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Challenge - Val's Feral Island
Challenge - Val's Feral Island [1]
Day 1:
When Val woke up on the sandy beach, she couldn’t believe that she was still alive. Her last memories were of a vicious storm that had come out of nowhere and capsized her yacht. Looking up to a clear blue tropical sky, it wasn’t hard to believe that she was in heaven. Only when she tried to move and feel the pain in her side did she realise that she was well and truly alive.
Slowly but surely she began exploring the beach, unsure of what to look out for. Maybe other things had washed ashore for the sunken yacht? She suddenly thought of her purse, her smart phone, but then what hope was there of reception out here, everything seemed so remote. She certainly didn’t recognise this island…
By the time she reached the rocky parts of the beach the sun was already starting to set, and panic set in. What would she do for shelter and warmth? Could she even remember how to make a fire? The thought of being trapped alone in the dark made her shiver.
That’s when she heard the patter on the smooth rocks behind her. She turned around immediately as she found herself staring at an enormous prehistoric cat. She instantly recognised the enormous canines of a Smilodon, but she couldn’t quite believe it was here in front of her. What kind of island was this, to have a creature like this that had been extinct for millennia? Would she live long to find out?
Challenge - Val's Feral Island [2]
Day 4:
After several days at the beach, Val had been able to salvage what she could from the remains of the yacht that had been swept in from the sea. She was still without her purse and smart phone, but she had been grateful when a plastic crate filled with food and a first aid kit had beached nearby. In the meantime she had constructed a simple shelter with branches, large tropical leaves, and held together with some leftover fabric from her ruined outfit. She was even starting to get the hang of making fires, but still there was the issue of food, for despite her best efforts to ration she found her supplies dwindling. She knew that sooner or later she would have to move inland, with the hope of finding something that she could eat. She even started constructing crude spears with some of the sharper rocks she could find and twigs. She still wasn’t sure how she would be able to wield them; she had never killed anything bigger than a housefly in her life…
Then there was the Smilodon. She had been rightly terrified of the beast on that first day, and was still somewhat nervous of its presence. Not only had the prehistoric tiger spared her, it had actually gone out of its way to help her, helping the demure girl bring stuff in from the ocean. One night it even brought in a dead bird for her to eat, much like a house cat. Now that it was night, it watched from a distance, patrolling the beach in the course of the night. Val still wasn’t sure what she had done to earn the creature’s protection, but she was grateful.
Looking at her nails, she couldn’t believe how long they had gotten. She would have done anything to get her hands on her beauty kit, but she knew that there were more pressing issues. It saddened her to see her perfect princess curls get tangled and unwind, but she also realised that she would need to be stronger if she was going to survive this experience…
Challenge - Val's Feral Island [3]
Day 13
Having spent over a week in the valley, Val’s body had acclimatised well, and the constant exercise of climbing sheer cliff faces and chasing after prey had strengthened her body in ways that she thought were not possible. Far from the frail princess she had once been, she now had the six-pack of an Olympic athlete and the stamina to run alongside her new companion.
Earlier on in the week she had been forced to ditch her ruined dress, using what fabric she could salvage to fashion a loincloth and crude tube top, at least to protect her modesty. Her hair had grown wild, losing her princess curls entirely. But that was not all that had grown: She had started to notice the changes to her hands, the nails that had grown longer and sharper, the amber fur that was gradually climbing up her arms and legs. She even noticed how her ears had shifted up the side of her head, becoming larger. It didn’t take her long to realise that she was starting to resemble her friend.
Was this the effect of the island, or maybe her companion? She wondered if she could escape this island herself, but from what she had seen of the beach there was nothing around but vast ocean. For now her best chance of survival was with her Smilodon, who seemed to have warmed up to her like a big sister.
Challenge - Val's Feral Island [4]
Day 26
Sitting by the campfire with her Smilodon companion, Valentina dug into cooked meat with a voracious appetite. It had been a hard prey to catch, but the feral girl had succeeded with a vicious strike from her spear. The girl was becoming a better hunter and she was getting more attuned to her new strength and reflexes. She didn’t seem to mind the fur on her arms and legs anymore. It instead reminded her of the kinship she had with her new sister, the Smilodon who now shared her meal and kept her warm at night.
A few nights before Val had roughly cut off her long tangled locks. When she looked at her own reflection in the water, she could hardly recognise the woman there. In her eyes, she had matured both physically and mentally: she had grown out of being the little spoiled princess, and was on her way to becoming a proud Amazonian warrior.
Challenge - Val's Feral Island [5]
Day 42
After weeks in the valley, Val’s Smilodon companion let her know it was time to move on. Their destination was the mountains further inland, where some of the more difficult but worthy prey resided. Val had been weak before, but now she was ready to take on the bigger prey.
Val crouched low as she took in the smells of the plateau. Her senses had improved dramatically over the past several days, as her face became more feline than human. With it, a whole new world had opened out to her, with the possibility of becoming a better hunter. Now she stood naked to the world, her fur covering much of her soft human skin, and she wasn’t afraid of what lay in store for her.
Challenge - Val's Feral Island [6]
Day 60
The Smilodon girl that called herself “Varl” sat perched on her sister’s back while surveying the island before her. She had travelled to the highest peaks to scope it out and see how far her domain now spread. There had been vicious fights with enormous beasts in the past few weeks but the Smilodon pair had come out victorious at every occasion. With her sister’s raw power and her intelligence, they were an unstoppable force and now this island’s new rulers.
But their conquests had born other fruits too. Deep in one of the valleys they had found the remains of an extinct civilisation. What had become of them was a mystery. Varl had noted there was some unusual iconography on the wall reliefs, but she preferred not to remain there too long. Something there seemed oddly familiar, and it unsettled her sister too. Instead she took a few trophies as keepsakes and made her way back to the jungle, where she established the centre of her new kingdom.