Tom woke up slow and stiff. He vaguely remembered the hooded man, now named Mr. Hood, leaving the room from the day before with the parting words "Be carefule kid".

The room had revealed no more secrets after touching everything and looking all around in the glow coming from the block. After a few hours hunger and thirst drove him out of the cave into the water which he didn't think he was going to be able to complete.

Crawling out of bed Tom went about his morning routine. Bathing regularly unlike what Granny Emily thought, was necessary out in the bayou. Carrying a scent could be death. Swamp Cats, Gators and lots of other creatures had a dangerously honed sense of smell. Worst of them all the bugs. No soap though just mud then sand, leaving an earthy smell.

After a relatively slow morning Tom approached the pool where he and Mr. Hood had previously dove. He stepped down mentally preparing. Tom dove off a medium sized stone jutting into the pool, that flowed out mixing with the murky water of the swamp.

The clear spring water was making holding his breath harder, but Tom swam towards the rock they had previously swam under. Passing under the rock the glow began to light up where light from outside started to fail. But it was too far. The panic of running out of air Tom desperately swam back out and straight up to the surface.

Whatever drive had led him to follow Mr. Hood under before, maybe just as a focus that distracted from the unrelenting need to breathe, was not there. Several hours and tries later Tom layed on the bank exhausted. The bugs flying lazily around him in the sunlight.

As he was sunning himself Tom heard a rustle in the brush and he froze.

How could I be so stupid. Laying around near a pool outside my defense layers. The drama of the prevous day had brought complacency, complacency brought dismemberment more often than nought.

Tom not hearing anything else remained alarmed. In a quick movement he grabbed his clothes off the ground and ran. Just as he moved a large gator burst from the bushes built with longer and far more muscled arms than any lizard had any right to have. "Of course it was gods be damned swamp gator" he swore as he moved.

Running down an animal track with speed only terror can grant Tom started to tire his earlier aquired fatigue coming back, the rustling of bushes behind him spurred him faster and further.

He started gaining ground, a dozen paces between him when he felt his foot break through the ground.

He had reached his outer layer of pit traps.

Quick thinking might have saved Tom, using the debris covering the pit he threw himself to it's edge.

A sharp white light entered his calf. He screamed, his left leg impaled on a sharpened stick, leaning against the edge of the pit. Two spikes pushed over beneath him.

The gator circled above him atop the pit. Almost twice his height the sheer walls kept him out of reach of the beast.

More urgent than his soon to be death by monsters maw was the process of screaming himself hoarse. Every twitch or movement brought waves of agony.

An undetermined amount of time later, his voice gone Tom realized the pain had become more steady and he was capable of conscious thought.

He began to laugh hysterically. He was alive not eaten. With hundreds of close calls living in the bayou this was his msot painful brush with death.

The scent pods in the pit and nearby trees had burst and fulfilled their purpose of driving off other predators. Maybe death was lurking in the closest bush but he knew he needed out of the pit.

Thinking get out was easy, reaching to fat for a stick to help him climb out brought back the fierce waves of pain.

Tom puked up his breakfast and dry heaved till his stomach cramped.

With no recourse he gritted his teeth grabbed the stick impaled with his leg and ripped it out of the ground.

. . . .

Tom crawled into his compound and collapsed covered in blood mud and detritus from the pit and Forrest.

No sign of his visitor he sank into a sleep brought by exhaustion.

. . . .

Tom woke up in the dirt.

The land of the living brought back the pain. Tom looked at his leg and the pain intensified. Full of dirt and blood the whole in his calf was oozing blood and puss.

If he didnt get to work an infection was gonna take his leg and maybe his life he realized.

Half the evening gone the sun was setting and Tom had managed to clean his leg and poultice it with an herb known for helping with infection, and lit twice as many scent pots and stick than normal.

As awful as it was he wasnt going to take any chances around his compound when he couldnt even run right now.

Dinner of fish , caught in a trap he had layed previously and some boiled red root with some peppers to add flavor tasted better than any food he had ever eaten.

After an exhausting and short evening Tom hobbled over to his house and bed with a crutch and crawled under the furs.

So much had happened, soo much he didnt understand. He definitely didn't have time for girls now.