Chapter 8

Ishouldn't have had a fire when I woke up. That's all I can think about once I'm awake and finally get moving. The fire should've been out, but it wasn't. It was blazing.

It was well into the morning when I'd finally come around. Not surprising since I stayed up as long as I could, trying to keep whatever was hunting me away from camp. Even after I no longer felt whatever it was moving around, I remained seated on the rock where my tarp was secure, keeping a vigilant watch.

I assess my surroundings, looking at the crudely drawn map that gives no good signifier to how far off track I am. The landmarks that are supposed to tell me I'm at the camp they wanted me to find are nowhere in sight.

Half of me wants to call it a day and push the red button on the black box. It'll send them a signal to find me. The other half of me is full of pride that I'd just survived a below-freezing night in the wilderness.

How? I couldn't tell anyone if they asked, but I did it. That's all that matters, right?

There's no sun, not that I expected there to be. I was warned, but a girl can dream, can't she? My disdain could be pushed aside for only a moment of its warming fingers on my skin. I'd take back every time I'd cursed the sun while living in Florida just for a speck of warmth.

Pushing the worry of who fed my fire to the back of my head, I stretch my body out, letting the cold, still world around me welcome me into the new day.

No one could've fed my fire except for me. There's no one out here. I must've been delirious with cold in the night and gotten up and done it myself. That'll teach me to not build it up before bed again.

The urge to check social media or connect with Alyssa this morning is strong. I hadn't realized how attached to my device I was. My fingers itch to scroll aimlessly down a feed of some sort and see what the world did while I slept. Somehow, even having slept on the cold ground, I feel the most rested I have in as long as I can recall.

I love sleeping in a cold room. I think this is the coldest room I've ever slept in, however.

I chuckle to myself before setting up my camera for the day. All the battery chargers the show gave us are solar-powered, but they didn't say how much solar we get when it's overcast. Still, I lay them in a dry place, up on the top of my fallen log that helped shelter me last night. It'll keep them dry, and there's a clearing in the treetops overhead, so maybe they'll charge up a bit.

Turning on the camera I have, I use some water to dampen my toothbrush from the pot, adding on the toothpaste the show gave us. As I brush my teeth, my eyes wander around the frozen terrain. Snow is heavy on the branches of fluffy pines. The ground looks virgin. The snow had stopped a few hours ago by the looks of it. A squirrel jumps from one tree to another on my left, and my eyes track it.

That's something I can cook. If I can get a good shot at one. I hate killing. Hunting was something Dad instilled in me very young, but I always hated it. Knowing where my food comes from has also given me a deep respect for each morsel.

When my eyes drift down naturally, taking it all in, I stop dead.

Spitting my mouthful of toothpaste onto the ground, I reach and shut off my camera.

Footprints are leading right to my fire. They're faint, but they're there. And not those of a hungry bear or a wildcat, either. These are big and heavy. Man-sized.

"What the fuck?" I mutter.

I look toward the camera, not knowing why I'd instinctively shut it off.

The snowfall while I slept had almost covered the prints, but not quite. Meaning whoever was in my camp was likely only here hours ago.

Scanning the trees, I don't feel as if someone's near.

Someone had fed my fire.

My pulse takes a nosedive, fear filling my chest cavity. Then my brain takes over, logical reasoning coming in clutch. The show has people stationed all over the place. It's a likely scenario that even though I'm supposed to survive alone, they also can't let me die on their watch.

Someone from the show probably snuck in, fed the fire, and snuck back out again.

I let out a breath that's fraught with tension as I relax, but a bead of sweat trickles down my back, between my shoulder blades, and down my spine. It soaks into the band of my thick pants, and I shiver from its touch.

I finish rinsing my mouth and pack away my toothbrush. The primary goal today is shelter. I've decided against trying to find my way back to where I'm supposed to be on the map. There's absolutely no fucking way to. Not with the way they'd drawn the damn thing. I don't know if I could even find my way back to the drop point. No, staying put is the best option. So, shelter building is a must today. Then, I need to get some food in my belly.

