Wyatt woke up feeling extremely groggy after his dreamless sleep. It was still night, and with nothing else to do he decided it was time he tried to work through some of his baggage. He would not survive long if he was going to break down, and physically pass out from all of his unresolved emotional issues. He tried to think about how he felt about the trauma of his life including his parents, but the only thing that kept coming to mind was the female hyena. He had no idea how his brain knew she was female, but he was absolutely certain that she was. It also didn’t feel right leaving her on the beach to be eaten. Wyatt had no idea why, but he felt a strange protective sense to give her a proper burial. He had no clue what a proper burial entailed on this world for any humanoids, much less a beast, but he was going to bury her earth style. Having decided on taking care of the hyenas' remains he felt relieved. Knowing that was the tip of the iceberg he tried to focus on his dad’s death. He had never truly mourned him. He was sad about his death obviously, but there were always other things to worry about. Would he have gone through the gate if his father was still alive? Would they have come through together? If they did come through together, would they have ended up in this world or somewhere else?

Wyatt took a breath calming himself down. His thoughts were even more chaotic than normal. After getting back to what he truly wanted to think about he was strangely calm as he examined how he felt when his dad had died. At first, he was clearly in shock. He wasn't sure how long that had lasted, but he knew when he first heard the news it was like it didn’t make any sense to him. He understood what the words meant, but it just didn’t make sense. Then he had started to feel the pain and grief it was overwhelming, but rather than get to actually grieve his mom stopped being there for him. He was forced to get over it to survive. The resentment and anger had almost destroyed him, but then one day it was like a light switch was flipped and he just stopped feeling at all. Now it was all coming back with a vengeance. Along with it came a slew of memories. He thought he just didn’t have many friends, but he was remembering telling All the things that should have made him happy, mad, or sad just didn’t. He was just in a constant state of ‘whatever’. Unwanted tears spilled from his eyes once again. He felt like all the emotions he had suppressed for so long just exploded from him. Something was clearly wrong. He had never heard of anyone feeling years' worth of emotions all at once. He thankfully lapsed into oblivion passing out again from the pure emotional trauma being inflicted on him.

“Ugh. My head. What is going on with me?” He mumbled. Rather than try to dive into what was going on Wyatt focused on everything happening externally. Realizing it was daytime and had been for some time based on the position of the sun in the sky. Wyatt didn’t want to spend the entire day lost in the deluge of emotions, so he climbed down and started walking back to where the bodies of the hyenas were. When he arrived, he dug a hole with a stick, and his hands. He buried the female hyena. Strangely he didn’t feel a need to bury the one who’s body he had used as a weapon. The thoughts made no sense to him. He had no idea why he felt like he needed to do anything other than eat the hyenas that clearly wanted him dead. He stared at the grave he had just covered over before shaking his head and getting his things together to head out. No use trying to figure it out now.

Just like that he slipped back into a routine traveling the river and fighting when necessary. Which oddly enough almost never included the hyenas anymore. Wyatt also found that he had started fighting more with his body than with his staff. There was a bit more reflection when he stopped to rest, but other than that very little changed. Wyatt did wonder how it had gotten to the point it had without him realizing just how closed off he had become. He had known he wasn’t great, but he never realized how bad it was. From the inside of his head, he thought he was mostly ok. If it wasn't likely to get people killed this would be a great therapy plan. He was pretty much forced to confront his emotions. While he was still a little drained from the experience, he also felt an enormous amount of relief.

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Not finding any signs of the boat was a bit of a disappointment, but after the initial heartbreak he moved on. The routine his travel provided allowed him to focus on the travel itself rather than get overwhelmed by his emotions. “Ow!” Wyatt shouted. “Man, that’s like the 3rd time I have nicked my tongue on a tooth in the past few days,” he said while shaking his head. He couldn’t remember ever doing that before now it seemed like it was a constant occurrence. Sure, he had bit his tongue occasionally when eating, but not when his mouth was empty. Whatever, just more unexplainable things. Things continued on for about 3 weeks in a similar pattern before something unexpected happened when he was fighting a large pack of the jackalopes. He swiped at one of them rather than using any type of actual martial arts move, but while that was strange by itself what was truly bizarre was that he tore into it like he had claws. After the fight he examined his hands, and didn’t see any claws, but when he looked at the jackalope it had furrows carved into it like he had raked it with claws.

“Well, maybe I am a slow bloomer and am finally getting my supernatural powers I have been missing.” He said laughing to himself. He picked up one of the jackalopes, and almost put it directly into his mouth. “What the hell? I must be more tired than I thought.” He shrugged and set about skinning the creatures so that he could cook them up. After enjoying his meal, and with a bit of extra cooked meat for a snack he started up his walk once again.

Everything settled back into routine once again, but that routine started including periodic damage to his prey by the strange claw marks which seemed to be happening more frequently as well. He really didn’t understand what was happening, but he continued on still hoping each day would be the one that found either the boat or its destination. Wyatt had stopped trying to keep track of time somewhere along the way because all it truly did was bring him down, but at least another month or so had gone by. Strangely he noted the purple moon hadn’t come back. He was positive now that the hyenas were going out of their way to avoid him. He wasn’t sure why that was the case, but he was positive that they were purposefully avoiding him. If the jackalopes hadn’t taken the hyenas leaving him alone as a cue that it was open season on him, he might have been worried about his food supply. As it was, jackalope attacks had become a near daily occurrence.

Wyatt had mostly written the claw thing off to some weird energy ability he would have to probably learn about from a native. The urge to eat raw meat seemed to pop up every so often as well, and he had no clue what that was about. Just going with the flow another few weeks passed, and then things took a very strange turn. Wyatt was settling in for the night as he saw the purple orb floating into the sky. This while still unsettling wasn’t anything new, but what happened next very much was. The hyena he had buried showed up as a spirit. What’s even stranger is that after looking at him it seemed to nod, then it faced the purple orb, and growled. Wyatt felt an intense shiver go down his spine a moment later as it seemed the purple orb focused its attention on him. “How can a moon be sinister?” A strange situation became even stranger when the hyena dissipated and seemed to flow into him. He felt a sense of solidarity, of companionship, of for lack of a better word family as the energy seemed to settle into him. Sometime during this process, he must have drifted off to sleep, and when he woke it was morning.