Alexei woke with a pounding in his head and aches all over his body. He stifled a groan and began to shift before freezing. He had almost fallen off of something. Opening his eyes slowly, he was greeted by a long 2 story drop to the ground. He immediately grabbed hold of what he now realized was a thick branch that he was dangling on. 

‘Where the hell am I?’ Alexei panicked and tried to remember what had happened, but his last memories were of stargazing and nothing that would explain his current predicament. ‘Wait, this tree isn't familiar,’ he commented internally as he took a better look at his current perch. Looking up the tree soared into the sky as far as he could see, which wasn’t too far through the thick foliage, but the trunk looked like a wall rather than a cylinder. Also, ‘Are those leaves bright blue?’ He looked incredulously at the overly large leaves which appeared to be large enough to be used as a blanket.

‘Alright,’ Alexei began as his survival training kicked in. ‘I need to figure out where I am, but first I need to find a source of water and food, then shelter. After getting out of this tree of course.’ 

Standing up on the thick branch, he surveyed the surroundings in a hope to recognize anything, but it was for naught. The tree he was in was in a large shaded clearing, surrounded by smaller more familiar looking trees, but still nothing that should be seen in the temperate mountains he had been in previously; The air felt humid and most of the flora seemed more at home in a sub-tropical climate. Looking farther into the distance all he could see was an ocean of trees, with a few hills acting as islands amongst the sea of green. To the right, looking along the wall-like bark, he saw a mountain just a few miles away, with what appeared to be a river flowing down it. 

‘Should be able to find water and shelter that way,’ he thought to himself. ‘I can try to figure out what's happening when I get there.’

He began to search for a way down, when he realized it would be easier than he thought. There were plenty of vines climbing the tree that seemed would make decent handholds for the trip down. Another thing he spotted was the largest fruit he had ever seen hanging just below the branch he was on. If it wasn't poisonous it would solve his food problem for at least today, if he could get it down.

‘That thing has to be at least 30 pounds’ Alexei commented to himself as he began to pull vines of the branch to use as ropes, but immediately ran into a problem. ‘These vines are too sturdy for how thick they are.’ 

He examined them closer but couldn’t figure out how the thin vines were holding together. He had planned to braid a few together, but now it appeared he wouldn’t need to, if he could get it off the branch. Walking along the branch following the vine towards the end, he began to crawl as his walking surface began to thin. Almost 30 feet later he found the end of the vine, and he began to pull it from the branch as he made his way back to the trunk. Halfway back he stopped and began tying loops every two feet for footholds. 

‘Lets see if I can’t get to that fruit. I sure hope the blue leaves aren’t a warning sign.’’ 

He yanked on the vine several times with increasing violence until he felt comfortable with its strength, then began to lower himself over the edge of the branch. The moment of truth arrived as all his weight was on the vine. 

Waiting for a few seconds to get more comfortable with his “rope”, though that was difficult with the way it was digging into his skin, he let himself down a bit more than began to swing in an attempt to get near to the fruit. He began to try to reach it, when he made a fatal mistake. He looked down and froze. He had forgotten how much he hated heights, and freely dangling was not helping. Swinging uncontrollably 2 stories above the ground, Alexei started to have a panic attack. Gripping the vine for dear life, he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. 

‘Come on, it’s not like we have another choice,’ he began to try to reason with himself.

‘Yes we did,’ his inner voice replied. ‘We could have just brought the vine close to the trunk and made our way down there.’

‘Then we wouldn’t have any food!’ He rationalized.

‘Except we don’t even know if that is safe to eat, and how are we going to take it to where we spotted the water!’

‘Maybe you’re right, but we are hanging here now and we might as well grab it, right?’

‘If you can even open your eyes you mean?’

