Felix was in a little pickle.

He was currently in a cave, alone, hungry, cold, and with absolutely no clue how he got there, wherever there was.

He had been hiking by himself, one of his favorite pastimes as of late. He wasn’t camping, so his pack wasn’t filled to the brim like past hikes, but he still brought his standard fare: a box of some homemade protein bars (mostly peanut butter and oatmeal bars mixed with some other stuff since he loved the stuff), two bottles of water, a small hunting knife, a lighter for emergencies, his phone, and a portable charger. He also had brought a small sketchbook and a few of his pencils, but he would only use that once he found a nice spot to sit and draw the scenery.

He took in a deep breath, enjoying the smell of pine and the undertones of slightly rotted leaves as he walked along a lightly trodden path. It wasn’t really an unmarked path, he had seen it clearly on the map on his phone, but it had obviously been unused in a while as it seemed most people either stuck with the main trail or didn’t hike in this area to begin with. Not that he minded. Felix kinda liked the quiet like this. He began humming mindlessly as he walked on the trail, drinking in everything around him when he suddenly felt the earth shake underneath him.

He let out a small yelp (one that when recounting he will swear he did not do or that it sounded oddly like a small dog yipping) as the ground gave way beneath him and he was falling as mounds of dirt and rocks thundered around him. He scrambled for some purchase around him, clawing at the dirt only to slip and fall further in this impromptu landslide. He began to roll down, and while he tried to curl up in a ball to minimize the damage he still felt rocks and gnarled roots bump into him and bruising his body. He felt the air knock out of him and he choked out a cough as he came to a rolling stop. Just as he began to slow down and he thought the worst was over Felix felt his head hit something rough, most likely a rock, and he blacked out.

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When Felix woke up again, it was dark and he was cold. The sounds of insects, mostly mosquitos and other unknown flies buzzed around his head. He was staring up at the sky, where the stars stared back down, cold and unfeeling to his plight. They looked different to him, bigger and brighter, as if decades of light pollution hadn’t smothered their brilliance. Their patterns were also unrecognizable and it took him a moment of trying to piece them together before he realized they made no sense as he sat up from his spot. Looking around, Felix began to feel a sense of dread. The park where he had gone hiking was more of a forest, where the majority of trees were pine and a few oaks but all around he saw were large gnarled jungle trees, with palm fronds and vines everywhere. To his immediate right was the mouth of a small cave, big enough for a person to sit in out of the rain but not deep enough to make a home. A pile of rubble made the back wall of the cave and Felix wondered somewhere in the back of his head if that was the leftover of the landslide that brought him here.

He looked down at his watch and paled; he had been unconscious for at least a solid five hours. Which meant that even if he had been called in missing and someone was to look for him, they wouldn’t have found him. He shook his head for a moment as he remembered that you had to wait 24 hours before calling someone in as missing. So maybe he still had a chance. He fished out his phone, hoping he had some service to call someone but it gave a gentle trill as it said there was no service.

Groaning he held his face in his hands.

‘What am I gonna do?’ he thought in a moment of despair. He had no way to call for help, no clue where he was, nor did he know where to go. He curled up in a ball, worriedly biting his lips. He knew he couldn’t stay like this, it would spell death for him, especially since he could feel the chill creep up and bite into him. He forced himself to get up, wincing at the pain he felt where he had gotten bruised all over. Making sure his bag was on hand he made his way towards the small cave, hoping it’ll keep him safe from most of the elements. He pulled his backpack to his lap, rummaging through it to make sure everything was there. With a sigh of relief he pulled out his lighter from the bottom and looked around to see if there was anything to build a fire with. There was more than enough dry leaves to act as kindling, but he still needed to collect some firewood.

Nervously, Felix got up and out of the cave, collecting the small dry twigs that were strewn about the jungle forest floor. He looked back apprehensively at the cave and then back at the wilderness and took a deep breath. He was going to need to venture farther out to collect some more sizable wood, and with that in mind he grabbed the small hunting knife he had kept in the front pocket of his bag.

