Maxine Thompson
Maxine Thompson was a bit of a mess when viewed from afar.
She didn’t have a career. She didn’t have close friends. She didn’t have a lot of material possessions. She didn’t have a 401k, or insurance, or a car. She didn’t have a regular place to stay and often wasn’t sure where her next meal would come from. Sometimes living was tough and fitting in with society was even tougher.
She had a deactivated phone, a dislike for work, and a serious case of wanderlust. Her joys were in the open road, the quiet stillness of the wilderness, and relying on what the land provided her.
She was well aware that most people looked at her through a lens that displayed her poorly. It used to rattle her to her core and eat her up, but every attempt at conforming to a life others wanted for her rattled her further and she always felt chewed up and spit out afterward. The only times she felt truly alive were when she was well outside city limits with nothing but the night sky to keep her company.
She did have some friends. Some folks she grew up with, some she went to school with, others she worked with over the years. Occasionally she met someone out in the wild that she clicked with but inevitably there would come a time when their paths would unwind and they’d go their separate ways. Oftentimes she thought having a pet would be nice but there was always a lot of guilt when she would think about not being able to provide a comfortable life for it.
Maybe someday I’ll get a nice doggy, she would always think, when I have my shit together.
The problem was, she didn’t think she’d ever truly have her shit together.
Life for Maxine was always stop-and-go. Work hard to build up just enough to be able to afford to vanish again. She hated those times – going back and forth from a bed to a job with no leftover energy to live life. She didn’t understand how most people did it. The mundane routines of life inside society wore her out to her core, so she sought to escape it every chance she got.
The Appalachian Trail. The Pacific Crest Trail. The Continental Divide Trail. Hidden-away campsites. Long, meandering trails. Those were the only places she really called home. Ever-changing scenery, ever-present challenges, and an ever-growing appreciation for the planet. In Maxine’s opinion, if she couldn’t carry it in a backpack, she didn’t need it.
Things had been a little tougher than usual for her lately. She had come back from her most recent thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail to find some part-time work only to find an increasingly difficult time of it. Her trusty go-to position over the last couple years (filling in at a pizza parlor in Georgia, not far from the trail’s southern terminus) was unavailable as the restaurant had gone under and closed. Her friend that had let her crash on her couch in-between ventures had moved to a less accommodating space with roommates that weren’t open to letting Maxine stay, even for a short time, and especially not for free.
She was used to sleeping on the ground but something about doing it in a dirty park surrounded by a city full of people comfortable in their beds made it sting in a way she wasn’t happy with. Maxine couldn’t blame anybody, either, as times were getting tough for everyone. Inflation. Politics. Social media. It was all stuff that made her eyes glaze over and drove her back out to the wilds, where she felt at home.
It was all so tough and every single day she spent trying to fit in just made her realize how badly she wanted out.
It was a culmination of these feelings that drove her right back to the trail she had just finished. She usually gave herself some time to rest, work her pizza gig, and build back up enough meager savings to replenish her supplies, but this time society felt just a little too uninviting, so against her better judgment she set back out with the goal of hiking all the way back to Maine. She knew the way and she knew the land enough to know she could provide for herself.
I’ll take my chances out there, she thought to herself. At least I know everything I’m up against.
It was refreshing for her to be back in her element so soon. She knew it wasn’t something she could repeat again, because a complete thru-hike takes a lot out of a person, but she just figured that could be a future problem for her to solve while for now she just focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
Before she knew it, she was hiking through the Great Smoky Mountains. It was a favorite of hers, from the weather to the scenery. To keep things a little interesting she took some time to explore a couple mountains she hadn’t yet been to; she always tried to see something new in her hikes but rarely felt like she had the time to truly deviate from her path, so she usually kept her sight-seeing to a minimum in order to keep up her pace. This time, however, she had no traveling companion nor a deadline to strive towards. The trail was her oyster.
