Liam woke up in a pile of bushes, staring into even more greeneries, the canopies of massive trees.
"Ugh." Liam's first reaction was 'ew, I was lying in dirt.' and sweeping away all the dirt on his clothes and hair. Second reaction was also disgust, a lot more people woke up next to him the same time he woke up, people and socialising is disgusting.
"Guys...where is this?" Someone took the lead in the crowd that woke up, someone as tall as Liam, as good looking as Liam but better at taking care of himself, the difference in hair is evidence.
"Where am I?" The same question circulates around the crowd, no one expects to wake up in a moonlit forest when they initially slept on a comfy bed after all.
"I don't kno-" a snake crawled quickly and took a huge bite at the responder's feet, "ARGH! GET OFF ME!"
"I'm coming!" The man with impeccable hair came rushing to shake the snake off the bitten. "Get...off! Guys lend me a hand!"
"I'm comin...ARGH!" He got bitten from behind too.
"AHH!"
"FUCK!"
"ARGGH!"
More struggling grunts accumulated, eliciting anxiety and fear from the crowd, "What's happening?!" Someone within the crowd cried.
"I got him off! I got him off!" Hair man announces after managing to kick the snake off and away. "You okay?" He asks the bitten man.
He didn't respond in words, but responded with black veins popping out all over his body and face. Seeing that sight, hair man let go of his grip on the bitten, letting him drop onto the ground.
"He's... he's dead."
Soon, all the bitten started having black veins pop out of their body. Thus, panicking begun.
"AHHHHH!"
"RUNN!"
"RUNNNNN!"
"EVERYONE HEAD TO THE BEACH, FOLLOW MY VOICE!" Hair man yells, "THE SNAKES WON'T BE ABLE TO SNEAK UP ON US THERE!"
"Good idea." Liam thought, followed the voice and ran.
"LIAM!" It was Tyler who cried out to Liam, "Have you seen Bryan and Melissa?! I think this is the Would You Rather scenario we all picked!" Tyler asked while running beside Liam following hair man's voice.
"FOLLOW ME, FOLLOW MY VOICE!" Hair man keeps yelling so everyone can follow.
"There." Liam pointed to a girl not so far away who didn't seem to be running.
"MELISSA RUN! WHAT ARE YOU-" Before Tyler could finish the sentence, her face was filled with black veins and she collapsed onto the floor.
Tyler gasped and halted his footsteps in shock, Liam seeing this sight headed back and dragged Tyler by the wrist, then continues following the voice until eventually reaching the beach that hair man speaks of.
"GRAB A SHARP STICK OR A ROCK! ATTACK THE SNAKES WHEN THEY NEAR!" Hair man cried out, and the crowd followed the instructions given.
"Bryan!" Tyler cried out as he recognises a familiar silhouette.
"Tyler! Come on! Let's just swim our way out of here." Saying that, Bryan dove into the sea without hesitation and swam like hell.
"Wait." Liam grabbed Tyler's wrist, stopping him from diving in too, "Look."
Liam points into the ocean, there's snakes swimming their way towards Bryan, at a faster speed than him.
"BRYAN GET OUT OF THERE!"
"ARGHHHH! THEY CAN SWIM!!" Bryan yelled as he gets bitten all over his body, hastening the venom's effect. Black veins pops and his body freezes into a corpse.
"NO BRYAN!" Tyler fell onto his knees in devastation, while Liam remains steady mentally.
Black veins keeps popping out on people and they keep collapsing one by one, lowering the survivors' morale, but hair man still tries to keep it up with his guttural screams.
"KEEP IT UP GUYS, KILL THOSE SNAKES, PROTECT OUR REAR TOO, THEY CAN COME IN FROM THE SHORE!"
Liam, unbothered by the current situation, collected two stones then gathered a bunch a sticks and branches. He rubbed the two stones on eachother violently, using friction to ignite the sticks and branches he gathered beneath.
When Liam successfully gathered fire, the light it produces gave hope to the remaining survivors who noticed, and some started cheering.
"YESSSS!'
"LIGHT 'EM UP!"
"EVERYONE SUPPORT THAT MAN! MAKE SURE HE LIGHTS THE FOREST ON FIRE!" Hair man screamed, and people listened.
Couple of survivors with sharp branches as weapons came over to protect Liam from the approaching venomous snakes as he advances.
"LIGHT IT UP!" Someone shouted, and Liam launched a vigorously burning stick into the forest.
"IT'S NOT SPREADING!"
"IT IS! IT JUST TAKES SOME TIME!" Hair man reassures the anxious survivors, "FOCUS ON KILLING THE SNAKES APPROACHING FOR NOW!"
People are still dropping like flies, once someone's bitten, 30 seconds later black veins will appear and their insides will be burnt. But the fire which spreads slowly and steadily gave people hope, and they shouted out all sorts of battle cries.
The fire spreads exponentially. At first it was slow, but after a minute it started spreading at a remarkable speed, creating a border between the snakes in the forest and the humans on the beach.
"YEAHHHHH!"
"LET'S GOOOOOO!"
"DON'T CELEBRATE YET, THE SNAKES ARE STILL ENTERING FROM THE SHORE, TURN YOUR FOCUS ON THE SHORE NOW!"
Everyone turns to eliminate the snakes that attempts swimming up to shore. Now that they are only entering from one direction, the survivors were defending much more efficiently, and a lot less bodies fell.
Tyler survived, but had lost all spirits to fight, he simply sat shellshocked watching everyone else killing the snakes on the shore. Liam didn't bother fighting either, instead he stood beside Tyler.
There were at least 88 people when they woke up, now there's roughly 50 left.
Tyler stared into the horizon with Liam, at all those people defending courageously, and at everyone who survived.
"They died, Liam...they...they died."
"They did."
Tyler gasped in shock again, he then buried his head in his knees and broke down in tears, there's absolutely no way he's in any shape to fight.
Liam on the other hand, simply doesn't help defending the shore because he doesn't feel like it, theres enough people fending off barely any snakes approaching shore, he didn't have to do anything.
Liam also wasn't as sentimental as Tyler. He didn't felt much from the casualties and dead bodies, he was merely acquaintances with Bryan and Melissa, their deaths didn't mean too much to him at all.
A frail and short woman who was also not fighting approached Liam.
"What?"
"Thank you...you saved our lives..." The woman said with blurry eyes.
"Okay."
Liam didn't give much attention to the woman expressing her gratitude, he barely ever even looked at her. Instead he thinks to himself, "What's happening..."