Dear Chase,

I wish you were here right now. The squirrels are so crazy, they are cracking me up! This little red one chases every other one out of his tree all the time. I named him after you, a little Chase.

It's so pretty here, all the leaves have started to turn colors, yellows, oranges, and some reds even, but still, lots of green, too. It's like this lush painting. It's early, and everything has a little dew on it, but some of the pine trees already have frost on the very tips. It would be romantic to sit and look at this together.

Weird, though, to wish you were here instead of me there! I guess that means I'm adjusting. I can't believe it's been almost two weeks, but here I am. I have gotten used to being here in some ways. I'm figuring out what to do, and I'm not all scared all the time anymore.

But if given the choice, I'd rather be home watching MTV and eating a pop tart right now. 

I pause in my writing when my fishing pole moves. I oversee it but relax as it goes still again. Darn. I have had so much luck here until the last few days.

"Here, fishy, fishy," I call out quietly as I set my journal beside me.

My journal has been my biggest tool out here. In the quiet moments, I write, which helps stabilize my moods and keeps my mind from spinning out. Often, it's in a letter form to either Chase or Belinda, letters I'll never send, but it feels good to feel like I am talking to them.

I also use it to write out plans and ideas. I have a whole page dedicated to what works best in swinging the axe. I am finally improving at that, but it's still hard work.

I'm proud of myself for making it work out here. I fell into a routine, and that's really helped. However, I deviated from my routine today because I decided I needed to make a change last night.

Usually, I start with a breakfast of nuts and apples, then spend a few hours on firewood. I am still working on the first downed tree I found, but I almost have it thoroughly chopped and will need to look for a new tree soon. After firewood, I return to the cabin for a brief break and small lunch, same as breakfast. Then it's off to the creek to get water and fish and, every few days, brave the water to bathe.

It's too cold to get in the creek for a long time, so I found a bathing plan that works. I light a fire outside the creek, put water in my stock pot to warm, and use that to hand wash as much as I can. Then, I dip into the water for a rinse at the end. I make sure to get close to the fire for an instant warm-up afterward. This will work for now, but it will be too cold soon to get into the creek at all. Today, it already feels like it's nearing the forties; and I won't dare it.

I don't stink so much anymore anyway; not that I notice anyhow. I smell like a campfire most of the time. I do most cooking outside right now. For dinner I have been having fish when I catch it, either floured and fried or I boil them in water with a tiny bit of rice or noodles. Nights I don't catch fish I make a tiny bit of oatmeal and add sugar and walnuts and that's filling. 

I have managed to do well being careful and saving most of my food from home.  I put all the canned stuff away for an emergency night. It's tough, though. Some nights, I wake up drooling for peanut butter or a granola bar, and I admit I have given in on a few nights.

I know I will be glad I tortured myself later on, on those freezing winter nights but I don't have anywhere near enough for the winter. I need a better plan.

Last night, I came up with one. I decided to spend three days on food and then three days on firewood. Focusing rather than dividing my energy and attention seems like a good plan. Otherwise, I am always getting food and wood, but I keep burning and eating most of it, and I'm not giving myself much of a surplus. I figure three days on each should do that and then I can go back to my regular routine. 

I am food-focused today. I started fishing early, and later will venture into the woods to look for more nut and fruit trees.

I yawn, growing bored at the lack of action as my fishing pole sits still in the water. This is starting to feel like a waste of time. Time goes fast out here as early as I get up it keeps getting darker earlier and earlier. 

If I don't catch anything here soon, I should move on. Is this part of the creek fished out already from me? I have been here every day. 

Tomorrow it's the time to start thinking about hunting. I can stalk that little muddy water hole the animals drink from.  I'm nervous about it and very unsure I'll have any luck, but I have to try. I see tons of tracks down there every day they go there.  I don't know how to begin making traps, but I should figure that out, too. My journal will be used for a lot of food planning this week.

I get up and walk further down along the creek's edge to see if I can find a better spot to fish. I bring my bag and pole with me as I walk further than before. The water here widens around a huge rocky curve. My eyes travel to the land across it; it looks hard to get to. The creek is very wide, and there are a bunch of jagged tall rocks on the other side, but behind the stones are two big black walnut trees. I can see them looming over the rocky cliff from here.

The walnuts have become my primary food source. They are filling taste good fried up over the fire, and they do have protein and fat in them. Having a tree so close to my cabin is great, but I've already gone through what has dropped and only have about fifty nuts left. Many were rotten or moldy. Two giant trees like that, though, it will be so much!

"Could I get across?"

No way. Not from here, the water is moving rapidly, and I can see all the jagged rocks poking up and looking both threatening and dangerous. It's as if they are saying, try me.

"Not here," I tell them.

I stop momentarily as the wind picks up and zip my hooded sweatshirt. I should have worn a jacket, but I planned to return to my cabin after fishing, so I didn't bother.

