Lost

Under the canopy of leaves, water trickled down the leaves with a soaked figure could be seen, wearing a backpack and a camera around her neck.

Naomi dragged her boot on the muddy soil trying hard to resist the cold that was forcing its way into her clothes.

Walking for hours was certainly not a stroll and with a heavy backpack that was soaking wet making it a lot heavier, Naomi could also almost hear the agonizing cries of her joints.

Tired, she dropped her bag before climbing a tree to check out the position of the sun. After reaching the top, she sighed. The sun was setting and it was probably around 6 pm but she still had no idea where to sleep.

She couldn't set up her tent because the ground was wet and there was no hope to make a fire tonight.

"Why am I even worried about sleeping, if a predator comes here then it's off to thy kingdom come" Naomi facepalmed.

She observed the ground from above and eliminated the option of sleeping down. The only other option was to find a tree to sleep on but even though she weighed just 49 she was sure non of the branches she was looking at could hold her. They all looked skinny like they would snap on a slight impact.

'Separating from the group was a terrible idea and now I don't even know how to get back' Naomi thought, feeling deep regret but her situation being emotional now was only going to ruin things so she climb back down and began looking for a branch strong enough to hold her.

* * *

The next morning Naomi felt sore in places she didn't even know she had. She hadn't slept a wink last night, and although her life had been hard there had never been a time when she slept on a tree trunk or worse its branch.

"Thais is terrible and I don't even know my way back to those guys. Should I even do that after the insult?"

She was becoming cranky and she had an idea why. She hadn't eaten since she separated from her group yesterday and because they separated on a sour note she forgot to pack her food but packed everything else.

"This is so stupid" Naomi grunted finding her way down the tree. Her bag was still wet so she emptied it of her things and looked for a place to hang them up to dry.

After sorting that out she went to the next item on the list which was finding food she was beginning to reach a dangerous point of starvation.

Leaving her stuff to dry she went in search of food. It's not like she had the heart to hunt anyway so fruits just had to cut it, this was an unexplored forest so anything could be poisonous but Naomi was too hungry to care about that.

It was either starving to death or dying from poison and honestly, the latter was way more enticing.

Not too long after she came across a tree with FRUITS!!! Naomi almost drooled just staring at the sun rays shining on the fruit calling her to taste it.

She had no clear memory of how she got to the top but she grabbed hold of a branch a plucked one of the fruits. Fortunately, there was still a little bit of rationality within her so she didn't just bite through and instead studied it first.

But after giving it a closer look she began having second thoughts about eating it.

The fruit looked like a sea urchin but was yellow and had a smooth cap at the top. "If this isn't poison then I wonder what is?"

But she couldn't do it, she just couldn't throw away the first likely edible although, with a high chance of poisoning fruit, she had found in two days.

So with a made-up mind, she peeled the fruit from the smooth cap, carefully. Still, some of its juice touched her hand and that part became yellow just like the fruit.

"Seriously?" Naomi groaned staring at her palm waiting for something to happen. But even after five minutes, she felt nothing, not even an itch.

"If that's the only side effect then..." she grinned and turned to the tree letting out an evil crackle.

Two hours later a brightly yellow figure could be seen walking with a large backpack on her back. Naomi showed the tree absolutely no mercy after finding out it wasn't poisonous well except for the color-changing part.

She made sure to pluck every last fruit and after eating the ones she could she kept the others in her backpack and continued.

She was lost, that was a fact but that didn't mean she was going to wait around for a miracle to happen, she was going to create one herself.

Fortunately, there was no rain today so the journey wasn't so bad not as bad as yesterday at least. After walking for three hours without stopping she decided to rest.

"I wonder if they're even trying to find me..." Naomi sighed as she sat on the ground and rested her back on a tree. Her eyes were giving in, she had not slept for almost two days and between getting soaked in a rain and spending the cold night on a hard branch her system needed a little reset.

As Naomi drifted off to sleep under the shade of broad leaves she had no idea she had long crossed an invisible barrier and trespassed into the territory of creatures she never knew existed.

And about 25 meters away from her, among the trees, a pair of narrowed eyes watched her and when the owner of those eyes was sure Naomi was fast asleep leaped from the high branch and landed on his feet, and walked slowly to Naomi's position.

After seeing Naomi he frowned and then whispered into the air before waving his wrist.

All these actions were unnoticed by Naomi who was dreaming about a turkey leg.