After feeling the warmth of another human being, it's that much harder to be alone.
As nightfall crept over the sky, I thought about everything that had just occurred. For the first time in weeks, there was nothing but stillness all around me. No one was yelling, no one was shoving me into the next spot designed for shaming or interrogating. There was no one to dehumanize me or to comfort me, even falsely. It was just myself and the idyllic landscape around me. If I die here, I smiled for only myself, I think I'd reach Heaven.
I couldn't simply give up and die here, however. Though the human side of my brain urged me to give up, the lion within me insisted I continue. It didn't matter if I was hungry, tired, thirsty again, and aching from the several falls I took. I had to keep going. I had to do something, even if there was nothing to do. Carefully, I rolled over onto my front, giving up on my humanity and reverting back to the easier-to-manage animal body that commanded me to continue living.
My vision changed over to a narrow focus, the world seeming to illuminate before me. As a bug danced by, I resisted a childish urge to pursue it. Having higher tolerances in this body did not mean I had somehow conjured up more energy, just that I was able to control the output and side effects better. I wasn't sure what wildlife existed out here, but I hoped I would somehow blend in with my surroundings. Lions were already a fairly large target, and my white fur would stand out even more so. It was as if I could see my human self talking to me directly, leaning over me to say: "Let's roll in the dirt!"
I took a good look at my surroundings for the first time. For the most part, I saw nothing but rolling hills of lush emerald blades. Some ways ahead, there were the makings of a forest, and I assumed it must have been eastbound, as 180 degrees counter to the forest line was the distinct smell of seawater. Though it was also possible I was at the northern part of the island, or southern part, and the forest was simply further inland relative to those points. I slumped down, my large paws pressing to the top of my skull as I let out an exasperated grunt. I could feel the walls of reality closing in on me. I didn't know how to survive on my own, much less out in the wilderness.
There was the business of the metal glove as well. I hadn't stopped to examine it at all, much less consider the implications of what transforming could have done to me while wearing it. It was entirely possible I could have exploded my arm off a few minutes ago, and I didn't even stop to think twice. If I was going to survive, I was going to need to play it safer than this—much safer than this.
Looking out to the direction of sea air, I summoned every last crumb of knowledge I had about the situation. Military bases would be dotted along the coast; I knew that much for certain. I also knew they preferred outsiders stay out, and wandering into even their general vicinity could spell disaster via gunshot to the face. I'd stand out more as well, having no brush of any sort to hide in. There was a similar issue regarding this coastal prairie: there was nowhere to hide. Someone might shoot me down just to eat me, mistaking me for a regular animal.
That had been the plot point of one of my father's favorite movies, Jungle Outlaw. Adam Hazelton's character in that film enters the midrange of the Old Country, a densely packed forest, hoping to find his missing sister. A village of Stragglers (people who either stayed behind during the mass exodus from the Old Country, or were born into a family of those who did) hunt in the forest to survive daily. I don't mean to spoil the film for you, so cover your eyes for a moment if you haven't seen it yet, but at the end of the tale we find out that the rabbit Adam Hazelton ate at the beginning of the movie was his sister. I was both fascinated and disturbed watching that, and possibly scarred for life. Undoubtedly, the film was made to dissuade the public from transforming or hunting, but I wasn't sure which.
I shook the frightening thoughts from my head and pushed deeper into the forest. Logically, this was the way to go. I could hide under dense thicket and potentially scavenge for food somehow. I had never eaten raw meat before, though I was capable of doing so in this body, and now I found myself gagging at the thought of it. I was so worried about someone eating me that I hadn't stopped to think about my own dietary prospects.
The trees were deceptively distant. Every step was painful, and my thirst was becoming apparent again. Food wasn't something I'd need for another few days, hopefully. Water was impossible to live without. If I could find running water, I could simply live as an animal for the rest of my life like one of those naturalists I'd seen on television. I realized in that moment that I had experienced the majority of my life through a screen. I had never gone to another big city before, or gone out into nature voluntarily. Field trips in school were the height of my reaching out to the greater beyond. Now that I was somewhere new, for some reason I was looking once again to become complacent.
Perhaps I wasn't adventurous by nature, or perhaps I simply didn't know how to be. Perhaps that's why when I was younger I really did want to marry a cowboy. I had the cognitive dissonance that I could not only be a housewife who stayed home and tended to her husband when he came home, but also that I could go out on adventures and have moments where I saved the day alongside him. I dreamt of having it both ways, just as I dreamt of my cowboy being a rough and tough scoundrel who isn't afraid to play dirty, as well as being a gentle giant who would kiss me on the hand only until marriage. I wanted someone tall and tanned and rough, but welcoming and delicate and educated.
I thought back to the cowboy I had met earlier. He was handsome. He met the qualifications of tall, somewhat tanned, and certainly rough. Not quite rough in the way I wanted him to be, but rough nonetheless. He wasn't welcoming. No, not at all. He towered over me as though I were a tool that wouldn't work correctly. I didn't feel as though I had been saved by a rugged outlaw who I wanted to grab me by the arm and kiss me. Rather, I felt like at any moment I might be shot in the head and immediately forgotten after. He wasn't delicate either. A delicate man doesn't drop a girl on the ground several times and leave her alone in a field. Judging by his manner of speech—and perhaps this is naive—but he didn't seem particularly educated either. He wasn't the archetype of a righteous scholarly lawman who had to turn on the very codes he once helped define. He was an idiot.
I paused for a moment, my cheeks turning warm. Maybe I was developing Stockholm syndrome. Was that possible? I was held captive in a way, given the metal glove. I looked down to my right paw, noticing the contraption had transformed into a bracelet akin to an ankle monitor on a parolee. This sort of transformation technology had been commonplace for the past 50 years in the government, but I had never seen it in person before. I had never seen the glove before either, though I wasn't exactly on the up and up with all the latest trends in war weaponry. Regardless, I had come to my senses on the matter and decided firmly that I did not genuinely like the cowboy, and had instead been enamored with the idealized fictional version of a cowboy that I had projected onto him in a momentary bout of delirium.
Wait, what is that? I crouched low, my ears pinning back and eyes widening. There were lights in the distance, near the trees that now were only some 1,000 feet away. Then, the sound of motors whirring in the distance. It looked to be about three men walking along with what must have been high-powered flashlights—the type that you only see in survival shows and as a party trick from a guy whose dad loves said survival shows. The light hit me.
"Hey! You there!"