Maxine was reflecting on a lot of this as she cleaned up her meager camp one morning. The air was crisp and cool. The hardy mountain foliage had a shimmer of morning dew which she found beautiful as warming sunlight glazed over the landscape. She had done a little surveying before settling down the prior evening and had found she could keep on this short trail because it would take her right back to the main artery, so after she had everything neatly packed up and cleared away she set out on the steep, narrow path along the cliffside.
She found herself almost hypnotized by the serenity. “Why can’t life just always be this nice?” she asked out loud. The gentle breeze, the distant cry of a bird hunting, the quiet order of everything as it did what nature intended it to do. Maxine could feel the sun on her face, comforting her to her core. Despite her haste and disregard involved in coming back out to hike she was feeling very content with her choice right now. She made a mental note to include this little side path in her future journeys.
She was so caught up in her momentary bliss that she didn’t notice the change in the terrain underneath her. One second she had coarse, sandy gravel under her foot and the next second it was like stepping onto a fresh sheet of ice. She felt her foot slip and looked down to see she stepping on an impossibly smooth, wet section of rock. Betrayed by the erosion and loss of friction she pitched her weight forward but her reaction was a split second too late.
Her feet got tangled up and one slipped out from under her. Maxine tried to fall in a way that kept her from falling further but found no purchase as the cliffside path retreated away from her. There was no way for her to adjust her weight. There was nothing for her to grab onto for dear life. One moment she was upright and the next she was beginning to tumble.
Her vision became a whirlwind. The sky. The cliff. The ground, far far below. A blaze of red as she felt her head get smacked against a rocky outcropping. She felt her stomach rise up into her throat as she felt the absence of anything beneath her besides a rush of air. Her vision became a teary blur as she landed knee-first and it immediately buckled. She had no chance to wipe her eyes as she plummeted. The world became one ever-changing haze of brown, blue, black and red.
There was no time to think. No time to regret. No time to panic. Just a desperate effort to stop from falling, at which she failed.
Maxine felt herself slide off another steep drop and her last glimpse of the world was the wide-open sky before one last explosion of searing pain jolted throughout her body and left her in a broken heap at the base of the mountain. Darkness quickly swallowed her thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams; her last gasp of breath escaped her body.
Her last thoughts swirled through her mind in an indecipherable haze before that too fell silent.
This was the end of Maxine Thompson’s story.
And as she opened her achingly tired eyes to find herself in a peaceful forest clearing, unbeknownst at the time, it was also her new beginning.
Existence felt like a blur to Maxine as she slowly woke up from her nap. She had a splitting headache and aches all over her body, no doubt from over-exerting herself during her hike. She must have been beyond exhausted when she finally laid down to rest because she didn’t even remember settling down or making camp. Somehow she found a comfortable spot of grass, though. She almost let herself drift back to sleep until she thought about that again. She had been hiking the side of a mountain; there shouldn’t be any grass anywhere. Maxine’s eyes shot open and immediately felt like something was wrong. Where was the trail? Where was her camp? Why couldn’t she remember going to bed last night? The lingering memories of her dream from last night suddenly played through her mind. Her foot had slipped on a treacherous perch. A moment of careless distraction sent her tumbling. The dream ended in a whirling flash of brown and blue as the sky and ground became indistinguishable from each other. Maxine let out a groan as she pushed herself up. Her body felt like it took a tumble but she was so far intact and unbruised. She rubbed the bleariness from her eyes for a long moment as she struggled to put things together. When she opened them and finally took notice of her surroundings it became very obvious to her that something was wrong. She was surrounded by trees and bushes and lush grass. There was no sign of any mountain in her sight line. She had just spent two days hiking and climbing deeper into her favorite stretch of trail, it made absolutely no sense how she was just… somewhere else. Was she still dreaming? She pinched her arm and winced at the sting she left. Everything felt too real to be a dream, yet nothing was making sense to her. Maxine scanned the area around her while she kept as still as a statue. Her brain was telling her it was time to panic yet she detected no signs of danger. Just keep calm, just keep calm, she kept repeating in her mind. Maybe someone carried me down, but… but that didn’t explain where she actually was. She was from an arid, mountainous climate. This was a storybook-example of a peaceful forest clearing complete with birds chirping and flowers blooming. It took several long minutes to pull herself together enough to get up and look around, and when she set her hands on the ground to push herself up she felt something graze one of her fingers and it startled her so much she yelped and pulled her hand back. Frantically, she looked around, trying to spot who just touched her. It was a bit of a surprise when she finally looked down at where she placed her hand and noticed it wasn’t someone but something – it was an egg. Not just an ordinary egg she’d make breakfast with but a beautiful, purple egg adorned with white and emerald