I woke up early because it was cold. The ground was damp and by the time I was awake the cold had already seeped into my bones. Not sure if it was just the weather or the seasons changing, but I guessed I'd get problems pretty quickly if I didn't find proper shelter.

  Rex was sleeping next to me and even the moose was grazing nearby. The sun wasn't fully up yet, but I had to get moving if I wanted to warm up. Not in the lake, though. Getting wet would be a disaster right now. Also, I think we can establish that I can't fish. Maybe I could climb a tree, try to see whats around us.

  Not all trees were climbable and from those who were I judged the very top to be unsafe, so I couldn't actually see very far. I did see the mountains. Tall and imposing, they didn't seem to be that much closer compared to when I was in the city. I couldn't see much else. I could guess which way the city was, but treetops blocked the view. Which way to go today? I didn't feel much for going towards the mountain, and I certainly didn't want to get closer to the city than I already was.

  By the time I got down, the sun was mostly up. Rex had noticed my absence and was frantacly sniffing around, until I touched the ground again and recieved his greeting. I petted him. How could others see a good boy like this as a monster? There was no breakfast, so after I drank as much as I could from the lake I left immediately. Rex followed, but the moose chose to stay behind. He was busy eating his own breakfast, but since I couldn't communicate I couldn't wait until he was done. For all I knew moose ate the whole day, and I had to move.

  I wasn't sure what I was searching for, but I needed something different. Something that gave me hope for the future. Where I could stay and be warm and fed and comfortable. While I preferred the forest a thousand times over returning to the city, it had its own problems, like not knowing when you would get your next meal, and waking up frozen. While my body had mostly warmed up by now, the memory of the cold was still fresh in my mind.

  The next few days I just kept walking. The moose, who I named Monto, kept us company, but at a different pace. He would just show up every now and then, and then stay behind to graze a bit. He was very helpful in starting fires. Rex managed to hunt small animals at times. Sometimes it was enough to share between us, sometimes we'd both sleep hungry. I felt sorry towards Rex. If he didn't have to share with me, he could eat a lot more. But if I didn't take Rex's prey, I'd have nothing to eat at all.

  The biggest issue was keeping warm. Though walking warmed me up quite a bit and the fire kept burning through most of the night, the mornings kept getting colder. Or maybe it was just my imagination and they just felt colder because I had been outside for so long. One day it even rained. Of course it killed the fire, and the trees didn't provide much cover. I decided to just keep walking, due to lack of shelter, and I survived, but I don't know how many more rainy days I could survive. Getting wet meant getting cold and it never really got warm again.

  Where the forest used to be beautiful, with golden light shining through the treetops, it now became dark and dreary. The forest blocked most of the light from reaching the bottom in the first place, but now there wasn't much light to begin with. The sky was cloudy, which meant that visibility was severly limited. Mud and puddles were everywhere, so I had to pay a lot of attention not to get my feet wetter than they already were.

  It sucked, being wet and cold. Even on the nice days I didnt fully recharge. My will to move towards a goal grew thinner every day. I was just running. Running from a place people wanted to kill me. Running from a memory that I didn't belong. Running from a reality I didn't want to face.

  On an actually pretty nice day I found it. If I didn't know what I was looking for, this was it: an abandoned, broken down carriage. It was a fancy one, with walls and a roof and windows. Some of the planks were broken, mostly those of the walls near the floor. The back axle was split in two and the right front wheel had a pizza slice taken out. I'd have a lot to repair, but just having this, it felt like a destination. Here I could stay and be protected from the wind. Warm up a bit. It felt like I stumbled upon a treasure and I was going to make sure it would shine bright.

  First thing I did was get rid of the remaining wheel. I couldn't live in it if it was tilted, and it was not like I was going anywhere with it. It didn't budge when I kicked it a few times, but after careful observation I loosened some pin that held the wheel in place, allowing me to remove the wheel. It ended up below the carriage, but its not like this thing was ever going to be completely levelled.

