Jake wasn’t sure when exactly he’d lost consciousness while curled up in the hollow chamber of the copper deposit, but he awoke to total darkness. Every part of him was sore, it seemed the initial state of panic-fueled adrenaline had long since worn off while he slept, leaving him with nothing but tired aches and pains. Every muscle ached and his stomach growled, long since having used whatever energy it pulled from the early morning banana, but worse than either of these issues was his thirst.

He felt dizzy with a throbbing headache, and his throat felt scratchy and closed off like a vice. He’d managed to somewhat tune it out earlier as panic and confusion overwhelmed him, but now, freshly awoken his dehydration hit hard. He shifted himself to lay flat, but even this simple motion sent his muscles screaming and left his head throbbing.

With nothing left to do except lay prone and try to limit movement for fear of further aggravating his body, he simply found himself staring up at the darkness of night up above trying to force himself to sleep. Yet this was now impossible. Not only was his body's painful condition keeping him awake, but a new problem spawned from the stretching blackness above presented itself. He had not been a fan of the heat he faced earlier in the day during his trek, but at the very least he’d been dressed somewhat appropriately for it (even if it left his exposed arms and legs coated in sand).

Now, however, the sun had set taking all the heat of day with it leaving only a horrid chill in its place. Jake remembered reading a while back that the desert reached an average temperature of fifteen to twenty degrees, and it looked like the vast copper sands he found himself stranded in was no exception. Lying flat now, he could clearly see whatever vapor was left in his body escaping him with each labored breath, contrasting the empty sky above.

It hadn’t taken long after waking up for Jake to notice the cold, and despite how painful he found movement currently, he forced his arms tight across his chest in desperate hope of trapping body heat. The longer he found himself stuck in the cold, felt it eating away at his skin, and felt himself involuntarily shaking and chittering away against the rocks below, he did away with the plan to fall asleep again. He feared if he did drift off to sleep, he would surely die of the cold in his sleep and never wake up again. In fact, despite how generally miserable he felt right now he considered it a miracle he awoke when he did.

He focused now not on any hope of sleep but on the sky above, the only distraction he had to his body’s failing condition and the horrid cold. It was black and empty, not a star in sight despite finding himself in the vast wilderness with no pollution to block them. He’d hoped he might see something familiar in the sky, even if he’d never been particularly fond of astronomy. Right now, he was grasping for anything familiar to hold onto.

He still didn’t understand what had happened to him or where he was, but he was thoroughly convinced now he wasn’t dreaming. He’d been hoping before that maybe the test he’d run in a panic had been wrong, that he’d misremembered the info about reading in a dream. Perhaps he still had, but this chill and this pain radiating out from his legs and from his head. No dream could fake it, never had in his life.

This was all real, even if he couldn’t explain it. As he came to terms with that truth, no panic remained. He’d used it all earlier before he fell asleep. All that remained was a certainty in his heart. As he felt the chill begin to subside somewhat and saw a dim glow appear as the sun rose on the desert he was trapped in, he was certain he’d die here.

Jake wanted to scream and cry in frustration as he saw the sun finish rising above, but the effort felt wasted, what was the point? He would die, alone in the desert, and the world would move on and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Then, all at once, he fell.

He thought maybe he’d somehow rolled or been blown out of the hollow of the rock but no, it felt as if the ground itself had disappeared from under him. He wasn’t falling for long, maybe a half second or so, when with a hard thud he felt himself landing in the dirt and grass waiting below. A groan escaped involuntarily from his lips, lost in the rustling in the trees above.

It took a second for Jake to realize what had happened, but the shock quickly drove him to jump up and look around in a frenzy, ignoring the pain that begged him to stop his hurried movements. The desolate landscape of the copper sands was gone, replaced by inviting trees and unchecked flora growing wild. He was in a Forest, standing not on sinking sand or rough rock but inviting grass. But what excited him most was the rushing sound he heard close by.

Ignoring the pain of his screaming body as he stumbled over himself to find it, it didn’t take long to zero in on the source. A clear creek cut through the forest, leading on into the unknown. Its source was also unclear, but none of this was important to Jake. He threw himself into the creak face first, lying flat on his stomach so it was easier to shovel mouthful after mouthful of water down his gullet.

He was greedy, and as he sipped the water, he revealed the sensation of his throat loosening for the first time in what must have been over twenty-four hours. He didn’t know how long he lay there just lapping up water, but as the minutes stretched on, he noticed that though his throat felt looser and it was infinitely easier to breathe now, his headache wasn’t improving. If anything he felt like it was only worsening, and along with it a growing sense of nausea was starting to rise from his stomach.

