Okay, Evy.

Just stay calm. Be aware of your body. Don't panic.

I carefully slid my foot along the slim edge of the cliff I was currently perched on, closer to my goal with every fear-stricken step. Far below, the river I had forded several hours ago ran with reckless abandon. I realized that the area I had crossed at was rather shallow compared to the rest of it. Some parts foamed with white water, but the rest was deep and dark with depth.

My throat convulsed in sudden panic when my body lurched back a bit, and I immediately tore my gaze from the water, back to the rock in front of me. I could easily climb back up from where I was, to solid, sturdy ground, but I could also easily lose my footing on the loose rocks of the cliff's edge.

I don't even know if that stuff is flint or just plain old rock…

I fixed my eyes upon the brownish blue patch of rock, tantalizingly close, the reason I was dangling myself above a raging river. It was not a question of whether I wanted it or not. I needed it, undeniably. Flint meant fire, fire meant warmth, it meant clean food and water.

Just a few more feet.

Finally, I reached the patch of flint, and I hurriedly filled my pockets with the biggest chunks I could break off. My hands scrambled to pull my trembling body up from the cliff-face the instant I had enough of it. I flopped onto my back, breathing heavily. I could feel the sweat forming upon my brow despite the chill in the air. It must have been somewhere around midday by now. The sky was blue, the wind much crisper than it had been the day before. Winter was definitely here, despite the mild weather we had been having. North Carolina wasn't known for her snowy winters, for sure, and for that I was thankful.

I'd quite literally be dead if it were snowing.

After I had dropped from the tree earlier today, and after a brief panic episode, I'd walked in one direction for a few hours, figuring that in a national park, I'd have to find someone or something. A landmark, a road, a sign pointing me in the right direction.

I found nothing. No paths, besides game trails. No roads, and definitely no people. Just trees, thorn bushes, more trees, some poison oak, and a surprising number of deer. I'd gone into survival mode shortly after realizing my mouth was slowly turning into chilled cotton.

Another day and a half without water, and I'd be completely useless. Unable to travel any distance worth travelling, unable to find resources…

I'll be a dead woman walking.

With that delightful notion, I heaved myself up, dusting my hands and knees off. I needed kindling, dry material, and branches, anything I could use to start a fire and get warm. If I can get it to be big enough...

Maybe someone will see the smoke!

My spirits bolstered, I began snatching up any twigs I could get my hands on from the ground. Any occasional fallen branches were a welcome addition to my collection, as well as any dry leaves or underbrush I could get. I tossed them in a pile, circling outward from my temporary base of operation just past the tree-line near the cliff, in search of more.

Once satisfied that I'd have enough to start a fire and keep it going for several hours, I gathered up all the leaves I had found, pushing them gently into the tent of twigs, and then branches I'd fashioned. I mentally prepared myself for failure, knowing this wouldn't be easy. My fingers deftly braided my long hair back, and away from any embers that may or may not be making an appearance today. Getting a good handle on the two biggest pieces of flint I had, I paused to take a deep breath.

Please actually be flint.

With quite a bit of force, I dashed the two rocks together, and a few sparks sputtered to life between them. Laughter bubbled up in my chest, overjoyed that this rock was in fact flint, and not some imposter. Then I frowned, disappointed in the lack of fireworks, so to speak, and tried again, with more force this time. More sparks flew out, but not enough to catch the dry leaves.

Over and over I smashed the rocks together, until my arms were shaking, quickly turning to jelly. I'd crushed my fingers more than once, and had already chipped off three fingernails. At least 30 minutes had passed before I began to think I was never getting fire like this.

"Work, damn you!" I growled, and with a hiss of pain, I felt the skin of my right palm give way to the sharp edges of the flint. The wicked rocks fell to the ground, and I let myself relax a moment, gritting my teeth against the dull pain. Taking a look at my hand, a dribble of crimson blood had made its way from the shallow cut made by the flint. It would be healed by tomorrow, more likely than not, but it hurt like hell.

