During the night I must have woken up four or five times, either due to the cold or the pain of my wounds. At some point I had found myself sleeping against Nora’s belly, her warm fur and body temperature staving off the night’s chill. It was still dark when I woke up, but the sky was a little brighter so I gave up on trying to sleep. As I lay there, trying not to move too much and not breathe too deeply, I was thinking about what happened yesterday.

If what Nora said is true then it will be a very long time before I'm out of the woods... Hehe, I'm funny... Anyways, I need to travel slowly to give myself time to forage and hunt as I go. But I can't just eat meat and steelthorn berries, I'll need veggies eventually. Ugh... Veggies... So healthy and yet so gross... I'll have to forage around to find some. Dad tried to teach me how, on those few times we went camping. He was always bringing home strange things to eat from his hiking trips, I really should’ve paid more attention. But even if I did, most of these plants are nothing like what I've seen before. What will veggies here even look like? I guess I'll just have to wing it...

Groaning, I struggled to my feet. I tried to get up without bending my torso but even so, I still felt several scabs split along my legs and back. The throbbing pain that coursed up and down my body, while not as bad as the migraines that those flowing colors caused, still made me squeeze my eyes shut and release a shuddering breath.

After standing as still as possible, getting used to pulsing pain, I opened my eyes. Nora was looking at me, blatantly concerned.

"I'll be ok," I said. "I'm just going to get some water and wash these cuts."

Nora didn't respond, but stood up and shook the leaves and dirt off. She looked down at me and nodded.

"Are you coming with me?"

She nodded again.

"Neat." A big wolf like her will keep the baddies off me...

Staring up at Nora, with her staring back down at me, reminded me just how massive she was. When she was standing, I could walk under her pretty easily. Her long legs ending in paws as big as my chest, with wicked sharp claws. And, despite being huge, she looked built for speed and stealth with her sleek form and black fur. Her ears seemed longer than the usual wolf in comparison to her size, and they were pointed straight up. Long sharp teeth were revealed as her lips pulled back in a grin. Golden eyes, lit with amusement, stared back into mine. Ah crap, I was staring...

"Sorry," I mumbled. "I was just thinking that it's a good thing you're on my side."

Nora chortled as I grabbed a spear leaning against the fallen tree. I'll come back for the other stuff.

"Come on, let's go."

The pace was slow because I had to stop every ten feet or so to catch my breath. What was a five minute walk to the stream turned out to be 30 minutes. Nora was kind enough to walk beside me and offer a leg to lean against when I needed it.

The stream was smart enough to stay right where I left it. The water bubbled along cheerfully as I knelt down by the edge, leaning heavily on my spear. I set the spear to the side and started to unwrap the vine rope I had used to hold the cloth to my chest. Flakes of dried blood crumbled off, littering the ground around me. The makeshift bandages didn't need the rope anymore as they were glued to my chest. Using my fingernails, I picked at the edges of the cloth. Once I was able to get a grip on one side, I gently pulled at the bandage.

Oh son of a biscuit... this is a lot worse than peeling off a bandaid!

I had to stop and take a deep breath.

Ok, this sucks. Maybe if I soak in the stream for a bit the bandages won’t be so glued to me.

With that train of thought in my head, I sat back on my butt instead of my heels and scooted my butt into the stream. I swung around so I was facing downstream and lay back to let the water flow over my shoulders and chest. The cold water felt amazing on the burning cuts across my body, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The cuts across my arms and legs were small and had scabbed over last night, but they still stung. Obviously what hurt the worst was the three large slashes across my back and chest. Those radiated pain and heat. The only reason I was able to be coherent was because they couldn’t compare to the pain of the rainbow portal thingy that brought me here.

After a few minutes of soaking, I decided to try to remove the bandages. I sat up and got out of the stream. Kneeling next to the stream again, I picked at the bandages. This time I was able to pull them off... only to discover that the scabs had come off with the cloth. Blood started leaking down my chest while I got the rest of the bandages of my chest and back. Looking at my chest wounds, they didn’t seem to be as deep as I had thought. They would have most likely required stitches, but I didn’t have anything to sew them with. My back was most likely worse than my front, but there was even less that I could do for those cuts because I couldn’t really reach them.

I spent some time there at the stream washing the makeshift bandages clean of dried blood and dirt. I also washed the cordage that I tied the bandages with. By the time I had everything clean and spread out on a seemingly clean patch of grass, I was covered in blood again. To fix this, I splashed myself with water and used one strip of torn cloth to dry myself a bit. It didn’t do much good because that cloth was also wet, but I was able to get the excess water off of me.

