The landscape outside the cave was utterly breathtaking. Trees dotted the landscape in every direction with knee-high grass of a vivid green interspersed with the vivid yellows, reds, and purples of wildflowers. A stream gurgled cheerfully a few yards away, and there was absolutely no sign of human habitation anywhere. No litter, no sounds of cars or airplanes in the distance, not even a field. It was like I’d wandered into a game-preserve. The whole scene had a hard-to describe surreal quality. Everything was just a shade too… vivid. Like one of those camera filters they use in fantasy shows. The grass was too green, the stream too blue, and the mountains in the distance too picturesque.

I walked over to the steam and looked down into the water. My reflection looked back at me. My hair was a thick thatch of mud-brown, and my eyes were a bright vivid green. I was tall and broadly built, but a good deal of the muscle I’d cultivated during high-school sports had gone to fat. It was a consequence from sitting in class during the day, sitting at my desk at work, and sitting at my computer when I got home from work.

I sighed heavily then splashed water on my face to chase away the last remnants of sleep. I was thirsty but drinking water from some random stream was about as wise as eating two-week old lunch meat. Sure you’d probably be fine, until you weren't. Then you’d be miserable.

I stood up and walked along the stream, growing more and more puzzled by my surroundings. Wind rustled through the trees while bird chips and the cries of other unidentified animals filled my surroundings. Just how far out of town had those idiots dumped me?

As minutes ticked by I’d worked up a decent sweat. The weather was warming but the the chill wind on my sweating body was likely going to leave me sick. I scowled as my chagrined attitude changed to anger. My hang-over had fled in only a few minutes and I’d mostly been feeling fairly indifferent about the whole thing. I’d done something dumb and someone had played a prank. I was a college guy, it was pretty much required at least a few times. However, I still had no idea where the hell I was, I couldn’t see anything that might even vaguely hint about getting back to the city, and my hunger and thirst were building.

The first tinge of worry entered my mind. Where was I and how was I going to get back? Since I was practically naked It’s not like I had any food and I’d already counted the water out. As if to punctuate that thought a loud splash came from the creek. A decent sized fish had jumped a few paces away. It’s silver-body caught the sun making a dazzling reflection.

“Mocking me are you fish? You just volunteered for breakfast duty.” I said out-loud. Although, I knew catching the thing with my bare hands would be impossible. I hadn’t been fishing since I was a teenager and dad had taken me. The memory made my smile, and blunted the edge of worry.

We lived in a city, but he took us out quite a bit. When I left for school I ended up in….….. I searched for the memories of where I’d gone to school. Nothing but the fog again. I started to panic as I shuffled through memories. I remembered being accepted, remembered moving in, remembered taking classes. What the hell school was it? More fog.

My hands started to shake as I wracked my brain. The faint sense of unease I’d been feeling intensified. What city was the school in? Fog. What state was it in? Fog. Where had I grown up? Fog. My whole body trembled as I tried to remember something, anything. Dad’s name? Nothing. I could see his face clear as day, his stubborn jaw, grey-peppered beard and kind eyes, but no name. It seemed to be blurred just out of reach. Mom’s name? nothing.

My panic crystallized into a melt-down. Dreading the outcome I searched for one more name calling up my reflection in the water from earlier….. Nothing. I fell to my knees gripping the sides of my head, as if trying to force the fog aside. I could remember my apartment, the color of the tiles in the kitchen, and the stain on the stove I’d never bothered to clean when the chilli ran-over last week, but not the address. I could remember my job. I worked part time at a computer-repair shop while going to class. But I couldn’t remember the name of the company. I had all of my memories, but it seemed that anything that might tell me who I was, or information that might help me puzzle it out was completely gone… Well not gone, but covered up by that damn fog.

I’m honestly not sure how long I laid there trying to put my thoughts together, but it had to have been hours. The sun was nearly full overhead when I finally stood back up. I’d decided that laying around wasn’t going to accomplish a great deal. Adding up the facts it became pretty clear what had happened. I hadn’t gotten drunk, I’d apparently been drugged. Although what kind of drug could selectively block memories I had no idea. Why would they have left me in the cave? Why had they taken my clothes, but then let me keep my modesty with these crappy pants? Why would anyone have even bothered in the first place?

“Enough of that for now.” I was getting used to speaking to myself. It seemed a bad-sign but compared to everything else it was a small worry. My hunger from before had groan teeth while I was despairing. I was lost in a strange woods. I had no idea where I was, what direction I needed to go, or anything else that would help me get back to wherever the hell it was I was from.

That meant it was time to cancel the ‘get back to town ASAP’ plan, and swap it for the ‘survive and use your head’ plan. I think it was time to risk the water. Honestly, it looked so clean and fresh I couldn’t resist, and letting thirst wear me down while I had no idea how long I needed to last was a bad Idea. I’m sure someone would start looking for me eventually. Those survival shows, always said you needed to secure three things in times like this, water, food, shelter. I was pretty sure shelter was supposed to be first, but I was starving, the day was warm, and exceptions needed to be made occasionally.

