Waking up in the crevice didn’t surprise me. I didn’t expect to hear children whispering, didn’t anticipate someone shaking my shoulder any moment now. I just woke up, breathed deep, and listened for a while.

It was incredibly scary to have nothing to do. Or rather, to have no one making you do what you knew you should do.

The crevice wasn’t comfortable, but I was, happy to just stay stuck in there as long as I could. A peace I’d never known. Like I was hiding, hiding from my responsibilities, hiding from everyone else.

But there was no one and there were no responsibilities, not any more. How scary that was.

For now, at least, my brain hated being idle, so the anxiety eventually pushed me into action. I didn’t know if that would happen every day; if not, I didn’t know what I’d do.

Once I had some breakfast fruit, both “apple” and “pear”, I got ready to go collect more sticks… and stopped. Looking at my hands, they’d changed so much in a week. Had it been a week yet? Should probably keep track. Well, at least I didn’t have to worry about keeping track of my periods.

I sighed. Turning over my hands, I couldn’t really tell if they were dirty. Pretty ironic. Kids had bullied me about that until I was, like, twelve, my palms lighter than the rest of me. Not like any adult actually sat down and explained to me it was normal—I had thought it was because I didn’t bathe enough, my hands “clean” because I washed them so much.

Falling into that spiral, I took a deep breath and pushed it away. The past could stay in the past, but it was true I hadn’t cleaned myself this last week, something I could work on.

The weather not quite warm enough to sit around naked, I spent the early hours gathering more firewood. Midmorning, I started a fire. Not a big one, though, a lot of twigs and I tried out the straw left over from the wheat, glad to find that burned easily. Once it burned out, I used a small, flat rock to scoop up ash. Soap was beyond me right now, but wood ash was a bit alkaline and it was something like exfoliating, the tiny particles helping to scrub off dirt.

With the ash piled onto another rock, I got the charcoal burning again, easy since it was still pretty hot, and started up a bigger fire. I also stabbed some sticks into the ground around the fire for later use.

Before washing myself, I started with my clothes. Not much I could do, I took off the boots, socks, trousers, and underwear and squatted down by the spring, immersing them (not the shoes) in the warm water and rubbing. Clean off some of the sweat and dirt.

To dry them, I hung them on the sticks by the fire. While they dried, I took the ash to the side of the stream and made it into a paste, rubbing some onto my legs. It felt weird and cold and I felt stupid for thinking it would work. Probably wasn’t any better than just washing with clean water. But I did it, rubbing and rubbing, shuddering at every breeze. It looked like the paste was picking up dirt, maybe my imagination.

Up to my waist, down to my toes, even in-between them, I scrubbed and rinsed. If I wasn’t actually any cleaner, I at least felt like I was. Shuffling over to the fire, careful where I stepped without boots on, I warmed up there. It thankfully didn’t take me long to dry.

I helped my clothes dry quicker, holding them closer to the fire. Not too close, of course. Underwear first, then trousers, socks last, putting them on as they dried, boots at the end.

Bottom half done, I moved onto my top half. Well, I spared my jumper a wash, not a big deal if that had some dirt on it and it wouldn’t be getting sweaty when I wore a vest and shirt. So I washed those and my bra.

It was funny, I hadn’t thought about it at all. I mean, I wasn’t big, so bras weren’t that necessary for me. But it turned out I had one, something simple that tied at the front, not padded or shaped with wires, pretty much a strip of fabric with straps that went over my shoulder. Not like I had anyone to show off to, so simple was perfect. Easy to wash and comfortable to wear.

Clothes washed and hung up to dry, I washed myself. Had to be careful not to get my trousers wet, but that just made it awkward, not difficult. When I was done, I sat in front of the fire again. This time, I could put my jumper on once I was dry, no rush for the other stuff to dry.

So I cooked lunch.

It was kind of funny having roast carrot this early, used to a chill in the air, the evening smell, birds and insects chirping. Like having cereal for dinner. Still, I liked it. Fruit didn’t leave me full.

I had let the fire die down while those cooked and, by the time I finished eating, the fire was finished, my clothes dry. It honestly felt quite nice with just the jumper on, wearing three layers for a week straight maybe not the best thing, but I put everything back on. The evenings really did get cold and it wasn’t like I had a duvet when it came to bedtime.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Re-energised, mentally and physically, I got to work. Wandered around collecting sticks and another couple portions of pea pods, then, no evening fire, came back a while before sunset to carry on weaving the first wall of my new room. A little fruit and some sprouts for dinner.

The next day, I picked up where I’d left off. A lot of sticks piled up, I spent the morning weaving, stopping for a fruit and sprouts lunch.

Wall almost done, I started thinking about the next step: stuffing it with leaves. The door for my bedroom crevice had worked so well, after all. Just that, looking over at it, it was… browner than when I’d made it.