Done arguing with himself, Alexei looked up and opened his eyes. Careful not to look down again he gently started to swing again. As he got closer to the fruit, he realized it looked like nothing more than an oversized, extremely pink peach. Finally within reach, he grabbed the stem with one hand, arresting his momentum as the not-peach separated from the tree. The sudden weight in his hands almost caused him to lose his grip on both the peach and the vine, but after a few seconds of swearing he had both firmly in hand.

Now, to try to make it down from here, or climb back up? Looking at the large pumpkin sized fruit he knew he would not be able to make it up with this in hand, so began to awkwardly climb down the vine. It took him longer than he expected and he was covered with sweat by the time his feet touched the hard ground. He immediately set the fruit on the ground and sat down to recover from the strain. Sitting in the shade of the enormous tree, he once more took stock of his situation. 

He was wearing the same worn out clothes he had last night, though his white shirt was semi transparent now with sweat and a few more tears had appeared on his jeans. He also saw the purpling of bruises all over his arms and torso, as if he had fallen onto the branch above. Poking the bruises he once again confirmed the pain that signified that this was most likely not a dream, not that he had expected that anyway. Alexei hadn’t dreamt much in years as far as he could remember.

Struggling to his feet, he once again oriented himself toward the mountain he had spied earlier. After picking up the fruit and hanging it over his shoulder by the stem, he began his trek to what he hoped would be water and shelter. He hesitated on the edge of the clearing and looked back at the tree. There was something that felt safe about the clearing, almost as if he was in his own bed, comfortable and unworried, but he knew he wouldn't last long without food. Also, who knew what sort of animals he would run into out here in what appeared to be a jungle, so with one last appreciating glance at the height of the tree he had climbed out of, he entered the dark jungle. 

The moment he stepped out of the clearing the calm he was feeling earlier left him and a nervous energy began to enter his limbs as he began to hurry along under the underbrush. It took him a few minutes to adjust and set a more reasonable pace, as well as lower the amount of noise he was making.

‘Calm down Alexei, who knows how tall that mountain is and I might be walking for a while,’ he reassured himself. ‘Don’t forget keeping calm is the key to survival. I need to keep my eyes and ears peeled for signs of the local wildlife and potential edibles if I want to make it long enough to be rescued.’ 

Another thing he was keeping his eyes out for was a source of flint, as if he wanted to have anything more than rocks to work with, he would need flint to begin crafting tools. If he was lucky, the mountains he was heading towards would have been formed by old volcanoes and he would find some copper to work with as well. Some basic resources would increase his chances of survival by a large margin if he could gain access to them. With running water he could even-

A low growl interrupted his thoughts as he froze and searched for the origin of the sound. Scanning the underbrush frantically, he finally spotted movement in the distance. He ducked behind a tree and peered around the trunk in order to attempt to identify the threat. The animal was upwind of him and appeared to be moving away, towards a small clearing Alexei could barely see through the trees. 

Looking closer at the animal he was once again greeted by something he had never seen before. It appeared to be some sort of cougar but was a deep emerald green in color, matching the foliage, and was slightly bigger than the largest cougar he had ever seen. It appeared to be hunting something in the clearing, but Alexei couldn’t see what.

‘Alright, I am downwind so it shouldn’t smell me. If I just stay here until it takes its kill, I should be fine,’ he attempted to reassure himself as he hugged the peach he was carrying to himself and slid to the ground slowly. ‘But what kind of cougar is green? Am I on some sort of private reserve where the owners dye the local wildlife?’

A few moments after Alexei had sat down to wait out the emerald cougar, he heard a flurry of motion and underbrush. Then, a terribly too human scream. He shivered and waited for the sounds to end, but there were several screams from multiple sources over the course of a minute, until it went eerily silent.

‘I should get moving,’ he told himself, shivering in fear. ‘The feline is probably gone and I can just be on my way. But what if those noises were from people, and one survived?’

