Our dinner that second night was good—much better than the first. The tusked deer was far better and more filling than the crow meat. I ate my fill, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the flies got to it, or some critter figured out how to pull it down. While having the meat was nice, I wasn’t going to let it become a burden.

We didn’t spend a ton of time that night talking around the fire. Nothing had attacked us, but I didn’t know the forest well enough to trust that some nocturnal predator wouldn’t leap down on us and drag us away.

Putting out the fire was easy. I pulled a big leaf down on some massive plant and let the water gush down into the flames.

We picked our way back to the mushroom tree in the moonlight.

Our second night was much better than the first. The bus seats, lashed to the branches, gave us some much-needed cushion. We still took watches, and I had the idea that while Billie and I slept, Holly had a little fun with herself.

As for me, I was exhausted. It had been a brutal day, and I needed to sleep. Besides, I was going to be taking the middle watch, which was hard because humans are meant to sleep in long, uninterrupted chunks.

I wasn’t happy when Holly woke me, and I had to force myself to stay awake, sitting on the bus seat high in the trees. I watched the clouds slowly swim through the sky, hiding the moons.

I could smell the rain coming, and it got chilly, though my survival suit thickened to take care of that problem. I could’ve configured the cloth into a coat, but I didn’t want to disturb Opal. She needed to finish her Evaluation. I figured we’d focus on finding power crystals the next day.

About halfway into my watch, I heard an animal at the base of the tree…rustling, sniffing, growling. At first, I thought it was the T. rexes I’d seen before, but no, they had a different sound. Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it had smelled the meat that was hanging from the tree down from us. There were frustrated growls I was hearing.

I sniffed and smelled something strong and musky, like a wet dog, and then, the thing moved away through the forest. Whatever it was, it was big.

I thought about what if it hadn’t gone away. What if it had sat under our perch and waited us out? We only had so much water. No, the tree was a good temporary home, but we needed something more permanent.

After three hours of sitting there, sometimes with my race going a mile a minute, other times trying not to fall asleep, I finally woke up Billie.

It took a bit.

When she finally did wake up, she squinted at me. “We’re still in nightmareland, right? Still in the tree, with the giant fleas, and the huge Godzilla rattlesnake, and the fucking dinosaurs.”

“Keep your voice down. The professor is still sleeping.”

“It’s Holly now,” Billie whispered. “She wants us to call her Holly. She really was in a bad place last night, right?”

“She just got scared,” I murmured.

“Bitch, that’s my job.” Billie smiled at me. “I was dreaming when you woke me up.”

“Anything interesting?” I regretted asking that, but when I wasn’t thinking about Opal, the strange patchwork world, or our predicament, I was thinking about sex.

Billie smacked my arm. “Such a horny boy! No, it wasn’t a sex dream, unfortunately. It was weird, though. Wanna hear about it?”

“Sure,” I said quietly. “But we can’t disturb the professor.”

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“Holly. Right.” Billie paused and took a deep breath. “We were back at Mesa, in our classroom, and Holly was giving a lecture about pottery. It was all so normal. Until the walls fell away, and we weren’t in a classroom anymore. It was like this place…an ocean on one side of us, mountains on another, and a desert, and like a swamp, with a volcano, and lava. It was scary, that lava, I mean. But the dream is basically exactly what is happening to us. Not very exciting, I know, but it felt so real.”

“Ha, but we’re living it, right?” I asked.

“We got naked. Like, everyone in the class was naked, and I was pretty sure we were going to have an orgy with each other. Merida was already, like, on her knees, about to suck on you…you know…your thing. Did she do that to you?”

It took me a minute to remember. “No. She was too excited. We went right to sex.”

“Did she feel good?” Billie asked. Then she held up a hand. “Wait. I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m sorry. Forget about it.”

I had to tease her. “You said it wasn’t a sex dream.”

She smiled. “It would’ve been a sex dream, if you hadn’t woken me up. Shame on you.”

“You think you feel bad. I was on the verge of getting a blowjob.”

Billie giggled, and I felt happy to be there. I couldn’t show it, though…not with Billie and not right then.

The CrossFit queen sighed. “Okay. You need to sleep, and you’re right, we can’t wake the professor. I hated how quiet and weird she got. She’d been strong until then. But really, Sid, the professor is great, but you’re our rock. I think she freaked out because you were gone for so long.

“Maybe not,” I said.

Billie inhaled. “If you hadn’t come back, what would we have done? It was just the two of us, and we only have so many charges left on our guns. I don’t even want to think about life here without you. Just the idea is scary.”

“I’m glad you feel better with me around.” I was serious.

Then Billie did something unexpected. She got off her bus seat, grabbed a limb, and then leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Thank you for being our rock. Sleep now. And don’t think about my dream, or you’ll be up all night with a big hardon.”

It was like telling someone not to think about a big pink cartoon elephant. All I could think about were elephants.

However, with Billie on watch, and with the professor sleeping soundly on the other side of me, I did finally fall asleep.

Raindrops woke me. While the tree above offered some protection, trying to sleep with the sky flicking water on you was not easy. I finally woke up enough to ask Opal to give me a hood, which I used to cover most of my face.

Then I slept until dawn.

I woke to find Billie sleeping. Shame on that girl.

Well, we’d survived our second night.

Breakfast was cold leftover dinner meat and some sweetberries.

Then, we were going to take our morning baths at Privacy Rock. I’d woke up as randy as an alley cat, and I needed some relief.

I thought I would take care of the desire myself, but that wasn’t what happened.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the hug that Holly had given me the night before, or how good Billie looked in the morning. Her hair was still braided, and yes, she shouldn’t have fallen asleep on her watch, but the extra sleep did make her skin glow and her eyes sparkle.

We had food and water, but we needed better shelter. I didn’t want to get stuck up there, and if we did get attacked by giant bats or giant insects or whatever, fighting up on the branches wouldn’t be easy. Both had been horrified that we’d had a big, smelly visitor in the middle of the night.

The girls had started another fire, just to keep warm, while I went off to Privacy Rock. I found huge, clawed footprints, like some kind of mutant bear, and realized it had probably been the animal that had smelled our meat. Making our home at Privacy Rock was not a good idea.

I made my way to the overhang and stripped off my survival suit. Then I dove into the crystal-clear water. I used the mud from the eastern banks to scrub myself down, but I wanted to soap. Not sure if that was in the professor’s wheelhouse, though I had talked to some hunters who rendered their animal fat and mixed it with the lye they got from hardwood ashes.

I didn’t know the specifics, but people had been making their own soap for hundreds of years.

I rinsed all the mud off me, and then I climbed up onto the ledge. It felt nice to be clean again, and that warm water was a godsend.

I knew I couldn’t take all day, especially since Billie had woken up with a huge desire to go exploring. Both she and Holly wanted to see the obelisk, and I was curious about where the other pathway would lead. Along the way, we’d scour the underbrush for the power crystals.

I was about to get down to business, when the huntress dropped down.

That’s when the huntress dropped down. She had a stone spear in her hand, and for a second, I she was going to try and stab me with it.

But no. She set the spear down and then pulled a short bow off her shoulder and put it and a quiver of arrows on the ground. She undid her belt, which had a stone knife sheathed at her side.

She then pulled her leather tunic up and over her head.

In seconds, she was naked.

What was happening?

I remembered Billie thinking that she might wake up at any minute. I couldn’t blame her for thinking that. In a lot of ways, the patchwork world felt like a dream, and that made the huntress a dream girl.