pyre was instantly replaced by a damp, chilling cold. Sunlight vanished, blocked by a ceiling of leaves

from the hem of her already ruined tunic, and knelt to bind it tightly around the worst of the i

brutal truth: before she could find food for a tribe, she had to fin

at had miraculously survived in her pocket-serving as a makeshift machete to cut through

ght, a particular softness to the earth, accompanied by

of decaying leaves. There, sprawling across the ground,

e from a hundred surveyed worlds, flashed with a match. It was a

t brought her to her knees. These things, if they were like their Earth counter

the scalpel a clumsy shovel. Dirt packed under her nails, but she di

She worked it loose, pulling with all her might, and unearthe

niffed it, then cautiously placed it in her mouth. The taste was clean, earth

lief pricke

ess than half an hour, she had excavated more than a dozen of the massive tuber

gh vine, a sound cut through the forest quiet. A low,

d. The hair on her arms stood on end. Sl

stared back at he

g and yellowed, curled from its snout, dripping a foul-smelling saliva. It pawed at the

on't run. The first rule of wilderness

r other hand tightened its grip on the pathetically small scalpel. She ba

a deafening squ

cond, Abigail threw herself to the left, rolling hard across the forest floor. The

A searing pain flared across Abigail's shoulder where o

n turned, its red eyes locking onto her again.

rough her ankle. It had twisted in the fall. She collapsed back

ch of its breath hit her like a physical blow. Instinctively, she threw her

w fell

. A massive, black-and-yellow shape that droppe

d crack bone. The shape, a predator of immense size, slammed into

choed through the silent forest, followe

ened her eyes. Through the ga

r. A saber-toothed tiger, impossibly large,

eyes, a pair of deep, piercing blue vertical slits, fixed on her. The pressure of its