In the morning
"Wake up, wake up!" A loud, demanding voice pounded down from above in hard, bursting phrases until your eyelids fluttered open to reveal a muddied mug fur of the guide from the day before.
"W-wha!?" Blinking rapidly, you tried to figure out when you'd even fallen asleep. "W-when did I-"
"You passed out when the sun rose, like most of us. Only time we can seem to sleep." He paused, hacking out a rough cough into his arm before he offered a furred hand down. For a second, you jolted at the sight of your own body spilling across the dusty patch you'd slept on. You wondered, to yourself, "How can that be me?" But, when you shifted to get up, the sudden ache that pulsed through every muscle sent the message sinking home: those were yours and they were tired.
"Up. We have to rebuild-" they demanded again. You yanked yourself upright, teetering slightly as you stared around the space. The rough structures from before were all weathered and slumping towards the ground with slates of wood broken through and dangling off the stacked lean-tos.
"Ugh..." Working by hand, every chakat in the small group, who you were starting to recognize, began to re-stack the pieces of their basic shelters. As the day stretched one, by mid-day, you realized that the size of the group was growing. More stragglers began to stumble into town all with the same shared dazed expressions plastered over their faces.
"My fingers... are aching!" you whined, looking down at the scuffed and mangled fur from a morning of labor.
"We're almost done... The shelters look as they were at least-"
"So... a nap maybe?"
A laugh was all that responded to your question.
"Now we explore, newbie." A chortle followed. "Unless you'd like to survive doing this endless cycle forever and never find a way to sign out."
Written by Picklessauce69 on 29 December 2016