I continued to walk for what felt like hours. I don't actually know how long it was as I was kind of in a stupor. All I do know is that when I eventually broke out of it, it was because I needed to go to the bathroom. Which at least answers one question. You do indeed still need to shit in the afterlife. Gotta take the answers to my questions when I can get them.

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That was honestly terrible. I mean, wow. I've never really been an outdoors kind of girl, you know? More really in to the whole city life and all. It's not like I have never been on a camping trip. I have even been in a couple with my school. But we always had access to a bathroom. And I gotta say, I miss one right about now.

I mean, wow. You always have this picture of the outdoors and just using leaves and stuff like that. But I mean, how do you actually do that? The only leaves I could find around were kind of moist and not very big anyways. So in the end I decided to just rip off some pieces of my t-shirt and use that. It's not like it's doing much good anyways right now. At least I'm done with that for now.

It could be worse of course, at least I'm not on my period so that's a plus. Because honestly, that's a whole bucket of worms I don't want to deal with.

But thinking about something else, I really haven't accomplished anything. My goals were water, food and shelter. And I have jack shit to show for my efforts. I mean, just walking around aimlessly doesn't seem like the best strategy. But I'm honestly at a loss for what to do. I remember a certain short person climbing a tree when he was lost in a forest. These trees are really quite massive and I wouldn't know where to begin to climb them. It's not like they have any low hanging branches or anything. They just have the trunk going up towards the canopy.

Which all is to say I really have no better strategy than walking. I think I remember seeing videos about people digging holes to find water but I don't think any old place is good for that. So I don't think it makes sense for me to just begin digging.

Having come to the conclusion that my best strategy and having no strategy seems to lead me to the same place, I continue walking.

I have never been this far out from any kind of cities, so it came as a shock to me how quickly it got really dark. Sure, I've been outside of cities and out in the countryside, but even then you can actually see quite a bit of light pollution from places around you.

Whatever God or whoever decided to plump me down doesn't seem to have any civilization anywhere around because it is pitch dark.

I have kind of naturally come to a stop as it is currently impossible to continue to walk as the dark makes it way too likely to fall over a random root or maybe a stick.

So I am sitting against a tree, feeling the rough bark against my skin. Emotionally exhausted. But physically I am rather well actually. Considering that I haven't drank or eaten anything all day…

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I should be more thirsty. Doesn't seem like I need to drink maybe? Or eat? But I still need to go to the bathroom? Damn, that's kind of sadistic, honestly. Well, maybe not. It might just have been the food that was already in my system. At least a girl can hope.

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At some point I must have fallen asleep because I certainly woke up. I don't know what . Where the fuck am I? What's going on? Right, right, I'm in a forest. I died. I was attacked by a bear. I'm fine. Staring for a moment at my hands. while collecting my thoughts…

Huh, I can see my hand. There's a light coming from somewhere slightly to the right and back of me. It's not a whole lot, which is why I didn't see it immediately. But there's certainly some light coming from that direction. which means people!

I want to run towards the light as fast as possible, but it's still too dark to do anything of the sort. I do however manage to tumble my way towards the light.

As I get closer I can see that it is certainly not artificial light. The way it flickers it seems more like a campfire. Then suddenly it's in front of me. And it's wolves?

In front of me are five or six wolf-like creatures. lying around and seemingly having been disturbed by my rather loud tumbling towards them. And as they get up, their fur, That was previously glowing as the embers in a dying campfire, begins to flare up.

The wolfs spots me immediately and for an eternal moment we stare at each other. There is no real transition between wolf and flame, it flows into each other, and as I look transfixed by the sight before me, I can do nothing but stare.

The wolves change the status quo first. As they begin to growl at me, their deep red flame turns a yellow color. And faster than I can even turn around to run, the wolves are on me.

The next moments are hectic as one of the wolves lunges at me and manages to throw me to the ground. Its teeth grab my throat and try to tear into it. I can feel it's incredibly hot fur as my clothes and the forest floor around me begins to burn.

As the smoke around me begins to intensify, I notice, almost detached from all around me, that there is no pain. If I could, I would likely have laughed, even while being seemingly invulnerable to fire, bears and wolves. What will kill me once again is the fact that I can't breathe.

Whatever small amount of air I manage to get while the wolf is trying to rip my throat apart is filled with smoke. Before I can really manage to do anything my field of view begins to grow smaller and the now familiar experience of falling unconscious takes over my body.

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For the second time in As Many Days, I wake up in the middle of the forest. The light is, as on the first day, glinting through the canopy. I can hear distant birdsong.

Taking a quick inspection of my entire body, I seem to be completely fine. I don't have any scratches, I don't have any burn marks and I don't seem to have any lasting injuries at all.

This proves to be way easier than after the bear attack, as the fire from the wolf has burned off all my clothing. Okay, I am naked in the forest. Great. Fucking great. Somehow it got even worse from yesterday. Yay.

