Disclaimer: I do not own nor claim ownership on any fiction portrayed or mentioned in this fanfiction, including, but not limited to RWBY.

Chapter 2: Entry 2 – Just a man and his will to survive

I woke.

Not a pleasant experience if you ask me. Naturally it wasn't how I usually wake up if I bother to write it down. It all started slowly, with me waking from a surprisingly refreshing night in Lala-Land and gradually coming to terms with my unexpected surroundings and seemingly less comfortable bed. Evidently that was the perfect moment for my mind to dumb my memories of recent events into the forefront of my conscience. Simply saying "shock" would not suffice to describe my reaction and I do not claim such because I reacted in any worse way.

No, I definitely felt shock, but it wasn't the kind you feel when surprised or when confronted with something horrifying. It was a kind of cold pressure gripping and grabbling inside your chest. Chasing that frightened bunny that is your heart. It felt like a heart attack if I were to imagine how a heart attack feels like. But I knew it wasn't, because I was ready, more so than I ever was, to simply run and never look back. Yet that horrifying grip kept me there. Waiting, like a small animal before a bigger predator, I looked slowly, almost not even daring to, around.

Hoping that whatever being, that might be standing there vigil, would not notice me if I remained quit, I slowly rotated my head and coiled my legs in case of emergency.

Nothing.

I imagine I must have made a rather funny view, dumbly staring at the wooden wall in front of me. Although one could forgive my small lapse if my current situation were to be considered.

Without a doubt I could be excused for immediately leaving my safe abode in order to…well…go home.

It was sunrise when I emerged from the entrance to the beaver dam and most likely the reason I woke up. After all the dam did let some light through. Obviously my first order of business was to retrace my path of the previous day and find the forest track I was happily hiking along yesterday before Land Lobster ambushed me with his nefarious plan of probably eating me alive.

Speaking of ambushes, I might be walking (swimming) into one right now.

Luckily I did not notice anything amiss with my eagle eyes when I finally reached the shore. Walking along the river I made sure to remember where I found my new hideout. It was simple Survival 101. A truly fortuitous day shined down on me, for I did not meet any abominations on my whole journey. Said excursion might also take some time since I ran and swam quiet a bit yesterday, yet I was sure to find the way in time.

The actually smart reader must have realized by now that I didn't find the way. Truly, I won't bother with the details of my search but to say, for those rather dim-witted individuals among you, that I could not find even a landmark I might have been able to orient myself on. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this journal now, would I? Even so I kept pursuing the slightest idea on where I could be and in the end I felt like I have walked in just about any direction one could imagine.

So there I was, sitting on a big rock on the shore of a river that, for all intend and purpose, shouldn't be there in the first place and feeling rightly weirded out. A rather curious feeling that would border on panic if I did not remember that I possess such a strange device known as a phone. Really, I am still surprised I didn't think of it earlier. Understandably I immediately reached for my phone in my right pocket, only to realize, that not only my phone but also my trousers were absent. Instead I was wearing plain and unknown black trousers and matching shoes.

Cue panic, my new friend, settling in with the subtlety of a cannon and the tact of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Yes, the one with the battery of cannons. Always wanted to play that instrument. What? It is one.

Swiftly I grabbed a fistful of whatever was on my torso, which turned out to be a plain white dress-shirt, wet from my recent dip. Rapidly turning in a circle I made a poor attempt in looking everywhere at once. I honestly do not remember much else that came immediately afterward. I recall a feeling of sickness washing over me accompanied by a coldness and tiredness that would have surprised me in any other occasion. Realizing my predicament I probably got the idea that water might help, which would explain why the next think I can recollect, was me kneeling in front of the water looking at its surface.

Its reflective surface.

A reflective surface that did not show my face.

Instead, a stranger was owlishly blinking at me.

I feel pretty embarrassed to admit it, but I am pretty sure that I blacked out there. Whatever it was, I became completely unresponsive to the outside world, at least that's what I think happened. Recalling anything feels rather uncomfortable and what little I do remember doesn't exactly help. As such I shall skip this part and resume my story where my memories are less impaired.

My hands were flitting across my entire head. Truly, on of the first reactions when confronted with something one doesn't believe to be true. It is astonishing how easy a person accepts something as fact as long as they can see and touch said fact. Ironically enough I decided to fall out of line and did not belief what I saw. I could not. How exactly could I be ever expected to belief that my very being, something so basic to oneself that it is more or less unnoticeable during day to day activity, has changed to such a degree that I should have noticed at least something!

At this point I would like to note, that from an outside perspective it might have been obvious that I have been self-inserted, yet I still could not make heads or tail of this all. Even now, as I write this in the sanctity of Rieden, I struggle to fully wrap my head around the fact that such a fantastic and improbable thing actually happened to me. I assure you, dear hypothetical reader, that I found out about my unique situation, which might not be as unique if one ponders the sheer amount of SI among all of the fanfiction in the world, in a timely manner before I could make a fool out of myself or worse, land yours truly in a padded cell.

However, lets not dwell on the current present and concentrate again on the past. Without further ado I shall give a basic description of my physical features in order to highlight the reasons for my anxious behaviour.

My hair was strange. Brown strands of hair shared headspace with black counterparts. No amount of messing with them removed whatever dirt I first suspected to be there. It wasn't like some sort of colouring, no, my hair was either an average brown or a pitch black without middle-ground. Even stranger was the way it was arranged on my head. It funnily enough reminded, still does, of a young deer. The top of my head was full of differently sized and formed spots of black hair with the number of them lessening the farther you go down the sides, front or back of my head.

