A few hours into his search Wyatt became aware of a sound which was already intriguing given the silence of the forest, but as he listened more closely, he realized it sounded like rushing water. It took him a moment to pinpoint the direction the sound was coming from. Once he confirmed the sound was getting louder, he continued on for about 15 minutes before finding a rather large stream. It looked clean, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to take a chance. He used his pot to scoop and then boil the water. After it cooled, he filled his depleted water bottles. It took several pots, but he wanted to ensure he was stocked up on water. After a bit more thought he took his clothes off and climbed into the stream, using some soap from his bag he did his best to wash himself off, and scrub at his wounds as much as he could. His shoulder was mostly ok, but fresh blood came from his hip and arm. He climbed out of the icy cold water, used a camping towel that folded up real small to dry off. Then he rebandaged his wounds, put on his spare shirt, underclothes, and shorts. He decided from here on out his other shirt would be used for bandages only, between the tears and the blood stains it was no longer usable as a shirt. He took a little time to wash his pants in the stream, the tear near his hip was pretty bad, but he wasn’t going to walk around without pants, and he only had one other pair. He wrung them out to the best of his ability and then tied them to the outside of his pack so they could dry while he walked.

Wyatt decided he would follow the stream as usually that was a good way to eventually find civilization. Streams led to rivers which lead to people, hopefully.

Wyatt felt a bit demoralized after hours of walking without any signs of roads, people, or anything else that demonstrated there was any type of civilization in this place. Following the stream had the benefit of removing his concern that he would run out of water, and day after day he traveled mile after mile. His wounds recovered quickly confirming something was up with his body's natural healing compared to what he would have expected on earth. Within about 4 days his wounds had mostly healed up leaving smaller than expected scars in their place. He had a few more fights with the hyenas stopping to cook the meat to preserve his other supplies as long as possible. He wasn’t sure if a week was 7 days here or how they broke down time or even if there was anyone to decide other than him, but it was 7 cycles of day, and night that he had been following the river. 3 more encounters with the hyenas, and one terrifying run in with some sort of aquatic creature that was absolutely horrifying. It looked like someone put saw blades in the mouth of a very large fish. It opened his mouth and the teeth looked like they moved independently. It was like looking into a woodchipper dressed as a fish. That was an experience he felt he could have done without.

Each day that passed made Wyatt more concerned that he would never find people. He pressed on, and in the blink of an eye it had been 3 weeks. He had stopped for an entire day on 2 occasions smoking some of the meat from his run-ins with the hyenas to make jerky. He had fresh water, a decent supply of meat, and no clue what he was supposed to do next other than continuing to follow the stream. So, he did that, he kept pressing on. He greatly limited his time in the water after his singular encounter with that horrifying murder fish. After a month of travel the stream had merged with something he would classify as a small river. He had a run in with a new type of creature that was similar to what fantasy books would call a jackalope, but rather than antlers it was sporting ram-like horns. He was pretty sure he ended up with cracked ribs after his first run in with the stupid wannabe jackalope. The meat was delicious though, it was almost worth it as far as he was concerned. Another month went by, and the river had continued to widen, otherwise the scenery had remained unchanged. At this point he was sure he looked a mess. A few months of hard living on the road, no shaving, with only sporadic bathing and washing of his clothes. Add in the numerous injuries he had accumulated, and the smoke from making jerky, and he was pretty sure most people would be rather revolted by him.

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Wyatt’s time spent traveling this world had led to some interesting observations. Namely, the weather here never really seemed to change. It had been a consistent temperature since he arrived as far as he could tell at least. It hadn’t rained yet, but he had seen clouds, and even heard thunder once. He also found that the eerie silence was very rarely broken, and he was extremely grateful for the sound of the stream; without it he was fairly certain he would have gone insane. The only other noise came from himself or the creatures that tried to kill him. He never knew he could grow to hate silence, but he did.

He hadn’t paid much attention the first night in the tree, but he had since come to understand that it was extremely dark at night in this world, and other than for about a 3-day period there was nothing visible in the sky at night at all. During that 3-day period he thought he was possibly hallucinating because there was something that looked like a giant purple orb in the sky. It gave off an extremely malevolent feeling, and he slept very little for those 3 days. As he couldn’t shake the feeling that something evil was searching. He wasn’t sure if it was looking for him or something else, but he avoided looking at it, and just did his best to ignore the disturbing feeling. He was immensely relieved when night fell on what would have been the 4th night, and the purple orb failed to return.

He had looked unsuccessfully for edible plants to supplement his all-meat diet. He had 1 chocolate bar left that he was holding on to for a special occasion. Maybe he would share it with the first person he met in this place. There was one particular berry bush that he had found, but it looked like berries he knew to be poisonous on earth, and whether it was similar or not he ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. Even if it just made him sick that could quite easily get him killed.

So it went that a second month passed on his journey along the stream turned river. He had still not seen another person or any signs that there were other people around. He had seen the murder fish again which was something that inspired horrific nightmares, and it made his already rather infrequent bathing even more sporadic. He was still holding out hope. The river getting wider seemed like a good sign. If there were people around, a city would be more likely to be built near a river rather than a stream. As the second month came to a close, he got into another scrap with the hyenas and noticed something else that seemed to have changed. The claws that had torn deeply into his flesh when he first fought them now didn’t seem to cut as deeply or draw as much blood when he was scratched. He wasn’t too keen on letting them attack him to see how hurt he got, and he also wasn’t too keen on testing the damage he could do to himself with the claws after he killed them, but he was fairly confident something had changed. Chalk it up to just another strange mystery. He was changing from his time here, but he wasn’t entirely sure in what ways he was changing. He seemed to be at least slightly more resistant to being clawed to death, and he recovered extremely quickly from the injuries he did take. He had ideas about what might be changing him. It seemed likely the massive quantities of meat he was consuming from the local wildlife was the most likely cause, but he couldn’t run any sort of experiment to prove that.