Chapter 2.
I awoke to find the water was half a metre deep. I jumped up, expecting to feel my slippers and the floor beneath me. I fell. Before I knew what was happening I was under water. I stood up in the water. It was freezing cold and the rain made it feel colder. I was, however, still very tired and being tired I did the first thing I would do normally at home, sit down, right onto an electric eel! Two hundred and fifty volts ran up my spine, throwing me clear out of the water and into a tree. Blood trickled into my eyes and water flowed into my lungs. I realised with horror that I was under water. I tried to climb onto something but the blood in my eyes only let me get my face above the water and nothing else. I was drifting down stream and failing fast when my hand found a hold on something. Weakly I managed to climb out of the water and onto safety. My arms and legs felt like rock and my head was spinning. I slowly drifted unconscious again.
When I awoke I found myself lying on a rough log that had apparently been cut in half by someone. I couldn't believe my luck! I was still feeling sore and I lay for ages, toying with different ideas to find help but by the time I was swept ashore I was no nearer a plan than when I had started.
I was surprised to feel the ground under my feet as I stood up. It took a while for my head to clear but when it did I felt much better than the day before. I was on a little island, only about 20 metres wide. There were a couple of big trees but they were still small compared with the other trees in the rainforest. There was lots of little bits of shrub scattered across the island. Sore, but feeling better, I climbed up a tree a bit. They were easy to climb and before I knew it I was 10 metres up! I realised this with a shock and quickly climbed down a bit. On the way down I found some funny looking fungi. It looked like someone had shoved a green plate into the tree. I wasn't sure whether it was poisonous or not but I stayed clear anyway.
When I finally reached the ground I was exhausted. I collapsed on the ground and looked around again. Up in the canopy I could see monkeys moving around. They were eating the berries on the trees. Suddenly I realised I was starving! I hadn't eaten in days and watching the monkeys eating made me even hungrier. I knew that most of the berries were poisonous so I looked to the forest floor for food. There was nothing I could see that would make a meal and so I looked even lower. I started searching the water for fish. I was distracted by a plopping sound. I slowly walked along the shore line towards the sound, being careful that I wasn't going to end up as some fish's dinner by falling in. After a few minutes of searching I located the source of the sound. I t was one of the trees dropping seeds into the water. I watched as the seeds dropped to the surface to be eaten by fish. I remembered seeing a nature documentary about the people of the Amazon and how they ate the same fish that I was watching now. The fish weren't far away but they were fast and I eventually gave up trying to catch the fish with my hands. I slumped against a tree in defeat and continued watching the fish. I closed my eyes to rest for a bit and drifted off into sleep.
I awoke with a start and realised it was getting darker. I quickly got up and felt the familiar pain in my chest. I clenched my teeth and started rubbing my hands together. Even after all this time I was still wet and with the temperature decreasing I was getting colder. I gathered together some wood and began building a rough shelter and fire. I finished the shelter in an hour, by which time it had gotten dark. I could hear the nocturnal animals awakening and move around above me. I felt more at home when one of the animals started calling for its mate. I gave up trying to light a fire and retreated to my shelter. There was no way I could get to sleep with the pain in my chest and so I watched the dark shadows moving around in the trees.
I awoke with a start. I couldn't remember falling asleep but judging from how I felt I doubted I had slept long. The shelter had collapsed on me while I had been sleeping but the shelter was only small and I managed to climbed out. My toes felt wet and it took me a while to realise that I was standing in water. Most of the island was under water and only the tree I had built my shelter against was not in the water. The tree was one of the bigger trees on the island and had lots of different plants and animals in it. Fungi sprouted from the trunk in many places and vines hung from the lower canopy. Clumsily I staggered around my shelter until I walked into the tree and the pain cleared my mind. It was not raining but judging from the clouds it was about to. It slowly dawned on me that I had to find another place to rest and I eventually looked to the vines.
Nightfall found me still struggling to reach the lower canopy. I was only a few metres from the branches but the growth that held the vine was too big to get past. My knuckles were white and my arms were red with strain. It was starting to drizzle and I found myself in an impossible situation. I could try and hold on to the vine until I could find another way up or I could climb down and probably drown in the rising flood waters. I decided to hold on for as long as possible. Bad choice, as it turned out. Only five minutes later I started slipping. The vine only ran down another 5 metres with a ten metre drop below that. The rain was starting to pour down and the wind was starting to pick up. It wasn't long before I was dangling from the end of the vine and being battered against the tree by the wind. I fell.