After wiping myself somewhat dry, I tried to do a better job placing the bandages, and re-tied the cord around my torso to hold the cloth tightly in place.

"Alright Nora, let's go get my stuff and get out of here. What do you say?" I asked, shakily getting to my feet using my spear as a cane.

She barked.

The walk back to camp was slightly steadier than the walk to the stream. All my stuff was still where I left them. My makeshift cloth bag was laying next to the fallen tree, one of the antlers was also leaning against the trunk. The other antler was suspended over the remains of my campfire by a tripod of long sticks.

“Before we leave, I’m gonna take a quick inventory of what I have, alright?” I said, walking over to my bag.

I knelt down next to my bag and promptly dumped everything out on the dry leaves of the forest floor. I spread everything out and counted them all. I had 10 steelthorn thorns, 28 steelthorn berries, 4 of the shark-like wolf teeth, and 20 strips of dire wolf jerky. I looked around my camp to see what else I had. I had 1 atlatl thrower, 2 big antlers, and 1 spear. I would’ve had more spears if it weren’t for that armadillo mountain lion.

Wait a second. My first spear broke when the lion landed on it, but the second spear just bounced off of it. It shouldn’t be broken!

“Hey Nora,” I said, trying to remember which direction I had thrown it in. “I should have a second spear just like this one somewhere in those bushes over there or in that area.” At least I think that’s the right direction. “Can you see if you can find it for me?”

She barked and wandered off in the direction I pointed.

Hmm, that armadillo lion also had some seriously sharp claws and... what’s it called? Chitin?... something like that. Maybe I could make myself some armor out of it or use it for something else.

I started repacking everything back into my bag, leaving 2 strips of jerky out for me to eat. Losing a lot of blood really took it out of me and while I didn’t know much about the human body I did know that I needed to eat more to replenish the lost blood.

My bag was packed, my atlatl was sticking out of the top near my right shoulder for easy access. The pressure of the bag on my back hurt, but I needed my hands free for self-defense and to do other things, so I tried to ignore it. I decided that the antlers were too big for me to take along, so I left them where they were. I munched on the jerky as I waited for Nora to return.

Ok, my current situation isn’t good. I’m shirtless, I’m shoeless, I’m almost pantless, I don’t have any good tools to use, I don’t have anything that can hold water, and I’m possibly months to years away from civilization. I need to get kitted out, I need...

My inner thoughts froze as I noticed something lying near a bush.

...that.

What I had noticed was the dead rabbit that Nora had brought me yesterday. I had forgotten about it and hadn't noticed it before because of its mottled green and brown fur. It blended into its surroundings.

Camo leather! Oh heck yeah!... wait a second, how do I make leather? I have no idea... I should probably hole up somewhere and do some experiments until I find out how. I could make myself some leather clothes, which would be great, especially in the winter, and make some actual shoes. While I experiment to make leather, I should also make myself some tools. It would have to be stone... or bone. These wolf teeth are sharp!

Speaking of wolves, Nora came trotting back into camp with my second spear in her mouth.

“You found it! That’s great. I’m all packed and good to go, but I have one more thing I wanted to ask. That big lion creature that attacked me yesterday, did you kill it?” I asked, standing up to go.

She walked up to me and I took the spear from her. She growled and shook her head no.

“Well that sucks,” my shoulders slumped, “There goes my plate armor plan. Next time I guess. Another thought I had, Nora, was that I need better clothes and tools. Do you know of any safe caves or outcroppings that we can live in for a few days while I figure out how to make things? Preferably in that direction.” I pointed towards the river.

Nora tilted her head at me and seemed to be thinking. Her ears perked up and she gave a bark.

“How far away is it? Do you think we can get there by tonight?”

Nora looked me up and down, then looked at the sun which had risen a little more than an hour ago, and barked. She looked at me again, then tentatively growled.

“So what you’re saying is that the location is close but because I’m slow we might not make it before nightfall?”

She barked.

“Well, let’s get going,” I sighed.

We started heading off in the direction of the river but veered slightly to the right. The sun had risen to the right, so the river was to the north of us and we were heading in a northeastern direction.

The forest was loud, birds singing, bugs chirping, animals yapping, and some beast was roaring in the distance. Beautiful.

