Ficly

Survivor

Dawn.
He awoke beneath a forest of leaves and branches with sunlight radiating through and birds calling. A single momentous and terrifying thought filled his head: build shelter by nightfall, or die.

His hands found a stick. That stick was used to dig for rocks, became a shovel, an axe, a hammer, a weapon. It became a tool for making better tools. Within hours, he had felled three trees and set to chopping and hauling the logs into a frame.

Midday.
He splashed through the nearby pond for a fish that might appease his gnawing hunger. A pack of white wolves trotted by. They watched him, and he met their wary glance, but he did not stop building. The structure took shape. It was square, thick, and accessible only by a knotted ladder made from vines. He threw sand and gravel from the pond all around the cabin, to better hear any unwanted approach. The sun sank faster as it neared the horizon, throwing long shadows, making it harder to see, to work, to build.

Dusk.
The distant, echoing moans and screams began.

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