My second-wind having returned after a minute or so of rest, I sat up and gripped the rocks in my stinging hands again. I put what I felt must have been the remainder of my strength into one last try, a final stand. A flurry of sparks shot from between the rocks, and I saw the orange glow of a young fire. Immediately, I dropped the rocks, and myself, to the ground, blowing gently into the tent. Smoke obligingly rose into the sky, and I had to reign in the joy exploding in my chest, for fear of losing my new fickle companion. I dared not cease my work as a human bellows. I didn't care if dirt was getting in the cut on my hand. My mind was of a single track at the moment.

Fire!

At last, I let out a loud whoop of triumph, slightly dizzy and out of breath, rocking back on my heels to observe my handiwork. It grew steadily, feeding on the twigs and branches I had foraged for it.

I did it. I totally got it, this isn't so hard! Take that Bear Grylls!

Then I looked down at my hands, caked in dirt, beaten, bloody, and bruised as they were.

Well… It was doable at least…

The sharp crack of a twig snapped me out of the light sleep I'd managed to lull myself into, with help from the warmth of the fire. It was darker than it had been when I'd dozed off, the fire much dimmer. I remembered searching for something to boil water in, maybe an old pan someone had discarded, a Coke can, anything… Without any luck, I'd given up after a few hours, feeling a little light-headed, and made camp around my fire. It was completely dark now.

Perhaps it was a deeper sleep than I'd thought. Seems I've underestimated how exhausted I was.

I sat up from the pathetic bed of leaves I'd gathered for myself, my eyes scanning the trees around me for movement. My breathing ceased, my body stilled completely.
I had an uneasy knot in my stomach, the feeling of being inspected, like a rabbit under the watchful gaze of a hawk surveying its next meal.

No more wolves, please. Anything but wolves.

Several moments later, an owl hooted, as if chuckling at my skittishness.

I took a deep breath, yawning, and quickly regretting it as the cold night air dried my already parched mouth. Reluctantly, I pushed myself up out of the leaves, squinting in the dim light of the fire for more wood to throw on. Seeing the outline of a branch a few feet away, I reached for it.

The branch reached for me, too.

Holy mother of Jesus, that is not a branch-

An embarrassingly guttural screech tore through my teeth, and I snatched my hand back, my feet dancing backward with a mind of their own. The snake was much too big for my liking, its delicate, diamond-shaped head roughly the size of a large apple. It slithered closer to the fire, and to me, apparently enjoying the heat as much as I had been for the last few hours.

"Oh, just go away, isn't it too cold for you?" I whimpered.

The snake stuck its tongue out, taunting me with its non-chalance. It slithered closer, black eyes on me.

"Oh, come on! Aren't you supposed to be more scared of me than I am of you, or something?" I said, my voice cracking in fear. I ended up back-pedaling just a bit too far, stumbling over a branch. Incidentally, it was the very same branch I had been searching for just a moment ago.

The snake's tongue darted from its scaled mouth, and the thought of the fangs hidden behind it kept me scrabbling backwards on the forest floor. I picked up the branch, waving it around in front of me, hoping to scare the damned thing off.

"Back! Go on! Get!" I yelled, flailing the branch around some more. The snake was highly unimpressed. It just watched the branch, its head moving back and forth with it. Then, with a final tongue flick in my direction, its body curled up into a tight coil, settling itself comfortably close to the fire.

I lowered the branch, my jaw dropping incredulously.

Seriously?

"Oh no. No, no no, I worked damn hard for this fire, you don't get to steal it from me, I muttered, standing up, watching the snake carefully as I went. It didn't seem to regard me quite as highly. Its beady eyes watched the last flickering licks of fire in the embers.

What a strange creature. I've never heard of a wild snake acting this way…

I broke off a thick section of branch, and by way of one of the flint stones I had used to make the fire, and to cut my hand with, I began sharpening the end.
You don't get to take away the one thing I've managed to do right in the last 36 hours, I told the snake, And, you know… I'm getting pretty damn hungry. Maybe I'll have some nice juicy snake-kebab for dinner.

The snake didn't so much as glance in my direction.

"Alright, fine! Have it your way, then." I said, finishing my make-shift spear with one last swipe of flint. I gripped it in my right hand, taking a deep breath and a step towards the coiled serpent. It lifted its head to regard me calmly, flicking its tongue, watching me with those curious beads of pure black. I raised the spear, my own gaze fixed upon its delicate head.

