CHAPTER FIVE
Now that Olivia knew the way to the creek she was better able to turn her attention to the surrounding foliage as she moved, noting the varying shapes and colors of the leaves surrounding her like a kaleidoscope of burgundies, greens, oranges, and purples, not to mention a healthy amount of what she might consider traditional vegetation colors.
Morphology-wise the plants may have leaned toward the more alien in overall looks, but they were still similar enough to what she was used to back on Earth to be able to discern trees from shrubs from bushes and tall grasses. It was familiar in a way, yet not, almost like she had somehow landed in some of the stranger dreams she’d had as a girl. Only those hadn’t featured abduction by fearsome lizard-like aliens who wanted to eat her for lunch.
“This is so gross,” she muttered to herself, examining the blood still tenaciously clinging to her arms and hands as she sidestepped a rocky outcropping. “Well, water still had to be first. Foraging second. But some things gotta take priority.”
In this case, washing the last of her former co-captives’ blood off was top of that list.
The creek came into view a few minutes later, roughly where she’d remembered it being, though she did take a slightly different course getting there to survey more of the surroundings as she walked. Two birds, one stone, and all that. Olivia hurried to the water’s edge and, after a quick check to make sure there were no aquatic threats lurking in the clear water, strode in up to her waist before squatting down, lowering herself to her neck.
“Fuck it,” she muttered, then submerged all the way.
The water felt amazing. Cool, refreshing, restorative. The gentle flow began cleaning her skin, but she wasn’t about to take a passive role in the process. She pulled her top off and washed it as best she could before resting it on a bush along the shore. Her nipples grew taut from the breeze across her bare skin, goosebumps springing up on her breasts and along her sides in a most delightful way in spite of the situation.
Olivia cupped a handful of water and splashed it across her chest, washing off the sweat and grime. Her clit’s reaction to the sensation shooting from her nipples actually surprised her. Not that it was unusual under normal circumstances—she’d always been wired that way—but after so long spent in a state of locked-up tension and stress, it was an almost comforting realization that even here, after all she’d endured, her body still worked. Not that she’d have any use for that sort of thing a bajillion miles from home.
She turned in the water and rinsed her arms and shoulders thoroughly. This was actually quite pleasant and not too cold, the sun’s rays quickly warming her body as she scrubbed her arms, neck, and shoulders. It felt like it was probably going to be a hot day. Good thing there was ample water.
“Huh,” she mused as she waded to the shore.
Her tattoos looked brighter somehow, almost as if this sun operated on a slightly different spectrum, causing the ink tojump out more vividly. She paused and actually looked at herself rather than taking her art for granted. She had a rather nice collection of art adorning her body, most of them carefully chosen for both design and location so as to flow with her physique in an appealing way. Of course, there were a few that she might admit were questionable, but those were from her youth, and she still had plans on a few coverups one day.
“Or not,” she muttered, reality setting in hard and fast.
Stuck on an alien world, she had to accept that wasn’t really an option anymore. A whole lot of things weren’t. Hell, even survival itself was still very much in question.
“Get it together, Liv. Harper’s counting on you. No melting down. You’ve got this.”
Amazingly, she almost believed herself.
“Hey, what do we have here?” she wondered, a cluster of deep purple berries that looked almost like elongated fingertips dangling from a sprawling bush growing over the water. “Blackberries love water. Maybe these are similar,” she mused, carefully picking the first of many utterly new plants on what was going to prove a most interesting outing.
“Hey, I’m back,”she announced as she entered the wrecked craft.
Harper had moved to another spot, a pile of their thin bunk pads scavenged into something akin to a nest of sorts. Or maybe an oversized dog bed. Whatever it was, it certainly looked more comfortable than the hard metal they’d slept on the night before.
“Any luck?” the injured woman asked.
Olivia unslung her makeshift pack and began unloading her haul. “Yeah, I found some interesting stuff.”
“Hang on. What happened to your arms?”
Olivia looked at the few spots and welts she’d brought back as trophies of her excursion.
“That’s nothing.”
“Nothing? It doesn’t look like nothing.”
“I was testing things to see what we could probably eat.”
“Using yourself as a scratch-test guinea pig? I don’t approve.”
“You don’t have to approve. You just have to eat, okay? You’re hurt, we’re both stranded here, and eventually the food balls are going to run out. If you’re going to heal, we’re going to need a steady food supply. So I think this was a reasonable methodology. And besides, my skin only reacted to a few of them. And look at all this stuff,” she said, gesturing to the rather eclectic spread. “This should all be edible. We’ve got fruits, berries, nuts, veggies. Honestly, I’m kind of shocked how much there was that looked safe to eat out there. It was almost like a wilderness farm, in a way.”
“But we don’t know for sure it’s safe.”
“We have as good an idea as we’re gonna get without actually trying it. And about that, I suggest we do a test diet with these. Only add in one or two items at a time, and in limited quantities, just in case it doesn’t sit well. Then we’ll know what not to eat.”
