse out of the house. So in turn this had caused the entire place to start stinking quite a bit forcing her to move elsewhere and rename her home simply to her mother's tomb, a,k,a, Mother Lilis tomb.
And because of her weakness back then she had been forced to build an shabby home of sticks and rocks on the opposite side of her garden. From there under the shadows of the trees she for the past five years has been keeping a watchful eye on her mother's tomb.
For her this was important as even now she still held out hope that maybe her mother would one day awaken again and hold her as she once did. Maybe one day she would walk out that door and all would be well again and just maybe her father would come to her as well.
So she waited and watched over this land now as she had done for all these past years as well. Living in her new small hut wasn't easy, it was definitely not comfortable and the winters were even colder now due to her not having a proper home. Though once again the chickens were there to give her warmth, Terminator always kept her safe, but even still she always couldn't help but worry for her and the chickens safety. Nonetheless she had slowly started improving her skills and so little by little her home of sticks and stones has been getting a bit better and better.
Although due to living outside without proper walls to protect her from all the dangers of the forest, they had time and time again been attacked by the fox. It always came during the dark hours, Terminator fought it off, but over the years the fox had still managed to get a few of the chickens, forcing her to start hatching more chickens and eating less eggs. Though whenever the fox succeeded in getting one of the chickens it luckily didn't bother them again for a while.
Plus with no indoor fireplace to keep warm, the rain had time and time again struck hard and put out her little fire. Needless to say life had been extremely hard for her small self. In fact her new life had for the past years been nothing but a constant daily life-and-death struggle for survival. She had been forced to take care of everything on her own, which hadn't been easy especially during her first few years of childhood.
And not only this, but her food situation had been extremely bad as well. Despite her best efforts, small pests, rabbits and even deer kept on coming to eat her garden plants. Due to her small size, the animals were not intimidated in the slightest by her and more often than not she actually found herself fearing for her own life when faced with the big deer. It was only thanks to Terminators assistance that she was able to save some of the garden plants for herself to eat.
Like so her everyday rations had been nothing but little scraps of food, especially as she had to share them with the chickens as well. So in desperation she had resorted to eating bugs and worms out of the ground. Especially during the winters as there wasn't really anything good for her to eat she ate anything that she could, even tree bark or leaves had found themselves within her belly.
But by some miracle, she had still managed to survive through it all. Although her body had seemingly suffered greatly in the height department. She wasn't an expert on the matter, but she was quite sure that she should have been a lot taller than what she currently was, which did worry her a lot.
Luckily her teeth had at least now been fully developed so she could at least start eating a bigger variety of foods. Plus they weren't any old teeth, but two perfect pearly white rows of perfectly healthy teeth. Which was quite amazing since she didn't have a toothbrush, a dentist or really anything to here to keep her teeth clean and healthy. At best she could use her slender fingers to rub at her teeth and wash her mouth with some water or plant oils.
But whatever she did it seemed that her body would always stay healthy and keep on looking good no matter what. Although this did mean that she couldn't get any calluses, scars or even ant bites were quick to go away. Truly it seemed that she had somewhat been blessed within this life.
And thanks to this blessing and her perfect teeth, she now had found the variety of food that she could eat get bigger, and with it the possibilities of her eating more had grown which meant that maybe finally she would now really start to grow as well. The first target on her list had been the rabbits who always tried to eat her cabbages.
Starting out by building a sharpened stick fence she had firstly hoped to keep the pesky forest animals away from her garden. But sadly this had little effect, as some rabbits merely hopped over the sticks, some furry fucker had dug under the sticks, while the deer just walked over the sticks making the fence completely useless.
Having seen the hopelessness of the situation she had then been forced to try something else. Figuring that since she wasn't capable of building a larger fence due to her small size, she had then moved to the next phase of her plan, which was to kill the evil thieves.
So she had then started out this plan of hers simply by digging holes, and placing sharp sticks into those holes. After that, she covered them with small sticks and leaves, and lastly she had placed a small piece of cabbage on top of the trap as bait. Like so a few traps were set up around the forest that circled her home.
With this and the addition of her primitive fish trap the years had become easier for her. She had quickly started to gain more and more food within her little belly. Her survival skills had gotten better and now by year 6, she kind of felt like a pro in her own opinion.
