Chapter 10

While scavenging near the stream, I found some wire. It's matted beyond belief, and it took me a long time to get it untangled, but now I have snares made for rabbits or even a lynx that might get caught up in them for me to eat. I've been here four days and I haven't eaten a thing.

Though I'm taking in plenty of water, I can feel the toll no food is having on me. Even my mental clarity is suffering.

"Alright, there. That's the last snare," I tell the camera, standing and straightening my back out with my hands perched on my hips.

My shelter has been keeping me warm enough to survive, and during the day, I peel back the tarp at the front and have my fire just inside the doorway.

I spend the days looking for highbush berries, which are supposed to grow here, even in this season. They're supposedly immune to frost, so I've had my eyes peeled for the caloric treat. I've been hunting, but haven't gotten a damned thing. Almost had another squirrel, but he was faster than my reaction timing, and I didn't readjust the trajectory of my arrow when he moved.

I'd plopped onto the ground and cried. Broken while hunger gnawed at my insides for the first time since I got dropped here.

But after the release, I stood and trekked on. Today, I've set snares, looked for berries, and then tried to fish. Though, I don't have any bait to speak of or a pole.

Thinking of stuffing my hands into the freezing water has my brain in panic mode. The edges of the stream are freezing, and I'm worrying that I won't have water for much longer. Being that it's running freshwater, though, I keep hoping I can break through the ice and still be able to retrieve some throughout the season.

I spend a lot of time sitting near the stream, praying an animal will show itself and give me a shot. Mainly, I close my eyes and listen to the water move. I never realized how calming the sound can be.

For the first two days, I tried to learn about myself. Learning who I am without modern technology and luxury was a rude awakening. I had to realize my stealth and cunning, trust my gut, and learn to roll with what the day gave me.

Yesterday was a bad snow day, so I didn't get too much done. But it means today I've been doing everything I couldn't do yesterday. I've built up my firewood, gotten water, and tried for food.

I'm also learning to give myself more grace and more room to grow and bloom. I don't know it all out here, and I know nature is schooling me right now, but I know my tide can turn at any moment. I never knew I was so internally strong, and it's something that the wild is teaching me.

Even if I don't make it to the very end of the competition, I feel like I'll come out the other side as a better version of myself than when I arrived.

"Going to be dark soon," I say absently, stretching and yawning as I get off the snow-covered ground and look around. The camera's light flashes back at me, telling me it's been watching me disassociate the entire time I was sitting and taking nature in. "Guess I'd better get back to camp before it does. I'm hungry, but there's always tomorrow."

I haven't felt like I'm being stalked for two days, and no one from production has sneaked back into my camp, either. So, that makes me feel more secure, too.

I'm taking steps in the right direction.

When I get back to camp, I set my water down, building the fire back up to a roar so I can boil it before I turn in.

The twilight sky is giving way to the beautiful stars, and I get myself ready for another night of sleep, but I keep my crossbow near, just in case I need it. Bears love to stalk at night, and even though the one bothering me hasn't been around for two days, it still could be out there somewhere. Planning a return.

When I kneel beside the fire to put the pot of water on, my eyes catch something in the snow just on the edge of camp.

I narrow my eyes, but still can't make out what it is. Something is lying on the ground beneath one of the tall pines.

Pushing off the ground to stand, I smack my hands together to clear them of snow before moving closer, palming my bow in my right hand lazily. Whatever it is, isn't moving, so it's not a threat.

Lying in the snow, completely field-dressed and rigid, is a squirrel. It's got snow-packed around it and sprinkled over it. Like someone removed its skin and insides and packed it to keep, just for me.

But that would mean someone's out here. And they're watching me.

Instantly, I wonder if Arsenio is on the team who monitors me for the show. If, after all he put me through during hell week, he's made up for it.

I'd already cleaned tree branches, thinned them out, and removed their outer bark for the event I got meat while I was out. So, I look around as I bend and gather up the squirrel.

I don't turn around, though. I back myself towards my fire, nearing it, before I turn and put the squirrel onto one of my cooking sticks. Pulling up a log I'd cut to sit on, I plop down and begin roasting the squirrel nearest some of the hottest coals that have heat wafting off them but don't have massive flames.

"Squirrels have little meat, Brynnie Bear. But they're abundant, and they'll keep you alive."

