I woke up to a soreness in all my muscles, as if I had just gotten stretched on the rack. What could I have possibly done last night? It’s not like I drink alcohol or anything. I lay there for a moment, feeling the softness of my bed envelop me.
Wait…when was my bed made of grass and dirt?
I lazily waved my arm around, not bothering to open my eyes. I was on grass alright, but it felt strangely…smooth and uniform. I slowly cracked my eyelids open a fraction, hissing in pain as I quickly shut them again. Why does the sun always have to hurt your eyes when you get up? I tried blinking very quickly, trying to accustom my eyes to the sun with as little pain as possible.
Success! Now I was actually capable of viewing my surroundings! I sat up and looked around me. And of course, the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Oi! What jus’ happened?” Really? The first thing I say when waking up in god-knows-where is a TF2 quote? I really am hopeless.
Looking around, I assumed I was in what appeared to be the edge of some forest, seeing as the afternoon sun was actually able to reach me, and because the area I was in didn’t have as many trees as the rest of the forest I could see ahead of me. I turned around and saw an endless plain, just grass as far as the eye could see. I faced the forest once again and slowly ventured deeper into it. As I walked, I realized I was still in my blue raincoat. I took it off and tied it around my waist. Now that my brain was working again, I noticed that everything seemed…off. Even though it was dark in the forest, everything seemed rather brightly colored, with mostly everything one solid color. The shading wasn’t very lifelike at all, with only one color of darkness. Everything seemed less detailed, and it almost looked as if everything had an outline of a different shade of its color. I hoped that I wasn’t affected by whatever weirdness was going on. If I was, then something must have gone wrong with my eyes. I mean, my glasses are still on, oddly enough…
Stumbling around, I happened upon a cave. I peeked inside, hoping to find an abandoned campsite, or anything that pointed towards civilization. Also, having some extra resources when stuck in the wilderness is never a bad thing. Alas, the cave was empty, although I saw what appeared to be some horse tracks on the dirt. Maybe someone had been here! I tried my best to silently creep inside, determined to fully explore the cave. Or, at least as much as I could. I sneaked along the left wall until I walked into a huge, open part of the cave. I saw a lake with a surface so smooth it almost seemed like a mirror, and ran down an incline towards it, hoping to see my reflection and drink some water. I examined myself in the pool. I saw flat, black hair, brown eyes, glasses, a blue shirt with a white undershirt underneath, the raincoat I tied around my waist earlier, jeans, and white shoes. I still looked human, Chinese, skinny, weak, and pathetic. I was also still detailed. Yep, I’m still me.
I cupped some water in my hands, and after sniffing it I took a sip. It tasted exactly like fresh bottled water. I greedily drank a couple more handfuls before noticing a faint reflection of a pink blob. I looked behind me, but all I could see was rock and some glowing mushrooms. I decided it was nothing and left the cave.
Back outside, I looked around for any supple branches I could try to snap off and use as a bow, or any straight, sturdy sticks I could use as a walking stick/staff. I wandered about for a good half hour or so until I found a stick that was straight enough and thick enough. Considering I tended to work slowly, I thought that it would probably be a good idea to start making a shelter early. I looked around for another thirty minutes or so, finding a flat stone, a relatively flexible stick, a straight stick, a chunk of wood that looked like it came from a wagon or something, a couple of good-sized sticks, and some dry leaves, twigs, and dry bark for tinder. Curse this forest for not having anything to build a comfortable bed with!
I retraced my steps back to the cave. I went into the cavern inside (I didn’t want any predators hunting me down) and I arranged the sticks together into a tepee-like structure. I then bundled all of my tinder together, undid my right shoelace, tied the ends to either end of the flexible stick, twirled the straight stick into the shoelace so that it was secured, set it on the chunk of wood, put the stone on top with one hand and held the “bow” with the other, and began sawing. I saw this once on Man vs. Wild, and prayed that Bear Grylls was right about this. After a while, I saw smoke starting to form, and sawed harder. My arms felt like they were about to give out-why didn’t I try in P.E. when I was in school? Right when I was ready to give up and stop trying, I saw an ember in the chunk of wood. I stopped sawing, then gently transferred the ember to the tinder. I blew gently on it until flames started leaping out of it, the transferred the tinder to the pile of sticks. When the fire consumed the pile, I threw in a couple more sticks then went outside to go get enough to last the night.
By the time I got back, it was getting dark, and I could hear wolves howling in the distance. I shivered-I had definitely made the right call. I fed the fire a bit, then put my raincoat, as it was getting chilly and I didn’t want pebbles and dirt in my hair. I swept a portion of the ground next to the fire as clean as I possibly could, then lay down and tried to go to sleep. After a couple of minutes, my body finally acknowledged how much energy I had used today, and I drifted off to sleep.