The return of the dragon

Survive

I slowly began to wake up and remember what had happened to me. I still felt a strong pain in my chest and I thought that the lightning had struck me and that that is why I fainted. It was actually a strange assumption because before I lost consciousness I was standing in the woods, which means that I was surrounded on all sides by tall trees. I was standing on the ground and in general I was not at a high point, and since the cold wind was blowing, my body was not too heated up either. "Is it possible that lightning struck me?" Maybe it just hit a tree that was very close to me, but how come I fainted and why does my chest hurt? ” I thought so intensely about what had happened to me that I didn't even notice where I was or what time of day it was. I remember very well that it was still dark when I fainted, but now it was day, I was trying to recognize through the treetops where the sun should be and based on its reflection through the canopy I noticed that it was around noon. "How come no one has found me so far?" Before I fainted, I heard my friends calling and looking for me, then it didn't seem to me that they were too far away from me. "Is it possible they didn't find me?" I began to move west to where our camp was in relation to the place where I fainted, and terrible thoughts ran through my head: "I know they certainly wouldn't leave me alone in the woods, what if something happened to them?" What if the same thing happened to them that happened to me? What if that mysterious figure in the armor that carried the sword hurt them? ” Suddenly my eyes widened and I realized that the canopy I was looking at was completely different from the canopy found in the forest where we were camping. These trees next to me were not evergreen, they looked more like strange deciduous trees. This forest I was in now was quite different, it had the shape of a large tropical forest, the trees were deciduous and huge, had many broad branches, and were heavily overgrown with a variety of creepers and vines. But this forest still differed from the tropical forest because this forest was not so humid and warm, the climate in this forest seemed more continental than tropical, and most of the trees, creepers, lianas and other plants such as, for example, shrubs, I did not recognize. I could recognize them by any characteristics such as leaves or other material structures. The whole forest looked magical. I didn't have more time to be confused, I had to quickly figure out how to get out of here or at least how to survive until someone found me. Yes, the whole situation was magical and I should, like any normal person my age who grew up in the warmth of the city, panic at least a little, but I can't afford it, I have to manage to escape from here somehow. I looked at the ground in front of me and noticed that there was no trampled path anywhere. Everything seemed too neglected and wild, as if people had never passed here. I had to find a way to go somewhere and find a settlement or a place where I could ask someone where I was going and where I should go. Since I could not see any signs of civilization from the ground, and the forest was too overgrown, I decided to climb a tall tree and try to see from there where I could go. I looked around a couple of times and picked one tree that seemed tallest to me. I approached this tree and noticed that its branches were too high to reach them, and that this tree were so wide that it would take twenty-five people to compleately hug it. Luckily for me, this tree seemed to be very old and because of that it was densely overgrown with creepers, vines and other parasitic plants that live on other plants. It took me a few minutes to go around the whole tree and find the strongest and most favorable vine with the help of which I started to climb. And the liana was quite thick so I had to stick to it with my whole left armpit, while with the rest of my left and whole right hand I tried to crawl along the liana more and more. I had to squeeze my hand tightly against the liana to make a balance between my upper body attached to the liana and my legs with which I tried to walk horizontally on the rough, old and wrinkled bark of the tree. I was struggling so hard and it was getting harder and harder to climb, sweat was coming down from me. I climbed until I reached the first branch on which I could stand stably. As soon as I was convinced that I was stable on that branch, I sat down and rested. This branch was so wide that I could fall asleep in the middle of it and I would not fall off it even if I turned three times in one direction in my sleep. I looked down and felt dizzy because I was very tall. I suddenly realized why I was so tired, I was constantly climbing and climbing to the height of the third floor of an apartment building, but that was just the beginning and I still had a long way ahead of me. I didn’t want to spend too much time resting because I knew I was going to get lazy and I wont be able to force myself to move on if I sat for too long, so I moved on. I climbed further by the same method as before because I could not climb from branch to branch because the dimensions of this tree were so large that for such a small me it would be impossible. I climbed and climbed and did not give up, it seemed to me that I had been climbing for hours and I finally reached the last, thinnest branches which, although they were the thinnest, could still withstand my weight. I stood on one stable branch and leaned over as I held on to the tree with my other hand. I stopped there because it took me a few minutes to catch my breath before I considered the landscape around me.