I stayed frozen in the indecisiveness of the hunt for several moments, biting the inside of my cheek. I kept imagining what would happen if I managed to run it through. I could see its body writhing mindlessly, curling around the spear as if to free itself, although already dead. I couldn't help but cringe, inside and out, at the thought.

Growing up, my parents were young, and poorer for it. They did the best they could for us, but sometimes we had to deal with rather unpleasant aspects of housing. One being that our basement had a terrible infestation of centipedes. They weren't too terribly large, but all the same, my mom would scream and demand that my dad kill every single centipede unfortunate enough to wander into her field of view. I was the lone crusader on the side of the centipedes, begging my father to take them outside instead of crush them with the dreaded paper towel. I'd cup them in my own hands, and take them out myself if I ever found one, knowing I was saving a life. I remember how I'd cringe at the sound of them crunching, hating how my dad just threw them in the trash so unceremoniously…

Apparently that little girl still lived somewhere inside me.

My stomach growled angrily as I lowered the spear, curling painfully just to spite me. I regarded the snake for a few more moments, watching as it lowered its head. I liked to imagine it understood the unspoken conversation we'd just had.

You stay on your side, I'll stay on mine.

I broke the spear over my knee, and carefully placed the two halves on the fire, along with a few other branch segments. The snake didn't seem to mind, in fact, he seemed to appreciate it, curling tighter as the fire kicked up a notch. I sat opposite the snake, unable to quite trust him for what must have been an hour.

After all, he did steal my leaf bed…

It was a tiring business, tending a fire all night. It had a built-in alarm clock, with freezing cold to replace the obnoxious electronic ringing. I'd doze, along with my odd snake friend, for an hour or so, and then add more wood to it. Lather, rinse, repeat. By the time the sun had risen, I felt no more rested than I had nine hours before.

Sometime in the last hour of our interrupted nap-time, the snake left, probably to find something to eat, and bask on a rock for the rest of the day. It was smarter, and better equipped, than I was in that department. I felt slightly regretful at not having eaten him, given the periodic hunger pangs in my stomach. But, all in all, it was not food I needed desperately, although my stomach begged to differ. It growled furiously, flip-flopping around in protest to having been empty for this long. I felt weak, as well. My hands shook, and my legs buckled much too often, but it was not from lack of food.

I need to find something clean to drink. I need water.

I needed a lot of things, actually, and it wasn't looking good at this point. Unless I got extremely lucky, scored an easy food source, and found drinkable water, I'd just keep getting worse. By the end of today, my guess is I'd be nearly useless.

So, without any clear idea in my foggy head of what I was looking for, I set a thick bit of wood on the fire, and left my makeshift camp.

My feet moved of their own accord, my eyes scanning the ground and trees for anything I might find useful. I'm not sure how long I'd been walking before I caught sight of a tall hill. Step by step, I heaved myself up the steep ground, upon which a clearing seemed to sit. Perhaps I'd be able to see something from there.
em I will never ask for anything else for as long as I live if I can just find a road.

I reached the top, huffing and puffing, my stomach curling in nausea. I sat against the trunk of a tree, looking out at the horizon before me. It was just trees, as far as I could see.

What if I never find my way out of this forest? What if I die here?

I've seen what happens to parents when they bury their own child. And for my friends, my poor friends, it will be two they've lost in less than a month.

Maddie.

I imagined my best friend, dark water falling from her perfectly made-up eyes at another funeral. Except this time, she wouldn't have me. She would be alone. I knew somehow she would find a way to blame herself. I knew she would think she was cursed to lose the people she loved. I knew she would be broken, and I couldn't let that happen.

I'll fight until my last breath before I let them suffer like that. Not on my account...

Anger licked at the sides of my ribs, warmth building from my heart.

I have to get back.

I got ready to drag myself back to camp, glancing over my shoulder at my path, only to see a dark plume of smoke billowing up from the treeline.

The fire.

My first instinct was to think I'd started a forest fire. Smoky the Bear popped into my addled mind, deeply disappointed in me, shaking his furry head in shame. But the more I stared at it, the more I thought it was too much smoke concentrated in such a thin plume to be spreading.

Someone had to have put it out.

With water.

Water I could drink, maybe.

