I gently place down the wood I collected in the forest, it wasn’t that much but it would be good for now. I was freezing and the blowing wind wasn’t helping either. When I first came here all I had were black shorts, the same shorts I wore to bed that night. Then I woke up here, in this weird place.
It wasn’t a normal forest. One day it would be hot outside, the next it’s below freezing! I hardly saw any animals to hunt so I was starving. I set up some traps to help get food, but when I checked them  they would be disabled, like someone was messing with them. That or it would just be a leaf or a stick caught up in it. Once I got lucky with a bunny but it wasn’t enough to fully get rid of my hunger.
I sit down on the log I had placed in front of the fire and put my hands out to get some warmth. I smile as the heat  thaws my fingertips. Goosebumps cover  my arms as the wind  comes through again.  The fire flickers  and hisses as I add more wood.
A memory comes to mind of my half brother (although we were as close as real brothers) -William. We were having a cookout and holding marshmallows over a fire. William had long black hair that flowed to his shoulders and a piercing on his lip and a few on his ears, he was kinda emo. He was super active and all the girls in high school noticed him. He did smoke every now and then with his friends but he it was more of a social habit than an addiction.
In contrast, I was super skinny and nerdy with my black thick rimmed glasses. I had black hair as well but it wasn’t as long as his hair. I wasn’t into the sports he did though. We got along well. I would give up anything to go back to that moment where we were both laughing and making jokes by the fire. I wish he was with me now.
As I said he was my half brother. His father had gotten into a fight with mother when he was little so he slipped into a depression and got bad grades and lost most of his friends. Then our dad married my mom, who was very kind to William, she never expected him to call her mother.
Before I woke up here, my brother and I had gotten into a big fight. I don’t know what triggered him to start yelling at me, maybe it was the vase I had dropped that shattered while I was cleaning the kitchen, but he started screaming at me. He screamed about how he hated me and my goody-two-shoes personality. He yelled about how aggravated I made him and how he wished his parents were to be back together and how he wished I was never born.
I had stared at him in shock. I thought he liked my mom, I thought he was fine with everything. Apparently he is good at hiding his real emotions. I hated being yelled at though, or getting in trouble. I looked up to William, I loved him. I teared up and ran to my room, locking the door behind me.
I sat behind my door and stared at the ground. I took deep breaths and tried to stop my eyes from tearing up. I hated it when that happened, how my eyes would tear up at the slightest thing that made me upset. I could hear my brother in the other room pacing. If our parents were here he’d so be grounded.
Once I calmed down I walked over to my computer and did an entry in my journal. I started writing it when I first started Middle School, it was so much better writing down all the drama and everything at school then leaving it all jumbled up in your head to keep you stressed out at school and having your mind go to lala land in class.
I could hear my brother storm to his room and slam his door closed as I typed my feelings down. Once I finished I pushed myself away from my desk and looked at my bed. I sighed, took my shirt off, and laid down on my bed. I was hoping maybe he would be happier when I woke up. Maybe his real mother gave him that vase. That thought made me feel terrible. I planned to apologize in the morning. I had planned to but when I woke up, I was in the woods.
Since I watched a lot of survival shows I was able to make it pretty far. This was the end of my 5th day here. I get up and walk over to a tree. I had carved into it with a sharp pocket knife, that looked like William’s. William sharpened that pocket knife every day. He told me our father had given it to him the day before our dad and his mom got into a fight. It was his most prized possession.
In the tree I wrote W+F meaning William, my brother, and Frank, me. Underneath that I put in tally marks how many days I have been here. I push the blade into the tree, adding another tally mark. I frown and put my hand on the tree, feeling the indentions I had created. I turn and walk back to the fire and watch the wood slowly turn black from the fire.
I never really wandered out of this general area. I figured if people were looking for me, I’d let them come to me. That’s one of the lessons I was taught from Bear Grylls. Sometimes you gotta let the rescue team come to you because if you start to wander around in an area they had already looked in you may not be found.
I shove my hands in my pockets to keep them warm but felt a piece of paper. I frown and pull it out to look at it. It was crumpled into a ball. Flattening it out to look at it, I bite my lip. It was a bottom half of something, like a book or something. It must’ve been garbage, it wasn’t like it would help me get out of here. I shrug and toss it into the fire and watch the fire consume it and spray it’s amber's into the air.
I walk over to my ‘bed’ which was only a pile of dead leaves. It was nothing like my old bed, but it was okay for now. I was debating to start sleeping up in a tree like Bear Grylls did. I was grateful that I watched Man vs Nature for so long. It finally paid off, after all the teasing of my classmates.
I lay down, facing the fire and watch it. I listened to the wilderness around me, the fire crackling, frogs croaking in the nearby lake that I had found, grasshoppers chirping. Everything was good. At least that's what I tell myself while I slowly close my eyes and fall asleep.
I was half  asleep when I hear a disturbing noise, footfalls. Thud, crack! Thud, Crack! I could hear sticks snapping and the crunching of leaves as the creature approached. I slowly get up, careful not to make a lot of noise and look in the direction of the ruckus.
