Dayz Diary – Day 4 – “I’m alive! I can touch, I can feel, I can fondle — I’m alive! Don’t you think it’s incredible? I AM ALIVE!!!!”

Day 4

I awake near the coast, the tide is lapping on my feet as the swell pushes the sea onto the shoreline. A few moments of peace descends as the sun shines on my back and the wind gently drifts through the trees…

Wait a minute, didn’t this happen 3 days ago? What kind of random groundhog day am I living in. In fact where’s my Andie MacDowell in a cute knitted jumper? Where’s my alarm clock? Why the fuck am I not reliving that day I met those cute Norwegian twins!

So, I can’t die. I can lose all my stuff and end up right back where I started but I can’t really die. It’s like… a superpower.

I am YOLO-Man, granted the power to do anything without thinking of the consequences.

The first thing I do with my new found powers is eat a rotten banana. Why? Because YOLO, that’s why. Fuck you sickness, I’ll get better or literally die trying. I look about, I’m on the coast and went north last time to avoid the major cities and the hordes of potential bandits they might hold. Would you like to guess which direction I ran this time?

After solidly running with not even a vague attempt to look for food or water for about 5-10 minutes I run up on somewhere very familiar. Kamyshovo. I pause for two seconds to look in a couple of near by houses…. I now have a fire extinguisher. I like to think of this as part of my costume as YOLO-man, running headlong into danger with only a highly explosive compressed chemical container strapped to my back. If I can find a petrol tank so much the better…

My body starts to let me know about a very strange taste in my mouth. I politely inform my body that it just ate a rotten banana and it should probably learn to accept the taste of rotten food…. also YOLO.

Halfway through the village I enter a house, if I’m going to make the run down to Elektrozavadosk, the massive city down the road, I’d probably eat and drink at least something before running into the middle of the city with no clothes on and a fire extinguisher. I eat a can of tuna and as I scout the house I hear an awful rustling sound. It’s not footsteps as preceded the emptying of my brains last time but a strange noise I’ve not heard before. I creep nervously round the back, the noise gets louder as I prepare to nervously open the back door….

I consider simply running away but the reassuring bulk of the fire extinguisher on my back remind me that YOLO-Man doesn’t run away from danger. I stride purposefully out the back of the house, fully prepared for the inevitable hail of bullets that awaits me.

What I actually find is a fully kitted out bandit face down and bleeding. He’s fallen in such a way that the M4 strapped to his back is knocking against a chair outside. YOLO-Man is not one to linger when called upon to do the right thing in such a situation. Within a minute I’ve stripped the unlucky bandit of his gun, clothes, back pack, vest, camo jacket and any useful items I see in his trousers.

This guy was obviously a pro, he has, I mean had, two canteens full of water plus another bottle of water, enough food to last a week, more than 300 rounds of ammo for the M4 which in itself has a scope, bayonet and tripod. I am the most tooled up I’ve ever been since the start of this adventure.

A creeping feeling starts to wash over me…. I’m thirsty, hungry and sick and I’ve basically hit the jackpot. Suddenly YOLO takes on a new meaning, I may not die permanently but as we’re so often told “you don’t get to take it with you”. That’s fine when your worldly possessions are a few tins of food and a readily available axe, when you’ve happened upon the holy grail of survival. I may only get to live this chance once!

Panic sets in, I gobble down some anti-biotics and painkillers from my haul as well as some food and the canteens of water. I’m at least not thirsty or hungry but I’m still not feeling well. I’m now sure that the DayZ Gods have the worst sense of humour ever. One rotten sodding banana.

I hear some rustling from the front of the house, I hoist the M4 into my hands and creep round. A hiker tries to sneak past my building wielding an axe. Another split second decision and the hiker is face down on the floor riddled with lead. I check his pockets, not much more than a morphine pen. Dat axe tho…

Again I start to feel vulnerable, out in the open on a main road within easy running distance of several places. I run across the road and into the tree line, the sickness gets worse as I climb higher into the nearby hillside. I start to feel faint, my vision dulls becoming grayer and blurry round the edges. I drink some more water, trying to keep myself as healthy as possible. At the top of the hill I pause, no one can see me here so it’s time to decide where I go next.

To the south-west is Elektrozavadosk, a big city potentially full of loot and danger. To the north stretches the rolling hillsides and fields of Chernarus, lots of small villages, less danger…

As I start making my way across the hill, heading inexorably south-west, I think ‘Maybe YOLO-Man isn’t quite as dead as I thought’….