The burning dryness of my throat flared painfully. I lurched upwards to my feet, ignoring the dizziness that threatened to topple me over, and plodded back down the hill, towards my camp. Hope for a rescue made me even dizzier, my heartbeat too fast for comfort.

Regardless of that hope, scenarios of disappointment flashed through my head as I walked.

Perhaps a bear peed on it.

Maybe it was an isolated rain cloud. A very isolated rain cloud. One situated right over my hard-earned fire.

That would be just my-

Suddenly I was staring at another human face. It took my brain a second to recognize that fact. But yes! Someone stood in front of me, having stepped out from behind the tree I was currently leaning on.

"You're here!" I said in my excitement, before even considering what to say, or even properly assessing my newly found human companion. I shook my head, pausing to clear my scratchy throat, "What I mean is... I need help."

He didn't move to reply, or smile, or anything really. Calmly, he regarded me with wide dark eyes, observing me closely, so I began to do the same to him. It was a tall young man, not much older than me, dressed in what must have been deerskin clothes. His shirt was finely made, deerskin or not, with colorful seams, and the small, delicate form of a bird stitched in green just above his left pectoral. His pants were much the same, but his feet were entirely bare, and, I imagine very cold. A wooden bow was slung across his chest, arrows in a quiver that rested comfortably on his shoulder, hanging at his side for quick access. A rather large knife sat at his hip.

Maybe he's some kind of re-enactment actor, or something? Is there a reservation near here? Maybe Cherokee, but… Did they still go out hunting in this kind of outfit?

"Taku tokhanun so, wahwala zuzeca?" the man said, his dark brown eyes watching mine.

"I don't understand, I'm sorry… Do you speak English?" I said softly, backing up a step instinctively when he leaned toward me, looking at my jacket. He took a step forward, still assessing me with those eyes. My stomach did an unpleasant somersault as the silence stretched longer, and longer. We stared at each other with a feral kind of energy, tensed and ready for a fight or a flight.

"Parlez-vous francais?" He said finally, and I immediately cursed myself for not paying attention more in high school French.

'Oh, I won't have to use it, I'll never need to be fluent. Getting a C is fine!'

Lies!

"Do I speak French? Oui, um… un peu," I said, fiddling with my hair, and realizing it was full of leaves and twigs, "Que… um… Qu'est-ce que vous… faire?"

Yes, a little. What are you doing?

He glanced down, at his various array of weapons.

"Je chasse. Hier, je vous'ai vu, avec le serpent... Qu'est ce qu'une femme fait ici, seule? Où est votre mari?"

Panic started to rise in my throat when the quickly uttered words made little sense to me. I needed help, and if I couldn't get it from this man, I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no fire, I had no food, I had no water, and I was a day from death. My eyes stung, but no tears came, and I looked down, taking a shaking breath to calm myself.

When I looked up, he was watching me, wary concern replacing the distrust in his gaze.

"S'il vous plait, monsieur. Je suis…" I touched my throat, remembering only the word for drink, "Boire."

He raised one dark brow, the copper skin of his forehead furrowing. He was confused, not by my words, I think, but by my very presence here. Not exactly shock at seeing someone way out here, but seeing me specifically, and in the state I was in, was apparently shocking.

I didn't blame him. I probably looked like some kind of savage.

With one last glance at me, my clothing, my eyes, my hair, he wordlessly turned, throwing a nod behind him. A sign to follow him. I stumbled over my own feet before falling in line behind him.

We walked for miles, at least five or six, judging from my inner pedometer. I spoke plenty, but with my broken French, and his apparent dislike of conversation, I hadn't gotten much in the way of answers. He led me through countless trees, over a few streams, past a gigantic over-turned tree-stump, and through a marshy area until he turned to me at last.

Where was he taking me? To the trail head? To a camp? A town?

The sun had lowered in the sky significantly, I noticed. My legs were jelly, and I wasn't sure how I was upright at this point. He put a large, calloused hand on my shoulder, and then brought a finger to his lips.

"Soyez silence, wahwala zuzeca. Ils seront en colere. Comprenez?"

Be silent… They will be… angry?

"Who- Um… Qui?" I asked, whispering already, glancing around us, searching for anyone lurking in the growing shadows. He just shook his head, once again put a finger to his lips, and marched on.

I had no choice but to follow.