For the first time in years I had a nightmare.
I was alone, I was disoriented, I was floating? I looked around and saw the Earth, except it wasn't that green and blue orb you see on TV, it was covered in gray and black, translucent giving tantalising glimpses of the surface below, then it started, from the north pole a circular wave of fire began to extend, a perfect circle slowly expanding as it dropped to encompass the planet before me, stopping at the south pole. Nothing could have survived for beneath me the Earth had been reduced to molten rock, yet I was no longer alone.
Somehow walking through the void of space was what looked like a human being, except her eyes seemed to burn as the Earth had mere seconds ago, she had light brown hair and seemed vaguely familiar. As she moved towards me she changed elongating into a black snake like creature which I soon recognised as a leech, yet in an instant she was human again as she leapt at me knocking me over as a black feline creature ripped over where my head had been.
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I jolted upright, almost falling out of the hammock. I didn't fall though. Which was fortunate for beneath me was the jaguar once more. Also I had a 3/10 chance of surviving the 10 metre fall.
Why didn't it climb the tree, as I reached for the machete the creature growled. Ah, that was it, it knew what a weapon could do and it knew I had one, apparently it didn't fancy it's chances if it had to climb to get to me.
And so the waiting game continued, we both tried to stare the other down, neither of us dropping our gaze for even an instant.
Eventually, hours later as the first signs of dawn appeared on the horizon the jaguar slunk off into the undergrowth and I lay back and let sleep take me, I was exhausted beyond belief and my nerves were utterly shot.
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I woke well past midday, I felt like I was being fried. I soon found out to my annoyance that I was severely sunburnt from spending most of the day up in the canopy. 'Perhaps spending so much time indoors that my skin bleached wasn't such a good idea' I thought as I climbed down the tree. At the base of it I sat down and began to puzzle out the meaning of my dream. Now not all dreams have meanings but sometimes they are the minds way of organising thoughts and facts.
The subconscious often picks up on things the conscious mind misses, so if I begin my deductions at the beginning.
I was alone – now I'd made a point of being as isolated as possible, so far it had made my life easier, and being in the Amazon was about as isolated as you could get, but why was my self-enforced isolation a problem? What did my subconscious know that I didn't? Or was I misreading it?
The world was polluted and burning – self explanatory really, all the evidence shows that CO2 and other major pollutants were causing the positive feedback systems to kick in, many claimed that if we didn't stop soon we'd end up destroying the Earth, or for the more pessimistic or the better informed that point was already passed so we might as well make the most of the last few years of life.
Then there was the creature – what was it? Why did it/she seem familiar? Why did it protect me?
The final detail that of the jaguar was obvious, it was my body's way of waking me up and alerting me to the danger.
Sadly these conclusions seemed somewhat lacking but they'd have to do for now.
So tiredly I went down to the stream to once more try my hand at spearfishing.
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In spite of the lack of sleep I realised I'd never been happier, I had completely escaped the rules of society, I was utterly free, also with so much to do just to survive there just wasn't time to be unhappy. It appears I had stumbled upon the ideal existence. Which brought the question of when the time came, would I actually leave?
Pondering this question I fell once more into slumber.
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Authors Note: Yes I know this chapters rubbish and rather boring but I need to include it to establish a mindset of the character.