She now even knew somewhat how to make a fire with just some sticks, she knew how to build stuff, she knew what to eat and what not to eat, and she even now knew how to make rope out of plant fibres.
Although as thinking of it now she did find it kind of annoying how here her new life consisted of more work than her previous life had ever been. Here she even needed to make her own clothes, which was fun, but it was a lot of work.
Plus here she constantly found herself having to worry about the most basic of things, like not starving to death, not getting stomped to death by a deer or eaten by the fox or something worse. Also during the many past cold winter nights she had constantly felt like she was about to freeze to death if she wasn't constantly attending to the fire. Those had truly been quite rough experiences involving basically no sleep.
Still she had at least not gotten sick or hurt ever which was great and a lot thanks to her secret hearts power. But still she always had to be extremely careful with everything she did. Here the only thing she could really rely on was Terminator and herself, nobody else was ever coming to save her if something bad were to really happen here. If she ever got hurt and became totally unable to move then that would most likely be her end. No social services was ever coming to feed her and tuck her into bed.
However most of this was old news by now. Soon she was going to be really tall and super strong and muscular. She would kick that foxes furry butt and soon she would be the one protecting Terminator. Even the deer would quake in fear at the mighty muscular sight of her coming.
Thinking of it all now as she stood naked on the lake side she did in the end feel kind of proud of herself and happy to be alive again. Although she did wonder just what was her purpose here anyway. Why had she been reincarnated into this world? Was this all really just a big joke by God or just a punishment for her getting Frank killed or something else, maybe this was the afterlife and she was actually living in hell without knowing it? Maybe this was some circle of hell called the circle of isolation, and here she would be forced to live alone without any human contact until finally she became a chicken as well.
Many of these thoughts haunted her and the few dreams she had, but luckily with so much work her mind was constantly occupied and she wasn't too bothered by any of it. Besides she didn't want to be negative and think of some needless dark thoughts that would just make her feel depressed. After all in the end life here did have some positives to it.
Firstly she did have her chickens here to keep her company and give her tasty eggs and warmth. The air was really fresh and unpolluted here, there were no planes in the sky disturbing the silence within her peaceful forest and she didn't have to answer to no boss either. Plus she didn't need to pay any taxes, dress properly or anything, she was her own boss and nobody here would say otherwise as there was nobody else here to say anything to her anyway.
Life here had its own type of charm to it and it was great. All around all she could hear was just the birds singing, the light breeze of the wind rustling the trees and bushes, her chickens cooing and Terminator howling like some beast, all in all this was like the perfect place to live in seclusion and become a Buddhist monk or someone spiritual like that.
And by the simple right of conquest this was her land now and she felt oh so proud to look upon all that she had built here. Nobody was going to stop her, how could they since there wasn't anybody else here, haha haa? And better yet she had even held her own elections some time ago, and by some miracle she had gotten the single and only vote. She did try to get the chickens to participate in the voting, but they seemed more interested in searching for worms, and so she was now the President of this land of hers, the land known as the Single United State of Lilis lake. Although she probably would need to think of an better name in the future, maybe Terminator could have a state of his own and then they could become the United States.
Though as she thought of this and looked into her own reflection within the water her mood quickly dropped. Oh God she was lonely. Despite her boasting, she still couldn't help but feel so lonely and worried. After all, only having the chickens to talk to wasn't really good for her mental health since they didn't really say anything back to her. In fact she hadn't spoken to anyone but herself during these past 6 years, all the time she kept on rambling and rambling to herself and that probably wasn't all that good.
At this rate she feared her skills in reading, writing and even speaking were going to disappear. What if she one day met a person again? Would she then seem like some primitive monkey to them, a primitive monkey incapable of even speaking clear sentences or any sentences at all for that matter?
And what if she truly was alone in this world? What happened to Frank? Where was this body's father, surely if he were still alive he would come to visit her at some point, right? He just wouldn't forget about her and her mom right, if he was alive still?
Frustrated by these thoughts Lili clenched her fists, looked to the forest and said.
