My previous struggles of trying to survive became less of a burden, and more of a style of life. Yes, I was getting used the the way things were. Doing chores, training to keep myself sane, hunting, building and doing all sorts of small things at the same time. It wasn't that easy of luxurious, but at the moment that was the way I lived. Besides, it's been nearly a month already, so I really guessed that this was the way things were going to be, well.. I was planning to progress with my living conditions a bit, but for the most part, this was the way things were going to be.

My idea that animals would go into a breeding frenzy or something, were partially true. I'd seen quite a few rat-bits running around during the day, which meant that they were simply waiting out the heat and searching for the scarce food during the night. That wasn't necessarily the good news to me... As I figured by their areas of interest, they were scampering around the lush grass that sprouted in patches, the grass had rice-like grains growing out of the middle stems.

At first I was happy for the new food source, but as I tried that - it didn't sit well with me.. literally.. It made me vomit.. What's worse - that new discovery of mine meant that all the other traps were rather useless.. as the rat-bits had enough food to simply avoid my ingenious fish bait.. I had to move the traps to the grass.

The fact that the little guys weren't fond of fish any more, made my schedule a bit empty.. which I greeted by adding another hour to my "leisure time".

Something else I discovered accidentally was regarding the paper-leaves, which I considered useless for the most part. Well.. as I was throwing quite a bit of fish-bait back to the pond, I dropped some leaves into the water, quite a few to be honest.. I didn't pay attention to it at first, but after a few days.. I was rather confused why the pale-whitish leaves became of the almost the same dark green colour as the whole forest.

To my amusement, such change wasn't the only one. As I closer inspected the leaves that I got out of the water, they proved to had become much harder, both to rip and to pierce. Not hard as leather, but like hard fabric soaked in bees-wax.

"I could use that some way probably." - even though it probably could be used to make some sort of clothing, a poncho maybe. And that's how half of my stash of bandages ended up inside the pond.

Good thing I also found out. The lizard foxes were mostly scavengers, they seemed to avoid direct confrontation with me... but if the food would become scarce again, I'd make it into their menu once more. Simple and easy to understand.

The issue I had with the forest - was that there wasn't quite that many creatures, well.. I'm not talking about mammals or anything.. no. I meant that aside from mosquitoes, there was no insects. No ants, no bugs of any sort.. not even worms. I couldn't quite get the finger on it.

Next to that - I had a slight cold feeling in my stomach for the past week.. It's probably to my habit of chewing on the pur-map paste, I'll try to do that less.

I am quite happy with my living conditions as well. Inside of my awesome moss-covered hut looks rather amazing. All over the place are bundles of pur-map leaves, which I was drying - as it makes for a stronger effect on the purple paste, and it's easier to store.

I have five pots now, one broke when I was firing it, but still, only one out of six that I made broke so far. Maybe I should have become an expert pot-maker. Speaking of pot.. I have been drying numb-berries, mashing them using a few stones and drying some more. Seems that such a process evaporates all of the chemicals that made me high, along with the healing properties. So, the numb-berry is hard to make any sort of healing potion, salve or paste out of, if at possible.

I've got a whole lot more stone tools, and that includes the newly made stone knives - which were my proudest achievement in crafting to be honest. Flint-napping wasn't something I had any idea how to do, so trail and error, and eventually I was armed with a knife.. well- it looked more like an oversized arrowhead, but did the job.

....

I was going through the forest, trying to get better acquainted with a bigger territory this time. I guess you could say that I was slowly expanding my area of habitat. As I was going, I'd mark the trees using the stone blades, one by one - carving this time, so that I'd be able to find my way around.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

One thing to notice - The place where I found the man - was only about a few hours long jog in a straight line, seems I made a rather big semi-circle when I first arrived. Quite unnerving of a discovery, and I avoided going deeper into the direction of that area.

I moved through the thick bushes, trying to keep low and make as little noise as possible.. to some extent I succeeded, but for the most part, I was just a bit too large to be completely unseen. I was looking for something particular, for something I noticed a few times along my day-long journey.

