Mike woke to sunlight shining through the cracks in his shelter's roof. For a moment, he lay still, taking inventory of his body. The soreness remained, but the sharp pain of his injuries had faded to a dull ache. He could move without wincing, breathe without stabbing pain in his ribs. The accelerated healing continued to work its mysterious magic.

  He sat up, hunger gnawing at his stomach. The last proper meal he'd eaten had been before the wolf attack, and his body demanded fuel to continue its recovery. After a breakfast of tuna fruits—their fishy sweetness now almost comforting in its familiarity—Mike felt his strength returning.

  "Today's agenda," he said aloud, the sound of his own voice reassuring in the silence, "check the underground storage for more supplies, then build better defenses."

  The explosion had been loud—too loud. If other creatures inhabited this region, they might come to investigate. The wolf pack had found him; others could follow. Mike needed to be prepared.

  His first stop was the underground storage. Descending the stairs with considerably more care than his initial headlong tumble, he brought his new Japanese saw and the handful of nails, arranging them neatly beside his hammers near the entrance. With tools in hand, he set out to explore more systematically than his exhausted initial survey had allowed.

  In the first large chamber, Mike discovered what he'd missed before—several wooden buckets, their staves still intact despite centuries of disuse. The craftsmanship was exceptional, each bucket bound with metal hoops that showed minimal corrosion.

  "Perfect for sap collection," he decided, gathering three that seemed in the best condition

  Further exploration yielded more practical items: coils of rope made from some plant fiber he didn't recognize, a set of leather gloves that fit his hands surprisingly well, and what appeared to be a toolkit containing various implements for working with metal and wood.

  By midday, Mike had assembled a collection of useful supplies near the entrance, ready to be hauled to the surface. The physical labor felt good—purposeful and grounding after the chaos of the wolf attack. His body responded better than expected, the soreness diminishing with each trip up and down the stairs.

  Once he'd brought his haul to the surface, Mike turned his attention to the sap trees. The one damaged in the explosion continued to ooze amber fluid from its split trunk, but the others stood undamaged, their clogged spouts waiting to be cleared.

  Using his utility knife and a thin metal rod he'd found underground, Mike carefully cleaned the first spout. Hardened sap crumbled away, revealing the brass-like fitting beneath. When it was clear, fresh sap began to flow immediately, its sweet-chemical scent strong in the midday heat. Mike positioned one of the buckets beneath the spout, adjusting it to catch the slow but steady drip.

  "One down, several to go," he murmured, moving to the next tree.

  By late afternoon, Mike had cleared spouts on five trees, each now dripping amber sap into a positioned bucket or clay pot. The collection would be gradual, but within a few days, he'd have a substantial supply of the explosive material.

  With the sap collection underway, Mike turned his attention to defenses. The wolf attack had demonstrated the vulnerability of his position. He needed more than alarms and simple snares; he needed weaponized traps.

  Using his newly acquired tools, Mike began constructing the first of several deadfall traps around the perimeter of the ruins. The Japanese saw cut through wood with remarkable precision, allowing him to create trigger mechanisms far more sensitive than his earlier attempts. The square nails, driven with his hammer, secured supporting structures firmly in place.

  Each trap followed the same basic design—a heavy stone or log suspended above a path, held by a trigger mechanism that, when disturbed, would release the weight onto whatever passed beneath. Mike positioned them at likely approach points, carefully concealing the triggers beneath leaves and thin layers of soil.

  For areas where deadfalls weren't practical, he created pit traps—depressions dug into the ground, lined with sharpened stakes, then covered with a lattice of slender branches and leaves. Not deep enough to be fatal to larger creatures, but sufficient to injure and immobilize.

  As the sun began to set, Mike surveyed his work with grim satisfaction. Six deadfalls and four pit traps now guarded the approaches to his shelter. More would follow tomorrow, but it was a solid start.

  Returning to the sap trees, Mike checked the collection buckets. Each contained a shallow pool of amber fluid—not much yet, but promising. He carefully transferred a small amount into several sections of the bamboo-like reeds he'd harvested earlier, creating sealed tubes of the explosive material.

  "Primitive pipe bombs," he muttered, storing them carefully in a stone-lined cache near his shelter.

  For his final task of the day, Mike experimented with the sap's properties. Spreading thin layers on large leaves, he set them in the last rays of sunlight to dry. If his theory was correct, the tacky material would become more stable when dried but retain its flammable nature—perfect for improvised fuses.

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  Night fell as Mike completed his work. Exhausted but satisfied, he returned to his shelter with a portion of the day's tuna fruit harvest and a water skin refilled from the well. After eating, he reached for his phone to record the day's progress—a habit so ingrained he didn't question it until the device failed to respond to his touch.

  The screen remained black. Mike pressed the power button, but nothing happened. He tried again, holding it longer, but the result was the same. The battery was finally exhausted.

  "No," Mike whispered, a sudden hollow feeling expanding in his chest. "Not yet."

  He tried again, pressing different combinations of buttons, but the phone remained lifeless in his hands. His last connection to home, to his old life, was gone.

