The rock just barely squeezed into the pocket of his windbreaker, and he zipped it shut. He hoped that in daylight it would be easier to see what it was and how it worked. For the moment, he had to do something about the chill.

The wilderness survival stories Nick had read always took place in a forest. They assumed that there would be wood, streams, small animals to hunt or berries to eat. Here, there was none of that. He had a possibly useless alien rock, and half of a Ford Explorer, groceries included.

I should inventory the food. Nick didn't know how long the groceries would have to last. Of course, if there wasn't anything edible on this planet he was likely going to starve. Though, maybe he would get rescued, or the portal would reopen.

There was a half gallon of milk and four bottles of fizzy water. Nick hated fizzy water, but that was all there was to drink, so he would have to make do until he found a stream or something and decided it was safe. Some of the food would have moisture in it, too, like the applesauce.

It felt chilly enough that the cold cuts might keep, though he would eat those first to be on the safe side. The raw hamburger was probably useless unless he figured out a fire surprisingly quickly. The eggs were a total loss; Nick set those, the cold cuts and the hamburger outside on the ground to get them out of the way. Hopefully his body heat would help warm up the interior and he didn't want the smell of things rotting ruining his air.

There were a few cans of soup and four cans of tuna. There wasn't a can opener, though. That will be a comedy routine when I get around to it, he guessed.

A bag of sliced cheese was welcome, as was a bag of potato chips. Nick surveyed the rest of the groceries as well, feeling despair pushing against him. As usual, from long habit, he pushed back. Despair never got nothin' done, his father had told him a thousand times. The old man probably had suffered from depression, too.

Oh shit, my meds.

Nick grimaced, thinking about the pill case in his backpack back on Earth. He fought panic with dark humor.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It might as well be on another planet. Ba-dum ssss. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week!

...Hopefully not.

Not having his meds was going to be a serious issue. It wouldn't kill him, not by itself. Depression would make him not fight as hard to survive, though. Well, I survived without meds for twenty-four years before I tried them. I can do it again.

I hope it warms up in the morning. Wait, how long will it be until morning? Nick chewed his lip a moment. Is this planet even turning? It has to, otherwise the dark side would be frozen and the other side baked. So how fast is it turning? Nick looked up at the sky again.

Man, I wish I had my phone. It was lost with his backpack, probably lying on Market Street until someone picked it up. Without it, he could only guess at how fast time was passing. Still, he squinted at the blue nebula, trying to decide if it was higher in the sky than before. He crouched down and sighted along the car roof, trying to memorize how the sky looked so that he could compare in a little while.

Nick was wide awake, since it was still morning to him. The chill was starting to really bother him, though, so he set out to gather rocks. He had no idea how hard it would be to build a windbreak, but anything was better than nothing. And if he ended up dragging himself along without his meds, having a boring, repetitive task to do would help. He could just mindlessly trudge on, being productive very slowly.

While gathering rocks, he discovered that half of the driver's-side door had fallen off and not slid very far downhill. It was heavier than he would have liked, but Nick dragged it back to the Explorer and propped it up to partly block the giant hole in the car running from the front of the driver's side to the right side back passenger door. It was definitely better than nothing. He could climb in the back and use it to halfway block off the smaller gap across the axis of the car, between the two rear doors.

Rocks were a good thing to gather, in part because there wasn't much else available. But rocks could make a wall for defense, or be thrown for offense. Nick kept himself to easily accessible rocks, though; he didn't want to waste a huge amount of energy digging up one rock when he would need hundreds.

Finally, Nick was getting colder faster than the exercise was warming him, so he retreated to the Explorer to huddle for warmth.

In the morning, I can explore a lot more. He checked his star sight line, and the stars had definitely moved. It was hard to tell, but Nick thought this planet might be turning faster than Earth, so a day could turn out to be significantly shorter here. As a slight benefit, he now knew that he was on the south slope of the hill, and which way was east, where sunrise would come from.

I hope the sun is warm here.