"No way, no way no way, there's no way that I'm alone. Father's probably out there right now looking for me, wondering why hasn't his child come home yet. Yes that's it, now I just have to find him on my own and not just wait around for something to happen, right? Yeah I have to do this, I'm Lili the President of the Single United State of Lilis lake, and I am not a coward who will just sit around waiting for someone to come. No I will do this on my own, I will go on an adventure of my very own and find father."
After saying this Lili got out of the lake, put on her two piece clothes and ran into the forest. Seeing her go Terminator was quick to follow and together the two ran through the forest for hours and hours in search of civilization.
She might have been still really young, the forest might have been dense, hard to traverse and possibly filled with bears or lions or well she didn't really know, but even still she ran in a straight line. Here she needed to be careful as not to get lost because then she would really be in trouble without her chickens, her garden and her fish trap.
Though as she thought of these things she suddenly stopped. Nervous sweat came to her face, she could hear strange sounds around her within the forest. Fear suddenly came to her and her mind started to run wild as she called out to nobody in particular.
"Hello, is that you mister bear, or lion or whatever? Please don't eat me, I'm just looking for my father, please."
Terminator seemed confused, he looked around in alarm as if preparing himself for a fight. Lili knew that she was probably just hearing things and letting her fearful mind play tricks on her now, but after having been attacked by that fox multiple times and almost stomped to death by the deer, she was scared.
In her past she would have kicked that foxes ass, and slapped those deer on their faces, but here she was so small, so weak and she knew it. And so out of fear she turned around and quickly ran back towards her home. Her exploration would need to wait till she was a bit bigger, stronger and more prepared.
***
Quickly another winter had come and Lili had continued to grow and develop not just herself, but her home as well. Now around her garden there were two meter high stick fences with vines covering most of them. Due to which the deer bothered her no more as the rabbits didn't do so as well.
Her father hadn't yet come for her and so she was forced to survive through another winter here within the forest with her chickens. Though now she was more prepared than ever before, she not only had a wooden spear, a stone knife for skinning, traps within the forest, but she finally had a real bow now of her own making, plus some arrows.
It had been quite hard to make for she had never actually made a bow before, but after lots of effort she finally had done it. Now she could finally start hunting deer and gaining lots of needed food and leather from them.
Before this she had merely eaten some rabbits that had fallen into her traps, but now a whole new variety of possibilities had opened up to her. So with bow in hand she waited at her gardens entrance for the deer to come.
And like before they were quick to see that she had left the door open and uncaring of her they started heading for her garden. However this time she would not be ignored and scared off.
So as three of them came out the forest and came calmly walking towards her position with their cute deer faces, she took aim. Her arrows were nothing but sticks with chicken feathers and wouldn't fly well or do much of any damage like an real iron arrow would do, but it didn't matter.
If these cute forest creatures needed to die for her to grow into a big man, then they were going to die. Only 10 meters to her target, 9, 8 , 7, 6, 5 meters. They were right before her now, her hands were shaking in anticipation, her shot would not miss. She would shoot the biggest of them straight into its eye and like so kill it instantly.
And yet, and yet, and yet as the moment came, she, she just let them pass by her. Damn, she just couldn't do it. Instead all she could do was fall to her knees and let her trembling hands let go of the bow. There just wasn't no way, for years these same deer had been coming to her garden and eating her plants. By now they were no longer even trying to stomp her to death, but merely looked at her curiously with those big dark eyes if theirs.
To her these deer were like family and some of her only real company within this forest. Shit, she thought. She could hardly believe it, just like her Mom she had grown too attached to these animals. In all her now seven years here, she hadn't been capable of killing even a single thing herself.
The only meat she had gotten was from the few rabbits that had fallen into her traps, though they were always dead by the time she got there, so she didn't actually have to kill them herself. And other than that she had finished off the fishes that she caught, that was something at least, but honestly even that hadn't been easy for her.
She wasn't sure why this was? Why was she so soft? In her past she fucking hit those gang bangers, shot them, snapped their necks, cuffed them and said mean words to them, like suck it you you, you bitch, or astala vista banger, or mines bigger than yours by the way, and yes hers was kind of on the big side back then.