A lot of hard work is ahead, so I gather what I'll need in the form of tools, mainly my paracord and my saw to cut and tie together some branches for shelter building.

I don't trek too far, leaving well-defined tracks behind so I can get back to my camp. I take well into the afternoon to cut enough wood and get it all back. I hurry to cut notches into my main branch. They'll allow me to set the smaller branches up against it. So, I'll have one main beam holding up six rows of a-framing, descending from the opening.

Once I have them stacked, I take a long drink of water, noting I need to get more for boiling before the sun sets. Maybe I can even catch a fish if I'm lucky.

My stomach grumbles at the idea.

While I'd gotten my branches, I'd collected some with full foliage on them, pines fanning out from them to help insulate my new home for the foreseeable future. Before trudging all the heavy greenery up onto the frame, I crawl under to make sure I have enough room to lie and sit down. There are going to be stormy days to come when I don't want to lie down but need to be sheltered.

Once I'm certain it's going to work, I throw my tarp over the framework and use rocks to keep it down on all sides. I work my way around, getting two to three feet of foliage insulating it, and then begin the tedious task of packing snow over the pine boughs to give it another layer of insulation. There's a small opening in the shelter"s front, and where the door frame comes together, I've left another opening at the top to let smoke out, so I can attempt to have a fire inside.

Once the snow is packed down, I know I'll need to make a door plug, but I set out for water instead. The light is fading, and I need to get something to sustain myself before it turns pitch black outside.

The stream is beautiful. The water is nearly crystal clear, running over smooth rocks and fissures. Crouching down, I catch all I can with my pot, adding the lid over the top so I don't lose any on my walk back to camp. Rustling pulls my head up toward the right side. Sitting perched on a branch, eyeballing me, is a squirrel.

Moving stealthily, I get an arrow into my crossbow, standing and turning with precise movement so as not to make any noise to alert him.

He's got something in his hands, pecking at it with his teeth as he faces me. I aim my crossbow, letting out a shaky breath as I pull the trigger.

The arrow sails through the air, but the squirrel wins this round, getting briskly out of firing range in a heartbeat. My arrow rushes through the space he's left behind before falling to the ground on the other side of the tree.

"Fuck," I say aloud, remembering the camera I'd set up behind me to film my journey to get water. "I was so close, but he was quicker," I tell the viewers who will eventually see this.

Snow crunches under my boots as I retrieve my arrow and shove it back into the quiver on my back.

Sighing, I grab up my water and head back to camp. I turn back to scan the opposing tree line on the other side of the stream. The hairs on my neck rise, and I make sure I do a thorough check before turning back to the area again.

Something's watching me.

Shaking off the heavy feeling, I follow my tracks back to camp. Feeding the fire from my growing stack of wood, I set my pot on top. I'll need to build a little cooking platform eventually, so I don't ruin my pot, but for now, it'll sit on the fire itself.

Once I've had a good drink of water, I relieve myself where I've dug out a hole for my latrine and then head to bed. All the while, watching for whatever I felt near the stream.

I use my massive pack as a door plug and find that it's decently warm in my shelter. My body heat will eventually warm the space, but I know when it gets even colder, I'll need to keep a small fire burning in here.

Once I'm snug inside my sleeping bag, the still night closed out of my shelter, I stare up at nothing. It's so dark that I can't make out anything through it. I'd insulated the shit out of this shelter, and now I kind of wish I'd thought to add a window. But with this weather, I don't need a massive hole in the wall.

I sigh. I'm thoroughly tired from the work today, but also on edge.

I think of what Alyssa could be up to. She's probably dancing right now, holding onto some poor fool for the night. He likely thinks he's finally found the one for him. I smile warmly, eyes growing heavy.

The thought flickers behind my lids, and I can almost see her there. Twirling to the beat of the music. A glimmer of joy in her eyes. I pretend I'm there, too. Pretend I'm not in the wilderness, hungry, and cold.

There, in my little shelter, in my little portion of the world, I fall asleep with the beat blaring, and a smile on my face.