The trees grew right up next to the lake on one side, and in the dying light I hunted out a place to sleep, finding a fir with branches that touched the ground, dense with needles. I fumbled my helmet back onto my head to trap as much heat as possible, then burrowed into the litter under the tree and curled up into a small ball. Little creatures scurried across me, and I chose not to think about what they were. They were alive, and I was alive, and we were in this together, hiding under a drooping fir in the dry, moldering needles beneath the tree's shrouding skirt of branches.

I woke up less often than I had the night before. I didn't know if that was good or bad. I stayed there even after the sun rose, too tired to move, until thirst finally drove me out of my bed and back to the lake. I drank until I couldn't hold any more, filling my gnawingly empty stomach with water instead of food. The air was quiet, without much of a breeze, and I found an exposed rock on the edge of the lake where the sunlight fell, hungry for warmth, my mind empty of any thought besides physical survival. I huddled there, wrapping my left arm around my knees and soaking up the sunlight like a lizard.

A faint breeze flirted with me from time to time, blowing loose strands of my wavy, dark-brown hair along my cheeks. I didn't bother to brush them away from my face, even when they stuck to my mouth or tickled against my nose. Cold and physical exhaustion left me with only the energy to rest there, sitting in the sunlight with nothing near me but the creatures of the woods. There was probably no one within miles of me, no other human anywhere close.

I sat there almost the entire day, sitting in the sunlight. When I started to burn, I made mud and plastered it on my face and neck, then crept back to my rock to soak up the sun. When I was finally warm, I curled up on my side and slept, the light of the summer day no match for injury and lack of sleep. I woke up only when it started to get chilly in the late afternoon, and drank some water to fill my aching stomach.