The further I went east, the harder it was to continue to maintain the same level of vigilance. It was several days since I ran away, and I still hadn't seen any sign of pursuit. Even if I knew in my head that not seeing pursuers didn't mean they weren't there, I couldn't help but begin to feel safe. As a result, the more time passed, the less I made an effort to conceal or confuse my tracks and the more I simply traveled in a straight line, only deviating when the terrain or the presence of humans required me to.
On the fifth day it rained. Summertime showers were warm, and tended to come out of seemingly clear skies. I could smell the change in the air before the drops started coming down and hurried to find shelter on one of the lower branches of a tree that had dense foliage. Although I didn't get all that wet, the situation made it clear that I needed to find a better and more permanent shelter for the winter, a place where I could start to build a home, where I could store food and other tools and materials without them getting spoiled.
It was too early to settle down yet, since I was still not too far from Quetzal Village, but I kept looking for a place that seemed suitable for settling down. after experiencing the rain multiple times I realized that I needed to either find a cave where the floor slanted upwards from the entrance, or to build a shelter above ground so that my floor won't be wet and filled with mud. I had to take my limited supplies into account, as well. I only had so many nails for doing something like building a tree-house or shack with an elevated floor, and I wanted something that felt more like home and provided better protection than a small tent with thin walls.
The further away I traveled, the safer I felt, and the harder it was to lock away my memories. I found myself frequently stopping along the way to grieve for Liliana and for my family, whom I will never see again. When I slept, I suffered from nightmares.
In the dreams about Trevor he would abuse me. I would try to run, but my movements were extremely sluggish and he would easily catch me. I would try to fight, but my fists would hardly move, or they would miss, or even if the hit landed, it would be extremely weak and not even cause him the slightest inconvenience. Even though my collar didn't play any role in my dreams, I was still weak and helpless.
When I dreamed about my family I would be looking for them everywhere without finding them, or they wouldn't recognize me, or they would ignore me. Sometimes I would see my mother searching for me, but even though I tried, I couldn't show myself to her.
The worst dreams, however, were about Liliana. I would see her turning into a charred corpse. She would blame me for killing her. I would try to apologize to her, but the words wouldn't come out. Sometimes her corpse would attack me, or tell me that Trevor was right.
The more time went by, the more I suffered from the nightmares. I became afraid of sleeping, and when I slept, I woke up tired as if I didn't get any rest. Sometimes I knew that I was in a dream and tried to force myself to wake up, but I couldn't. I was trapped in the dream. Other times I would jump up, feeling like I was still in the dream, still in danger, even after waking.
Being awake wasn't always better than being asleep, since my actual memories were just as bad as my dreams. Sometimes I'd think that I was hearing Trevor's voice or footsteps before realizing that it was just an animal or the wind, and remembering the things he did to me sometimes brought me enough pain to cause me to cry the tears that I hadn't shed back then.
I tried to distract myself by planning for the future. I needed to store food and obtain warm clothing for the winter. For the food, I needed to hunt and build an ice box. That wasn't a problem, since I could easily hunt small game by relying on nothing but my own abilities, and I could create an ice box by drawing heat out of water and redirecting it to the wood of my bonfire to create ice and start a fire both at the same time.
Clothing was another matter. I didn't have any of my tools and materials with me. I could steal clothes, but it was summer now. To steal winter clothes would require me to break into homes and dig into their storage. It was risky.
I also would need more materials for building my shelter, and warm blankets, and maybe more kitchen tools for cooking and storing my food. Those would also require me to break into homes, and would be big and bulky and thus difficult to carry away.
I also didn't like the idea of stealing anything more than necessary. Most humans weren't particularly bad, and I didn't want to live like a criminal. If possible I'd rather trade for the things I needed, but that required me to have something to offer, and I needed to disguise myself as a human.
As for something to offer, it shouldn't be too difficult for me to sell the pelts of the animals that I hunted. Fur was always needed by someone for winter clothing. The disguise was the real problem. I could hide my tail under my skirt. I could hide my collar under a shawl or scarf. I could avoid opening my mouth too widely to hide my teeth, and I could cover my ears with a hat. The problem was my eyes. Anyone who looked at them too closely would immediately see that they were not human eyes, and I didn't want to try to pass myself off as a blind person by keeping them closed. I would have to keep a distance from other people, keep my head lowered, and avoid looking at other people, since if they so much as caught a glimpse of my eyes they might notice that something was strange.
Once my plan was settled, all I needed was to find an isolated farmstead with no beast-kin that had the items I needed hanging outside to dry. Then I would just need to sneak over to the clothesline while the human family was inside eating lunch, take the clothes, and sneak away.