Chapter 29

Tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. Cloudy lay wide awake in her comfortable bed deep into the night.

Titus did mention he would come today before he left, right? She heard it! Did she mishear? Cloudy covered her forehead and began to recall last night. But all she could remember Titus saying was, "Tomorrow, I will come." Could something have happened? But it was already dark outside, she couldn't possibly go out to find him.

She decided to wait until morning to go out and check... Cloudy closed her eyes, feeling uneasy. Was Titus someone she should be worried about? Growing up in this forest since childhood and being a hunter in the settlement, even small dinosaurs would scatter and flee at the sight of him.

The old saying goes, "Those who can swim will drown." Cloudy rolled back and forth on her bed, sighing and scratching her head. She never thought she would have the energy now to worry about someone else's life and safety.

What if Titus never appeared in front of her again starting today? As she thought about this, Cloudy calmed down. If that were to happen, how would it affect her? She had learned many local languages, could identify some foods, and had basic survival knowledge in the rainforest. If she just stayed in her cave and wooden hut, she could definitely live peacefully for a long time. Objectively speaking, whether Titus appeared or not wouldn't have a huge impact on her life now.

But the problem was, she still wanted to see Titus, he was her only friend in the rainforest!

"Ah! Ah!" Cloudy cried out strangely, holding her head on the bed. Today, without Titus to play with, it was not so much that she missed Titus, but rather felt lonely! It was lonely without Titus talking!

It was just one day without seeing him. Cloudy calmed down again, lying still on the bed. What was wrong with her? Was this what happened when someone spent too much time alone?

Just as she was pondering this, she heard a strange rustling sound coming from the cave entrance. Cloudy scrambled off the bed, muttering, "Finally, finally," and rushed to the entrance, peering outside into the dark abyss, "Titus? Titus?"

The next moment, she regretted it. A small dark shadow suddenly lunged at her face from the pitch-black entrance, causing a sharp pain on her left cheek. She covered her face and quickly rolled to the side. The shadow made squeaking sounds, and by the moonlight, Cloudy could vaguely see it was a small four-legged creature with a long tail.

Half crouching on the ground, she grabbed a handful of mud and threw it at the dark shadow, quickly running towards her wooden hut while it dodged. As she turned her back, her left calf
A sharp pain shot through Cloudy: "Ugh...!" Ignoring the pain, Cloudy forcefully kicked towards the source of the pain with their injured left foot.

The solid kick landed on the unidentified animal, causing it to emit a short, sharp scream. Cloudy bent down, picked up a rock that appeared in their line of sight, pounced on the creature, and raised the rock to strike its head repeatedly until it stopped moving.

"..." Cloudy spat out the blood that splattered into their mouth, disregarding the body on the ground and inspecting their own wounds. Due to the dim moonlight, they could only vaguely see a wound on their calf approximately one finger in length, very painful. Their face didn't look too optimistic either... the fierce attack seemed to have left half a claw tip buried in their face.

This sudden small battle left no time for Cloudy to think about Titus. Hastily collecting stones, they rushed to firmly block the cave entrance, preventing more creatures from entering. It seemed covering just the entrance with moss wasn't enough; a stone door inside was also needed for absolute safety.

After sealing the entrance, Cloudy immediately returned to the wooden house to grab a weapon. Carefully patrolling the cave, they discovered another creature of the same kind, crouched by the edge of a pool, alertly watching them. With its tail raised high and upper body close to the ground, it seemed ready to attack at any moment.

Should they try to capture it using a throwing bone stick? No, Cloudy's arm strength wasn't sufficient. As they pondered, the animal cautiously began moving towards the cave entrance, with Cloudy following its movements.

The creature didn't have an easy time, probably due to witnessing its companion being killed earlier, so it was solely focused on escaping. After its movement, Cloudy couldn't keep up. With insufficient light in the cave, they soon lost sight of the creature and had to slowly retreat back to the wooden house, where all sides were walled, giving Cloudy a better chance if the animal decided to attack from the front.

After waiting for a long time without any movement, Cloudy dared not sleep and instead cautiously peeked out, squinting to search for the animal's figure. After a long search, they finally spotted a small dark figure darting out from the unlit part of the cave, rushing towards the entrance, only to be blocked by the stones, causing it to panic.

Cloudy gripped their weapon and moved out again. When they approached the creature, it noticed them once more, leading to a chaotic chase inside the cave. Eventually, Cloudy found an opening as the creature, in its panic, failed to turn and stumbled into the pool, splashing around.

Not wanting to dirty the pool further, Cloudy jumped in, grabbed the creature bare-handed, dragged it to the shore, and used the bone in their hand to kill it.

It hadn't been long since the first time Cloudy hunted a bird, a time when they felt guilty. Now, they were just grateful that their neck wasn't being pierced by these two creatures.