I walked out into the clear water. Cupping my hands and drinking a few gulps. The water was heaven, clean, crisp, and perfect. Objective two, that damn fish. The creek was was only two or three feet deep.I could see a number of small fish swimming around, but the ones that were decent eating size didn’t come by too often. So I stood in the hip deep water and waited for my time to strike.

Turns out hand fishing is a great deal more complicated than it looks on TV. After nearly an hour, I’d fallen in the water twice, cut my foot on a sharp rock, and managed to catch nothing. I hadn’t even come close. The water wasn’t too cold at first but after an hour my feet felt like ice-cubes. I sat on the bank in sullen silence while my hunger gnawed at me. Then an idea struck.

“I knew I shoulda picked up that damn knife.” I grumbled as I looked around for a tool. I was human after all, tools were our bag. Looking for inspiration I picked out a fist-sized smooth rock on the stream bottom. I fetched it then brought it over to a larger rock on the side on the bank. Then gathering myself, violently smashed the small rock down on the large rock. It took a few tries but finally the small rock broke.

Blip

The electronic sound was so incongruous to the pristine nature setting I just sat there stupidly for a moment.

“What the hell was that!?”

I looked in every direction for ANYTHING that could have made the sound, but finding nothing I went back to what I was doing. Had I imagined it? The whole scenario was so strange, not to mention all the mental stress I was under. The fact I was talking to myself and hearing things seemed a bad sign, but there wasn’t much point is worrying now. Besides giving myself a task had helped distract me from my lost memories. Breaking down again wouldn’t help. I took the broken rock and looked at it happily, one side was now jagged, and could be used for a bit of rough cutting.

Next I walked into the woods. It didn’t take long to find what I was searching for. A log had fallen off an old oak tree, and it still had a couple branches attached. I used my foot for leverage and broke them both off. One was fairly thin and about three feet long. The other was longer and thicker. I wasn’t sure what I’d use the long one for but it would make a decent walking stick if nothing else. I then took my now jagged rock and started to hack at one end of the thin stick. It took a while, but eventually I was able to sharpen one end into a rough spear.

Blip

This time I was so hungry I didn’t pay attention to the noise. I quickly ran back over to the stream and into the water.

“Alright you little bastards come to daddy.”

This time it only took me ten tries to get a fish. My aim turned out to be surprisingly good, and although my spear wasn’t particularly well made it proved to be good enough for the fish. I stabbed down and caught one right through one side and out the other, like some textbook illustration in a boy-scout manual.

Blip

Blip

I howled like a mad-man with glee.“Ug make spear and kill fish! Ug make fire and eat fish!” I shouted, laughing as I savored my moment of victory. Not too bad for a city-boy.

Now for the cooking. The fire proved to be a bit tricky. I’d been in cub scouts and they’d taught us how it was done, but I’d never bothered much with actually learning. The whole thing had mostly seemed like an excuse for the adults to go camping and drink beer while pretending to watch us, so I hadn't put much effort into the whole scouting thing. However, I knew the general idea. Rubbing makes friction, friction makes heat, heat makes fire.

I went back over to the dead-log I’d found earlier and used the larger rock to bash off a couple of pieces. Luckily it was hollow or It would have been a much harder task. Then I searched around the area for something to use as tinder. I got some dried bark from the tree and finally found a clump of dead grass after a few minutes of searching. I grabbed a couple handfuls, then moved on to bigger sticks and finally a few large chunks of the dead log. Then I bought them all back to where I’d left the fish flopping on the bank.

By the time I finished the sun was getting low, and my stomach was constantly rumbling. Finally I was ready to try my luck at the fire. I used a large curved piece of the log and began to rub it with the blunt end of the spear I had fashioned.

Rub...Rub...Rub...Rub… “This”

Rub...Rub..Rub..Rub.. “Really”

Rub...Rub..Rub.. “Sucks”

I muttered as I frantically rubbed my stick against the slab of wood I’d cut. The wood finally started to smoke, I rubbed for a few more seconds then placed the now red-hot- end of the spear against the dead grass. The grass started to smoke almost immediately. Then I blew gently until it caught fire. I quickly built the sticks I’d gathered into the pyramid shape it shows in the cub-scout book, and sure enough the fire took and started to crackle merrily.

Blip

“Ok, That one I know I didn’t imagine” I said into the night.

What was that sound? This really was going to drive me crazy assuming I wasn’t already. I searched around again, but the sound seemed to come from everywhere. My stomach took that moment to make another anguished rumble, and I quickly decided to cook the fish I’d caught. It took a while, and because of the uneven heating of the fire I ended up burning one side, but I was so hungry I didn’t even care.

I took it off the fire, and bit into one side with it still on the spear. I’m usually not a fish guy, but I was starving, and filling an empty tank always tastes way better than topping off a pretty full one.

Ba-ding Blip

….

I froze for a moment at the new sound, then just laughed, too relieved by finally finishing my task to care about the stupid noises. It didn’t take me long to finish off the fish and night had fallen. It had taken me most of the day to prepare my camp without tools. Tomorrow I was definitely going back to the cave and getting the knife. With that thought in my mind I rested my back against the log and shut my eyes. Exhausted as I was, sleep came quickly.

_____________________________________

Note: I know it wasn't the most exciting chapter but fear not. Things will be picking up soon...... Very soon.