Empowered awakening

Shelter

Chapter 4

I am awakened by a beam of bright steady light falling directly on my closed eyes causing me to throw my arm up over my head and roll over to face away from it. This is followed by my having a major sensation of daja vu when the next thing registering in my barely awake mind is that instead of a soft bead there is hard, lumpy ground underneath me. I open my eyes and slowly lower my arm so I can see where I am. The gray and red stone walls and hard packed dirt floor cause everything that happened yesterday to come back in a rush of information. 

"Damn it, I was hoping yesterday was all a just some weird dream" I groan as I sit up stiffly from where I have been sleeping beside the cave wall. Some time during the night I must have slumped over sideways from where I had propped myself against the wall. I reach for my clothes finding them still damp and a bit muddy but at least they aren't soaked through anymore. I quickly pull them on and then decide to have a proper look at my temporary shelter.

The cavern I find myself in is quite large at about 8 meters wide and digs into the hill side a good 13 meters at least, the ceiling is at least 2 meters high at it's lowest point at the entrance and goes up to a good 4 meters in some areas further in. The walls are made of some sort of sedimentary rock but that's all i can tell about them since i was never very good at geology as a subject. There are stalagmites and stalactites scattered here and there. The floor seems to be made of patches of packed brown earth interspersed with the same red and gray stone and a few pools of shallow water have formed under some of the stalactites. Here and there some form clear crystal appears to be growing in small patches from the rock. There is also another opening at the back of the cave that seems leads further in to hill.

The beam of light that I originally thought was coming from the entrance is actually coming from a specific spot on the ceiling. It stirs my curiosity so I decide to move closer so i can investigate. The location where the light is streaming from turns out to be what looks like a jagged growth of the same clear crystal growing all over the cave is located in the highest point of the ceiling, so i can't get a good look but the only explanation that makes sense for it to be providing light is that a vain of whatever type of crystal this is, possibly a type of quarts must run from the outside of the rock all the way in to here and be channeling the light somehow. 

From where I am standing i can see that this crystal appears to have been broken at some point causing a collection of smooth facets that are directing the light beams in multiple directions. Each beam projects a rainbow when it hits the walls or floor. It's a beautiful sight as I turn in place to see the rainbows play over the rough stone, here and there the light hits another one of the crystal clumps and they light up with a warm glow. I hear a tinkle and scrape as I pass under the light crystal causing me to jerk my head down and gaze at the floor where I find the remains of the broken crystal so I bend to pick up one of the chunks that is about the length of my hand and maybe as thick as two of my fingers together at the broken end. 

It is so clear it would almost vanish if it didn't have a magnifying effect. I can see it has a hexagonal structure to it's sides and the thick end of the shard is razor sharp where it has broken away from the original clump. It appears strong enough that I could possibly be able to use it for cutting if the need arises and the other end tapers to a fine almost needle sharp point so i can use it to poke holes in things too. "Well it looks like luck is with me after all." I say out loud causing my voice to echo slightly in the large space. 

I slip the crystal into a pocket but i feel the point immediately start to jab me in the leg so I fish it back out trying to think of a way to carry it without either losing the use of a hand or stabbing myself in the process when i remember the seed from the day before. I grab one out of my other pocket and try poking the tip into it. I use a little too much force and the tip of the crystal jabs into the rounded top of the seed with no difficulty going all the way through. 

"Damn that is sharp! I'll have to be super careful with this or I'll lose a finger....... Huh i wonder if I can regenerate or reattach lost limbs?" I wonder to myself "Never mind I'd rather not have to find out the answer to that one truth be told" I give myself a shake and place the punctured seed into a different pocket. Then i fish another one out and make a second attempt to cap the crystal. This time I'm more careful and manage to slide it on over the tip without it poking all the way through. I slip it into my back pocket and this time i don't feel like I'm being stabbed right away but I realize I will need to find a more peppermint solution in the near future. 

I do feel better now that I have something with me that I can use as a tool and I decide to have a look and see if there is anything interesting through the opening at the back of the cave. As i approach however I discover that unlike the front cave there is no light being reflected into the back cave so it is too dark for me to see anything after only a few steps inside but i can here what sounds like water trickling over rocks. I quickly return to the illuminated cave and sit down again on a stone mound that looks like it is the beginning of a new stalagmite.