My father's voice rings in my head as I roast it evenly, as I watched him do in one video.

I hate that I'd forgotten so much about him as I grew up without him in my life, but I'm thankful I had those to relearn him again.

I think about the fact that I'd quit filming until I got back into the shelter for bed. But whoever gave me this food, likely wouldn't want me to out them on national television, either.

I'd be kicked out for cheating.

I think of that when I'm picking meat off the squirrel's bones and popping it into my mouth, my stomach cramping as food feels foreign inside it.

I close my eyes and devour each bite, though.

If I go home for cheating, at least I'll have food in my stomach.

They said I could use whatever I found on the island. Technically, I found the squirrel. How it got there isn't my business.

* * *

I got an early startthis morning, working my way downstream to see if the water gets any deeper. I kept the squirrel's head, thinking it could be great bait on the end of some paracord. I'd fashioned a fishing pole in the dim light this morning with a cooking stick. It's slung over my shoulder with the squirrel's head dangling from it, bobbing along with each footstep.

"There's got to be somewhere that this calms and gets deeper…" I trail off as my eyes try to make out something in the water in the distance.

It looks almost like a beaver dam.

Which, at this time of year, is unlikely. They're mainly seen during the spring. It could be one that was abandoned for the winter, though. That there's some usable wood or items within it has me speeding up my steps. Beavers will use just about anything for their dams.

When I get to it, however, I find something that stops me in my tracks. Slowly, I let my fishing pole slip off my shoulder. I lay it down on the ground as I step onto the contraption before me, testing with some of my weight by jumping up and down.

"Oh, my god!" I breathe.

It's a bridge. Not only that, but beneath it, the waters seem a little calmer, and they also seem deeper. I step back off it, grab up my fishing pole, and move into the middle of the bridge slowly, praying to all the gods above it won't cave in and wash my ass downstream in the freezing water.

When I feel I'm secure, I cast my line down into the water and wait. But while I do, I look at the bridge. At its construction. It's not crude under all the thicket that's been thrown over the top of it. It has been purposefully hidden; I realize.

And my heart is doing the skippy thing it does when I'm scared.

"Okay," I say aloud, working the problem outwardly so my mind doesn't spiral. "They use this island for the show. What if they built this here to get around walking through the water?"

Makes sense. However, there's an annoying clawing at the back of my brain that says to leave and not come back. I don't know why.

When a bite tugs my pole, I gasp. I want to get the fish in fast because sticks don't have the flexibility that fishing poles do, so I don't want the fish to snap it. And what's on my line is huge!

Grunting with the fight, I lean somewhat over the railing of the bridge, pushing against it with my torso as leverage. It works, and the fish comes flying out of the water.

I grab it quickly, pinning it to the boards of the bridge beneath my feet. I grab the rock I had put in my pocket to kill the fish quickly.

I wince, turning my head to the side. "Thank you, little fishy!" I tell it, before bashing it upside the head to stop its suffering.

When it stops thrashing, I look back down at the blood staining the rock and my hand, tears forming in my eyes.

This is the part of survival I hate. I've always hated it.

The killing.

* * *

Back at camp,I cooked my fish in its own oil in the frying pan the show provided, and I've eaten almost the entire thing. My belly is full for once in the last four days, and I'm thankful. Even if I'm a little shocked by how quickly I'd killed the fish. I used to have to be coaxed to finish a kill while hunting or fishing. It seems hunger has a way of changing us. My baser instincts are out to fight now, and I'm in full survival mode.

I've saved the fish's head slightly away from camp, under some snow with a twig to mark its spot so I can try for more fish tomorrow.

If I remember right, it was a sturgeon. But it could've been the ugliest fish I've ever seen before, and I'd have still devoured it thankfully.

I'm itching for some fruits and vegetables, and I know it's my body's way of telling me I'm lacking nutrients, but there's not too much I can do about it.

Though, going over the bridge would take me to a new territory I haven't yet explored.

I perk up at the idea. I haven't had luck hunting here or finding berries, but who knows what could be on the other side of the river?

Excitement thrums in my veins at the idea of exploring and finding new things to see and do tomorrow.

"Well, tomorrow is a new day, and I'm going to go exploring!" I tell the camera, and as I pack up my things to keep bears away, my mood lifts. I've almost been here a week, and it's three days longer than I originally gave myself. I might make it after all!