Haha, guys, I'm so sorry if my chapters are too short. (I know they are) Please tell me if you have any suggestions for my story. I made a conscious effort to lengthen this chapter, so be appreciative. :)

However, chopping down trees faster wasn't my main concern. I was hungry. Very hungry. I saw a few pigs in the distance but they could run quite fast. If I were to kill them, I would need a stronger means of hunting.

"Aaaaah!" A loud and desperate cry rang through the woods and interrupted my thoughts. Who could that be? It was a girl's cry. I ran in the direction of the scream. I was getting anxious now. What could be scaring the girl?

In the end, I found a girl in a blue jumper and a pair of ripped jeans, scrambling up a tree desperately. Blood stained the places where her clothes were ripped. She was breathing heavily, and terror was written all over her face. I noticed that her deep blue eyes were looking down below the tree. I looked too and saw a whole horde of spiders.

The spiders were making gurgling noises and were slowly climbing up the tree too. In an attempt to save the girl, I snuck up behind the spiders and yelled, "Hyaah!" As I hit one with my fist. All of the spiders turned around and started chasing me instead. I ran. I ran towards the nearest water deposit like I ran from the skeleton. As I jumped into a little lake of water and turned around, I saw the spiders do likewise.

Then, since they moved slower than me in the water, I began hitting them. "Hyaah! Hyaah!" I screamed like a crazed monkey. They hissed at me. Eventually, I reduced them into a disgusting pile of…spider eyes? They also dropped string, which could only be useful.

The girl (which I saw fell victim to the spiders) walked next to the lake, where I was collecting the spoils of war. "Hey, thanks for saving me, I totally owe you one!" She said. "My name's Victoire. What's yours?"

I looked up at her, noticed her perfect, pretty face, and her gentle voice, and began to speak, but she beat me there. "Hey! You're the boy I saved yesterday!"

"Am I? Oh, you're the person that dug me a way out of my hidey hole, and put up that sign!"

"So I guess I don't owe you one anymore, huh?" She asked.

"Yeah, I guess not. I would have been stuck in my own grave if you didn't dig me out." I said. Victoire just stared at me like I had just told a bad joke. "Ookay…"

We looked at each other for a couple of awkward seconds, and finally, Victoire brushed her hair aside and tried to break the tension. "Do you wanna know how I found you in that hole?"

"Yeah, sure." I replied.

"Well, I wanted to mine some cobblestone to make better tools, but I couldn't find any obvious deposits. So I decided to dig my way down into my own mine. By coincidence….or fate…"

"What?"

"Nothing. So…by coincidence, I found you, sleeping in that hole you dug. C'mon, let's go to my house. You can stay there. Since you really look like you need some basic survival skills from me." We started walking towards Victoire's house. It was in the middle of the afternoon. I was still thinking about how close to perfect Victoire was when I thought, how long has Victoire been surviving here?

Apparently we were thinking about the same thing. "I've been surviving here for at least thirty days now. How about you?" She asked.

"…This is my second day."

"Wow! Your second day and you've already found a companion?! And hey, you still haven't told me your name yet."

"I don't…have a name…" I stammered, just realizing it.

"Then I'll give you one. How about…Jeffrey?"

"No way."

"Greg?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Ryan."

"Yes! That's it! Call me Ryan."

"Ryan it is then."

We reached Victoire's house…or what was left of it. Fragments of splintered stone were scattered all over the dirt ground. Wood, some still burning lay in the midst of them. Different sorts of what had once been furniture was destroyed in a fiery heap.

"No…" Victoire said softly. "Why…all my valuables…my items…all gone…" Victoire bent down, picked up what seemed like it had once been a wooden sword and wept. I lent her my shoulder to cry on. Hey, that's what friends are for, right?

I consoled her by telling her that we both could start afresh. Together. She liked that idea. Now, with Victoire's high intellect (or at least higher than mine) about surviving in the World, we could be unstoppable.