Village E3: Survival of the Human Spirit Read Online Free Page A

which was many
miles from town, almost every weekend. He had tried to get her to move in with
him, but thought she was holding out for a ring. When I get back, I'm going
to ask her to marry me, he thought. His thoughts of home were broken by the
sudden sound of heavy rain.
    Since his bed would keep him up off of
the ground, he would stay dry tonight. Taking his poncho off, and folding it,
he got ready to get some sleep. It would be awhile before the sun went down,
but he was confident that it would be raining for many more hours. He had been
exhausted most of his stay here, but this was the first time he had felt
relaxed. Sleep came easily this night.
    Hours later, John woke up. The first
thing he noticed was the quiet. The rain had stopped. He realized it was
lighter than it had been in the nights before. It must be a full moon, he
thought. His eyes began searching the sky for it. What he saw overwhelmed his
mind, just like it had been when he woke up on the beach that first day. It was
a full moon, but it wasn't the moon he knew. This moon was many times larger.
It was massive, and lit the jungle up like early morning. It didn't have that
man in the moon face either.
    Now, his mind was being flooded with
more questions. There was one question he kept going back to.... Am I going
crazy, he wondered. This can't be real, he kept thinking. It
suddenly hit him like a death in the family. He hadn't felt like this, since he
was a child. Right now, he felt like a child. Why in the hell am I here, he
wondered. He wanted to go home, but somehow knew
he never would again.

Chapter 2
    It's been three months since John
woke up, bewildered on the beach. He still wasn't happy about being here, but
finally got over being depressed about it. He liked to think of himself as an
analytical thinker, and has had plenty of time to think about why he was here.
It was obvious to him, that no one on earth would be capable of doing this to
him. Whoever put him here wasn't going to dump
him here, and never return. They would either come back, or they were able to
monitor him. What kept him going now was the hope that they might return.
    John's new shelter was a hut. He left his lean-to as it was when he built it.
He even built a bed frame in his new hut, so he could get away from those
annoying insects on the ground. The first month was the hardest. It rained so
often, that it was hard to enjoy a fire, or even start one. At least when it
was raining, drinkable water was easy to get. It only rained once in the last
week, so he has had time to explore. He has even had time to appreciate the
variety of flora and fauna in the area.
    He enjoyed feeding the birds in
Colorado. The ones he saw now, didn't require feeding, and were incredibly
beautiful, compared to the ones back home. While some things were exotic and
strange to him, there were a few things that were familiar. There were even
some things that seemed strangely out of place.
    From experience, John had learned
that he should think of getting food early in the day, rather than later. An
all-day rain could kill his chance to cook anything. He decided that this
morning he was going to try to catch a fish or two.
    In his bug out bag, he had a survival
fishing kit that contained three hooks, and twenty feet of monofilament line.
Everything he had was irreplaceable, so he cut about five feet of line off,
leaving the rest for future use. He then tied it securely to a very long limb.
The limb was very flexible, but still strong enough that it wouldn't break
easily. He tied the hook on using a polymer knot. His dad had taught him how to
tie the knot when he was only eight or nine years old.
    Insects and grubs were easy to find
and they made great fish bait, so John caught about a dozen to start with. He
put a big fat one on his hook, then got into position by a drop-off, in front
of some rocks. He took a beetle and threw it into the water. It started wildly
thrashing about with its legs. The commotion was