Episode 1 - Another John

So, I have this space of time that I'm trying to use up. I didn't get any suggestions, so I'm thinking of doing some creative writing. Specifically, at the moment, I'm thinking of doing a series of linked short stories. How exactly that's going to work, I'm not sure - whether they'll be like chapters of a book, or like completely different stories but within the same time/place, I don't know. And I don't know if I'll even be able to keep it going. I'm notoriously bad with this.

***

Episode 1 - Another John

Everyone seemed to be called John. He wasn't everyone, but he was still called John. That's logic for you.

John looked around. There wasn't much of interest here; he was on a dirt road going through a fairly open grassy area of the countryside, and he couldn't really see anyone else at all.

John kept walking.

John looked around again. He had travelled a bit further, but there wasn't much that had changed; he thought he could vaguely see something near the horizon in the direction he was travelling, so that was probably something.

John kept walking in the same direction.

John was a bit closer to the something now. Close enough to tell that it was something reasonably sizeable; bigger than just a person, or a person riding on a horse, or indeed a horse riding on a person. He thought it also seemed to be somewhat stable; it wasn't moving towards him. Or if it was, it was doing it incredibly slowly.

John continued to walk in a similar direction.

John could now tell that this something was, in fact, a town of some description. That is, it was some collection of living residences in a fairly contained area. It could have been a city, or maybe just a hamlet; but a town seemed most likely, so that was the word that he stuck with.

John maintained his journeying direction for a while longer.

John, at this point, came upon a sign, which was very nice, considering that he had barely seen anything the last few times he had looked except a town that still seemed to be quite far away. The sign, in fact, confirmed this, reading: "Town - Quite Far Away". As such, he resigned himself to quite a long distance of travelling left before he reached the town.

John decided to check his supplies. He looked in his bag, and found that he only had one bottle of water and two apples left. This might be enough to get him a bit further, but he would need to find more to get him to the town in any decent state. Of course, there wasn't anything particular in the town that he was going to, so it didn't really matter if he looked somewhat dishevelled, but he would appreciate not being starved and thirsty as he stumbled in fatigued through the town doors.

John began to dig for water. Or, rather, he started to scrape at the ground with his hands, before realising that without a shovel or digging tool of some sort, he would dehydrate long before hitting water. Besides which, the digging would probably make the water muddy and undrinkable.

John decided to look around again. He once again saw the sign, but the sign didn't look particularly appetising. There were trees around, but it didn't look like there were any that had fruit on them. And in terms of game, there was nothing bigger than a mouse out there. And they were finicky to catch at the best of times - besides which, he had no way to cook the meat, even if he had procured some.

John ran flat out to the town like there was no tomorrow, because he could totally make it there without even breaking a sweat.

John lay flat on the ground about a hundred metres from the town, collapsed from exhaustion. His throat was so dry, but he didn't have the energy to reach into his pack and get his water out. And even if he did, he had thrown away the pack when he had started running, because he could run faster without it. He had come so close, but now he was going to die in the dirt, and it didn't even matter anymore.

John's eyes closed.

John's eyes opened, but he couldn't see anything. Where was he?

***

As you may or may not have realised, I've gone with almost a text game-like pattern; where you have these regular points at which you choose what it is you do, and the game tells you what happens next. Each new paragraph is an instance of that.

So, where is John now? If I get any good suggestions between now and the next time I write, I'll try and use them - otherwise, you'll have to wait and see. Though, who knows, I might end up using someone different...