Inspecting my surroundings slightly more I can see the burnt areas around where I first found the wolves and a slightly larger spot around me where they have burned everything away.

The only thing that remained is the charred corpse of my phone. The heat must have melted the battery, the plastic and basically everything else because it's more or less a puddle of metal and other things that don't seem to burn.

The only upside of all of this is I don't see any signs of the Firewolves. Which, yeah, let's focus on that. Firewolves? That's a thing? Huh. I guess that answers a couple of things. First of all, it's very obvious that I'm no longer in Kansas. Not that I ever was, but you know what I mean.

Secondly, wherever I am, it must have some kind of magic, or at the very least slightly different laws of physics, because I'm pretty sure thermodynamics does not allow wolves to burn like that.

Living creatures use enough energy to keep their body temperature where it normally is. To have a temperature of several hundred degrees would require a ludicrous amount of energy.

I can't remember the chart exactly, but I know a yellow flame should be hotter than the red, but less so than the blue. I'm pretty sure even a red is around 500 degrees celsius though, so that's just ludicrous.

Now that I think about it, I should probably have reached a similar conclusion after my not so deadly bear encounter. I do however think I can cut myself some slack considering all the things I had on my plate and still do.

Thinking about it now, does seem more preferable than the whole "naked in the forest" situation. So let's continue to do so…

Okay, I can't actually think of anything else to note. So let's just rip off the bandage.

I am naked in a forest. I have no idea where anything is, if there is anything but the forest. I know that there is a bear that can seemingly shoot acid. Wolves that are on fire. And I am naked. Which doesn't seem like a big deal? Because I am seemingly physically indestructible.

Huh, that's actually a good point. Being naked might not actually change all that much. I mean I certainly feel exposed out here but it's not like I've met any people. I'm still not hungry or thirsty so it doesn't seem like that's a concern. I don't feel cold even though I spent half of the night sitting against a tree and the other half lying randomly around completely naked. So shelter doesn't seem to be a necessity either.

Which pretty much means that my priority list of water, food and shelter is completely out.

I don't really want to consider the fact that I might be the only human around. That fact just seems completely unworkable.

So I guess my next goal should be to find a civilization of any kind. Which really leads me to the next thing I should figure out. I need to find a better way of finding my way than just aimlessly walking around.

I know forests can get pretty big and you can get pretty lost in even small forests so if I just aimlessly wander around it could take weeks if not months to find civilization. Considering my luck with the local fauna, that doesn't seem advisable.

Even if the pattern holds and nothing around here can kill me, I don't want to meet anything that can trap me permanently, like, I don't know, an owl that can control the earth. Seem about as plausible as firewolves.

So the next step definitely needs to be an overview. I need to find a way up one of these trees.

But that should probably happen somewhere else. This forest as a whole doesn't seem safe. But I don't think I want to hang around where I know the wolves have been sleeping.

Deciding to test something out, I begin running in a random direction. At first I wanted to continue the direction I had been walking in so far, but with everything that had happened the last night, I had completely lost track of where I had been. So random direction it is.

Now this next part is important. I have never really been one for running. I get it in theory but I usually start up with the intention of running regularly. run once or twice before deciding that running just isn't really something for me.

The thought had hit me, I had walked pretty far the day before, but I didn't feel tired at all, which is why I was hoping that the same thing would hold while running.

And it totally did.

There's something incredibly pleasing about running fast, about your body moving and about being in a dead-out sprint. These emotions are usually ruined for me by my fitness level.

The total lack of pain, exhaustion, shortness of breath or even the expected pain of running without a sports bra.

It's strangely liberating, running while completely naked. It's as if, even though the world has put me in this situation, I am giving it the middle finger and saying "So fucking what? I'm here, I'm alive and I refuse to be held down".

I run and I run in a dead sprint. Time moving by as one tree after another.

I'm on the lookout for any tree that just seems slightly possible to climb, as most of them still seem completely unfeasible.

And eventually I found one. A tree that seems to have split in the middle while still slightly young. leaving me with the perfect stepping stone to get to the higher branches.

I haven't climbed a tree in years, but it goes surprisingly easy. due to a combination of me being in a rather good mood after the run, not being tired in the slightest even while pulling my entire weight up. and not being worried about falling.

All of this leads to me quickly sticking my head out above the canopy. It is a completely different world up here. The leaves from the trees form a green blanket, or perhaps a cloud, stretching from horizon to horizon.

At first, I am completely awestruck by the sight in front of me, but after a moment or two, I begin to feel a stone falling in my stomach.

No sign of civilization. But wait, what is that? Somewhere off in the distance I could see an emerald colored river. wasn't immediately obvious due to the color making it blend into the canopy. What made me notice it was the ship that was sailing down it.

I found people!