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.
thanks for the chapter
TFTC! Volcanic activity coming soon, or was lightning on dry wood the cause?
Or a human was careless with fire. Or something like the 'dragon' spewing fire.