Of course she hadn't killed any animals back then in her past, but surely ending them shouldn't be that much harder than ending a criminals life, right? Lost in thought she gritted her teeth in frustration at her own softness, and then grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and looked at it. She wanted to crush it to show her strength and vent out her frustration. She wasn't a softy, she wasnt no bitch, she was a man.
But then there within the dirt in her hand she saw a single worm. It's long wormy body slithered around the dirt clearly confused on where it was. It seemed that she might have accidentally taken it out of its home or something.
Quickly a feeling of guilt came to her as she carefully put the dirt back in place and apologised to the worm.
"Oh, I'm sorry mister worm, I didn't see you there. Please don't be mad, how about I bring you some cabbage leaves to eat as an apology? Would that be ok, mister worm, hmm? Yeah I think that sounds good, ok."
Seeing the worm happily slither away back into the ground Lili felt happy. With a smile on her face she got up and intended to take some of her stores cabbage leaves to the worm before the deer ate it all.
But then a sudden realisation came to her causing her to stop and face palm herself in frustration.
"Damnit Lili, what are you doing? Its a freaking worm, why am I feeling bad for it? No this is wrong I shouldn't be like this, but then what if? Ooh I don't know."
Now Lili was really conflicted on what to think. She had eaten worms before to fill her belly and the chickens bellies as well, but to kill things without absolutely needing to felt so wrong. Sure she could use all the food possible so that she could safely and healthily grow big, but she really didn't need to, so it just felt so wrong to her now.
Sitting back down on the ground, Lili looked to the sky and fell into her thoughts yet again. Oh how she really could have used some fatherly guidance right about now. It had been 7 winters now and yet where was that man, where was her father? Then again who was he, what did he even look like, or what was his name? All of this she didn't know, and yet she not knowing any better kept on waiting for him here. After all what if the day she left, he suddenly came? So she waited.
But then suddenly as she sat in silence and watched the sun beginning to set, she suddenly heard pained squeaking sounds within the forest. It sounded like some wild animal, a rabbit maybe, had she finally gotten one after such a long time?
It sounded like the rabbit was seriously hurting. Hearing its pain caused her heart to feel pain as she then took a burning stick from her campfire and while using it as her torch she ran into the forest to see what had happened.
"Don't worry rabbit, Lili is coming for you!"
Although as she ran the sounds of the rabbit had started to disappear, but soon as she came to a stop at the trap that had been broken she noticed it within the trap. There within the hole it lay impaled on some sharp sticks still twitching a little as it looked to her weakly with clear pain to be seen within its eye.
Seeing it Lili was immediately taken a back, her heart ached for the poor little thing. Just what had she done? How could she do this to such a cute little rabbit?
Though on one hand she knew that she should be happy to see that her trap had worked, but on the other hand she felt so sad seeing the cute suffering bunny laying there.
Through trembling words Lili spoke as she reached for her stone knife, that was tucked into her leather leg band around her right tight.
"I I I'm sorry mister bunny, or mam or whatever you prefer. Please don't be mad at me. I I I just, I just wanted to have some clothes to wear and you know meat to eat, so I I. I'm sorry, please forgive me, I'll try to make this quick and painless for you mister rabbit."
Saying this Lili felt so pathetic, she was better than this, right. Just why was she like this? Even the damn rabbit was looking at her like, the fuck are you saying you pussy? No this couldn't be, In defiance of these soft feelings, she shook her head and steeled her heart as she yelled to nobody in particular.
"No, get a grip of yourself, Lili! You ain't no girl, you're a boy, no you're a man! I need to do this, this is a question of survival! I just have to pretend that this rabbit is just another one of those evil gang bangers who totally deserves to die, right! After all its not my fault that mister rabbit ran into the trap and impaled itself on my sticks, or well it is, but whatever, here goes? KyaahhAhhhhh!"
Like a scared girl Lili out of instinct closed her eyes, as she then lifted up her knife and screamed madly while bringing the blade down on the rabbit again and again. Though unknown to her the rabbit had been long dead and was merely twitching as a stick had lodged itself into its head.
Watching it all was Terminator who was covering her back, as she after a lot of screaming then proceeded to pull the dead rabbit out of the hole, after which she removed the sharp sticks that were still stuck in its body and proceeded to drag the rabbit back to her home.