green specks. Maxine quietly inspected the area around her some more, as if searching for where it could have come from. There were trees around but none nearby for the egg to have fallen from. The ground was fairly level so it having rolled from further uphill couldn’t have happened. In fact, the way the egg was sitting perfectly straight up and down, just inches away from her, made it feel more like it was intentionally placed there than it arriving there by chance. Tentatively, she slowly reached out to touch it. She wasn’t prepared for the moment she placed her hand on it. Maxine was washed over in a feeling of protectiveness and concern for the egg. It was just the right size to fit in her hand and she didn’t want to set it back down once she held it. The colors on the shell were absolutely captivating and hard to look away from. She pushed herself up to her feet, feeling her entire body groan in protest. She felt like she fell down a mountain. Nothing truly made any sense right now. The only thing that felt correct to her was gently holding the egg against her chest and making an effort to look around the clearing. Maybe someone was nearby that could help. She called out a couple times. “Hello, can anybody hear me?” The only answer was the sounds of nature continuing on around her. Disconcerting, but she didn’t feel threatened or like she was being watched, so she just kept looking around. Berries on some of the bushes. Fruits in some of the trees. Beautiful flowers, blooming all over. A babbling brook just inside the treeline. It was honestly very picturesque. Maxine couldn’t help but think it was almost like a paradise if not for the confusion surrounding her arrival here. Where was her stuff? Why hadn’t she set up a proper camp? No fire, no canteen, no food? A concerning sound pierced that last thought. It was her stomach rumbling. She had to figure something out, and soon. Her eyes scanned back over to a nearby bush with so many ripe berries that they scattered the earth beneath it. She couldn’t identify them, which put her on edge, but without any knowledge of the area or what direction it was to get back to civilization, she had to trust her intuition somewhere. She reached out and gingerly picked one. She did her best to determine if it was safe to eat. It smelled pleasant, not unlike something she’d put in her oatmeal or cereal. Squeezing it revealed a small pitted seed, which she figured she’d avoid. She rubbed some of the juice on her arm in a small swatch and gave it some time to see if it would start causing any irritation. She erred on the side of caution, giving it what she estimated to be about twenty minutes. When nothing happened, she took a tentative nibble of the flesh of the fruit. It was absolutely delicious; sweet with a whisper of bitter tartness. Maxine had to fight back the urge to eat the rest of it while she waited for the telltale sign of itching or swelling that can come from something poisonous. She gave it just as long as the skin test before biting off a larger piece. Not only did it taste great but the texture was also pleasant. It wasn’t mushy or springy but delectably juicy. It felt like the cross between a raspberry and a blackberry, the taste akin to a boysenberry but visually distinct. It truly was something she had never seen before. She stayed in the peaceful clearing for a long while as she waited to see if the picked fruit would turn her stomach out. Her hiking training and experience told her that she was best off staying put while she waited for someone to rescue her – a tough task in rough conditions, but she felt like she lucked out a little here. It was warm, she had clean water, she had soft ground devoid of scary insects. With a little work she could make some shade and a spot to lay down. She found the stream and was delighted at the volume and clarity of the water. She looked at her reflection and was a little surprised at what she saw. She expected to look like death warmed over, but for all intents and purposes she looked just as put together as when she left out for her hiking trip. Chestnut brown hair still in a flawless braid, bright blue eyes that belied the headache behind them. She felt bruised up but there wasn’t a mark on her pale skin. It made just as little sense as how she got here but she didn’t linger on it for too long before cupping her hands into the refreshing coolness and drinking deeply. So began Maxine Thompson making herself at home in this mysteriously charming forest. She kept the egg close to her at all times, rarely letting it out of her sight. She carried it with her to find the things she knew would be necessary to make a shelter – some sharp rocks, fallen branches she could carry, and any dried twigs or leaves she could find for tinder. It was a long, sweaty day of work, and she was thankful for the cool stream nearby. The berries sat well enough in her stomach so she made a pile of them dinner. She found a bare patch of soil and was able to spark up a small fire after several laborious attempts, just in time for the encroaching night. Watching Primitive Technology for hours on end has finally paid off, she mused to herself. It was startlingly peaceful in the clearing, she realized. No eerie sounds of critters just out of sight; just pristine weather and a dazzling show of stars in the night sky. “I guess there are worse places to be stuck,” she muttered to herself. There was hope she wouldn’t be lost for too long before someone came along and found her. She also knew she should be discontent with her situation but all she felt in this moment was gratuity towards not fending for her life she had heard about in tales from others who found themselves in unexpected quests for survival. As twilight gave way to the enveloping darkness of night Maxine settled in, gazing at the fire she built, ever-aware of the small egg she cradled in her lap.