  The reality of his situation crashed down upon him with new weight. Until now, the phone had been both practical tool and psychological anchor—a reminder that another world existed, that he had a life to return to. Without it, isolation felt absolute.

  Mike sat in the darkness, the dead phone clutched in his hands, as emotions he'd been holding at bay finally broke through. Thoughts of Sarah and Jeremy waiting for him at home, of Sarah calling hospitals and police stations, of Jeremy asking when dad was coming back, of deadlines missed and people worried, of a life interrupted with no explanation—all of it washed over him in waves.

  "They don't even know if I'm alive," he said softly into the darkness.

  For the first time since arriving in this world, Mike allowed himself to truly feel the loss. Not just of comfort or safety, but of connection. Of belonging. Tears came, rolling silently down his face as he thought of his wife's smile, the way she'd kiss him goodbye each morning, of his son's laughter, of family dinners and quiet evenings together—all the relationships severed when that vortex pulled him through.

  The grief felt bottomless, but necessary. It was human to mourn, to acknowledge what had been taken. And in mourning, Mike found something else—resolve.

  "I'm not dying here," he said, his voice stronger. "I'm getting back to Sarah and Jeremy. Somehow."

  He carefully placed the phone on the stone shelf he'd built into the wall. It would remain there, useless but meaningful, a reminder of what he was fighting to return to. His fingers lingered on the screen, where the family photo that had been his background was now lost to darkness.

  Sleep came fitfully that night, his dreams filled with faces from home intermingled with wolves and monsters and flying text he couldn't read. Sarah appeared repeatedly—sometimes reaching for him, sometimes simply watching from a distance, her expression unreadable. In one particularly vivid moment, he saw her sitting at their kitchen table, phone in hand, speaking urgently to someone he couldn't see. He woke several times, disoriented and anxious, before finally surrendering to a light doze as dawn approached.

  With morning came renewed purpose. The emotional breakdown had been necessary, but dwelling on what he couldn't change would only decrease his chances of survival. Mike rose, ate, and set about expanding his defenses with methodical determination.

  The next several days fell into a rhythm—mornings spent building and setting traps, afternoons devoted to improving his shelter, evenings dedicated to collecting and experimenting with the sap. Each day, the buckets filled a little more, providing a steady supply of the explosive material. The dried sap leaves worked as he'd hoped, becoming pliable strips that burned slowly and could be used to delay detonation of his bamboo bombs.

  Mike's shelter evolved from a simple secure room to a more elaborate living space. Using his new tools, he constructed a proper door with a barring mechanism that could be operated from inside or out. He patched holes in the roof, created shelving for his growing collection of tools and supplies, and built a raised platform bed with a frame and woven reed mattress.

  Notifications continued to appear as he worked, progress bars filling more rapidly than before. Now that he understood the general concept of leveling, Mike could see how his building activities were advancing his skills, even if he couldn't read the specific updates.

  On the fourth day after the wolf attack, as Mike was setting a particularly complex snare trap, a notification appeared that was different from the others. Larger, with a pulsing border, it contained what appeared to be a new symbol next to the familiar [SKILL] prompt.

  On instinct, Mike touched the notification. It expanded, showing what looked like a schematic or diagram—lines and shapes arranged in a pattern that, after a moment's study, Mike recognized as a trap design. Not one he'd built before, but one he could understand: a tension-driven mechanism that would propel sharpened stakes toward anything that triggered it.

  "A blueprint?" Mike realized. "The system is showing me how to build something new."

  Without fully understanding how, Mike found he could interpret the diagram despite the unfamiliar script that accompanied it. The knowledge seemed to filter directly into his mind, bypassing the need for language. He could see how the pieces fit together, how the mechanism functioned, what materials would be required.

  That afternoon, he built the new trap according to the blueprint, positioned it at a key approach to the ruins, and felt a surge of satisfaction when another notification appeared, this one clearly positive based on its golden hue.

  The days blurred together as Mike continued his work. Each trap built, each improvement to his shelter, each successful experiment with the sap brought new notifications, new progress, and occasionally new blueprints. His integration with the system deepened, not through sudden revelation but through consistent effort and application.

  A week after the wolf attack, Mike stood on the roof of his shelter, surveying what he'd accomplished. The ruins were now ringed with traps of various designs, from simple snares to complex mechanical devices capable of seriously injuring or killing intruders. His shelter had become genuinely defensible, with reinforced walls, a secure door, and even a basic alarm system of reed chimes that would sound if something approached.

  The collection of explosive sap had grown substantial, with multiple caches of bamboo bombs positioned strategically throughout the ruins. The dried sap strips had proven effective as fuses, allowing for timed detonations if necessary.

  Mike had created, through persistence and ingenuity, a fortress from ruins. It wasn't home—could never be home—but it was a base from which he could operate safely, a foundation upon which to build his understanding of this world and, eventually, find a way back to Sarah and Jeremy.

  As the sun set on the seventh day, Mike allowed himself a moment of pride. He had survived. More than survived—he had adapted. Whatever came next, he was ready.

  Or so he thought.