"Once more here.." - I moved the round warm clump of digested grass.. or deer droppings, feeling that it was still.. ew.... warm. Grass in droppings meant that I came across a trail of some sort of a herbivore, and as there was no sign of digging or anything, I concluded that it wasn't a boar. Which I'd be quite frankly hesitant to track. You see- boar could easily gravely injure an unprepared hunter...I was rather unprepared to hunt one.. so I decided to check the area for any signs before moving on.. smart, but stupid at the same time. Anything could be possible here, so what the hell, besides.. I was for the most part certain, that it was the same deer animal that I've encountered quite some time ago.

The animal of interest seemed to circle the area, and as such I decided to look into that. I followed the path to the location where I first saw them, this time I was able to get quite a bit closer, still - closer meant that I was around thirty meters away from the herd. I say "thank you" to the pur-map paste, even though I was getting closer from a winded area, the deer-creatures noticed me just when I came into sight - but they didn't run this time. My smell, however, was covered by the pur-map paste, which I had smeared on my skin. I was literally covered with purple smudge lines like a lazy kids sketchbook..

"Is...is that a dick on its face?" - I really wish I was kidding, but from where I was standing - that's was what I saw. The deers were so ugly, not in a cute way. Seriously, they had long snouts that hung and dangled before their mouth like... well lets say it looked very falic.. Some of them had short antlers, that had no sharp ends, but ball like protrusions at the ends - I thought those were males, according to the logic from Earth. Ones without antlers were either young ones, or the females. They didn't seem like dangerous bunch, but I wouldn't risk them seeing me next time..

"I could try to hunt these deers." - the idea seemed to pop up just now. I wasn't tracking them for the purpose of hunting, but more so to see what the animal was and if it posed a threat. It didn't seem so.. so I planned to kill them and eat them.. such a typical human behavior.

So the plans to expand my rations began, deer seemed like a rather beautiful addition to the food I had - and I had quite a bit less rat-bit due to them avoiding my fucking traps.

....

I felt the sharp object pierce my skin, instinctively pulling my hand away. It drew blood, I cursed. I was really bad at sewing, even worse so at sewing using wooden toothpicks instead of a needle. I already hesitated if the idea was even worth it, making a whole poncho-with-a-hood-like-coat-thingy...out of the hardened green leaves.

" It SHOULD work. Really, the...fuck.. the deers should not see me as fast.. and I might be able to get close..." - I occasionally looked up, the conversation with my new friend was going in circles. He was an adamant debate opponent.. well.. he was a dummy. I bundled some spare paper-leaves into a shape of a torso and just for the giggles made a head for it as well. A mannequin for me to hang the finished poncho or something.. I called him Eduardo. The lack of human interaction was ridiculously stressful. Even stuck at home I'd at least chat with some people, but here.. the isolation was getting on my nerves.

"I know that they might notice my smell from far away.. but I have a solution for that." - I smiled wryly at Eduardo, he didn't see the whole plan with the poncho as I did. Speaking to the imaginary conversation buddy wasn't the worst part. Recently I developed a rather bad headache when I went to sleep, it came with static noise. Migraines maybe... Worst part - once every other sound dies off, I could swear I'd hear some whispers mixed in.. But that's probably my brain trying to freak me out, seeing patterns where there are none.

"I will soak the ready poncho in pur-map solution, making it even more invisible! .. I know, I know.. I should stop chewing it.. it's just a habit... and I know that my gums have turned purple... Who's side are you on anyway??" - I threw a broken needle into the dummy and looked at the almost finished product, I couldn't hold a smile back.

"It's been two weeks after the rain, the deer will pass the same place the day after tomorrow.. they do so every three days.." - I was a bit hesitant to hunt them, but I was back in shape, and pretty confident in my new set of spears, which even had leaf fletching, not talking about the better stone spearheads.

I was progressing with the hunting project slowly, the rat-bit population seems to have exploded in a way, they are stockpiling on the seeds from the grass.. Half the animals are not edible due to the same reasons that the seeds themselves aren't. My well being depended on the outcome of this hunt.. and I was going to do it right.

Now back to sewing.