NaNoWriMo 2

 This isn't quite so true as to what day i'm writing all this. Eg the first paragraph continues on from the last and i wrote it yesterday, i just hadn't written it before posting the blog, and i'm not yet stopping for tonight =) i'm past 3,000 words now, which is more than i have ever done before =D

 A bush started rustling just a  meter away, panicking, thinking about cannibals and other  horrors lurking in the shadows she sprinted away running  deeper and deeper into the jungle. Dodging low lying  branches, fallen logs, and vines she continued her flight  through the jungle. Skidding to a halt, Julie suddenly  realised just how crazy she was being. running from  shadows and being scared of ghosts, this was no the way  to survive and now she was lost in the middle of the  jungle, no source of food or water. Julie swore at  herself for being so stupid and kicked out at a tree in  frustration. Pain shot through her toes and through her  foot. Swearing again she fell to the ground clutching her  foot and started to cry. Over whelmed with loneliness and  hopelessness she didn't want to go on. Everything was  useless, she was stuck without rescue and was going to  die on this island, alone and with no one to care for  her. She was ready to give up.

Light dimmed and a cold breeze filtered it's way down  through the canopy. Julie shuddered still curled up on  the jungle, she hugged herself and started to cry again.  It was some time before the first drops of rain could  make their way through the canopy, but Julie remained,  getting slowly colder and slightly wet. Her throat still  burned with thirst, she knew she wouldn't last much  longer without water, so she sat against a tree and  waited miserably till the inevitable happened. She  watched the rain filter down through the leaves, catching  on branches and trickling to the ground where it pooled  in slight depressions on the ground. She watched the  insects scurry around between their shelters, wondering  at rain must seem to them. One drop of rain could satisfy  the thirst of a whole community of ants.

Slowly Julie began to realise that she wasn't without  water after all. If she could just collect the rain,  which fell so freely around her she could have enough to  drink, for now. Scolding herself for again being so  stupid she bent over a small pool of water and raised  cupped hands of water to her mouth. The water was murky,  tasted like dirt and probably contained various diseases,  to Julie it tasted like life.

After scrambling around the floor Julie had gathered several  large, still green leaves and laid them down overlapping  to make a floor to catch water. She could get a few  mouthfuls of water this way but it would not be enough to  survive. She drank water where ever she could find it, in  puddles, on leaves or even in the hollows of a few trees and she had climbed a couple trees to gather some ripe fruit. Feeling reasonably satisfied and feeling better about surviving she sat below a tree trying to decide what to do next.
She could easily stay here in the jungle where the sun didn't bother her, she had fruit and rain water but she doubted it would last long. She would have no way of getting to rescuers if they ever arrived and she still had no idea about the frequency of rain. She tried to avoid thinking about what to do about food if she ended up staying past the time when fruit could be easily gathered from trees.
Attempting to return to the beach might just end up with her being even more lost than she already was and she could stumble and severely injure herself on the trek. Her foot was still sore in any case and her didn't much like the idea of wandering around in a jungle alone. But she was hopeful that she could at very least find a small pond of stream to set up camp beside so she could have water when the rains stopped.

Julie decided that there was nothing else to do but to go in search of some place better suited to her survival. If  she stayed she would surely perish and if she went she at least had some chance of living, however lonely that might end up being. She drank the last of her collected water and a couple of the yellow fruit she had picked but not yet eaten and rose slowly to her feet. Testing her sore foot she put pressure on different parts of her foot and wiggled her toes. Her foot was still a little tender but shouldn't prove too much of a problem. She looked around and picked a direction at random and started to walk. After her flight through the forest she had forgotten to take note of which direction came from, not that it would have done much difference if she had.

Julie trudged barefoot through the now slightly muddy jungle for most of the day, stopping only occasionally to drink some water gather on leaves, to eat some fruit or to relieve herself as she needed. She had seen nothing but trees, plants and the occasional brightly coloured bird. Everything looked the same and for all she knew she could have been wandering in circles all day. On the verge on giving up again, Julie sat heavy in the mud to rest. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the jungle. Rustling leaves, chirping insects, warbling birds and a soft tinkling sound which was vaguely familiar yet Julie couldn't remember what it was. She sat pondering, straining her ears to listen past the rest of the cacophony to place where she had heard it. Then it hit her and memories came flooding back.