"..." Cloudy sighed, carrying the body over to the other one. Both creatures were furry, but their fur felt very rough to the touch.
It's strange, Cloudy felt that all the animals here look very ugly. Their eyes bulged outwards, which might be due to her hitting them too hard, causing their eyes to bulge out. Their limbs are short, with three long, thick claws.

They weren't treated properly, just hastily piled under a slope. She had to figure out how to treat the wounds first. Will they get infected and inflamed later? Could there be some strange bacteria on the animals' claws? This was Cloudy's first time being injured so severely. Her face twitched, and more blood flowed from her leg due to the chase earlier.

What should she do... She was more panicked than she imagined. There were no medical supplies in the cabin, only some fruits and leaves. Apart from medication, how should she bandage the wounds? Should she tear apart the down jacket to dress the wound?

Reluctant...

Cloudy slowly made her way to the edge of the pond and cleaned the wounds. The face wound was okay; after cleaning it, it stopped bleeding outward. The leg was a bigger issue; she probably didn't hit a blood vessel, but blood was steadily seeping out.

"Um..." After some thought, she took off her shorts. Although the shorts were precious, they couldn't compare to the soft down jacket! After a few attempts, she managed to bandage the wound on her leg with the shorts.

Cloudy was a bit flustered. What if it gets infected? If it does, it would be a dead end... How ironic, just a moment ago she thought she could live independently. She angrily grabbed some dirt from the ground and threw it away. She had been too lax; she should have sealed the cave entrance after sunset...

She struggled to stand up and limped back to the cabin, collapsing on the bed. Now she didn't need to think about Titus at all; she might not even survive the next few days. After resting for a while, her condition didn't improve. Her left cheek started to throb, and due to swelling, her left eye was forced to squint. She could feel the blood vessels in her whole leg pulsating because of the intense movement earlier; the wound was probably torn a bit.

...Cloudy closed her eyes, breathing cautiously, afraid of pulling the wound on her face. Luckily, she had made the bed in the morning; otherwise, lying on the ground would have been even more uncomfortable. On the bright side, despite the injury, she now had a safe place to recover, with plenty of food and water.

As long as she didn't develop a fever and the wound didn't get infected, she was sure she could pull through. Speaking of which, she wondered if modern vaccines would work here... While pondering these thoughts, Cloudy fell asleep groggily, only waking up the next day past noon due to thirst.

Her throat was dry, her leg still hurt, but the good news was that the wound on her cheek had scabbed over, as it was just a small hole. Cloudy sat up, untied the bandage on her leg; the wound showed no signs of pus, just a shallow layer of yellow scab, looking a bit disgusting. The area around the wound was dark and bruised, pressing on it caused a bit of pain.

Bathed in the sunlight...
After clearly seeing her wound, Cloudy unexpectedly calmed down because it didn't look as terrifying as she had imagined in the darkness of last night... Perhaps the night truly magnifies all anxieties. Limping, she made her way to the edge of the pool and sat down, too weak to gather dew from the leaves outside, so she settled for a few sips of water from the pool. After quenching her thirst, she decided to set aside thoughts of her wound for now, knowing there was no quick fix.

Now, it was time to deal with the "unexpected gains" from last night! She selected the sharpest bone shards to prepare for skinning them, a process that turned out to be more laborious than she had anticipated. Skinning the animals required more effort than plucking bird feathers. After making an incision, Cloudy shaved off some raw meat to taste, finding it very gamey... much gamier than the least fresh mutton, and quite sour.

"Phew..." she spat it out, feeling it wasn't right to waste it. She was injured now; should she be consuming more protein? With a sigh, she reluctantly ate a few more bites without chewing, swallowing the tough meat. After forcing herself to eat a few more bites, she continued cleaning the animal hides, leaving her hands and the ground covered in the foul-smelling blood.

After finishing one hide, exhausted, she collapsed on the ground, panting heavily. The hide from one animal was about the size of two A4 sheets of paper. Cloudy couldn't think of what to do with it at the moment, so she decided to wash it clean and set it aside. She was too tired to start on the second one, so she drank some water, cleaned her hands, and headed back to her wooden hut to take a nap.

Lying in bed, Cloudy couldn't fall asleep immediately. She swung her uninjured leg, pondering Titus's situation. It was already the afternoon of the second day... If only she hadn't been injured, she could have tried going out to find Titus.

After her nap, Cloudy didn't engage in any strenuous activities; she just checked if the fire starter had dried properly and inspected the entrance of the cave to ensure it was securely sealed.

Titus... Would he come today?

Cloudy patted the stones blocking the cave entrance, sighed, and thought about showing off her new bed and her unexpected hunting success to him.