Way woke to a chill damp breeze and aches all over her body. Sitting bolt upright, she tried to make sense of her present circumstances.
It was dark out, but she could see color starting to bloom in the sky through the foliage and mist around her. The indent in the ground she had fallen asleep in had slowly filled up with rain water over night, and was now a deep puddle. It was still raining, she noted, feeling the morning chill.
Way scrambled for her bag, riffling through it for her coat that she'd put away yesterday when the summer heat had gotten too much for her. Slipping it on over her head, the oversized garment was soft and warm. Her soft boots and the back side of her uniform were soaked through though, so her coat could only do so much.
Way stood up, grabbed her bag, and started looking for some place dry. Clearly, she'd been reckless when she checked shelter off her list. The moss blanketing the ground in many places had absorbed the rain quickly, leaving her footing slick and unsteady, though it might have been worse traversing the occasional sections of smooth rock without whatever little traction the moss afforded her.
Up and onward Way walked, over the damp ground covered in slippery needle like leaves, and large mossy boulders. Eventually reaching a river that seemed to roar like some terrible beast, white rapids a sharp contrast to the vibrant forest around her. With no way of knowing which direction held shelter, she decided to follow it up. The ground at it's edge was treacherous, so she followed it's path at a distance, fearing what might happen if she fell in.
Eventually Way reached a huge dead plant, decidedly tree-like, that had fallen over sometime ago in it's slow plant equivalent of death throes, leaving it's large root system nearly perpendicular to the forest floor. The root system, matted with soil as it was, made a solid enough wall against the rain for the time being.
Sitting down in the damp earth, way huddled close to herself. Decomposing plant matter didn't give off much heat, and her coat wasn't very useful when put on after she'd already gotten drenched.
Seated there, alone in the wilds, Way's thoughts began to wander. She had grown up all her life in Woodwall, where everything one needed was hypothetically available. Food and medicine and education and even gyms were all free. Most people worked for pleasure, and if not, then they worked out of a sense of duty to the city. Entertainment was readily supplied in designated recreation hours. And yet to Way, something was always missing.
She had decided she disliked life back there in Woodwall enough to run away, but what did she want? Not the perfect order of Woodwall, where her life was planned out before she was even born, where nothing outside the norm ever happened, where she was never supposed to leave.
Freedom had been what her heart sang, when she saw the glorious colors of dawn in the sky for the first time. But what should she do with her freedom, now that she had it?
Way took out her journal, waterdrops sliding smoothly off it's hydrophobic pages, and began to write. In the relative safety of her shelter, there wasn't much else to do.
beginning of summer, 2nd day in the wild
Was very hot yesterday, but today I woke up to a downpour. Followed a river up the valley. Am taking shelter from the rain in the shadow of the roots of some large tipped over tree. I was wrong to cross shelter off the list, a coat will not suffice.
The general daily update was small. She hadn't done much but hide from the rain. This was her adventure though, she felt there should be something more to say about it than where she walked and the weather. Way decided to write down observations on the wilds, that was what explorers were supposed to do, right? Looking around, there were a few plants that looked to be fruiting. Maybe she could eat them? but what if they're poisonous? Way began to worry. Now that she was thinking about food, she realized her nutrient bars wouldn't last forever.
Notes to self:
-The food I've prepared won't last forever. When I run out, I will have to resort to eating the fruits of the local flora.
-In the text recorded in the data crystal it mentions how they tested plants for edibility. tech isn't waterproof, bag is, must remember to write down digital text in journal, before it runs out of energy.
Observations:
-the farther from woodwall, the denser the foliage
-several plants appear to be fruiting
-first test, Will call the plant the mint fruit, has same color as the popular candy from Woodwall.
-application to skin has not caused irritation
And so the day went, Way recording various plants and testing if they gave her rashes. That was the first step to see if they were edible, or so the text she referenced said. She certainly hoped it was correct. By the time the downpour stopped the sun had reached the midway point in the sky and Way had an itchy arm, a slightly less damp uniform, and an urge to get up and run.
Way fished her med pack out of her bag, applied some ointment to her arm, and set off again. The sun was back to beating down on her relentlessly with all the force of it's summer temper, but at least it helped dry her uniform.
As the day wore on Way began to tire. The first day of her adventure she hadn't felt tired at all. The excitement at freedom and all the myriad possibilities ahead kept the discomfort at bay. But now, after half a day sent soggy and cold, huddled in the shadow of a dead tree, the aches from her mad dash to escape were catching up to her. Her legs were sore from the steep incline, as all of Woodwall had been made up of flat surfaces, and despite the softness of her favorite boots, she thought she was developing several blisters on her feet.
On she walked despite the pain, she couldn't give up, not when she'd only just begun. Begun what exactly she didn't quite now beyond the vague term of adventure, but she was at the start of something, and it wouldn't do to lose her momentum yet.
--
Way passed many new plants on her way out of the valley. tall grass like things with bulbous shapes at their tops, large wide leaved things that dropped leftover rain down on each other in musical patterns, and further up, as the land got slightly firmer, there were huge towering trees of the sort that made up the eponymous Woodwall.
All along her journey she heard strange calls out in the forest, from uncountable unknown creatures, but since that quick encounter with the mysterious vicious beast, she hadn't actually seen any, only heard them. Way thought this would continue for some time more, but she was proven wrong when a small winged creature flew past her.
The creature was the color of night on top, and every color Way had never seen on it's underside, shining iridescently when it hit the sun's rays just right.
The marvelous creature perched on the sloping branch of a nearby tree, and gazed at her with it's one central eye. She stood there, and looked right back, and there they stayed for how long she couldn't say. To Way, it felt as if the thing were reading her like she might read a data crystal. Like it knew all the secrets of the forest, and could just as easily know hers. Then the moment ended, and it flew off.
Way chased it, trying to catch up. The thing had been so strangely beautiful, she couldn't help wanting to know more about it. For a moment she thought she'd catch up when it paused in the air at the top of the slope. But by the time she had reached the top of her small valley, and saw the view before her, the myriad foothills, and the mountains beyond, the strange one eyed creature had disappeared.
