Seven days. His home was now a hollow within the trunk of a colossal, blue-barked tree—its interior dry enough to sleep in, its thick walls blocking the wind... he had placed broad leaves on the floor and as a curtain on the entrance by poking a long stick through it.
Placing a small fire by the entrance.
It wasn't comfortable, but it was shelter.
Each dawn Neville ventured out. He had begun mapping the terrain in his mind, marking landmarks strange trees but he also was marking them with his knife as he moved.
These were his reference points, his only navigation method against getting hopelessly lost in the forest.
Hunting was a lesson in frustration.
The small creatures here were almost familiar... almost Earth-like but just different enough to be maddening.
Birds let out high-pitched noise and then fled. They moved too quickly for him... sometimes even when he wasn't hunting them they screamed just because he accidentally got too close.
Then there were the rabbits.