Maxine didn’t know how long she sat there gazing at the fire she’d built while lost in thought. Small surges of panic would well at the edges of her psyche but would quickly abate. Nothing around her made sense at the moment, but no danger was present. No alarm bells were sounding off in her head. No gut feeling telling her this was a bad place. No driving sense of fear or terror guiding her. It was all just simply so serene and quiet that she had a hard time believing everything was as it seemed. She scoured her memories for clues. Before she woke up today she was… where? She was hiking. She was in the Great Smoky Mountains. She was on a mountain trail. Wasn’t she? She had all of her gear. She had her backpack, her bedroll, and her utility belt. Didn’t she? Yet here she was now; sitting in a forest clearing that didn’t look anything like the Great Smoky Mountains. Not a single possession of hers anywhere to be found. Eating berries that she’d never seen or tasted before, cradling a mysteriously-placed egg that had the most perplexingly soothing aura. She absent-mindedly kept a hand on it most of the time as it legitimately eased her growing concerns. She felt the alluring comfort of sleep tugging at her eyelids and eventually stretched herself out on the ground. The nearby fire had helped warm it some. She cradled the little egg in the crook of her elbow as she drifted off into a light slumber. Maxine was back on the mountain trail. Except this time, she was watching herself from above. The same sequence of events happened from the previous night’s dream – she was distracted and not watching where she was placing her steps. The smooth stone walkway shone in the sunlight but she never noticed. Her foot slid out from under her and she watched herself lose her balance and tumble down the cliffside. It was a lot harder to watch than she remembered the experience firsthand; every rotation of the tumble was met with a stinging blow from the mountainside. And outcropping scraped the entirety of her left arm. A stationary boulder crushed her shoulder and sent her careening in a different direction. She rolled over the edge of a staggeringly steep drop-off and Maxine saw herself in slow motion; twisting, flailing, falling. She was in freefall for several agonizing moments and just as she struck the ground, she was jolted back awake. She sat up quickly, her heart pounding and her mind racing. She struggled to catch her breath as tears welled in her eyes. Why did she dream that dream again? Why did it feel so real? In an effort to ground herself she laid on her back and stared up at the night sky. She noticed the moon shone exceptionally bright; it actually illuminated the forest floor enough for her to be able to make out some of her surroundings. It was still a peaceful night. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or at least, until she had that very thought. Off in the distance began a very eerie trumpeting howl. It was unlike any animal or critter she’d ever come across in her hikes and it was the very first time in this strange place where she felt a sense of unease. She tried to imagine herself sinking into the ground in an effort to hide. The noise continued on for far longer than she anticipated it would and the source of it seemed to drift around the landscape as if it was on the move. After about an hour she noticed that around the same time the howling stopped, the moon’s glow subsided. She could no longer see the silhouettes of trees and bushes throughout the forest but instead only to the edge of the light that her meager fire cast. Sufficiently rattled to her core she fed the fire enough to get it flickering and crackling again. Even if she felt tired there was no way she was going back to sleep tonight if she wanted to, so she hugged the soothing, purple egg in her arms and resumed watching the fire until the first signs of dawn pierced the suffocating night sky.
