"why does this have such a low rating? …why is there no discussion? … …oh, it's really, really new. Haha, don't mind me!"
Anyway, what I wanted to say, after "I'm totally looking forward to the next part" is that the tense(s) of buddy's bit was (were) constantly flipping between past and present. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:
"Buddy picked up the sound of commotion up ahead and proceeds to travel onward."
Sentences like this were so prevalent that I thought it might have been on purpose. Is it on purpose? If all the tense discrepancies were carefully planned and it means something that I'm missing because literature will never be my strong suit, just ignore me!
However, if you would like me to go through and rewrite portions of certain sentences (perhaps give you some options?) to make all the tenses the same, I would be happy to lend my fresh eyes.
But like I said, if I'm just missing it, I would hate to go through something you've obviously put a lot of thought and work into and fuck it up, just for you to revert the whole thing to the way you wanted it in the first place.