Chapter Text
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IT HAD TAKEN A WHILE BUT ARI WAS NOW SURVIVING, JUST NOT THRIVING.
And by a while, she meant a month and by surviving, she meant barely not dying.
Which wasn't a bad thing, at least not to her. She'd gotten used to "barely-not-dying" after more than a few mental breakdowns, which were nothing really compared to the ones she had while she was in her head space, so yeah, she was fine.
Things were much better now than they were the first week. Gosh it was embarrassing for Ari to even think about it. The crying, the screaming, picking fights with monkeys– she really regreted that one– and the constant tripping. I mean she still tripped– stupid statues– but it certainly wasn't as bad as it was back then.
It was after the first week that things started going okay. She had woken up very sore, gotten her shit together and decided go further than her usual parameters and look for actual water– watery fruits just weren't cutting it. She had found a stream with with little fish swimming in it, which became her first taste of meat when she finally made fire using rope she made from tree branch fibres and vines.
Soon after Ari was making making simple traps and catching rabbits and deer. This was also when she finally made real, kinda, clothes from the skin of the deer– she'd vomited the first time she had to skin it– after soaking in the stream for days and scrubbing it with a rock and rope thread, needles courtesy of the fish she'd eaten. She had also made a a blanket and a water pouch.
Her life had become stable, sort of, and she had somehow avoided confrontation with any predators. She also had tools now, a stone axe and knife, a bone knife, her water pouch and lots of dried deer meat, so she could finally explore further without much fear. She really regreted her decision.
Ari started off her journey by following the stream that got larger and become a river– she saw her own reflection in it and nearly screamed, since she was sure she didn't look like that before (but then again how would she know)– with big fish that later became her first kinda proper meal.
It was after walking for a few hours that she decided to look for somewhere to sit down and rest. Ari was pushing through the trees looking for a suitable place when a cave came into view, roots hanging at the entrance.
Deciding it would be a good shelter for when it got dark, she moved toward it then she tripped, again.
And just as she was about to start cursing the stupid thing that tripped her (yes it tripped her, she didn't trip over it) Ari looked at the statue, then she started and started some more.
It wasn't, it couldn't be. It was impossible, little to no chance that it could be him. But the evidence was staring at her. Calm expression and gravity defying hair with a single strand dangling into his face.
Ishigami Senku
in the flesh–stone whatever, and Ari had just tripped over him.
“Holy shit!”