Days had dragged into each other as Maxine waited for someone, anyone, to find her. After the second night she began to truly grow more concerned as she noticed something incredibly peculiar - there hadn’t been one single airplane to fly overhead. It puzzled her because despite camping out in the wilderness, it was still fairly common to see the occasional plane. It was like she was in an entirely different world, juxtaposed on top of the real one. She had ventured further out from her forest clearing in search of some of her lost gear but frustratingly, there was no sign. Of anything. She had found a tall tree and managed to climb up to the top of it to look out at the area and find signs of civilization, but there weren’t any. To the south she could make out what might be a lake, if the stream she’d found kept in that direction. To the north, some hills and mountains. It left her more perplexed than before because she had been hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains and this area was nothing like it. It was like she was in a whole new place in a whole new time. It was finally starting to settle in that Maxine was not going to be found anytime soon, so she set out to make things a little more bearable. She had found some strong, creeping vines close to the stream and was able to harvest enough of those to start tying things together. A smooth, sharp river rock became her knife and a dense stone tied to a hefty branch became her mallet. She was able to weave thin reeds together to make a makeshift net, which she stretched out and anchored to a couple larger boulders in the river in hopes of netting some fish. Maxine was immensely grateful for how much time she had spent obsessed with learning about survival situations. She grew up watching shows about people stranded out in the wild and loved the people on the internet that did primitive technology stuff. It was how she learned to separate layers of bark, split branches, use giant leaves and bamboo to boil water, and how to turn the clay she found in the ground into something she could shape into tools and dry. She collected firewood. Made a bigger fire ring with river rocks. Occasionally checked her nets. She was able to tie some smaller branches together to form a frame which she covered with pine needles to make a rudimentary bed. Her goal would eventually be to make a hammock out of vines, but for now it was nice to just get off the ground. The sounds at night always returned, like clockwork. They chilled her to her core, and kept her on guard, but the noise never got so close that she started to worry about what to do if the source appeared. She figured sooner or later she would find out, but for now, Maxine just huddled by her fire. She was tired after her busy day of establishing a better camp but she was nervous to go to sleep. She knew the climbing nightmare was waiting for her, as it was every night. She wasn’t uncomfortable, she wasn’t lacking for food or water, so she was also grateful. She had the mysterious purple egg tucked into the folds of her shirt. It still gave off its gentle, calming aura, which she was depending on heavily. It kept her centered and grounded and helped her keep her resolve. She snuggled it close as she finally dozed off for the night, in the back of her mind hoping she could wake up and have some fish for breakfast.
Existence felt like a blur to Maxine as she slowly woke up from her nap. She had a splitting headache and aches all over her body, no doubt from over-exerting herself during her hike. She must have been beyond exhausted when she finally laid down to rest because she didn’t even remember settling down or making camp. Somehow she found a comfortable spot of grass, though. She almost let herself drift back to sleep until she thought about that again. She had been hiking the side of a mountain; there shouldn’t be any grass anywhere. Maxine’s eyes shot open and immediately felt like something was wrong. Where was the trail? Where was her camp? Why couldn’t she remember going to bed last night? The lingering memories of her dream from last night suddenly played through her mind. Her foot had slipped on a treacherous perch. A moment of careless distraction sent her tumbling. The dream ended in a whirling flash of brown and blue as the sky and ground became indistinguishable from each other. Maxine let out a groan as she pushed herself up. Her body felt like it took a tumble but she was so far intact and unbruised. She rubbed the bleariness from her eyes for a long moment as she struggled to put things together. When she opened them and finally took notice of her surroundings it became very obvious to her that something was wrong. She was surrounded by trees and bushes and lush grass. There was no sign of any mountain in her sight line. She had just spent two days hiking and climbing deeper into her favorite stretch of trail, it made absolutely no sense how she was just… somewhere else. Was she still dreaming? She pinched her arm and winced at the sting she left. Everything felt too real to be a dream, yet nothing was making sense to her. Maxine scanned the area around her while she kept as still as a statue. Her brain was telling her it was time to panic yet she detected no signs of danger. Just keep calm, just keep calm, she kept repeating in her