Chapter 5

After two days in the forest she had determined that she had somehow been brought to a completely different world. She barely was able to wrap her head around the fact that she might never see her family and friends again. Luckily, in a way, she had to focus on survival. This kept her mind off of missing her previous life too much. However, after two days in the forest she missed the luxuries of home that she had taken for granted her whole life. Things like electric lights, microwaves, a soft bed, and a hot shower were now fantastical daydreams.

She had gathered lots of wood and built out a small extension to her campsite. She now had more cover, and had started to figure out how to make a proper fire. It was not very sturdy, but it did the job. It probably would not withstand a storm, but there hadn't been much more than a light drizzle during her short time in the woods. The weather had been mild. It was quite warm, but there was always a cool breeze weaving through the trees. It felt very nice when she was in the shade, but when under the direct sun Diana could feel her skin burning. She was sure that she had developed a nice farmers tan on her arms and neck.

She had gathered a variety of berries and greenery that was edible. This was super important because she had already eaten her granola bars and Reeses. She missed her mom's cooking. Never again would she complain about eating her vegetables, or that dinner was a salad.

Diana had also spent a significant amount of time figuring out her little shadow stick figures. There were very few answers to even more questions that kept piling up. She had discovered that if she wiped them out of the dirt they disappeared. If she drew new ones in the dirt they had to be finished drawings in order to animate. Making more than ten large dirt drawings made her very sleepy. It didn't matter what she drew, but they always listened to what she asked them to do.

Her most exciting discovery happened when she was trying to catalogue some of the local greenery. She had never seen any of these plants before and was drawing them in her sketchbook in order to remember which ones were delicious and which ones the stick figures stopped her from eating. When she had started drawing the plant that grew the blue strawberries one of the stick figures crawled up next to her knee. It had rolled one of her charcoal pencils to her, and gave off an expectant air. Jokingly she had picked up the pencil and went to scribble lightly onto the figure. When the pencil touched the dark shadow Diana felt a small shiver run through her hand.

To her surprise the charcoal pencil acted like a 3d printer and the squiggle that she had drawn was a part of the figure that she had originally etched into the dirt. This meant that she could give them a physical body instead of just being shadows. After an hour of drawing on top of the already existing shadows she had two charcoal "pets". She had gone with a crow and a raccoon as her first attempts. They weren't perfect but they were able to pick up heavier items and could move much more swiftly and agile than the smaller shadows. In total, by the end of her experiments, she had the two charcoal animals and four varying shadow figures in the dirt.

Drawing the two familiars had made her increasingly tired, but luckily she had found a light blue fern that negated her fatigue. It tasted like kale, was hard to find, but the few plants that she had found were thriving.

On the evening of the second day of being in the forest, Diana was making adjustments to the crow drawing with a chalk pencil. The highlights made the creature much more striking. When she had finished her tinkering it flapped its wings as if to show them off to the other figures. Diana could feel flickers of emotion from her shadow creatures, and at the moment it seemed like jealousy was radiating from all but the bird.

"I can't keep calling y'all 'figures'. Do you want names?"

The shadow figures started squirming in delight while the raccoon and crow showed their excitement by spinning in circles.

"I'll name you all as I make you stronger. For now your name is Jazz, and yours is Polka."

She gently pet the raccoon, Polka, and Jazz landed on her shoulder. They both glowed a little lighter and their bodies looked much more stable.

Diana went to stand, but immediately sat down again. She was light headed and surprisingly fatigued.

'Was this from naming them? Does using magic make me tired?'

Polka brought her a blue fern leaf and nudged her leg until she ate it. It did not seem to do much to shake the weariness and Diana found herself starting to doze off. While she sleepily munched on the leaf she found herself musing out loud.

"Is magic normal in this world? Could I use it to catch some meat? I've seen some birds and rabbits out in the woods, but I wouldn't know how to catch them or even cook them."

Jazz flapped its wings a few times and flew out of the enclosure as Diana closed her eyes.

By the time her eyes opened there was a variety of small fist sized birds piled right in front of her face. They were very dead.

Diana lurched back in surprise and immediately saw Jazz behind the small pile. It was trying to preen itself, but it's right wing had gotten injured. Injured was not the right word. Smudged? The charcoal seemed to have been wiped off in small places on both it's right wing and claws.

The birds must have put up one hell of a fight, but luckily Jazz was stronger.

The first priority was to fix up Jazz… Then to figure out how to prep and cook these small birds.