Awakening

As Leonard regained consciousness he realized that he was in the middle of forest laying on the ground. As he looked around all he could see was endless pine trees, though they were far bigger in width and height than any trees that he's ever seen. The trunks alone were at ten feet thick at the base, and the tops were higher than he could estimate. At least he felt like they were taller than the redwoods he had heard about.

The place seemed unreal, he thought he had gotten lost in a fairy tale if he wasn't dreaming. Then in a flash everything he had just experienced came back to him

"AAAAHHHGGGGGGG!!!" He let out a cry like a tormented animal. He recalled the feeling of falling out of the sky, Emily gripping onto his arm, and the moment of pain he felt on the impact before blacking out. He started sobbing uncontrollably at the thought that he had lost both of his parents and his sister all at once. In his grief he didn't even stop to think about his situation and only retained enough consciousness to crawl to a hollowed out trunk nearby and cry himself to sleep.

The night was cold, and though he was thankful he dressed to return home and not in the tank top and shorts he wore in Hawaii; he still felt like he would freeze through the night. As the sun came up a single spot managed to shine through the the trees onto the ground in front of Leonard. Still shivering he crawled forward to enjoy the warmth as he thought about his next move. Though his grief was still with him he decided his family would want him to keep going and not give in to despair and join them prematurely in the afterlife. Even though he wanted to think they were still alive he found it hard to believe that they had lived like he had, though he wasn't even sure if he had lived to be honest.

He thought about his current situation and finally started thinking about how in the world he had gotten there. He reasoned that if he had woken up from the plane crash without being rescued it was most likely he'd wake up on either a raft, a beach, of the jungle of a tropical island near Hawaii. Try as he might he couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation about why he had woken up in a pine forest in what felt like the north from the cold. What made him even more confuse was that through the gaps in the trees he could only see mountains on all sides. If he woken up near the ocean he could have made sense of it, but not in the middle of the mountains where he was seemingly many miles inland.

His thoughts ranged from kidnapping, drugging, hyper realistic hallucinations, he even entertained the idea of being transported to another world(but only for a second). As his thoughts wandered he suddenly felt a pain in his stomach accompanied by a loud noise. It was then that he realized that he was starving!

"I have to find some food first or I won't think straight" he said out loud. He thought that by vocalizing problems he could focus better on them, as long as he didn't start answering himself. If that happened then he knew he would be truly screwed. He slowly got up and reluctantly moved away from the Suns warmth promising himself to make a fire as soon as possible.

He didn't try to fool himself with ideas of hunting... Just yet. But he did think that he might be able to find some northern fruits or berries to snack on. The thing that scared him with this idea was the possibilities of poisonous berries, so he decided to stay away from any brightly colored berries he found.

He soon realized that the problem might be harder to solve than he thought though, when after several hours of walking he still hadn't found anything to eat! He could tell it had been a while since he started walking because the sun was now almost at its peak in the sky! It was roughly noon and all he succeeded in was wasting more energy by walking around. Not long after though he heard the sound of running water nearby, rushing towards the sound he was able to find his first drinking water since he woke up the day before.

The stream was about five feet across and it looked like it was deepest at about two feet. Placing his hands in the water first, the stream was as cold as ice. He scrubbed the dirt of his hands before moving a few feet upstream to drink the cleaner water. Leonard had read somewhere that mountain streams were actually cleaner than city water due to the rocks and constant movement acting as a natural filtration system. He would only have to worry if the water was at all stagnant.

Keeping that in mind Leonard dipped his hands in the water and brought some to his lips, savoring the cool liquid running down his parched throat. He was so focused on drinking that he hadn't noticed the large wolf standing on the opposite bank staring at him. When Leonard heard a low growling he looked up and the first thought in his head was 'maybe this isn't earth after all'. Because he knew that on earth wolves didn't get as big as horses.

Leonard froze, his mind rushed into overtime while his body wasn't moving as he worked on ways to survive this sudden encounter. However due to the wolves growling and the look of hunger in it eyes Leonard arrived at only one conclusion- RUN!!

He launched himself to the side and ran following the stream. He heard a soft thud behind him and knew that the wolf had jumped over the water, a quick look behind him showed the wolf getting further back as it only followed him at a leisurely pace obviously believing he was an easy meal. This thought irritated Leonard even though he should count it as a good thing he couldn't help thinking 'you asshole! If you're gonna eat me then put more effort into it!' to himself.

Risking another look he saw that the wolf was following at a slightly faster pace and cursed himself in his heart. Though its pace was still slow enough that he was able to stay ahead of it for another ten minutes, long enough that he had long since felt a pain in his side and started weeping from the effort. Looking back one last time he saw the wolf had apparently decided to get serious in its pursuit and was moving even faster, and he looked forward just in time to see to cliff he was about to run off of.

Coming to a sudden stop, he suddenly felt a large weight hit him in the back as the wolves' fangs sank into his shoulder. Due to the wolf crashing into him they both fell forward sending them both down the cliff to the bottom. They had of course hit several rocks on the way down, caused great Leonard to lose consciousness on the way down.

Leonard opened his eyes and could feel himself fading, 'how funny is it that I supposedly escaped death just to die the next day?' He thought, mocking himself. He could see a pile of fur a little ways away, 'at least I took that bastard with me' and he felt relieved at the thought. As he felt his conciseness fading he suddenly saw a striking red in front of him. As it moved closer he realized it was a woman with beautiful red hair and golden eyes examining him.

"How beautiful" he said before his conciseness faded away.