“Deep breath Felix, it’s gonna be fine, nothing’s gonna come out and attack you randomly,” he muttered to himself, quietly walking along in the darkness. He kept his eyes trained on the ground, and soon enough he was carrying an arm full of small fallen branches and some vines he cut from the trees. He turned around, precariously holding his phone on top of the pile as a flashlight and tried to make his way back. He nearly tripped once or twice, causing the pile of wood to jostle and his phone move a skittering nervous fashion.

He carefully sidestepped a large boulder before coming back to the cave and he breathed a sigh of relief once more.

“Safe,” he muttered to himself as he all but collapsed on himself.

His relief was short lived as the noises around him grew stronger, the sounds of monkeys screeching, insects buzzing, and the foreign sounds of birds calling to each other. Felix tried not to shudder as he hurried to making a fire before him for safety. Especially since the droning of the mosquitos made his skin just itch in the thought of being bit.

Using some of the rubble behind him, he built a small ring around the wood just like he saw in the movies and then tentatively lit a dry leaf on fire with his lighter. He quickly put it with the bundle and began to gently blow on it. He wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing at first but soon the rest of the kindling began to smoke gently, glowing with soft small embers. It began to grow and Felix stared with wide eyes as a fire began to take form before him.

“Woah,” he said in awe. It’s not like he hadn’t seen fire before, of course he had, what person hadn’t? It was just, he never built one with his own two hands before. Is this what his ancestors felt when they had built their own fire? The sense of pride and wonder. He rubbed his hands over the now crackling fire and felt relief at the sense of warmth. He could survive this, he thought. He could survive the night, be found by tomorrow, and be home in less than a week. It was going to be ok. It would be like camping, he thought. Just… a little bit more extreme that was all.

When he had first started hiking as a hobby, he had hears all kinds of horror stories of men getting lost in the woods or having their legs broken in sudden landslides but this was fairly tame in comparison. At least he came prepared and he once more sighed in relief as he slipped the lighter back into his pocket. Deciding that now was a good as time as any to eat something, Felix dug out his protein bars from his bag and carefully ate one. He didn’t know how long he was going to be stuck here, so he needed to ration his food.

The night wasn’t as quiet as he thought it was going to be as Felix heard the sound of indistinct animals chattering away in the distance and insects communicating to each other in chirps and buzzing. Despite all the time he spent hiking, he never really spent a night in the woods long enough to enjoy the sound of the local wildlife at night. It was nice, in its own harmonious way, but that didn’t stop Felix from still feeling paranoid. He had no idea what was out there and how to really defend himself, but damn it he was going to try. Hugging his knees as he sat in front of the fire, Felix thought what he was going to do.

First things first was to figure out where he was, but there was no real way to tell. He had pulled out his map on his phone, but it merely said it couldn’t find his location and instead had pinged in random areas in order to try to find where he was. Then another thought, a truly unsettling thought, made its way into his brain. What if he wasn’t at the park anymore… or on Earth anymore? After all there was no logical explanation for how he went from a pine studded forest to a jungle straight out of nowhere. Even the smells were different; no fresh crushed pine needles, the distant scent of smog from the city, the wet earthy smell of the soft dirt. No it was dusty, dry hard packed ground, wet scent of rot and mold from dying trees, the fresh scent of rain that had just passed days prior.

“This can’t be happening,” he whispered to himself, eyes closed shut. He prayed that when he opened them he’d be lying on the park bench, having caught up in a wild dream, or better yet, at home, in bed, ready to wake up for the next day.

What he saw next only cemented the fact he wasn’t home anymore. He bit back a large scream as he saw the slow walking form of a large predatory cat. But it wasn’t the large tusks that jutted out from its upper lip, nor the way the very shadows seemed to bend around the cat’s rich dark fur, nor even the way it stared at Felix, wondering if he was a meal or an enemy. No, it was the single horn, jutting out of its forehead, curved to a wicked point; a horn that was biologically made for one purpose and one purpose only: to gore any living being to shreds that got in its way.

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It silently stalked Felix’s little shelter, never getting close enough to fully step into the light, but just close enough that he could see the color of its’ eyes: a beautiful rich emerald. He gulped and shakily raised the arm holding the protein bar in hand.