According to the map, this creek goes on and on, splitting the forest in half. I could waste a ton of energy walking along and hoping for a chance to cross and never get one. If I find a way to cross, I still need to get over the rocky cliff to the land behind it to get at those trees.

This could be a waste of energy and could be dangerous. 

Risk versus reward is what I wrote in my journal last night. I said I was going to focus on food today. Those two trees will be an abundance of it. I think it's worth the risk. If I'm careful.

 "Chances are if I keep walking. I will find a spot to cross and maybe even a path to get behind that rocky wall," I decide out loud as I resume walking.

I only make it two steps and stop when a polarizing feeling comes over me.

Goosebumps form on my neck, and a chill comes over my body. It feels like someone, or something, is watching me. I can't shake it, and I go totally still. I have my gun on my side, but it's not ready. I've started to relax too much out here.

I stay very still, and the feeling seems to intensify. I carefully and quietly as possible unlock the safety, and the clicking noise seems to echo into the air as loud as a gunshot itself.

I hear the unmistakable rustling sound of something taking off and turn just in time to see a flash of brown as it speeds off into the trees.

A deer? Has to be a deer.

Can I catch it? Worth a shot!

I chase after it, my legs pumping hard behind me as I grip the gun tightly. I could really go for some deer steaks tonight.

I see and hear some of the tree leaves rustle as it darts off, but it's too far ahead of me, and I am losing steam quickly. I am getting stronger and faster out here but not fast enough to catch the deer, and I stop when I lose sight of it completely.

"Damn," I say as I pant heavily to catch my breath.

The deer chased me deep into a part of the woods that I don't know. It's darker here as all the trees are very tall, mostly pines, but mixed among them are some other large trees of various types.

"Where is the creek?"

From there, I can find my way home; I start to listen for it when I see a walnut tree straight ahead. It's a shorter tree than the one by my camp and the two I saw across the creek, but it has the same style and shape. I head over and find a bunch of nuts on the ground. These are a little different. They have more of a teardrop-like shape and are smaller. I shove all of them in my bag.

I glance around for another tree like it but don't see one. There are mushrooms on the tree trunks and lots of them, but I don't know which are safe to eat so I leave them. 

I luck out though find a bunch of wild rhubarb growing on the ground here. I know I can eat that!

I shove a bunch of it into my bag until it's super full, happy the deer found me some food anyway. Something different will be nice and there's still lots more I can return for, which I plan to do. If I can find my way out of here to get back here, that is.

I listen for the water again and start hearing it as I get closer to where I think I came from. I start seeing the messed-up pine needles, and I recall crunching through them as I ran. I know I am on the right path now, and it's an instant relief. I follow my own path back out of these deep woods.

There are a few muddy areas as I grow closer to the creek, and I avoid those. I am nearly back out to the clearing when I stop short, and my mouth drops open.

"Wait. What was that?" I whisper.

Goosebumps form again on my neck as I slowly turn around and look at what I almost walked past and missed. There is a print in the mud. It's not mine. I was in the pine needles the whole time I was running, I'm sure of it. It's a smudged print so it's hard to tell for sure what it's from but it sure seems like a shoe would do this.

"Oh my God," I whisper as I shudder.

I guess it could be from a deer...right? But I see deer tracks all the time by the water hole, and this isn't what they look like.

This is-- it can't be.

Is someone else out here?

"No," I say, even as I study the print full of doubt. The longer I look at it, the more unsure I am, even doubting if it is mine. Maybe I did slip into the mud at one point while I ran. I look at the bottom of my shoe and find no evidence of this though.

It could have wiped off as I ran, though, I rationalize.

"No one is out here but me," I whisper as I retreat back out and away from it. The faster I get away from the better.

I walk past the creek briskly, hurrying towards the direction of my cabin. My heart is starting to thump again, and I am close to losing it.

If it was a person, I scared them off, right? But for how long? What if it's those guys my dad sent me running from? 

They could be biding their time and watching me...

I haven't been this terrified since day one, and the next thing I know, I'm running back to my camp as fast as my legs will carry me.

When I get home, I feel relief at the familiar sight of my cabin, but it doesn't last. The further I step into the clearing, the more this odd sense of something being off comes over me. My body tenses up as I look around.

I know this space, every inch of this clearing so well by now. I sit out here every morning and every night.

I brought one of the large stumps as a makeshift table and set it up next to my rock chair near the fire. A pile of them sits on the table with my hammer beside them, my mason jar, half full of water next to that.

My cast iron pan sits outside the fire where I left it, ready to cook fish or roast nuts. The fire is dying down, and the two logs I left there are exactly where I left them to sit, ready to go in.

My door is still closed tight, with the board over it untouched since I shut it this morning.

My blankets hang from a tree branch to air out.

Everything seems to be the way I left it. I can't find anything out of order, but I know something changed. It's probably the tiniest little thing, but I feel it. I know it in my gut.

"Someone was here."