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  I then looked at the loot. Surely this carriage was abandoned in a hurry, so they might have left useful items behind. I found the benches also functioned as chests and underneath them I found enough dry meat and cookies to last for a few days. I also found an abundance of clothes.

  There were many shirts, pants and even dresses. They didn't look much warmer than my own clothes, but with these new ones I could layer up, repair holes, and even use some as a bed. I have been missing a bed badly. At first its not that big of a deal to sleep on the floor, but after a few days you discover you don't completely recover from sleeping on a hard, cold surface.

  The food was very welcome too. I would have to be careful and ration it properly instead of just filling myself up for a few days. Keep it as emergency for if Rex shows up with a rat instead of a rabbit.

  I was happy to have a wooden floor between me and the ground at night. The space between my body and the ground made for a little bit of isolation. I didn't have the cold from the ground creeping up on me, but there was a little bit of wind coming through the floorboards. Still, an improvement. I had been sleeping in the dirt for a while now, so I was grateful to get a little bit of extra comfort.

  The benches were too thin to sleep on. Clearly the designer had worried more to fit people in as small of a space as possible than to make a comfortable place to sleep. To separate myself from the cold a bit more I gathered brances and covered those with leaves, moss and some of the clothes I found, to create some sort of bed and hopefully sleep better at night.

  So the next day I hunted with Rex. He was actually the one doing most of the work, but I tried to observe and see how he was doing. Maybe I could help him somewhere. In any case, it didn't hurt to get more knowledge of the forest surrounding me if I wanted to live in it.

  It turned out Rex wasn't that good at sniffing prey out. He mostly just chased things he saw move, though they were often too agile for him to get close, so I tried looking at tracks, while Rex chased the critters I startled with my loud, stomping feet.

  What also kept me from sleeping well was the wind. The carriage had quite a few broken planks, and even where it wasn't broken, this thing was never meant to be lived in. I had not yet figured out a fix for this. I tried patching the holes with branches I found laying around, but wasn't sure how much it would help.

  The only downside of this location was that water was quite far away. It was walking distance, but to cover that distance twice per day meant a huge chunk of the day got taken out just to drink. Meaning it was really nice to have containers. Unfortunately, the only containers I had where the boxes that held the meat and cookies from the carriage. Not exactly waterproof, but I did my best to hold them steady, so I didn't go thirsty too often.

  I also knew that animal bladders could be used to hold water, so I tried it with the bladders of some of the larger animals we hunted, like rabbits, but I didn't quite trust it enough to actually drink out of it. Even after washing it so the color of the water that came out was the same as the water that came in, there was a psycological barrier preventing me from drinking from animal organs. It just seemed gross.

  In the later hours when it was too dark to be doing things outside, but too early to sleep, my mind wandered to the future. Not the near future, but a distant one. Would I grow old here? Would I be able to survive until then? And if I was too old to move around, would I starve a slow death? I didn't have anywhere I could go. No friends or family I could turn to if I needed to.

  Even in this imaginary situation where I already survived for a long time, it was scary. Was this what I wanted with my life, just surviving? Maybe I could pick up a hobby. Not gaming though. I missed gaming so much, even if I didn't remember what games I used to play.

  But maybe woodworking? I would probably like making art and I had plenty of time to figure it out on my own, without anyone teaching me. But I would have to get a metal knife. The sharp rock I had been using until now probably couldn't make such delicate cuts in wood. But where would I even be able to get a metal knife? So not woodworking. Maybe something different?

  The boredom elevated the feelings of homesickness. Those feelings had been repressed for a while when I was fighting for my life, but now I had time to think they came back with full force. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to come home and be greeted by my family. I wanted to cook a decent meal and have everyone compliment me on how tasty it was.

  Would they miss me? I barely had any memories, but it felt like I was loved. Did I die in that other world? The thought of my own funeral saddened me so much I had to stop thinking about it. I didn't remember dying, but I wasn't there anymore. I was here. Somehow I had moved worlds. I didn't want to be here.

  Rex shoved his nose under my arm. I held him tight. He always knew the best thing to do when I was feeling sad. I didn't know what I would do without him.