Normally it was illegal in the park for people to feed the local wildlife, but Felix realized with sudden conviction he was no longer in the park and laws be damned if it kept him alive. So he threw the protein bar as hard as he could, tapping into his years being in soft ball when he was nine. The big cat stared at the arcing meal and pounced after it, walking away with a treat it didn’t think it would get.

“Toto I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” he said to no one in particular, letting out a shaky breath that turned into sobs. For the first time in the entire day, Felix broke down crying.

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When Felix woke up, he was crouched over his backpack, protectively holding it. The fire had long since died out and his face felt tight and dirty from all his crying last night. Sun blared brightly on the world and momentarily blinded him as all his senses came too. Luckily nothing else had come to bother him during the night but he knew it would only be a matter of time before his luck ran out.

Armed with the knowledge he was not in his own world anymore, Felix figured the first step was to find people. Barring that, the second step would to be making a settlement as he figured out how to go home. He looked back at the cave and suddenly a new thought hit him. If he fell in a landslide into this new world, and that cave seemed to be blocked by that very thing… could his way back be through that cave? Figuring out he had nothing to lose and everything to gain, Felix began to make a plan.

First he would make a house. Then he would dig out the cave. Meanwhile he will try to find some people and see where exactly he was. That way if he was wrong about the cave then he could find another way home from the people he would find. But the problem was Felix had no idea where to look for people, or how to build a shelter without any tools save for his small knife and lighter. He groaned and rubbed his head in thought.

“If my ancestors can do it, so can I,” he said to himself, standing up and dusting his pants. He tied his windbreaker around his waist, already feeling warm in the jungle heat as he set out to find a way to build a home. He figured it was fall in this new jungle world, as it wasn’t too hot nor was the humidity as unbearable as the times he had visited his family in Central America. With knife in hand and the determination that only a bullheaded 17 year old could have, he went out to look for… and he stopped. What was he looking for? Wood? Big rocks to build a hut with? Just sudden building materials that some random woodsman left behind for him?

He groaned at rubbed his forehead. He was gonna need wood, but to do that he was gonna need an axe. His small knife wouldn’t be able to do that. He thought about the ancient primitive tools and remembered that axes were just large sticks with a piece of rock embedded in it. He could do that. He wasn’t sure how it worked but he knew how it was supposed to look like and that had to count for something.

He went back to the cave and began pulling out random rocks that looked generally like what he wanted. Just as he was going to pull what he felt was the perfect specimen, he saw a large centipede quickly scuttle away from underneath the rock. He screamed loudly, dropping the rock in surprise and it broke in half. He shuddered at the large insect before going back to digging, albeit carefully. He settled for a flat-ish rock that had been cracked at an angle, leaving a nice stone blade effect.

“I can do this, I can work with this,” he said quietly, holding onto the rock as he looked for a thick enough branch. Grabbing about five large branches, the length of his arm, he brought them back to the cave for inspection.

“This one’s way too skinny,” he said in realization as he threw the first one in what he dubbed the “loser turns into firewood” pile.

“This one’s ok but it’s a lil long,” he continued, putting the next branch in his “maybe” pile. He knew he was talking to himself, but he was alone, with no one to talk to, and he figured it was fine as long as he didn’t turn a volleyball into his new best friend.

The third branch as also respectively put into the maybe pile while the fourth was pushed in the loser firewood pile immediately when he realized it was rotted in the center. The last one was also in the maybe pile and from there he whittled it down even more until he finally got a long sturdy looking branch that felt “perfect” in his hands. Nodding in satisfaction, Felix grabbed his rock and tried to figure out how big of a hole he would have to carve out for it.

“Makin’ an axe to make my home, so I can find out of this hell hole~!” Felix sang as he chipped a hole in the branch.

“Gonna make an axe, gonna make an axe, it’s gonna be cool, ‘cause I never made an axe before. Gonna make a really cool caveman axe, gonna chop some wood, gonna make a house outta that wood.”

His voice was offkey and loud, singing to a tune that even he didn’t understand but he didn’t care. Right now he was working on his cool new caveman axe. He drilled both sides of the wood with his knife to make a hole big enough for his finger.

“Hell yeah makin’ an axe, I’m makin’ an axe. It’s gonna be so cool, my cool new axe.”