mind. Maybe someone carried me down, but… but that didn’t explain where she actually was. She was from an arid, mountainous climate. This was a storybook-example of a peaceful forest clearing complete with birds chirping and flowers blooming. It took several long minutes to pull herself together enough to get up and look around, and when she set her hands on the ground to push herself up she felt something graze one of her fingers and it startled her so much she yelped and pulled her hand back. Frantically, she looked around, trying to spot who just touched her. It was a bit of a surprise when she finally looked down at where she placed her hand and noticed it wasn’t someone but something – it was an egg. Not just an ordinary egg she’d make breakfast with but a beautiful, purple egg adorned with white and emerald green specks. Maxine quietly inspected the area around her some more, as if searching for where it could have come from. There were trees around but none nearby for the egg to have fallen from. The ground was fairly level so it having rolled from further uphill couldn’t have happened. In fact, the way the egg was sitting perfectly straight up and down, just inches away from her, made it feel more like it was intentionally placed there than it arriving there by chance. Tentatively, she slowly reached out to touch it. She wasn’t prepared for the moment she placed her hand on it. Maxine was washed over in a feeling of protectiveness and concern for the egg. It was just the right size to fit in her hand and she didn’t want to set it back down once she held it. The colors on the shell were absolutely captivating and hard to look away from. She pushed herself up to her feet, feeling her entire body groan in protest. She felt like she fell down a mountain. Nothing truly made any sense right now. The only thing that felt correct to her was gently holding the egg against her chest and making an effort to look around the clearing. Maybe someone was nearby that could help. She called out a couple times. “Hello, can anybody hear me?” The only answer was the sounds of nature continuing on around her. Disconcerting, but she didn’t feel threatened or like she was being watched, so she just kept looking around. Berries on some of the bushes. Fruits in some of the trees. Beautiful flowers, blooming all over. A babbling brook just inside the treeline. It was honestly very picturesque. Maxine couldn’t help but think it was almost like a paradise if not for the confusion surrounding her arrival here. Where was her stuff? Why hadn’t she set up a proper camp? No fire, no canteen, no food? A concerning sound pierced that last thought. It was her stomach rumbling. She had to figure something out, and soon. Her eyes scanned back over to a nearby bush with so many ripe berries that they scattered the earth beneath it. She couldn’t identify them, which put her on edge, but without any knowledge of the area or what direction it was to get back to civilization, she had to trust her intuition somewhere. She reached out and gingerly picked one. She did her best to determine if it was safe to eat. It smelled pleasant, not unlike something she’d put in her oatmeal or cereal. Squeezing it revealed a small pitted seed, which she figured she’d avoid. She rubbed some of the juice on her arm in a small swatch and gave it some time to see if it would start causing any irritation. She erred on the side of caution, giving it what she estimated to be about twenty minutes. When nothing happened, she took a tentative nibble of the flesh of the fruit. It was absolutely delicious; sweet with a whisper of bitter tartness. Maxine had to fight back the urge to eat the rest of it while she waited for the telltale sign of itching or swelling that can come from something poisonous. She gave it just as long as the skin test before biting off a larger piece. Not only did it taste great but the texture was also pleasant. It wasn’t mushy or springy but delectably juicy. It felt like the cross between a raspberry and a blackberry, the taste akin to a boysenberry but visually distinct. It truly was something she had never seen before. She stayed in the peaceful clearing for a long while as she waited to see if the picked fruit would turn her stomach out. Her hiking training and experience told her that she was best off staying put while she waited for someone to rescue her – a tough task in rough conditions, but she felt like she lucked out a little here. It was warm, she had clean water, she had soft ground devoid of scary insects. With a little work she could make some shade and a spot to lay down. She found the stream and was delighted at the volume and clarity of the water. She looked at her reflection and was a little surprised at what she saw. She expected to look like death warmed over, but for all intents and purposes she looked just as put together as when she left out for her hiking trip. Chestnut brown hair still in a flawless braid, bright blue eyes that belied the headache behind them. She felt bruised up but there wasn’t a mark on her pale skin. It made just as little sense as how she got here but she didn’t linger on it for too long before cupping her hands into the refreshing coolness and drinking deeply. So began Maxine Thompson making herself at home in this mysteriously charming forest. She