We also ran into some more steelthorn bushes... Well, we weren't doing any running nor did we go into the bush so technically we just found the bushes... Anyways, I snagged some berries to eat as we walked past. I did see a different kind of berry a few hours into our travels but as I reached out to grab some Nora growled at me. There didn't seem to be any thorns on the bush, and the berries were small and red.

As we walked the terrain started to become hillier and rockier. Trees were still everywhere, because we were still in the forest, but we started having to walk around boulders and climb up and down hills. All in all, it was a terrible time for me. I had to stop frequently to regain my breath and let my head un-fuzz. After every few stops or so, I pulled out a slice of jerky to munch on.

I didn’t try to ration the jerky I had for three reasons. The first was because I was unsure if I had properly smoked the meat, so I couldn’t be sure how long it would last. The second reason was I needed the protein to recover as quickly as I could. Lastly, I had a friendly giant of a wolf in the form of Nora, and she had already proven herself capable of hunting for more meat. With Nora, I was sure that I wouldn’t be having food problems anytime soon.

And although getting scurvy was a free pass to get to sing “You are a Pirate,” I didn’t want it. I couldn’t just eat meat, so I also munched on the berries I had. When we saw a steelthorn bush we stopped to refill my bag with more berries.

Besides becoming super sweaty and out of breath, and the periodical breaks and berry refills, there wasn’t much new going on. That is until in the late afternoon Nora suddenly stopped, ears pointed straight up and facing forward. I stopped as well, wondering what the hack she heard. She turned on me and used her muzzle to nudge me towards a boulder.

“What is it?” I asked in a whisper, “Is there something over there? Want me to hide by this boulder?”

She looked me in the eyes and didn’t bark, but nodded instead. I got the memo.

Shut up Seth! Of course there’s something over there. Nora wouldn’t be acting like this if there wasn’t.

I crouched next to the boulder, right hand tightening around the two shafts of my spears. My ears strained to catch whatever it was that Nora had heard, but the only thing I was able to hear was the sound of my pounding heart. Nora was standing right next to me, peering around the boulder. I slowly moved closer to the side and peeked around as well.

Nothing but forest. I didn’t see anything. Come to think of it, I didn’t hear anything as well. No birds, no bugs, nothing. We waited there for a minute or so when I finally heard something. Something big was coming. I could hear large footfalls coming ahead of us and slightly to the left. A movement caught my eye. A vague shape moving slowly through the trees. A few more steps and I was able to see it.

It reminded me of a dinosaur that I had seen in a book way back when I was a kid. It walked on four legs and had a large shell on its back like a turtle, except it had several short spikes all over the shell. Its head was wide and flat with rhino-like horns, and it had a large tail that was as long as the rest of its body. At the tip of the tail was a large ball that was almost as big as its head. I should also mention that the thing was massive, definitely bigger than an elephant.

What was the dinosaur called?... Ankle-saurus? Ah, no. It was Ankylosaurus. This guy here looks similar, but he has, like, a full shell, spikier spikes, and rhino horns. Pretty sure the dinosaur didn’t have those. The fact that I’m seeing a dinosaur right now doesn’t bode well for me. I really don’t want to be facing any clever girls anytime soon.

Eventually the dino moved on and Nora finally stepped out from behind the boulder.

“Hey Nora,” I said, breaking the silence. “Do we still have a long way to go before we get there?”

Nora looked at me and barked.

“Do you think I can hitch a ride on your back so we can get there before sunset?”

She grinned and barked.

I sighed with relief, “Ok good, I don’t think I could take much more walking.”

My legs felt like jelly, and my chest and back were burning with pain. Heat seemed to radiate from my torso, pulsing with my every movement. So I was glad Nora was willing to carry me the rest of the way.

She had to lay flat on her stomach for me to even reach her back, and I was only to get myself up with great effort. Effort which caused one of the cuts on my back to open up again. I felt hot blood seep through the makeshift bandages and work its way slowly down my back.

I sat behind her shoulder blades and dug my hands into her fur to get a good grip, because my legs weren’t long enough to straddle properly. I set my spears diagonally across my lap and pinned them with my elbows. The spear tips were pointing over her right back leg and the butt of the spears over her left shoulder... ok, I shouldn’t say “over” because Nora was big and the spears aren’t that long. But that was the orientation that I held the spears

“Alright Nora, we’re good to go.”

She barked, stood up, and took off.

Oh my goodness... I bet I look so cool right now!