Back in the forest, Lina checked her forearm. It had the mark on it, and she found the plant part in her fist.

“Okay, so the body is persisted while I am outside, like a character in a videogame. I wonder what else there is that is like that. But before we go there, let’s think about survival.”

She always talked to herself, when she was alone. Being in an alien dimension slash videogame was not a good enough reason to stop this useful habit.

Anyway, survival basics: oxygen, drink, food, shelter. She wasn’t sure if the air actually contained any oxygen, since she had no idea how her current body functioned, but rest assured, breathing was not a problem for the time being. To find food and drinks, she will need to experiment with the plants and look around for a source of drinkable water. Shelter… that was a tricky one. She could theoretically stay in a cave or similar, but she had no idea if there was one in the vicinity. Alternatively, she might build one, but without tools and materials, the best she could hope for was to break off a few branches from a bigger plant with leaves, and somehow fix them together, with vines, for example. Not that she had any idea about what the weather will be like here. Putting that aside, making fire could also be important, for providing heat and light - assuming that the nights were actually dark and cold. Also, that there were nights here.

“Damn! Too many assumptions and only one Lina to experiment, never a good combination!” - she swore out loud, which made her feel better.

Looking back at her scant clothing, she also added making clothes to the increasing list of tasks. The colonel told her that they don’t want to transfer anything artificial here, and she didn’t question this decision then - not even suspecting that she will be requested to spend several days in this world - but now, thinking about it, that didn’t make any sense. She was sure that the artifact already scanned everything on the other side, technology, clothes, people, everything, so whether something actually gets replicated on this side or not, it’s a moot point. This will be the first point in her report, she decided, and turned her mind back to the survival thing.

One thing to keep in mind: you need to be able to orient yourself. You can find the best food, build the greatest shelter, but if you can’t remember where they were when you need them, it’s like they never existed. So, first thing: let’s memorise the entry point.

Looking around, she couldn’t see anything that was unique enough to be visible from further away, nor anything that she could use for marking the place. That left only her clothing.

Tearing off a piece of cloth looks so easy in the movies. It wasn’t that, though. Lina spent several minutes trying to rip a part of the sports bra off, then used her teeth to try and wear it out, frequently stopping the effort for swearing loudly. At the end, she succeeded, and was a proud owner of a strip of white textile. Also, a partially ruined bra, which still served her to some extent, but made her feel like she was in a low budget horror movie. Adding a mental exclamation mark to the ‘make clothes’ task from earlier, she tied the strip around the closest tree, just above her head height. She hoped that this and tracking her own footsteps back will be sufficient.

Next, she broke a straight branch off of a bush, maybe two feet long, and cleaned it, creating something that wasn’t exactly a staff, more like a rod. Totally useless for self defense, but helpful for drawing marks on the ground. Immediately, she drew a circle at the starting position, drawing the end of the branch around herself several times to make the mark easy to see, and then drew a line in one direction, marking the way she planned to go.

The direction was not randomly selected. Lina picked the way where there was more light, figuring that open water would mean less vegetation, but even if there was no water, just an opening between the trees, she would see further from there. With regularly marking the ground and breaking parts of the plants down to leave a visible trail, she walked towards the light in a more or less straight line..

A few minutes later, she started noticing a change in the vegetation. The ‘trees’, as she called the tall plants internally, started growing shorter and sparser, giving space to a bigger number of bushes. Luckily, this wasn’t the uncrossable mass of branches and thorns that you often see on Earth; the bushes had an easily identifiable half spherical shape, and they tended to keep a short distance from each other, never quite touching. Very soon, Lina noticed a yellow and blue dotted shape on one of them. A closer look revealed that it was a fruit or berry, growing from the underside of the leaf for some reason. Peeking under a few other leaves, Lina collected a handful of these, with varying colors and size.

Earth logic dictated that the bigger, more colorful ones were more ripe, as these would catch the attraction of herbivores, and help with spreading the seeds of the plant. However, there were so many assumptions in this chain of thoughts that Lina decided to forget the idea itself, and just try each one of them without trying to guess which ones were better. Hoping that she wouldn’t be poisoned, she bit into one, and kept it in her mouth for a second to check the taste.

“Savoury with a tang of something unique. A bit like a tomato, a bit like mushroom, and a lot like nothing I ever tasted. Can eat this, if I have to.” - she muttered, then started sampling the others.

She didn’t really note an obvious logic about how the ‘fruits’ tasted, but she preferred the ones she picked from the parts which were further away from the center of the bush.

“I will name this thing sangee” - she decided, trying the word - “Yeah, sounds good. We will see in a few hours if the sangee is poisonous or not. Hopefully not, though, and if it is, let’s hope I won’t die from this much.”

She was surprised about this thought. It felt really disconnected, like death didn’t matter at all.

“Remember, Lina, however much this feels like a videogame, there is no respawn here… I guess. That’s not an experiment I would voluntarily try.”

Something reacted to her voice, moving in a bush next to her, probably running away. She crouched down to take a peek between the leaves, but she couldn’t see anything.

“Okay, let’s just whisper from now on” - she whispered to herself - “we don’t want anything bigger than this to notice us.”

Memorising the shape of the leaves on the sangee bush, she started walking in the original direction, keeping an eye out for other interesting plants. She found a few more sangee bushes in the area, then a different type of bush took over, then another. She found one that had thin but strong vines, and collected a few of these, using her teeth again for cutting them off. Then, another interesting bush with leaves that formed jug-like shapes, containing some liquid and a big seed pod in the middle. A vine held them at the top, hanging in the air.

“Ha! Pitcher plants, trying to catch me, the little fly! I am not that naïve! Or am I… we still don’t know the insect situation in the world… hmm.”

As it was the first possible source she saw to gather some liquid, she decided to try it. Carefully, she approached one, then, using her wooden wand, nudged the vine and the leaf. Getting more brave with the lack of any reaction, she grabbed the vine, and broke it in two, keeping the part with the jug in her hand.

It seemed to contain a good amount of liquid. Peeking inside, she didn’t notice any dead insects, the liquid was clear, and didn’t smell of anything. She sploshed it around, checking the viscosity, noting that it was similar to that of water.

Using the thin part of the vine that held the seed pod in the liquid, she fished it out and inspected it. The walls were translucent green, giving her the impression of the contents which looked like a bag of marbles. Kneeling down and placing it on the ground, she turned her attention back to the jug.

“So, visually it is good. Smell is good. Nothing to listen to. We have touch and taste left. Let’s start with the touch.”

Carefully, she touched the wet part of the pod with her little finger. Not feeling any stickiness or burning, she carefully dipped the same finger in the liquid in the jug. Still nothing. She lifted the finger out, and placed the single drop of liquid that stuck to it on her tongue.

Water. Pure, maybe a hint of plant taste, but nothing more than that.

Lifting the jug, she took a sip of it in her mouth, and waited. Feeling nothing unexpected, she swallowed it.

“One more way to get poisoned. This will be an exciting night.”