kept the egg close to her at all times, rarely letting it out of her sight. She carried it with her to find the things she knew would be necessary to make a shelter – some sharp rocks, fallen branches she could carry, and any dried twigs or leaves she could find for tinder. It was a long, sweaty day of work, and she was thankful for the cool stream nearby. The berries sat well enough in her stomach so she made a pile of them dinner. She found a bare patch of soil and was able to spark up a small fire after several laborious attempts, just in time for the encroaching night. Watching Primitive Technology for hours on end has finally paid off, she mused to herself. It was startlingly peaceful in the clearing, she realized. No eerie sounds of critters just out of sight; just pristine weather and a dazzling show of stars in the night sky. “I guess there are worse places to be stuck,” she muttered to herself. There was hope she wouldn’t be lost for too long before someone came along and found her. She also knew she should be discontent with her situation but all she felt in this moment was gratuity towards not fending for her life she had heard about in tales from others who found themselves in unexpected quests for survival. As twilight gave way to the enveloping darkness of night Maxine settled in, gazing at the fire she built, ever-aware of the small egg she cradled in her lap.
Maxine didn’t know how long she sat there gazing at the fire she’d built while lost in thought. Small surges of panic would well at the edges of her psyche but would quickly abate. Nothing around her made sense at the moment, but no danger was present. No alarm bells were sounding off in her head. No gut feeling telling her this was a bad place. No driving sense of fear or terror guiding her. It was all just simply so serene and quiet that she had a hard time believing everything was as it seemed. She scoured her memories for clues. Before she woke up today she was… where? She was hiking. She was in the Great Smoky Mountains. She was on a mountain trail. Wasn’t she? She had all of her gear. She had her backpack, her bedroll, and her utility belt. Didn’t she? Yet here she was now; sitting in a forest clearing that didn’t look anything like the Great Smoky Mountains. Not a single possession of hers anywhere to be found. Eating berries that she’d never seen or tasted before, cradling a mysteriously-placed egg that had the most perplexingly soothing aura. She absent-mindedly kept a hand on it most of the time as it legitimately eased her growing concerns. She felt the alluring comfort of sleep tugging at her eyelids and eventually stretched herself out on the ground. The nearby fire had helped warm it some. She cradled the little egg in the crook of her elbow as she drifted off into a light slumber. Maxine was back on the mountain trail. Except this time, she was watching herself from above. The same sequence of events happened from the previous night’s dream – she was distracted and not watching where she was placing her steps. The smooth stone walkway shone in the sunlight but she never noticed. Her foot slid out from under her and she watched herself lose her balance and tumble down the cliffside. It was a lot harder to watch than she remembered the experience firsthand; every rotation of the tumble was met with a stinging blow from the mountainside. And outcropping scraped the entirety of her left arm. A stationary boulder crushed her shoulder and sent her careening in a different direction. She rolled over the edge of a staggeringly steep drop-off and Maxine saw herself in slow motion; twisting, flailing, falling. She was in freefall for several agonizing moments and just as she struck the ground, she was jolted back awake. She sat up quickly, her heart pounding and her mind racing. She struggled to catch her breath as tears welled in her eyes. Why did she dream that dream again? Why did it feel so real? In an effort to ground herself she laid on her back and stared up at the night sky. She noticed the moon shone exceptionally bright; it actually illuminated the forest floor enough for her to be able to make out some of her surroundings. It was still a peaceful night. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or at least, until she had that very thought. Off in the distance began a very eerie trumpeting howl. It was unlike any animal or critter she’d ever come across in her hikes and it was the very first time in this strange place where she felt a sense of unease. She tried to imagine herself sinking into the ground in an effort to hide. The noise continued on for far longer than she anticipated it would and the source of it seemed to drift around the landscape as if it was on the move. After about an hour she noticed that around the same time the howling stopped, the moon’s glow subsided. She could no longer see the silhouettes of trees and bushes throughout the forest but instead only to the edge of the light that her meager fire cast. Sufficiently rattled to her core she fed the fire enough to get it flickering and crackling again. Even if she felt tired there was no way she was going back to sleep tonight if she wanted to, so she hugged the soothing, purple egg in her arms and resumed watching the fire until the first signs of dawn pierced the suffocating night sky.
