With the incident of the snake still fresh in her mind, Val continued further down the coast and gathered a few more fruits to bring back to her shelter. She set up her cot on the sand and placed the fruits on top. Next, she took out the chest containing her clothes, songbook, and jewelry box, dragging it beside the cot and giving her tent a closer inspection.
It needed some attention. In fact, it needed a lot of attention.
She had thought she had set it up perfectly, following the instructions she had received. However, it turned out to be lopsided, slouching, and one of the stakes failed to hold in the ground. Val decided to tackle the task step by step, taking down the tent and giving herself a full hour to secure it properly. Although she realized that she might need more stones around the stakes to withstand storms, it was currently functional enough.
Once she finished setting up the tent, Val moved everything back inside—the chest, the cot, and herself. Her eyes were drawn to the pendant that had been so effective in calling to her the previous night. She half-expected to wake up and realize that this was all some psychotic dream, and she was still the young girl forced to profess her religious beliefs inside a small shrine. However, that realization never came.
Val pushed those thoughts out of her mind as best she could but still took the pendant and put it into her pocket. Inside the tent, her safe space away from the world, it offered her a release and a way to push her insecurities aside. Maybe she should have accepted the stranger's offer to pray. The thought made her feel sick to her stomach, but so did the sight of the snake. She made a mental note to address her abnormal behavior.
"'Hello, I promise I'm not insane' might not be the best way to approach it," she thought to herself, "but it would be better than nothing."
Now, all she needed to do was move on, leave the first day behind her, and embrace the beginning of a new life.