I'm starting to feel hungry and thirsty again so I know I will have to leave this cave soon but what I need to decide if I should continue my journey down the river or make this cave my home base. I spend some time thinking about this trying to weigh the pros and cons of both choices but I'm getting too thirsty to think properly so I decide to head outside and back down to the river for a drink. "Maybe looking around outside in the light of day will help me decide" I say with a sigh.

I stand back up and head back towards the entrance to the cave pausing briefly to look back my temporary sanctuary before stepping once more into the open sunshine. I didn't get a good look last night at the area surrounding the entrance to the cave other than that it was mostly hidden by some large boulders and that there were some other clusters of boulders and a few scraggly trees nearby, but now in the bright morning sunlight I can see that the boulders are clustered close to the cave entrance providing a wind break. This explains why the inside of the cave was still warm during the storm last night. It also appears that it wasn't just a hill I was climbing in the dark but is in fact a full scale mountain, taller than anything i have ever seen. I had been told in school that the mountains in Australia looked like foot-hills to mountains in other countries but i never believed it until now. I also must have climbed a lot further up than a realized last night because from where I stand I can clearly see the forest stretching out below me in every direction and the river flowing steadily through it

The small copse of stunted trees are located just down from the boulders, they may have appeared scraggly and twisted last night but up close they now look hardy and strong. They are a different type of tree to the ones that dominate the woods growing at the base of the mountain. These ones have a grayish colour to the bark and where you can see the wood hidden beneath, it is so dark as to almost be black. The leaves are almost as thin as pine needles that start off dark green towards the stem but develop an unusual burgundy colour as it gets closer to the tip and it has some sort of what looks like an off center pine-cone mixed with an acorn with the same burgundy as the leaves growing here and there among the branches .

I notice of a large collection of dead sticks, needles and cones have accumulated within the center of the copse along with one tree that looks like it may have fallen recently enough to have been pulled down by the storm. I realize that if I decide to return after my I should be able to use to build a fire easy enough. It won't be easy but it can be done and I send a silent thanks out to fate that I was given the opportunity to live with my Grandpa for so long. 

Grandpa was in the army in his youth and one of the few things we used to do together when I was younger was go camping regularly on the weekends, out to the middle of nowhere, just so he could show me how to build and light a fire from scratch, collect and filter fresh water, construct a temporary waterproof shelter, how to tell if something is poisonous and other survival tips. 

He used to always say to me "I hope you never need to know these thing Naomi my girl. But it's a lot better to know them and not need them, than it is to need them and not know them!" It was a philosophy I took to heart and as it turns out it's a good thing I did. As I stand there looking the the tree that was knocked over in the storm it reminds me of a long time ago when I experience something similar. I must have been 11 or so when Grandpa and I got caught in a storm while we were out on one of our camping trips. 

It was the school holidays and we had been hiking through thick bush land for a couple of days when the storm blew in seemingly out of nowhere. Grandpa immediately started leading me up hill away from the dry creek we had been following, up towards a rocky outcrop close to the top. The storm quickly caused a flash flood and the creek started running deep and fast, washing away all the new growth that had accumulated since the last heavy rain. Once we reached the outcrop of rock Grandpa used the tarpaulin in is pack to  block the space we entered from and then used park of an old fallen tree that had hollowed out near by to make a roof for the shelter by jamming it sideways between some of the larger boulders while I used my tarp to make a dry floor where we could huddle together out of the rain. 

We were lucky to get there and set up as quickly as we did and find somewhere stable because the storm soon turned out to be strong enough to push some trees over and the creek rose even higher. After about an hour of gusting winds and heavy rain the storm seemed to pass so I thought it was safe and tried to get up and exit our makeshift shelter when my Grandpa put his hand on my shoulder and told me. "Wait a moment Darlin. It will be getting dark soon and we don't really know if that storm is really passed yet. Even though it may be uncomfortable and damp, we have a secure and safe shelter here so here is where we are going to stay. Take this to heart Luv, if you have found a safe place to rest in an unsure environment it's best to stick close and make the most of it. Especially if you don't know when or if you will find another safe place." No more than ten minutes later the storm came back even harder than ever and I was glad we had stayed put.

My mind comes back to the present and I smile at the memory. "Thanks Grandpa you always had the best advice." I say. I then turn and look back to the cave and decide there and then. "Okay looks like this is going to be home for a while. Now it's I just need to make it more homey!"