Luckily it was still semi-short. Well, not short mind you, but also not overly long. Before…whatever happened…I kept my hair just about short enough, not to spill over my ears and that's it. Not the tidiest of hairstyles through what would you expect from someone whose life story presumably appears on a fanfiction site in a parallel world. I need a proper hobby. Being a computer science student is definitely not one.

Other than my hair I looked surprisingly (and why did it surprise me?) normal like I should be. Caucasian looks, green-grey eyes, although the green appears deeper and the grey rather light. I even retained my slight tan that I better mention here before someone believes me to be a walking corpse. Besides that I lacked any noticeable mark on my body. Before my self-description devolves into narcissism and I start spewing metaphors concerning the shape of my left toe, let me wrap this up: I am suffering a shortage of eye-catching features because I haven't developed them yet.

I looked like a kid no older than around thirteen.

Hello panic my old friend. How nice of you to come again.

Obviously I needed a fire. After all I was still a bit wet despite the summer-y weather doing its thing. It was afternoon. At some point I fell asleep. I am assuming it was somewhere between half-heartingly cursing out fate, karma or Cthulhu and starting to give my frustration physical value in the form of tears. I honestly don't know when what happened and I don't want to remember, not even for whoever is reading this. Especially not for you creeps!

Anyway, fire. Fire, Water, a hiding hole and food, in that order, are essential.

So…the question is, how did I achieve fire? Simply put, I pulled a Prometheus and I am not talking about the Prometheus' School of Running from Things™[1]. Mythology lesson inbound! According to some old Greek dude, probably either Homer, Plato or the famous Herodot of Harikarnas (or something), through I think Homer was a Roman…anyway, Prometheus took an oily stick and went close to the sun making the thing burn. Thus fire was invented. Huzzah.

Since I suffer a distinctive lack of flying capabilities, I needed to divine a suitable alternative to solve my predicament. My idea was the following:

1. Find a dry stick

2. Find some oily plant

3. Make the stick oily

4. Wait till its dry

5. Do the whole stick on dry board routine with some fuss found in my (hopefully) then dry clothes

6. Hope

7. Pray

A nice seven steps. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, it actually worked. My genius knowns no bounds! It was incredibly easy for an advanced specimen like me to quickly (not) find both the dry stick and an oily plant. Afterwards oily-fying the stick became a fast (not) and clean (not) matter. Obviously (not) my clothes dried out by the time the stick did. After few (many) attempts I managed to light a small flame through seemingly sheer hopefulness (-lessness) and accomplished (certainly not) to keep it alive. In short, I somehow achieved the creation of a small bonfire.

Next would be water, which was without a doubt a lot easier to manage. Having concerns about the purity of the water, I only needed to stare at the river for a little while to see an actual lobster, the kind that lives in rivers, scurrying across the riverbed. Luckily I was aware of the fact that these cute little creatures only appeared in the purest of water, making the river most likely safe to drink for now. Looking a bit downstream I saw my castle of wood and immediately ticked both water and sleeping place of my mental list.

Did I mention that by now I have worked up quit an appetite, making a perfect, if underappreciated, reminder of the fourth necessity: FOOD.

I took even my amazing intellect to come up with something.

Walking along the river-shore at a leisure pace I found fortune smiling upon me by discovering tracks near the river. Being not the most savvy trapper on the block, I wasn't exactly sure on how to proceed. So I decided to act on logic (for once).

Animals tend to return to a source of water in a regular interval and making their safe water spot "unsafe" might scare them away permanently. Luckily I did not intend to stay here for long.

Still, my smell might have scared away dinner, so I felt – still do – absolutely no shame bathing in mud in order to mask it.

I shall spare you the details of digging a hole and covering it with medium to small branches and leaves.

Of course, being in possession of such an ginormous intellect, I passed the time by making sure the glowy bits of the fire (or its corpse apparently) will survive till morrow by choking them with the ashy stuff. Supposedly it isolates. Afterwards I got the great idea of spear fishing and ended up sitting uncomfortably on my toes while holding a broken branch and staring at the whirling tides.

Considering I lied in wait on old wood at the edge of the beaver dam, it could be regarded as a small miracle that I – again – fell asleep.

I woke up – again.

Yet this time it was not due to light, but the lack thereof.

A shadow was looming over me and I almost didn't want to open my eyes in childish defiance.

I still did tho.

Was it a friend? Was it an enemy? No, it was an island!

A flying island.

Toto, you know the drill. Panic, drop the beat. Hysteria, how nice of you to visit.

[1]: CinemaSins. Watch their YouTube Channel. They are funny.

A.N.: It has come to my attention, that the common man is dissatisfied with the lenght of my exquisite chapters.

I would like to notify you plebs, that I shall gradually increase the amount of words per chapter as I go. Let it be clear for those unaware of true art, that the small chapters represent the protagonists inability to write a proper journal due to never having done such before. It serves as a sign of inexperience for the reader.

Also, I am certainly not making this up as I go.

Nonetheless, true art cannot be rushed and as an upstanding member of society I possess responsebilities that you probably don't.

Of course, as is proper, you shall leave a review of praise in order to compel me to release a new masterpiece earlier.

You guys also haven't guessed WHEN this story plays out.

Oh! gerome945?

Thank you.