He pressed the stone against his makeshift handle, trying to gauge the size before another idea hit him. Didn’t some cavemen smashed rocks against each other in order to make a better sharper blade? His rock, while nice, was a little too big for what he needed and he could probably make it sharper. Finding another palm sized rock, Felixed switched gears and set his stone axe head on the ground.

Holding it an angle, he smashed the other rock against it and was disappointed to see it only chip slightly. He brought it down again, smashing harder and brought another sizable chip with it.

“Ok slow and steady then. Just chip at this bad boy ‘till he looks like an axe.” He smashed the rock over and over again, keeping a controlled rhythm. Or at least, tried to. At times his hand skidded and merely scraped the surface of the rock or bruise his knuckles. Still he worked meticulously and didn’t let up until he saw that the other edge was chipping away at a decent enough rate, leaving a nice edge to his axe head.

Felix grinned and turned back to his handle before he realized if he made a smaller stone chisel he could probably carve at it better than with his knife, which was made for slicing, not carving. He looked for another thin flat rock, and found just what he wanted near the pile of previous rocks he had collected. Looking it over he nodded to himself as he smashed the sides,  delicately forming a chiseled edge to the stone. He wasn’t trying his best on this one as he was on the axe but before he knew it, hours had slipped by. According to his phone, and the sun’s intensity, it was around noon. He decided a break was in order and he pulled out his water bottle and took a large chug from it.

That was another thing he just realized, he was going to need water to survive. With all this foliage, there had to be a stream nearby. Especially with that big cat lurking about. He shuddered at the thought of encountering the predator again but knew he had to risk it for his survival. He chewed on his protein bar as he thought what he would need to do to get some water and come back without getting lost. Maybe tie some markers around some trees like they do on the mountains in order to get back. He didn’t really have any string to mark the trees though, nor anything colorful except… He looked down at his t-shirt. It had somehow managed to be soaked in sweat despite him only sitting in the cave or collecting some wood. It was a faded bright yellow and was thin in some edges. But… it was also his only shirt. He knew he didn’t really need it in this jungle but he didn’t want to lose it either.

Still, he was going to need to mark his territory somehow to make it back home, until he realized where everything was without getting lost. He sighed and ripped the shirt off, trying to think how he could cut the shirt without completely damaging it. He figured starting from the bottom and the sleeves would be best, leaving him with a crop top of sorts. But hey, he didn’t really have the luxury of fashion right now. Using his knife, he carefully cut thin but long strips of his shirt, counting 20 in total. Standing up, he pulled his backpack on his back, and set out to find some water. He figured going where he saw the cat last left off was a good idea and put a strip of cloth on a nearby tree. Every time he made a tricky turn or was almost out of eyesight of the last strip, he tied a new one, and soon enough he was down to 5 strips left.

What Felix was mostly looking for was the sound of rushing water, and he tried to turn in its direction every time he thought he heard it. He paid attention to his nose as well, trying to smell for the fresh water and the mud it would surely churn up. His careful attention was paid off when he found himself next to a small but lively stream. And down to his last strip no less. He grinned as he drank greedily from the stream, already thirsty once more. It was cold and burned his lungs, but he kept drinking, happy that he found a source nearby. Though the term nearby was relative at this point. After he drank his fill, he grabbed his two water bottles and filled them up to the brim before dunking his head in the water. He let out a happy shriek and shook the water out of his hair as he sat down on the river bank.

With his shoes off and sitting in the shade, it was cool and relaxing having his feet in the water. He felt at peace for once and pulled out his sketchbook from his bag and got to sketching the riverbank. This was nice, he once more thought to himself. He could survive here. He knew he could. He just had to be careful, that’s all. When he realized the sun was beginning to set down and the air got a little cooler, he packed up his stuff and put his shoes back on. He followed the small hike back to the cave, a sense of pride filling his heart as he saw his small encampment. Sure it was small and just a glorified hole in the ground that he was sprucing up, but it was his hole in the ground, his cave, his little home.

He had no idea the hell he would soon go through, the trials he would face, the way the nature would take this city boy with a penchant for hiking and forge a man out of him. All that would come in due time. For now, Felix was enjoying his sense of content and purpose as he continued to work on his tools and makeshift home.