She was six years old and walking through a nature trail with her grandma. Old trees covered with moss and lichen stood tall over her head, bushes covered with bright ripe berries and watching birds hop from branch to branch, mocking her. She had hated it as a child, she grew up in the city with her single mum and was more into shopping than looking at trees. Years later, after her grandma had passed on, she cherished those memories and realised that she should pay more attention to nature, she had even briefly wished to move to the country to live with her extended family. But that was a passing phase of a teenager who moved through moods and life goals faster than a car speeding down the highway. Julie smiled as she remembered her grandma jumping into a stream with her floral print dress. Julie and lost her footing and slipped into the stream and was starting to be washed away. She had been terrified then but her grandma didn't tell on her, instead they sat in the grass of a meadow, listening to the magical tickling of the stream, to dry off.
Julie opened her eyes and tried to pin point the location of the sound, now she could remember it was the sound of water playfully rolling down rocks and feeding life into the land around it. Smiled to herself she set off again, feeling like everything would soon be alright.

It was a few hours before sunset and Julie was spread out on the grass in a small meadow beside the stream. It was a small stream, only two meters across and half a meter deep. It wound it's way through the jungle, crossing the far side of the clearing beside a small bank of rocks. The meadow was a rough oval shape, 10 meters across and covered in grass and small flowers with a tall mango tree in the center. It was peaceful here and Julie was happy. If she was to never see civilized land again, she decided this is where she would like to live out the rest of her days.
As Julie lay snoozing in the grass the sun started dropping in the sky, covering the meadow in an orange glow. A cool breeze started blowing through the meadow and Julie awoke shivering from the chill. She hadn't many clothes left and the dress once fashionable she had worn on the boat was now muddy and tattered. It wasn't designed for the harsh elements of a tropical island and Julia mused at the thought of 'going native' and wearing a grass skirt and coconut bikini you would see on TV. Though she doubted that would give her much protection from the weather, nor would it be comfortable. Instead she would have to build a hut to keep herself warm and out of the rain.

Julie looked around gathering sticks, fallen leaves and branches, and piled them up on one side of the meadow. She frowned at the meager resources she had found, none would be very suitable for a weather proof shelter. She needed long poles to make a frame and some for or material to use a roof but she would no be able to find either on this island. She wandered around the edge of the meadow looking at everything and trying to decide a use for every single plant she saw. She found some small trees, no more than three meters tall. They had thin, straight and slightly flexible trucks but were a bit too thick for her to easily snap to use as support poles. She would need an axe to cut the trees and remove the excess branches. Julie sighed, everything way she turned she could needed something from her civilized world to make even the most crude of shelters. She was gaining a respect for people who lived thousands years ago with no tools except rocks.
She picked over the rocks along the edge of the stream, hopeful that she might find one with a sharp enough edge to saw down a few small saplings. As the light faded to grey and Julie lost sight of the stones in front of her, she sighed with resignation and curled up beneath the mango tree. Pulling a few leaves over herself she fell into a fitful sleep with dreams full of beasts lurking in bushes and cannibals hiding behind trees.

Julie was slow in waking the next morning, she felt no need to rush around and she thought she may as well enjoy her time here, whether she would ever be found or not. the sun was just getting high enough to peek over the tops of the trees and warm the meadow when Julie finally crawled out from under her pile of leaves. She still felt a bit of last nights chill, lucky it hadn't started to rain and she was sure the leaves had helped a little. In the winter she would need to find some kind of blanket or covering so she wouldn't freeze, though she didn't think it would ever get that cold in the tropics it couldn't hurt to be prepared. 
She got up and walked over to the stream, took and drink then headed off to relieve herself in the jungle. While eating some freshly picked fruits Julie thought about everything she would need to do for her camp so she could survive for a long time. She made lists in her head as she continued picking over rocks, and promised to herself that by the end of the day she would have some poles to made a hut frame and an area set aside for waste.

At last she came across a rock with an edge that could possibly be used to hack down a small tree. It was about palm sized and semi-circular, it looked like it had been broken in two at some point. Julie smiled and walked over to a sapling about two meters high and started to hack at the base. She tried both sawing and chopping with the stone but it mostly just tired Julie with doing little damage to the tree. When about half way through the trunk she stood stiffly and stretched then kicked the tree just above the cut with the base of her foot. It make a snapping sound and nearly broke off the base. Triumphantly she cheered and started alternating hacking and kicked the truck until it broke free. She pulled the tree with weak arms back to the clearing and sank to the ground laughing. It was hard work, but she had taken her first step towards survival and was feeling rather pleased with herself.

By midday she had cut down four more small trees which she left beside the mango tree while she rinsed off sweat in the stream. She felt odd at first, washing in the same water she would drink from though she knew it really wasn't as it was all probably washed out to sea. She thought for a moment about if she should follow the stream out to sea, but decided better of it. There was nothing to gain by heading to the beaches, she had the perfect place to build a camp and she would focus on that before adventuring further.