The next day, I wake up, still in a lot of pain. My eye (or lack of) is killing me. I also feel nauseous. This time, the nausea isn't because of nervousness or pain. I don't really know what's causing it yet. I don't feel much like leaving my nest. I'm not, in the least bit, hungry. The mere thought of food makes my nausea worsen quickly. I close my remaining eye, trying to ignore my pain. I finally manage to get back to sleep.

I wake up again about an hour later. Now, I feel more sharp pains coming from my stomach than my eye. I whimper and cry out with the pain. I can feel my stomach cramping up. A high-pitched whine emanates from my throat. My stomach gives a sudden lurch. I begin vomiting, some of it landing on myself.

I start gasping in between bouts of vomiting. I let out another high-pitched whine. After a while, I finally stop vomiting. I whimper. My face, chest, and front paws are covered with vomit. I cough into my paw. I want to get up, if only to clean the vomit off of myself. The pain is too great, though. I know that I can't get up. I feel so weak. Soon, I pass out from the pain.

With pain and fever often come nightmares. I started dreaming of many things after I passed out. Most of my dreams center around betrayal. That is how I felt when my adoptive parents lied to me. Everything I knew was a lie. I don't know anything anymore. I don't understand anything. I don't even know who I am. I don't know who my family were or are, so how could I know myself?

In this next dream, I see my birth parents' faces. I see my mother lay me down in the snowdrift. I see my father waiting in the distance. The images of my parents fade away. The dream skips forward to the more recent past, when my foster parents told me the truth. I hear the same words again. I say the same things again. I yell at them exactly the same way. I see their faces all twisted up in sorrow. Despite my anger, I can't help the guilt that begins to stab me.

I shoot up into a sitting position, the dream still clear in my mind. I'm gasping for breath. Pain is coursing through me, but I hardly notice that kind. I feel the pain in my heart much more deeply. I'm hurting, now, and upset. I'm alone because I didn't stay up there. It is at this point that I almost wish I was with them. They always took care of me whenever I got sick. Despite all of the lies they told me, I wish I was back there. I feel so alone, now, and insecure. I just want someone to care about me. I…I'm scared. I can admit that now because no one is around to laugh.

Now, here I am, alone with no one to care for me. I feel tears prick in the corner of my left eye. I try to hold them back, to no avail. They seem to fall of their own accord. I begin sobbing, one paw over my only remaining eye. I feel so broken up inside. I am truly alone in this deadly paradise. I'm shaking with my sobs. I'm breathing heavily, the tears still falling. I'm whimpering. I can't seem to stop crying.

After a few minutes, I begin to calm down. My tears start to subside. I sniffle and wipe my eye free of the tears. I cough into my paws. I force myself to stumble to my paws. I need to find something to cure the infection that I know is ravaging my eye socket.

I find a patch of marigold not too far from my cave. I know that it will help rid myself of the infection. I manage to make a poultice out of it. I apply it to my eye socket, hopeful that it will help. I eat more of the poppy seeds, before falling back to sleep.

As the days pass, I only get worse. The marigold is too weak to have much effect and there is nothing else nearby that could help. I'm much to weak to travel too far outside of my cave. I'm still vomiting on and off. Now, I spend most of my time sleeping. I'm delirious, often calling out to my adoptive parents. One time, I even thought that I saw Taisley. When I realized that it wasn't her, though, I started sobbing uncontrollably. I miss her…a lot.

I just woke up from another few hours of sleep. I can feel the heat from my fever spreading throughout my weakened form. I'm hot, yet I'm shivering. I feel the chills ransack my body. I start coughing into my paw, my throat dry and raspy from the fever. I look blearily around the cave. My vision is unfocused. It's so dark and hazy. I can see very little from my blurry vision.

I try to raise myself up from my position on my nest. I'm so weak that I can barely even feel my legs. I try to get up again, despite my weakness. This time, it isn't the weakness that stops me. It's the nausea that I've been dealing with ever since I became sick. I clutch my stomach, feeling it cramp up. I feel the lurch. I put a paw over my mouth in a feeble attempt to keep down the contents of my stomach. I'm afraid to move for fear of not being able to keep myself from vomiting. Using a sudden burst of strength, I manage to crawl a short distance from my nest. I remove my paw and allow myself to start vomiting. I heave and retch as I continue to vomit. When I finish, I crawl back over to my nest. I collapse onto it.

Instead of sleeping, I stay awake for a while longer. I'm still sick and in pain. I can't stop squirming in my nest. I'm shaking violently from the cold. I soon find out why I'm squirming so much. I haven't 'relieved myself' since before I lost my eye. I try to get up, if only to eradicate the embarrassment of wetting myself right there. However, I still can't get up. I just collapse back down on my nest. I squirm some more, trying to avoid wetting my nest. However, I know that it's inevitable. In the end, I just give up. I let myself go. I wet myself. A fair-sized puddle forms under me. I try to ignore the heat rushing to my cheeks. I'm just grateful that no one is here to witness this embarrassing situation. I close my single eye and, ignoring the wetness, manage to fall asleep. This is the only time that I have a dreamless sleep.

When I wake again, it is only an hour after I had wet myself. The urine hadn't yet dried completely, probably because of the lack of sunlight in my cave. I'm uncomfortable from the wetness, but I'm still unable to get up from my nest. I hurt too much.

There is some bad news. I have to go again. Normally, I can ignore discomfort caused by a full bladder, but my bladder shouldn't even be full after just an hour. There's no water in my cave, so I didn't exactly drink enough to fill up my bladder. I shift around in my nest, trying to hold it. It's bad enough that I wet myself once. I don't want to do it again. I close my eye and bite my lip with the strain. Finally, I just get sick of shifting around in my nest and accepting that I may wet myself. I stumble weakly to my paws. I limp towards the entrance to my cave. I stop, letting my paws fly 'down there' in another attempt to hold it. After a moment, I allow my paws to leave that region. I move even faster towards the cave entrance. My hurried movements turn out to be my downfall. The urine gushes out suddenly before I can even try to stop it. Once I start, I know I can't stop. I just allow myself to finish urinating. When my bladder empties, I collapse right in the middle of the puddle. I'm weak and I can no longer move. I can't even begin to feel embarrassed because of the pain that I'm in. I ignore my discomfort and just allow myself to fall asleep.

This time, while I sleep, I dream a different kind of dream. I dream of someone not related to my past. I see a girl weasel approach me. "Hello. You don't know me, but you will in time. I am here to tell you of things that shall come. You are close to death at this time. However, when you wake from this dream, you will be well. This is what I must say to you. Even when times are tough, you shall pull through them. Wait a while. You shall behold true happiness, for it will come to you. Return to the world of the living. Remember my promise. Someday, we shall meet…" The girl trails off. My dream fades into nothing.

I wake up, pleased to find that I am better. The girl from my dream told the truth. I get up for the first time in days. I look around the cave. I see the vomit still on the cave floor. I also remember what happened just before I fell asleep. I remember how I wet myself. I feel the heat rush to my cheeks. I'm beyond embarrassed. I go outside and find a pool of shallow water. I clean myself up in it. Then, I clean the cave up of the evidence of both the vomit and my 'accident'. As I look at my new home, I know what I'm gonna do. I've made my choice. I will continue to fight to live. To do that, I'll fashion my knife and learn to defend myself. I will rise up from the shadows of sorrow. I will not bow to the weight of depression. I will be victorious. That is my purpose, now. That is my life.