Day 63

ya' know, I'm gonna be honest, not much happened today. I got up from a pretty average sleep, probably eight hours in. I got up and fed my fires, and ate my meat-filled breakfast. I drank my chilled dragon broth, ate my snake meat steak, and played with Lupe for awhile. I was feeling listless, my trip to the layer below felt kinda pointless, I hadn't found anything besides a poisonous grass, and that was now contained in a bottle or two. I had set up my treehouse by the river but hadn't found any veggies. I was playing catch with Lupe, throwing a bone further and further, when I smelled something in the air. I smelled a very smokey burnt smell. Worried I turned around and found that my hut was fine. I looked around and grabbed my skis and snowshoes, before scrambling up the mountain.

I reached the top, Lupe standing on top of the snow as always, and the smell grew stronger. I looked around from where I was, and from a northeast direction the wind was blowing, the smoke smell coming from there. I put on my skis, and using two sticks, I started skiing in the direction it was coming from, slowly picking up speed. Lupe was keeping pace with me, my speed nowhere near my max, but I hadn't skied in decades, and had made them on a whim, not expecting them to come in handy so soon.

I wasn't going at my top speed, but still, I was making progress, and after an hour or two, I saw on the horizon I saw the faintest wisps of smoke in the distance. I was overjoyed, smoke generally meant people, and people meant real food, not just my frozen meals of pure meat. I sped up, things starting to blur past now, and after maybe another 30 minutes to an hour, I swear, I have lost all track of minutes and only have a rough estimation of the time. The smoke column was growing larger and more distinct.

I finally came across the source, a large forest fire. I was scared, I hadn't expected this, I had thought it would be a large bonfire, not a calamity. It looked like it was starting to die down though, maybe an acre of trees was burning, so I wasn't too concerned, but still, seeing a giant terrifying forest fire from less than a half-mile away was scary. Lupe had already dug in and made a wide hole in the snow, below the smoke line, and it seemed partially covered from above. I sighed and did the same, laying back and resting my skis beside myself. I had decided to take a nap mid-morning and wait for the fire to finish burning out. As I was laying there, the crackling fire was honestly nice to hear from such a distance, like a campfire, and before I knew it, I passed out in my little cubby in the snow, next to my adorable glowing puppy.