Days had dragged into each other as Maxine waited for someone, anyone, to find her. After the second night she began to truly grow more concerned as she noticed something incredibly peculiar - there hadn’t been one single airplane to fly overhead. It puzzled her because despite camping out in the wilderness, it was still fairly common to see the occasional plane. It was like she was in an entirely different world, juxtaposed on top of the real one. She had ventured further out from her forest clearing in search of some of her lost gear but frustratingly, there was no sign. Of anything. She had found a tall tree and managed to climb up to the top of it to look out at the area and find signs of civilization, but there weren’t any. To the south she could make out what might be a lake, if the stream she’d found kept in that direction. To the north, some hills and mountains. It left her more perplexed than before because she had been hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains and this area was nothing like it. It was like she was in a whole new place in a whole new time. It was finally starting to settle in that Maxine was not going to be found anytime soon, so she set out to make things a little more bearable. She had found some strong, creeping vines close to the stream and was able to harvest enough of those to start tying things together. A smooth, sharp river rock became her knife and a dense stone tied to a hefty branch became her mallet. She was able to weave thin reeds together to make a makeshift net, which she stretched out and anchored to a couple larger boulders in the river in hopes of netting some fish. Maxine was immensely grateful for how much time she had spent obsessed with learning about survival situations. She grew up watching shows about people stranded out in the wild and loved the people on the internet that did primitive technology stuff. It was how she learned to separate layers of bark, split branches, use giant leaves and bamboo to boil water, and how to turn the clay she found in the ground into something she could shape into tools and dry. She collected firewood. Made a bigger fire ring with river rocks. Occasionally checked her nets. She was able to tie some smaller branches together to form a frame which she covered with pine needles to make a rudimentary bed. Her goal would eventually be to make a hammock out of vines, but for now it was nice to just get off the ground. The sounds at night always returned, like clockwork. They chilled her to her core, and kept her on guard, but the noise never got so close that she started to worry about what to do if the source appeared. She figured sooner or later she would find out, but for now, Maxine just huddled by her fire. She was tired after her busy day of establishing a better camp but she was nervous to go to sleep. She knew the climbing nightmare was waiting for her, as it was every night. She wasn’t uncomfortable, she wasn’t lacking for food or water, so she was also grateful. She had the mysterious purple egg tucked into the folds of her shirt. It still gave off its gentle, calming aura, which she was depending on heavily. It kept her centered and grounded and helped her keep her resolve. She snuggled it close as she finally dozed off for the night, in the back of her mind hoping she could wake up and have some fish for breakfast.
Relationships
History
Maxine Thompson found the egg upon waking up after her arrival. It seemed to be perfectly placed near her head, almost as if she was supposed to find it. It's impossible to tell what will hatch from it, or what creature it came from. The egg exudes a sense of calm when Maxine seems anxious, and will attempt to warn of perceived dangers.
Relationship Reasoning
Maxine Thompson is invariably stressed by her sudden arival in a new, untouched and uninhabited land. This egg is a source of comfort for her, and while initially she did not realize the soothing calm she felt while holding it was from the egg itself, she still seems quite fond of it. The egg is defenseless, and seems to like Maxine. At least enough to the point that it will warn her of danger and tries to calm her anxieties whenever possible.
Age
32
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Pronouns
She/Her
Gender
Woman
Presentation
Feminine
Hair
Long, Brown
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Fair
Height
5' 7" or 170 cm
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