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This nausea only grew and grew as soon as it appeared, and soon instead of mindlessly drinking Jake found himself doubled over a tree along the riverbank, struggling to stand as the world seemed to spin. A horrid sense of vertigo, nausea, and his unending headache which would not fade, all combined was too much to handle. It started as a simple gag, but soon he doubled over himself vomiting against the trunk that supported him upright.

It was vile, tasting of bile and copper. It was one of the worst tastes he’d ever had to endure, and it seemed to come endlessly across his tongue, his vomiting and nausea feeling unending. At least it ended, leaving him crumpled and struggling to breathe. Following his vomiting episode, he made his way back to the water, collapsing flat on his back alongside it.

He was still desperate for water, but now the nausea kept him under control, he couldn’t handle the sensation of desperately chugging water right now. With hands carefully washed in the creak to clean them of any remaining sand, Jake slowly drank his fill.

This seemed to help, and over the next hour, he did nothing but slowly drink water till at last he felt his nausea and headache starting to clear up. As these sensations cleared up, he became acutely aware of other irritations bothering him. The sand clinging to him was rough and irritating and he felt like it was constantly threatening to cause a rash. It also stuck onto every layer of his clothing, further magnifying his discomfort. Along with this, the fading sense of dehydration brought along an ever-growing sense of hunger. He had barely had anything to eat yesterday and had used up any energy provided from that meal during his hike through the desert. He was in dire need of some calories.

He decided first to deal with the sand problem. Stripping his clothes off, he shook them on the riverbank, causing the loose sand (and his forgotten phone, keys, and wallet) to fall to the ground. Then, he entered the water slowly, allowing himself time to adjust to the temperature. The water itself wasn’t terribly cold so it wasn’t too bad, but it also wasn’t a terribly nice temperature either.

Though he lacked soap, Jake did his best to wash out the excess sand from his body as best he could. He could see it collecting in the river now the longer he stayed in it, gathering together and flowing downstream. A rather larger amount flowed out all at once when he submerged his hair, and though he still felt some small grains clinging to his skin he was relatively confident he’d washed most of the sand away.

As for his clothes, he did his best. Repeatedly dipping and shaking them into the water in an attempt to remove the excess sand, he however held no confidence he managed to remove everything. It was his first time washing clothes via a river, and he was mostly making everything up as he went along. Once finished, he was left relatively clean holding a bundle of wet clothes. He decided to lay them out flat on a rock after ringing them out so the sun could dry them. Hopefully, they’d be dry by the time night came, because he was not looking forward to the idea of facing the chill of night in damp clothing.

Next was the issue of food. He hadn’t seen any fish or signs of animals while by the river. He didn’t know how to prepare fish or skin animals, nor did he have any way of cooking meat at the moment, but right now it didn’t even seem like an option to try. Looking around for a bit he found along the riverbank what appeared to be several apple trees.

They were tall, towering above him, and most he found offered no viable way to climb up to the prize above. When he did find a tree he might be able to climb, he found his body screamed in agony when he tried, apparently still too sore and weak to haul itself upwards. After a while, he opted to start chucking rocks at the apples above in hopes of knocking them loose. This method was not much better, as he wasn’t the best shot, and even when he managed to connect with an apple it rarely seemed to do anything.

But at last, with continual trial and error, he managed to knock one of the wild apples down to the ground. The fall and continual bombardment of rocks had taken a noticeable toll, the apple was mushy and bruised and had a noticeable indent in its side. But right now, none of that mattered to Jake.

He took a massive bite, expecting the familiar sweetness of a red apple to hit his tongue, but a horrid bitterness struck him instead. While disappointed, he was hardly surprised anymore. The apple was thoroughly disgusting, even more so in the parts that were bruised and battered, but his ever-gnawing sense of hunger beat his tastebuds into submission as he forced the apple down.

Following this, he managed to successfully knock down two more equally bitter apples, and though not tasty they did manage to somewhat sate his hunger for now. This was good because while looking up at the carpet of leaves that obscured the sky, he could see that the sun was setting fast, and night would soon fall. For now, those three horridly bitter apples would have to suffice.

Making one last stop to the creak to wash his mouth out and swallow a few more large gulps of water before night came, Jake returned to his clothes and redressed himself. Though still somewhat damp, they were dry enough to be comfortable and warm throughout the night.

He wasn’t expecting the temperature to drop as low as it had in the desert tonight, but at the same time, he had abandoned any sense of rationality by this point. He had no clue what to expect anymore.

Finding a relatively soft patch of moss underneath a collection of densely packed trees, he was able to more comfortably sprawl out than when huddled shivering on the copper deposit. Though more comfortable, and no longer dehydrated, he was not relaxed. He still had no clue where he was and a sense of panicked desperation for normalcy, to figure out what was happening began to fill his mind.

These desperate thoughts were what chased him into sleep as he drifted off under the forest canopy.