Merrin dreamed of Food. The groans from her belly finally prompted her to action. Crawling further into the trees, Merrin searched, crawled and then staggered through the brown and the green. She realised that she had found and eaten raw shrooms and berries without registering her actions. The sweet, tart and umami flavours passing her by, consumption was everything. The fact that her fingers were bleeding and sore finally impinged on her battered brain and she paused, curled up at the foot of a tree, and slept.

  Woken by the irritation of bugs crawling through her hair and over her tender, bruised, skin, Merrin twitched and groaned her way to her feet. Fear came first. Scanning around the trees she ascertained the lack of threat gradually and started to take stock. Food, none, clothes, underwear amazingly left by her attackers, totally focused on theft and escape, thirst! Oh, the thirst. No rain had fallen this night. Listening with all her remaining strength, she could not even hear any running water. Her sense of direction had gone in her terrifying scramble the day before, so she tried to look at the tree trunks for hints of which way to go. Mosses could indicate direction, and they contained tiny amounts of water too, so she registered which side of the trees they grew on before scraping off handfuls and sucking what little she could from them, spitting them back out and reaching for more.

  Merrin realised she had made her decision! No going back, dying could take care of itself, she was going to leave her godforsaken past behind her and start anew, somehow. It was only now she registered that her shoes too had gone. Her feet were sore and bruised. Cutting for replacements would need a knife. No knife. Bare feet then, they would just have to harden. Then she found some vines and pulled down some to wrap around her feet. It was unlikely to do much but it might protect her a little from the rough ground.

  Heading approximately South again, Merrin resumed her foraging, finding berries and then finally mushrooms again. Breaking off small branches and twigs to use as tools, she poked and prodded the fallen trees for grubs. Soft and squishy, the taste irrelevant just now, she continued to eat and suck handfuls of moss until she reached the edge of the foliage.

  It petered out into scrubland, and she stood half naked and fearful, then crouching and casting about her for how to proceed. Walking in a semi crouch, she set off further south, hoping against hope that she might find, well, anything useful. She didn’t. Far from help and sustenance, Merrin curled into a ball and let herself crumble and rest. This decision to go on was compromised, she had nothing to aid her and everything against her bold plan. Failure was an option but such a demoralising one.

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  After a while she tried again. Look, walk, seek. Nothing helpful at all.

  Stepping further out into the open, aware of a feeling of fear of that open sky and lack of ground cover, Merrin faltered. The rough grasses and small stones hurt her feet and cut into the vines until they fell away completely. The dry air frightened her even more. Lack of food Merrin was used to, but lack of water was a killer.

  Living, as she had by the sea, she knew the value of fresh water only too well. All that water, undrinkable yet full of food, out of reach and useless to her. The shellfish and seaweed gleaned from the beach by everyone living there were barely able to sustain life. Forage on land, that gave much more nourishment. But without the fresh steams feeding into the small bay of landing there would be no life at all.

  Water, that was life. Merrin could see nothing indicating water. No treeline, no woods or clumps of trees, just scrubland, dry and empty, for as far as she could see. South was dry. Her options just reduced to one. Well, two, including going back to the awful life she had left. She had stayed alive there for so many years. What to do.

  First, she returned to the trees and what little they could give her. Casting both east and west Merrin foraged and kept herself alive, at least. What could she achieve if she just stayed here? Death probably. Water was the main lack. Where did the streams she knew start? Somewhere high up maybe, of from under the earth? With sticks and bare hands Merrin tried digging down past the roots of the trees, pausing often from exhaustion and lack of nourishment. Water eventually seeped into the pit she had made, but so little. Crawling into the small excavation she pressed her mouth into the dampness and sucked up where there was. Gritty, muddy, but wet at least.

  This was madness. Why hadn’t she gone west to begin with? Well, she expected it to be much of the same life she already knew, and that was not progress. Her dreams of a farm or factory had died with the views she had seen of the land to the south. It was just dry. She couldn’t and didn’t know why, it just was. Dry land would not support life of any kind, so it would probably be barren. How could she find work there if there were no farms or factories?

  Prospects then? Merrin was feeling so defeated by her experience so far, she had no idea what to do or where to go. She did what she always did when she felt as low as this, she slept.