When the girl came to, she found that she had grown slightly. Her head, which had been comfortably laying on a branch, was now barely touching the tree trunk. Of course, she didn't care. To animals, growth is simply a nondescript fact of life. And she was barely more than an animal.

The feral girl stretched, and climbed down from the tree. She would go hunting for bigger game.

She walked until she found a river. It was an idyllic sort of river- not too wide nor too deep, the perfect place to swim or play. But the girl's eyes were fixated on one thing- a beaver.

The beaver had built a dam on the river, and it was currently standing on the dam itself. It would be harder than her previous catches- the beaver's teeth looked like it could do serious damage.

She lay down on her chest, and slowly began crawling on all fours towards the beaver. Its back was turned to her, and she crawled as quickly as she could without making too much noise. She was alert for changes in the wind, for anything that could signal to the beaver that there was a predator behind it, looking to kill it. Thankfully for her, no such signal came.

The girl had crawled so close that she could barely touch its tail if she reached out. And that is precisely what she did- she grabbed the beaver's tail, and yanked hard. The beaver, startled, thrashed around, but the girl held fast, and the beaver couldn't escape. It tried jumping into the river, and the girl used its sidways momentum to swing it onto the riverbank, where it lay, stunned. She took a small rock, and began methodically beating its head in.

On the first strike, one of the beaver's eyes were put out, and the rock glistened with blood. On the second, the rock sank into the skin of the beaver's head. On the third, the rock pulverized the skull, and went on to crush most of the brain as well, coating the girl's hands with a fluid of reddish hue. She threw the rock into the river, and got to work. The beaver's thick hide posed a challenge, and so did its bones, but both were eaten by the girl.

And then, she felt the urge to build. She took two thick sticks of similar lengths from the dam, broke them in half, and plunged them into the ground in a roughly rectangular formation, broken point down. She then used a rock to split the unbroken tops and widen them into a Y-shape. The next step required four more sticks, laid across the planted sticks, and wedged into the groove. This she covered with more sticks, and then finally a layer of brown leaves, until she had what was unmistakably a bed. An extremely rudimentary, uncomfortable bed, but a bed nonetheless. She had gained the gift of Construction.

As she walked along the riverbank, she saw the blood-covered stone she had thrown into the water. There were clusters of tiny fish, nibbling at the tiny bits of brain and flesh on the stone. Her hands thrust into the water, grabbing scoops of the fish, and she shoved both into her mouth and chewed. The taste was unfamiliar to her- but it was meat, and meat was good.

For no apparent reason, she slowly walked into the river, until the water was almost over her nose. Then she jumped forwards, and began swimming with strange, oddly frantic- yet strangely effective movements. The fish had taught her the gift of Swimming- but it was their own brand of swimming, not the flailing around most humans do in the water.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

To build a more permanent shelter, she sought out one of the trees near the riverbank, and used the wood in the dam to build herself a treehouse. Of course, as she had no idea what a house was, it was more of a wooden floor and nothing else, but it was a start. After this, the dam was so flimsy and top-heavy that it collapsed, leaving the tooth marks on nearby trees as the only sign a beaver had lived there.

The girl finished building the 'treehouse', and promptly abandoned it. She had no use for it at the time, as she was neither tired nor sleepy. She would simply make her way back to it once she felt fatigue slowly encroach on her consciousness.

----------------------------------------

By this time, the animals had started avoiding the area the girl had appeared in. A rumor of a quick, starved predator carried on the wind to all who would listen, and it became increasingly difficult for her to find prey. She was forced to try hunting bigger animals, some of the predators, for they were the only ones bold enough to approach her territory.

One such animal was a grey wolf. Lean and lithe with not even a hint of fat on its body, it considered itself the apex predator of the forest. It would soon be proven wrong.

The girl watched as the wolf passed by under her tree. She would have to find a way to take it by surprise, but how? Its sense of smell, far superior to hers, would be able to sniff her out if she got close to it- and its jaws would deliver a swift death. She decided that if she couldn't kill it with her hands, she would have to use something else.

It took her the better part of two days to drag a fallen log from the riverbank into the forest, and to balance it on two branches of a tree. She had noted the wolf came by the tree often, usually to leave a scent marker at its base- she would roll the log onto it when it next appeared.

As sure as clockwork, on the third day the wolf passed by under the tree, sniffing at its own piss. With bated breath, the girl waited until the wolf lifted one of its back legs, then jostled the log. The only warning the wolf got was a sudden rustling of leaves, which made it prick its ears up and growl, and then the log crashed down on it, crushing its torso and killing it instantly.

The girl heard the crash, the sharp yelp and sudden silence, and the sound of breaking bones, and knew she had succeeded. She climbed down the tree, and struggled to push the log aside so she could reap the spoils of victory.

Due to being crushed, its organs and mostly either split or completely burst, leaving stains on the grass and log, but the girl didn't mind. She cupped her hands, filled them with the bloody soup inside the carcass, and drank deeply. She sucked at the broken pieces of bone for marrow, and then crunched them with her teeth. To her, the brain was a delicacy- the fact that it had been missed by the log was an added bonus. She cracked open the skull, and scooped out the brain and eyeballs, which she eagerly devoured. It was her first meal in two days. After she had eaten, she was suddenly assaulted with a torrent of stimuli- she could smell the wolf corpse, the scent marker it had left, the clean, fresh smell of the trees, a small mouse, hurriedly fleeing, the scent of a starling, cracking open a seed with its beak.

But the gift of Scent was not the only trait she gained. As she thought of the mouse, her brain pinpointed its location and the best way for her to catch it. She had gained a hunter's Instinct. Tentatively, she slowly let the Instinct gain control of her body. Instantly, it sprang into action, running through the brush toward the mouse, and slowly catching up. When her body was barely two feet from the mouse, it threw itself forward, not caring about the numerous scratches and abrasions it sustained, and caught the trembling grey mass. After regaining control of her body, she ate the mouse in two quick bites, and sighed with contentment.

She made her way back to the treehouse, grabbing a small bird as a snack to munch on. When she arrived, it was already dark, and her limbs felt heavy and sluggish. She climbed into the tree with some difficulty, lay down, and slept.