Regina was sore. Cool air brushed her hair, causing pain from everywhere it touched as the sound of the crashing waves sang in her ears. A stench worse than anything she had known, which wasn't much now she thought about it, entered her nose.

  She opened her eyes, only to slam them shut again as the sun was far too bright, reflected off sand and waves alike. Slowly cracking her eyes open again, she painfully rose to her hands and knees. Looking blearily around, she found the source of the stench, a bloated corpse of a Woman who she couldn't remember, but she felt a horrible loss nonetheless.

  As tears burned their way down her cheeks, she stumbled out of the lifeboat she had shared with the corpse. She understood there was nothing to be done about the woman, but keeping the boat with her body inside would only draw predators or scavengers to her location. There was nothing salvageable in the boat either, aside from a leather water skin, which was completely empty. She took the water skin and pushed with all her might on the boat.

  To her immense surprise, the boat shot off across the waves like a stone tossed over a lake, skipping across the waves. As it hit a particularly large wave, the stern of the boat smashed in, and it began to take on water, sinking quickly.

  Marveling at what should have been impossible, her stomach growled at her, reminding her that she had more pressing issues to deal with. Moving along the beach in the direction of a line of greenery that approached the water much closer than anywhere else, she noted a particular coral just off shore in the shallows. She didn't remember how or when she learned, but the slime of this mushroom-shaped coral protects the skin from the sun.

  Breaking the coral off the bottom of the seafloor, she brought it above the water so it would produce the slime. She smeared it over her whole body, everywhere she could reach, soothing the pain of the burned skin. Once treated, she replaced the Coral back into the water, securing it in place by wedging rocks around it.

  Regina continued along the beach, eventually reaching some rocks near the line of green. The rocks were covered in mussels, and she wasted no time in smashing a few off the rocks, breaking them open to swallow them raw. Only a few, as too many would be worse than an empty stomach. Once she had eaten five of the mussels, she continued to the green line of plants, hearing the unmistakable sound of running water. Now she just needed to get far enough upstream to find fresh, clean water.

  As she reached the stream, she found a pile of driftwood, among which there was a long, nearly straight, and pointed stick. This she took in hand, the smooth wood practically sanded by the stream. It felt comforting and provided stability while she walked. A nearby sapling caught her attention, as she knew she'd need fire soon, even if she weren't practically nude. Snapping off a decent length, she took a piece of the tattered shirt off her arm and used it to make a firebow.

  Regina grabbed a reasonable chunk of driftwood she could carry and continued upstream. Once she found a frothing waterfall well above the high tide mark of the sea, she knelt down and filled her stomach with water, then the water skin.

  Now that starvation was a little further off, and she wasn't thirsty anymore, she set about making her fire. With her chunk of wood, the firebow and a decent piece to function as the drill, she set to with as much vigor as she could muster, but as with the boat earlier, her best was far in excess, she had barely moved her arm four times before the wood burst into flame.

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  How was she so strong when she felt so weak? Nothing made sense, but she still needed food and shelter. Finding a depression in the rock, she decided to fill it with water, and heat stones in her fire so she could boil water in the depression. This would allow her to cook more of the mussels, at least. The thought of transferring water with her skin seemed daunting, and she wished the water would simply fill the depression. Much to her shock, a stream of water rose into the air and filled the basin exactly as she intended.

  She would not waste this miracle, and began heating the stones by the fire, building the fire itself up to a blaze. Then she went to a nearby palm tree and began fashioning a crude basket. Regina then took her basket back to the rocks and began filling it with as many mussels as it would hold. Wasting no time, she returned to the fire and put the rocks into the water, causing huge plumes of steam to billow out as the water came to a rapid boil. Lowering the basket into the water and allowing it to lie open, it took little time for the shells to start popping open.

  With food in her belly, she turned her mind to the last immediate need, shelter. Two rather large boulders sat not too far apart, and rather close to her current location. This would do for the beginnings of her shelter.

  Returning to the driftwood pile, she found several sturdy logs and placed them across the gap between the two boulders. To these she added several layers of palm fronds. This would serve as a roof. She then built a fire-pit on one end of the shelter, hopefully, it would remain downwind. Piling rocks around it, she built a wall to block wind from that side, and a functional chimney, while fresh air would enter from beside the fire through a crack she had left open.

  She mixed up some mud and filled in the cracks of her stone wall, stuffing clumps of moss into the fresh mud. This would ensure the air flowed where she wanted it to flow. Once satisfied with her work, Regina brought a flaming brand inside to light the fire in the new fire-pit. The smoke flowed up through the makeshift chimney, and the space inside began to heat up. She didn't put much wood in right now, as it was still only midday.

  It wouldn't be long until hunger gnawed at her once more, and her feet were already sore. Taking some bark off a tree and a few more palm fronds, she set about making some simple sandals. She thought it would take time to poke the holes, but rather than time, it took multiple tools, as when she pushed on them, they'd punch through the bark yet shatter on the rock beneath. She still felt rather weak; how was she able to punch through this bark and shatter the stone pieces she was using as tools?

  Her feet protected, Regina snapped a straight sapling, then, using a sharp rock shard, split the end into four spines. She carved a barb into the side of each spine. Wedging a piece of wood to keep the four spines open, she used palm fronds to tie the wedge into place. This would serve as a fish spear. The shallows were teeming with fish around the Corals.

  Spending a good time searching for, and spearing fish, placing them into her basket, she returned laden with fish to cook and eat. Using stones as knives, she gutted the fish and spit them on sticks around the fire to cook. The guts she put in a smaller woven basket box, which she placed inside a fish trap that she placed in the current of the stream. Once she had eaten her fill of the fish and buried the remnants far from her shelter, she set about filling the floor of the shelter with greenery to serve as bedding.

  Then she needed to find a place she could relieve herself in relative safety, far enough from her shelter that neither the smell, nor any contaminants could reach her. She only needed to empty her bladder, as clearly she hadn't been able to eat for some time. Whoever the Woman in the boat had been, it was evidently all she could manage to keep her hydrated.

  With the Sun now beginning to set, she returned to her shelter, pointed stick in hand. Before she could reach the shelter, though, a huge bipedal reptile came charging at her, hissing loudly, clawed hands outstretched. Regina reacted on instinct, swinging her stick to club the creatures' jaw from underneath. Like with the boat, the power she unleashed was disproportionate to her expectations. The creature flew high into the air, only to fall back down and get speared by a tree. Impaled and bleeding, the thing didn't live much longer, and thankfully, the tree that had speared it was far downwind from her little camp.

  Regina stoked up her fire in the shelter, set a large stockpile of firewood by the entrance, and curled up for sleep, very wary about every little noise in the jungle.