Against his instincts, he began to slowly approach the clearing, crouching to minimize his profile. A few minutes of inching later, he arrived at the site of the massacre. Limbs were strewn about and a few heads and torsos were wrapped up in vines held tight to tree trunks. He began to feel nauseous as he discovered the limbs appeared to be from children, but… 

‘Why are they green?’ He looked closer at one of the loose heads while holding back the urge to vomit.

The head was bald, with sharp jagged ears and an ugly face twisted in fear. Alexei shivered as he spotted the sharp, carnivorous teeth in the mouth of the creature that was so reminiscent of goblins from the games he played. He began to walk again towards the mountains as his mind spun from this discovery. The tree had been odd, but he could imagine it being somewhere on earth in an old lost jungle somewhere. But something like these goblinish creatures? 

His troubling thoughts accompanied him for several minutes before another thing he had seen struck him like a lightning bolt from the blue. The vines had wrapped around several of the bodies as if they had been the ones that had torn apart the creatures rather than the feline. Shivering harder, he picked up his pace beyond something sustainable in his rush to quickly find shelter. The jungle seemed more menacing than it had before and Alexei began to twitch and freeze from every slight noise in the darkness. After a punishing and slow several hours, he registered he had been hearing the low roar of a river or waterfall for some time now. Aiming towards the source of the sound, he spent another span of time before he reached the edge of the treeline where the jungle met the base of the mountains. 

In the distance towards his left was a large steep slope, with several cliff faces and a waterfall cascading down it. The cliffs stretched far to his right and into the distance till it gentled into a more manageable slope which curved around and entered the mountain range. The cliffs were formed of a sedimentary rock and were full of crags and caves. 

Alexei decided to head towards the base of the waterfall and try to find a cave near there which was large and unoccupied, preferably with a tight entrance to keep large predators out as well. He shivered as he thought of the green cougar from earlier. Approaching the cliff to the right of the waterfall, he followed it along looking for cave openings. To his delight he discovered a tight crack in the cliff that looked like it led deeper in, possibly to a cave.

‘Okay, potential shelter found, but it will be dark and there could be something inside already. How much more light do I have?’ Alexei asked himself as he looked up at the sky for the first time. ‘The sun appears to be in a noonish position, so I should have a few hours. Once it starts going down I will call that direction west for now.’

As he prepared to search around for some flint and wood, his stomach interrupted him with it’s protests. ‘I suppose I haven’t eaten today, but I am not sure how I feel about this fruit.’ He grabbed the peach up towards the stem with both hands and pulled it into halves. The fruit separated surprisingly easily revealing the white flesh of the fruit separated into segments like an orange. Feeling them revealed a thick membrane protecting the juicy flesh in each segment.

‘Well, I haven’t seen anything else that looks remotely edible and I will need the energy, so here goes nothing.’ 

Alexei pulled out a segment the size of footlong sub, and took a tentative bite. The moment his teeth broke the skin, a heavenly smell burst free and it took everything he had not to stuff everything that could fit into his mouth. There was something deeper to the flavor that he couldn’t identify, like it had a palate or element to it that he had never experienced before. The taste was indescribable but it was something similar to what he imagined a strawberry and peach hybrid would taste like if it grew in heaven. The flesh melted in his mouth and caressed his tongue like a lover, then filled him with a comfortable coolness as it eased down into his stomach. 

Before he realized it, Alexei had finished two of the 9 segments of what he decided to christen the peachberry (Creative names had never been one of his strong points). He forced himself to stop before he ate another as he would need to ration this if he couldn’t find food, and he had originally intended to only have a bite to make sure it didn't make him ill over the course of a few hours. That plan was out the window now though and he would have to pray that it wasn't poisonous. 

As the coolness of his meal spread through his limbs and filled him with energy, he stood up and walked to the nearest tree. Pulling down as many leaves as he could carry, he wrapped the remaining segments and covered the package with rocks and loose debris to hopefully hide it while he went looking for flint and an iron bearing rock. The mountain appeared to be the right minerals, so hopefully he could find some flint in the water, and hematite along the cliffside.