Once back in her yard, she proceeded to ready the rabbit for cooking. Remembering her past life she recalled having a conversation about this particular subject with a hunter. The question of how does one ready an animal for eating and how do you skin it? She remembered that the most important thing of all was bleeding the animal dry first.
While the Idea of it always made her shiver in disgust, she knew she had to do it. Or well she didn't have to, but just leaving dead things on the ground without using them at all was a waste. She wanted to make the most out of this rabbits sacrifice and so that's what she intended to do, for the honour of the rabbit.
Tying the rabbit's back legs together she then tossed the rope over a branch and pulled on it lifting the dead rabbit into the air. Tying the rope then to another branch she then left the rabbit hanging there.
After that, she needed to cut its head off so that the blood would then flow out of its body. With the blood drained out of the rabbit, its meat should then last longer.
Looking at the rabbit hanging there Lili gulped nervously. All she had was her stone knife and her mother's old small knife, with careful maintenance she had managed to keep the old thing clean and sharp, but to cut through a rabbits head would not be easy. She was especially worried about cutting the spine.
However she couldn't look weak before her chickens or else they would surely laugh at her, plus those deer were also there in the yard looking at her, they were judging her. Not wanting to seem weak in their eyes Lili once more took a deep breath and steeled her heart as she then stabbed the blade into the rabbit.
For the next hour or so she managed to skin the rabbit with a surprising amount of skill. After cutting the head she had to simply cut the skin around each back foot and carefully slit (or tear) the hide inside each leg while making sure not to damage the meat underneath.
After that she stripped the skin from the carcass by gently pulling downward. The motion was somewhat like that used when peeling a banana but a bit more forceful. Using her fingers she loosened any difficult spots she came across.
With the hide now loose she turned it inside out so that the fur was on the inside and the meaty part on the outside. Then came the simple part of putting the fur into cool water to soak. Using her fish trap that held no fish she placed the hide in there to soak. Soon she would need to clean it fully but now she was hungry.
Taking a deep breath of relief she then proceeded to the part she was most excited about. Looking at the rabbit head she hesitated for a moment. Right now she wasn't sure if she should have actually cut the entire head off or not.
Nonetheless, she then skinned the head and started to prepare a pot of boiling water. First, she tossed the entire head into the boiling water. Usually, she would not eat such things, but in nature, she didn't have the luxury of being picky or wasteful with her food.
After that, she needed to remove the intestines from the rabbit and separate the meat into smaller bits of meat. With no place to store her food, Lili tossed everything into the pot and left it there to boil except the intestines.
The intestines were then dropped into the fish trap to soak alongside the rabbit pelt. Intestines would need to be washed thoroughly and then boiled for at least 15 minutes to cleanse them of any disease-causing bacteria. After that, they could be fried to soften them up for eating, but right now it was getting really dark and she was getting tired.
Returning to the pot she then used her wooden scoop to scoop out the rabbit head. Looking at it and its fleshy ears she felt like puking. Oh God, just why did she have to be born in such a time? If only she were in the 19th century or something, then maybe she could have eaten chocolate and hamburgers instead. Although thinking of it, she then closed her eyes, thought of hamburgers and French fries and then bit into the rabbits ear.
***
The next day as she awoke with a satisfied belly still full of rabbit meat, she found the rabbit meat still safe and sound soaking in the pot full of water to her relief. And as she walked to the lake shore she was met with a surprising sight there. Her fish trap was now full of fish that were nibbling on the intestines and the rabbit pelt.
Seeing this she quickly grabbed a large stone and blocked the fishes escape. In her trap, she could see at least 10 small fishes swimming in a circle. Looking at this scene she couldn't help but smile in joy. It seemed that she was truly going to have a lot to eat this winter. Although she would have really preferred hamburgers and some sweets like simple chocolate or even melons would have really been great.
Damn why couldn't she have had a supermarket close by, or maybe a phone so that she could order some food. And then a couch and a TV from where she could rewatch those space knights fighting against the evil ugly space knight called Citrus or whatever. Damn she really would have liked a TV right about now, and some human company would have been nice as well. Damn why was she talking to herself and her animals so much anyway? Surely such actions weren't healthy, right?