CH 9

Day three

…

It’s snowing today. That sucks for me. If I go out there I’ll probably catch a cold and die. Well I think I have enough wood for the fire. But what should I do for today. I can’t hunt or gather food but I can make that spear thing I was thinking about yesterday.

I should collect mana if nothing else. I wasn’t before because I needed to focus fully on the situation at hand. Now that I can’t do anything I’ll start gathering mana. And with it snowing like this that means that there’s a bit more ice mana than in usual places.

I grab one of the bigger sticks and pull out my dagger. I take an end and start to shave off wood from one side of the stick. I keep whittling one edge of the stick so that the point will be sturdier. After I finish carving the point of the one end I decide to go out to gather more wood and branches that aren’t too far from the base. The snow hasn’t letting up and I’m afraid it won’t stop until tomorrow or the next day so I have to prepare for the worst.

…

I had just finished laying more branches on top of my shelter when I noticed something. The snow wasn’t as cold as it usually was. I’m not going to question it and enjoy my luck. The sky is slowly getting darker. I never did see the sun today. I hope I can catch a glimpse of it tomorrow.

“But I don’t feel the need to go to sleep yet so what should do?”

I grab another half of a meat strip to chew on as I think of something proactive to do. But instead of proactive ideas I just remember my family and the home that I have to get back to.

“Ok… Ok… proactive things proactive things. There’s no time to get depressed or I’ll never see them again.”

Oh I know. I can take some of the cloth and turn them into strips so that I can use them for something else latter. I take the five pieces of clothe that I had cut the fray of off, and start turning them into inch wide strips. By the time the sky became completely dark I had cut up two of the pieces of cloths into 12 strips of cloth strands.

…

Day four

…

The night was quiet while the snow continuously fell. The fire burned pretty low last night but it never went out. I slept like a rolling stone, tossing and turning, never really falling asleep and always on edge. But nothing moved outside and not a sound was heard, which only pushed me to be more alert.

As the sun started to rise the snow began to lighten up. It didn’t stop but it wasn’t anything major enough to stop me from getting things done. I just hope that the animals go out today and leave me some fresh tracks to fallow.

I eat another half of a meat strip leaving me only two more pieces for emergencies. Now my mouth is dry, better drink some snow. Aww now that hits the spot. Now if I’m going to go hunting I’ll need my makeshift spear, my dagger, and my bag.

Which way should I go? I want to go in one general direction so that I won’t get lost. Hum I think I’ll go hunt to the south of the rock today. I don’t know where I am in relation to the village but if north is where the dangerous beasts are I’ll try to avoid that area for now.

…

I’ve been walking for a while now. I still haven’t seen any traces of any beasts. The snow has finally stopped so animals should be coming out right about now.

The sun is still fairly high in the sky so I don’t need to head back yet.

Hu. Is that a paw print? It isn’t too big, but anything is better than nothing.

WHERE. Where is the next one. I need to find a trail to find the animal that made it.

There it is! It looks like it was heading northwest. Got to remember that, don’t want to get lost now.

…

The sun is starting to get low.

“Dang it!”

Nothing, I got absolutely nothing from a days’ worth of hunting, or walking. It seems like there isn’t anything

to the south so I better look some ware else tomorrow.

Now if I was going northwest just now and I started by going south I should be able to find my own trail if I head east. That makes sense right. I don’t have time to walk the whole way back along the trail I made. I guess I will have to try and find my trail as I head back. I really hope this works.

…

After walking a ways the sun had met the ground and was setting fast. I still haven’t found the trail. But I have found out that all trees look the same after a while. I really hope I’m not going crazy.

…

There are some of my foot prints finally. The sun is almost gone completely now. My footprints are going that way so I have to go the other way to get back to my rock. Man I got to hurry up there isn’t much time till the sun sets completely.

“hu hu hu, Made it.”

I slip into my shelter and put some sticks onto the pile of coals that used to be my fire. Wait coals.

“No no no no no.”

I don’t have time to go all the way over and start a new fire. Night is here and I need that fire now.

“Dang it Martoel stop being so forgetful.”

Think man what can I do. I have to act fast before the coals cool down too much. Wait that’s it the coals I’m saved, maybe. If I gather the coals together now I might be able to make the coals hot enough to start another fire.

Ok first I have to gather the coals into a pile, preferably without burning my hands. I’ll use a stick to pull the coals and ash together into a pill. Now I’ll need to add more fuel for the new fire. I place little sticks onto the pile of coals and grab a strip of cloth. I rip it in half and wrap it around two slightly bigger sticks. I don’t have time try this again so I better use what I’ve got to make this work on the first try. Now I’ll try to, hopefully, get the fire to start up again. I start to blow onto the pile of coals, ash, and sticks in an attempt to restart the fire I let die as I was gone.