I took a deep breath and finally looked into the distance, the look that stood in front of my eyes was indescribable and it stunned me. Although I saw nothing more than even more forest, the view was beautiful and I enjoyed it. I realized that I shouldn't admire the view, but rather that I shouldn't find a place where I should go. The sun was already quite close to the western side of the hemisphere, so it was now even easier to determine the other sides of the world. I looked around and behind me, in the north, I noticed a huge mountain range, they were really too big, and this forest grew only to their foot. From these mountains flows a stream that widens more and more coming to the forest, which can be seen because east of me there is a place in this forest that seems to lack two or three rows of trees, which means that the river flows there. South of me, I noticed a border that acted as a kind of step where the forest stops expanding, and then continues to extend at the bottom of that step and beyond. I assumed that there is a cliff from which the river turns into a waterfall and then flows on. Somewhere in the middle of that forest, which stretched from the foot of the cliff, there was a giant tree. That tree was abnormally big, altrough this tree I was standing on was so big that the ground looked like I was looking at it from the twentieth floor of a building, that giant tree was twice as big as the one I was standing on. Since I could see nothing but the faint sight of another mountain range in the distance behind the forest, I decided to somehow try to get to that giant tree. "I'll have to see something from there." I started to go down, and it took me much less time to travel down the tree than upwards, because with the help of large vines, I just went down from branch to branch. When I got down, I headed towards the river, which was not too far from my tree, because I thought it would be easier for me to orient myself if I followed the course of the river. I crawled through the overgrown jungle and thought along the way: “This is one too big continental forest, which is why, I guess, there are no reptiles, but who knows what other animals are here? If the forest is like this, how many creatures live here? ” Anyway, I kept going, and I didn't dare allow myself to be frightened by any of my thoughts: "I have to go further!" I walked and walked: “When I reach the river, the cliff is not far. How am I going to get down through it? I hope it's not too narow, or that at least the roots of trees and vines have grown into it. ” I was walking and walking and the sun was already starting to approach the horizon when I suddenly heard the flow of the river. "I've reached the river!" I exclaimed and ran towards her. I washed as soon as I arrived and headed downstream. I couldn't walk right next to the river because its bank was densely overgrown with some lush blue ferns. I could already see the place where the waterfall was. "It's weird that I haven't seen any animals so far." I thought suspiciously. As I said that I heard some movement in the distance, and I decided not to run and not to look there, I just started to walk a little faster. I moved near the trees to avoid the rest of the vegetation in the woods. I walked fast, climbed over the roots and jumped over them and so I approached the waterfall pretty quickly. Suddenly I heard a growl behind me and I had to turn around. My heart almost stopped, as if I had felt the same pain since this morning when I fainted, I almost fell from fear and started crying. Away from me stood a large creature that looked like a mixture of a cougar and a fox: it had oblong and pointed ears, a long snout, had ocher hair and long strong legs, and also had a long shaggy tail with black patterns at the end. The creature's eyes shone reddish in the already darkened forest. It obviously knew how to sneak around very well because I hadn't noticed him so far. I didn't dare follow, I had to get out of here somehow. The creature put itself in the starting position and looked like it was going to attack me at any moment. I had to run, but I was sure that creature was faster than me. Since it looked like a mixture of cats, if I jumped into the water, I might shake it off. I started running fast towards the water, of course the creature started running after me. Luckily for me, I was fast enough to reach that fern, I suddenly started crawling in it and I finally left the creature behind when I dived into the river. I dived as long as I had a breath, that is, I sailed only when I felt the weight in my lungs. When I emerged, I noticed that the creature had gone to a rock on the edge of the waterfall and was waiting for me there to catch me out of the water. The water carried me towards the edge at high speed, so I had to quickly find a way to avoid the claws of this creature. I was getting closer and closer to the rocks, and I noticed one small rock that was closer to me than the others. I had no more time, I dived and pushed myself away from that small rock as hard as I could with my feet, towards the middle of the river where there were no more rocks. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the pointed claws of that creature, which was the size of three bears, trying to grab me. I think it scratched my leg but I couldn’t pay attention to the her as I was diving I just saw my end approaching. The fall attracted me, I closed my eyes and started falling. I fell as the water and everything that fell together hit me. With my eyes closed, I hoped to fall to a place where the accumulated river material was not accumulated too high. The fall lasted longer than I thought it would last but I finally reached the lower reaches of the river and sank to its bottom. This fall embarrassed me terribly, but one voice started screaming in my head, "Swim out!" Suddenly I just came to life and started swimming towards the surface with all my strength, after which I swam to the shore. I noticed that many branches and a lot of stones were accumulated there, and since it was dark, I had to make a shelter for myself during the night. For the last time I looked at the top of the cliff, it was so high that I wouldn't even see that animal from here, I also hoped that no such creature would notice me. Just in case, I decided to stay close to the water. I mixed the stones I saw together with the mud and arranged them in the shape of a wall between two branches of the root at the foot of a tree. After that, I took a lot of branches and tried to tie them nicely with thin vines. I leaned the tied branches against a tree trunk and placed them over my little wall. This is how I made a small "tent". With a large stone, I dug a big hole right at the base of the tree, which I filled with leaves, and so I made a bed that protected me at least a little from the cold. Before I went to bed, I went out to check in the moonlight for injuries. My clothes were dirty and torn, but at least they dried. I noticed that I had a long red scratch along the right leaf on my leg, it was not very deep nor did it bleed much, but I still decided to wrap it with something. I took off my sweater and T-shirt, I tied the wound with that T-shirt, and I put on the sweater again. My leggings were only slightly torn, but it wasn't terrible, and the rest of my body was covered with bruises, but they didn't hurt too much. At least that chest pain was finally gone. I went into my "tent" and crawled into my new bed hoping no animals would find me. I closed my eyes and said to myself, "I'll survive!"