She woke to the sound of river water rushing by. Her first movements were difficult with her aching muscles but eventually she found herself sitting up with her back against the trunk of the tree she had spent the night beneath. She felt quite content to remain there for a while watching the river rush by her. It had gone unnoticed yesterday but like most things she had seen since her awakening the river had a rather distinct purplish tinge, but in this case it seemed things weren’t quite so straightforward. Intrigued she got up to investigate and soon reached her conclusion.

The only reason the river looked purple was due to the plants covering the riverbed the water itself was clear, clear and right. Now that she thought about it though, looking at the waterlogged riverbank the earth itself was also the right brownish color. So why was everything else purple? No, even that thought it was wrong, casting a glance up at the sky still caused her a bit of anxiety but it ascertained that there was at least one thing that wasn´t purple. It was a blue, something would have made it rather comforting if it weren´t for the other... things. Inspired by this new discovery she turned her gaze to her surroundings hoping to find something other than the earth which was more than partially right. Eventually she found herself eyeing the mountain range she had used to navigate yesterday, they were tipped with white snow, something she hadn’t taken notice of yesterday but certainly should have. Looking at them now though she was growing increasingly annoyed with herself. Because among all of the white were tiny splotches of green, the color that she now realized she had been missing all along.

Feeling unexpectedly angry she turned back towards the purple foliage surrounding her. She now knew what she had found so wrong ever since her awakening. Almost everything around her that was purple was supposed to be green, and the rest of it? Well she found that it took quite a lot of restraint to not start throwing mud at the grayish purple tree trunks.

She didn’t want to be here, in this place, where every plant around her was purple. Especially not now that she knew for certain that it wasn’t supposed to be. Her eyes once again fixated on the green splotches far in the distance. There were places where everything were the colours the were meant to be. Which meant she could leave all of the purple behind, something she was very inclined to do. But where should she go? She found herself sitting on the riverbank dangling her feet in the cold water. She didn’t want to leave the river, she was growing rather fond of it actually and it would be a good idea to stay near for when the thirst set in again. It was uncertain how long it would take for her to find another river so that left her with two directions, upriver and downriver. She already knew that the mountains had things that were green and white and well… not purple things. Which made it a very attractive option, something her knowledge quickly put a stop to, going to the mountains meant going up and if there was something yesterdays ordeal had taught her was it was that going up was far more difficult than going down. Furthermore the mountains had snow, something her knowledge told her was very cold. She didn’t yet have very long memory but what little she did have featured cold as being as something she very much wanted to avoid. The cool river water suddenly didn’t feel as good against her skin so she pushed herself up onto her feet with a decision made, she was going to follow the rivers path downwards to an unknown but hopefully not purple place.

She found that her limbs were a bit more coordinated than yesterday, she wasn’t stubbing her toes on as many roots as yesterday. Though that may have more to do with the fact that there were less trees along the waterlogged riverbank. Walking in on the slightly muddy earth was also easier on her feet but required a bit more concentration to make sure she didn’t slip but she found that it was most definitely worth it even if it was a bit cold. The old cuts on her feet stung a bit, though that wasn’t what was worrying her right now though. She had been walking for quite some time now, interspersed with several breaks of course. During this time she had become aware of an odd gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it or even if she could do something about it. But she was busy with with her current task of going somewhere not purple so she wound up ignoring it and eventually it went away, only to come back later in the day even worse. She figured out during her breaks that drinking a lot of water lessened the gnawing a bit, but only up to a certain point and it left her stomach feeling rather bloated so she soon stopped trying.

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Eventually her mind provided her with a word for the ache, hunger. She was hungry and in order to get rid of the hunger she needed to eat. But when it came to what she was supposed to eat she came up with a blank so she kept on walking alongside the river. She knew she couldn’t eat just anything, something her knowledge assured her would be a very bad idea, even if she found that the grass growing along the riverbank was beginning to look quite tempting. The one thing she was growing somewhat certain she could eat were the silver fishes that sometimes broke the river´s surface with their giant leaps through the air. She had been startled the first few times but now found them quite entertaining. She had attempted to step into water in the hope of grabbing one but as soon as her foot broke the water’s surface it instantly darted away. Her hopes dashed gave up on catching a fish and continued her journey.

The suns had made a bit over half their journey across the sky when she stopped by a particularly steep drop in the river for another one of her breaks. She had come across several of these shin high waterfalls today and hadn’t payed particular attention to them. She was laying down on a particularly soft patch of grass drinking in the warm sunlight when she saw it for the first time.

A fish made a large jump over the waterfall and continued it’s swim towards the mountains. The idea came to her after seeing a fifth fish do the exact same thing. All fish going upriver were forced to jump up the drop, they simply had no choice if they wanted to continue towards the mountains. Wading out into the river above the place where the water dropped she tested her theory and was soon proven correct. The fish below the small waterfall didn’t know she was there and had no way of escaping her while they were in the air as she found out when one particularly strong jumper almost smacked her in the face. She felt a smile break out on her face as she sat down waiting for her oblivious prey.

Seven narrow misses later and she was no longer quite as optimistic, they were just so slippery! Even worse, she only knew the general area of where they were going to be. She was almost about give up when attempt number eight, a particularly large fish jumped straight towards her. It was a bit of a fumble but she eventually managed to trap the wildly squirming body by squashing it against her own with her arms. Ignoring the way the sharp spines along it´s back dug into her flesh she began stumbling her way towards the bank, her numb lower body complicated things but she managed to keep a hold on her precious cargo despite a few near misses.

Soon she was back on her sunny patch watching the fish gasping and tumbling around on the grass. She knew she was supposed to eat it but she had no memory of eating before and was a bit uncertain about how to go about doing so. Fortunately her knowledge provided her with an answer once again. It was very clear on that it needed to be dead before she ate it and the easiest way for her to kill it right now was… She eyed the fish rather guiltily now, it didn´t seem like a very comfortable way to die. But her mind was made up, she was going to make the hunger go away and in order for to happen the fish needed to be dead. After looking to her surroundings for the tool required she needed she found herself sitting on her knees next to a now exhausted fish with a large rock in her right hand.

The sound a fish’s head made when it was crushed by a rock she very firmly decided was disgusting though it was outdone by the way it looked afterwards. She may have used a bit more force than was necessary but she had wanted to be certain it was going to die on the first attempt, which to be fair it most certainly had. She knew that there was supposed to be several more steps after killing it and before eating it but she couldn’t really figure out what those were so she wound up eating it as is. Biting off the scaly bits and tearing away the fins and guts that she was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to eat. Altogether she found that she didn’t enjoy it particularly much as she kept getting tiny bones lodged in her throat which sent her into coughing fits, but at least the taste was fine even if the texture was a bit unpleasant. The one thing that made the whole thing worth it though was that she wasn’t hungry anymore. But, she thought as she wrinkled her nose, she could definitely do without the smell.

She decided to take a quick dip in the river in order to wash off the guts and liquids covering her front. Her first attempt at eating something had taken more time than expected and the day was about to turn to dusk. She wound up laying down next to another tree and entertained herself by watching the small sun chase the larger across the horizon until she fell asleep.

The next morning she would take no notice of the way the remains of yesterday’s meal had disappeared in the night. Still completely unaware of the golden tree across her back which kept her from being noticed by the many dangers that roamed the forest.