In the Forests of New France
You realize that you are simply to tired to force yourself to go further tonight. Struggling to your feet, you stagger slightly into the woods surrounding you, hoping to find some shelter. Your throat is dry, and you long for even the slightest taste of water, but fear that by venturing to find it you will remove any hope you might have even now to find your way home.
The trees are thick, but the underbrush in this particular part of the forest is not so impassable as you had feared. Still, it is treacherous to wander beneath trees when dusk is falling even in the open, and you utter a silent prayer when you find a half-felled pine large enough for you to crawl beneath. The branches and needles further irritate the scratches on your body, but you know that you will be thankful for this meager shelter as the night passes on.
Your last thought before you drift to sleep, too exhausted to worry about your safety beyond the simple shelter, is another prayer, this one in thanks that it is still summer, still warm enough for you to survive a night in the open, alone and without fire or food...
Somewhere, though the haze of your sleep, you hear something. In your dream, at least, it is rendered as the baying of a ravenous pack of hounds, coursing you through the too-narrow deer paths you imagine you must have followed into the clearing in the first place...
The trees are thick, but the underbrush in this particular part of the forest is not so impassable as you had feared. Still, it is treacherous to wander beneath trees when dusk is falling even in the open, and you utter a silent prayer when you find a half-felled pine large enough for you to crawl beneath. The branches and needles further irritate the scratches on your body, but you know that you will be thankful for this meager shelter as the night passes on.
Your last thought before you drift to sleep, too exhausted to worry about your safety beyond the simple shelter, is another prayer, this one in thanks that it is still summer, still warm enough for you to survive a night in the open, alone and without fire or food...
Somewhere, though the haze of your sleep, you hear something. In your dream, at least, it is rendered as the baying of a ravenous pack of hounds, coursing you through the too-narrow deer paths you imagine you must have followed into the clearing in the first place...