I couldn’t see anything. The fire had gone out and it was pitch black. I was only able to see about 8 feet in front of me. Another memory comes to mind, of William and I playing hide and go seek in the woods while the sun set. I hid under a bush and listened while he walked around the woods, looking for me. Except this wasn’t William, it sounded too big to be William.
I want to scream but I shutdown my thinking part of my brain and go on instinct. I never relied on my animal inside, that's what Dad called it. The animal inside telling you what to do and where to go in a sticky situation.
The footfalls suddenly stop and everything is quiet. Not even the grasshoppers were chirping anymore, Everything fell into a deathly quiet that made me want to scream. I slowly stand up, avoiding the crunching of the dead leaves, but I couldn’t muffle the noise completely. I slowly walked to the fire and grabbed the knife that reminded me of William’s.
I see a figure in the edge of my sight and roll my shoulders back to make myself seem threatening. I watch as the figure scampers towards me, I’m ready to stab it, knife over my head. It was a mouse. It looked up at me and scampered away again. No, that couldn’t have been it. The footfalls were too loud to be, a mouse.
I look around, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. This never happened on Man vs Nature. I might as well start the fire again, it may attract this big creature back, but it probably was an herbivore and not interested in me. I grab a stick and a log and start to rub the stick against the log like my father had taught me when we went out camping.
I see a spark and quickly grab a dead leaf, setting it on fire and putting it on the wood, creating the fire bigger. I smile at the small fire I had made, it was almost perfect.
I look up to see if there is anything around me and see the big creature. Staring me down, only 3 feet away from my face. I stare in disbelief. This wasn’t a real animal… It couldn’t have been. It was large like a elephant but was shaped like a Rhino, it had two tusk like a warthog and a mouth like a hippo. If you think that was bad, I left out the quills, like on a porcupine.
My breath quickens and I take a step backwards. The thing had red eyes. I turn and take off running, I screamed, “WILLIAM!!!!”. I was hoping maybe he would hear me, maybe he was somewhere nearby. This could have all been just a dream for all I know, but it didn’t feel like one, it was so real!
I could hear the thing of a beast run after me. Thudump Thudump Thudump, The beast was running so loud I couldn't even hear my own footfalls as I ran. My eyes tear up now as I ran, my knees getting weak. “No! please no! Come on Frank keep running” I whisper to myself but the monsters footfalls drowned out my voice.
I push myself harder as the beast started gaining on me. I come to a clearing and pause, looking up at the starting sky. A song starts playing in my head, it was a slow song that my mother used to sing to me. “Maybe I’ll tell you sometime, sometime, you were right”.
I start to cry quietly and start running again, running out of the clearing into a dirt pathway that was only skinny enough for a person like me to get through William would have had to run sideways.
The beast I could hear was breaking trees to get to me it was so strong. I see another clearing up ahead, the moonlight illuminating the grass. I run faster towards the clearing, only if I was actually thinking at that time.I chance a look behind me, the monster at my toes.I could see smoke come from it’s nose, it’s blood red eyes almost glowing, thirsty for meat. Like he would get any from a skinny stick of a guy like me.
I get to an edge of a clearing and trip, falling on my hands. I felt something dig into them and slice them like tissue paper, but I ignored it. Only if I had taken the hint. I run into the clearing when I’m launched upwards by a metal net, made of slash wire it launched me into the air, while cutting deep into my back. 

Everything slowed as I was high into the air. I turned my head to the side, I could see the sunrise. The pinks, purples, and golds all blending together like a painting. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight, it was beautiful. I hesitantly look down and watch the beast run right under me as I am still flying upwards. I was up to maybe around 30 meters up from the ground.
A tear slowly slips from the side of my face and falls to the ground, splattering. 30 meters. The image of me falling now comes to mind, my guts splattering just like the tear from my eye. The thought made more tears come to my eyes. 40 meters.
Gravity kicks in again and I come back to reality as I start falling back downwards to the Earth. I scream and try to grab a branch but the trees were too far away. I couldn’t even reach it if my arms were 10x as long. Useless.
That's when I’m caught again by the slash wire netting, it cuts into my back and I yell in pain. I felt a million needles go through my back all of a sudden and scream again as I feel my blood slowly drip from my back and fall to the grass. I look down at the ground, letting the wire cut the back on my head and my cheek.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see knives like razors that stuck out of my back, bloodred. I look back at the sky again. The sunset I had seen, it reminded me of my mother's paintings. She loved to paint, a couple of her paintings were up on the wall but most of them she had to sell.
Memories of William come to my head and the tears stream even faster down my cheeks. I would never be able to apologize for the thing I did, I didn’t even know what I did though. I would never be able to say goodbye to my mother and father. I would never be able to get a job or a girlfriend, or even go to college. What would life had been like if I was never dropped off in these woods.
I become heavily tired and my eyes flicker. I was losing too much blood. “I’ll see you again William, I love you” I whisper as my vision becomes blurred. “I hope we can meet again someday” I whisper softly as my eyelids become heavy. I close my eyes and let the darkness take over me. Goodbye world, Goodbye William, goodbye parents.