“Haaaa Hoooo Haaaa Hoooo Haaaa Hoooo.”

I start to fall into a steady rhythm of breathing in and blowing out onto my pile of coals. Come on this has to work I won’t last the night without this fire. Come on… light dang it light.

But it doesn’t light. But I’m not going to stop trying until it lights. With every time I blow onto the pile of coals I start to see a faint glow in the coals only for it to fade away again as I breathe in. But slowly they get brighter in between the breaths and start to last till I can blow on them again. That faint light keeps driving me to continue to blow on the coals. Even though my lunges burn more than they do I don’t stop blowing. As more time goes on my breath start to become more raged and the coals have a slight orange glow to them. The sun had set a long time ago but I still keep on trying to light this fire. I don’t even feel cold but I need this fire so I won’t stop until it is lit.

And then it happens. A slight ember catches onto one of the cloth strips that were wrapped around one of the sticks. Finally the fire had starting again but if I left it alone it would die instantly. So I continue to blow on the embers with a new found determination. I reached back and grabbed some of the sticks that where in my shelter. I begin to pile a few sticks onto the embers as they slowly burn and catch onto the one another in the fire pit.

After fighting for so long to start this fire again I start to feel my body fade. But I can’t yet and so I lay there with one eye open watching the rekindled flames burn anew, constantly observing so that I can make shore that I don’t forget to care for it. I’m not letting it die again.

…

Day five

…

“Awww.”

Thank goodness the fire hasn’t burned out while I was asleep. The sun is peeking over the ground now so the day has just begun.

“grumble grumble”

Hmm now that I think about it I still need to eat. I didn’t eat last night since I was too worried about the fire at the time to notice. Man I won’t last if I keep eating like this, or not eating to be more accurate. That’s it no food today until I find something else to eat. There aren’t many edible plants in the ever frost and many animals sleep during this time so this will be much harder than any other time I might do this. Well I think so anyway.

Ok the things that I can eat are cooked meat from any animal I happen to catch, any nuts or berries that might be growing, and finally some plants that aren’t supposed to kill me. Man I have great odds of lasting a month out here…

“Ahh who am I kidding.”

Well I won’t get anything done like this so I better start hunting again. I think I’ll head to the west today in the hopes of find something to eat, whether that’s meat or not. Man I hope I can get some meat.

“Oh yeah.”

Almost forgot I have to pile more wood onto the fire so that it doesn’t burn out like last time. Man I’m an idiot some times. I really don’t want to have to restart this fire two days in a row.

…

There that should be good there’s a big log in there today so it should last for longer than yesterday. Now that’s taken care of I can head out to find food. But I shouldn’t take all day or I might have to rekindle the fire again.

“humm”

I’ll head back sooner today but I’ll figure out when sooner is after I start the hunt.

“Ok let’s go.”

…

Yes a trail. And the sun hasn’t even risen too far into the sky yet. Ok if I look at these tracks I can see that the animal was heading north. I hope this wasn’t the trail I found the other day.

“Grumble”

And I better find some food today if I want to eat anytime soon.

…

Aww man. The sun is starting to peak in the sky. Well I better head back now or the fire will die out before I get there. I might as well peal some bark off of some of these trees as I head back.

While walking back to base I harvested different types of bark off of a variety of trees. Once I harvested a bit of bark I would put it in my mouth and suck on it for a while. Then if my mouth didn’t feel strange I would break it up and eat it. Most of the barks made me feel slight discomfort in my mouth which sucked. But a few did nothing to my mouth so I ate those. There was one tree that leaked out this sweet smelling syrup stuff. The syrup was thick but after you pulled the bark off the tree it poured out steadily. I drank as much of that syrup as I could but I couldn’t waste too much time there or I would have to re remake my fire.

“grumble.”

“yeah yeah I know I’m hungry. So shut up stomach.”

…

Finally I’m back. The fire is much smaller than when I left but it’s still burning so that’s good. I better collect more wood though or I won’t have enough to last the next few days with the pile I have. I put some more wood onto the fire and head out to find some more wood in the near the base.

…

After a while I start to eat tree bark again. Man I’m hungry. I found another tree with sweet syrup inside of it and am drinking as much of it as I can. It has a pretty strong scent to it so animals can probably smell it from much farther away. I wonder if I could use this as bait. I don’t know how to make very good traps though so it might not work. I’ll worry about that another day it’s getting late again.

Once I get back to the shelter I put some wood inside but most of it is on the other side of the fire pit. I craw into the shelter and try to fall asleep on the hard frozen ground. My shelter is looking kind of shabby now that I think about it. I’ll have to fix that another day. I’ll do that sometime after I find some food to eat.