Leaves were maybe not the best long-term solution.

Sighing, I felt my motivation evaporate. Replacing the leaves on the door once a week wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but the new room would need like ten times as many leaves. If I used smaller sticks, I could probably make something that was wind-proof and mostly water-proof, but mostly water-proof wasn’t exactly great for a bedroom….

Ah. Straw, thatch.

Except I’d kind of burned it.

A real roller coaster of emotions, I was left smiling to myself. How to thatch wasn’t something I’d heard on a podcast or read in a book, but I didn’t need to do an amazing job, just enough enough to keep me dry. The walls could leak a bit as long as the roof didn’t.

However, that meant a bunch of journeys up the mountain.

The rest of the day became a blur, second, third, fourth trip just heavy breaths and staring at the ground in front of me, every step slow and careful. Tiring, but I wasn’t in a rush. The wheat wasn’t heavy either, only bulky; if I had a large enough sack, I could have done it all in a trip or two, but I didn’t have a sack, did I?

There wasn’t room in my larder for all of it, so I cut off the heads and piled them in the larder and left the stems by the firewood, weighed down to keep it blowing off. Might be a problem if it rained, but most of it was decently covered by the tree.

After all that work, it was hard to convince myself to make a fire. Every step, I wanted to give up. But I knew I’d feel even worse without the carbs from the carrots. Well, I presumed the carrots were mostly starch. Maybe a lot of sugar too, but that was still calories.

So I made a fire, roasted carrots, then pretty much fell asleep as soon as I crawled into the crevice, utterly exhausted.

Unsurprisingly, my legs weren’t happy the next day. I could push through it, but that seemed risky, climbing the mountain difficult enough when my legs listened to me. If something went wrong… I probably wouldn’t survive.

Not wanting to dwell on those thoughts, I went through my morning routine and then sat down to plan. The thing was that I didn’t really need more food or firewood.

Hard to forget about my thatching plan, I thought about how that would work. Couldn’t just lay out the straw. Maybe weave it? But that probably wouldn’t be tight enough, leave holes for water to come through. All the thatched roofs I’d seen looked like it was all going the same way too. Maybe bundle the straw, but how?

Getting nowhere, I stood up. There wasn’t much point in checking the nearby forest, but I could go downstream, check the plants near the water. Last time, I’d looked around by the trees and used the stream to not get lost. The slope was gentle enough it wouldn’t be a problem if my legs gave up on me too.

So down I went.

A slow pace, listening to the stream gurgle and flow, twisting and turning. Patches of flowers grew at the bends in the marshy ground, where it flowed straighter reeds and rushes. Now and then, something like a willow tree towered over the water; I got to see some seeds drop in the water when a wind blew, sailing down like little boats. Probably why they grew on riverbanks, seeds eventually getting stuck on the marshy edge.

There wasn’t much of that at the start, though. It took a while to see more than the odd plant, by then the stream wider and slower, not much of a slope at all. But the flora really exploded when another stream joined this one, becoming more of a small river. Plants crowded the entire riverbank, the sound of insects so loud, birds hanging around, sometimes darting amongst the stems and leaves.

Very belatedly, I ended up looking at the reeds and rushes again (I didn’t know the difference). Tall plants with round stems, the brownish heads more like pine cones, as high as my waist despite growing in the water.

I’d heard of reed baskets before.

Curious, I scouted around for a sharp stone, then carefully approached the riverbank. Maybe because of the plants growing there, the ground was marshy, but firm, only sinking a little with each step. Close enough, I pulled a reed over and cut it as low as I could reach.

It was surprisingly tough. I mean, it wasn’t the sharpest stone I’d ever found, but the stem bent over so easily, I expected to just cut right through. Any thought I had of using them died there. Still, I scraped off the pine cone bit, large seeds plopping into the marshy ground, and took the stem with me.

Feeling like a good time to turn around, I went back. A slow walk, gentle slope still a slope, legs still heavy. At the least, the reed stem was fun to idly swish about. Childish, maybe, but I hadn’t had time to be a child before.

At the camp, I left the reed with the firewood to dry out.

Midday, I had some fruit and sprouts for lunch, then decided on something else for the afternoon: moving rocks. I’d just scraped away the grass to make a spot for fires, so I did it up nicely, finding a flat piece for the bottom and adding some around the edge, as well as a few blockish rocks to make a nicer place to sit than the floor. The larder had a makeover too, a better roof in case it rained. That reminded me what happened to my fire-making sticks last time, so I made a small stone “coffin” that would keep them mostly dry. Wanting to start collecting the ash, I dug a hole by my firewood, a rock to go over the top and keep it from blowing away.

No rush. Taking some time to find the right rocks and stones, that was how I spent most of the afternoon, time to start the fire when I finished.

Another day, so little done, so much more to do. That was okay, though. It was when I ran out of thing to do that the real trouble would start.