Laas Kingdom

Chapter 2: Search and Survival

I woke up to find myself in pitch darkness. There was no sound except my rapid breathing and increasing heartbeat. I felt a sharp pain in my right leg and couldn't move it. I gathered all my strength to sit up, but the pain was unbearable. I was in an unfamiliar place, shrouded in mystery. Where am I? How did I get here? I didn't know, but fear began to creep into my heart. I felt completely isolated.

When I slowly crawled towards the cave's exit, the pain in my leg was almost unbearable. Every movement felt like a dagger stabbing through my bones. Despite this, I managed to get out. I was confronted with a dense forest and enormous trees stretching endlessly. The thick green leaves blocked the sky; this place was unfamiliar to me. The Las Geel Mountains didn't have such dense forests; their terrain was dry and filled with rocks and small trees. I felt a very strange sensation. Fear? Restlessness? Hunger? Pain? Yes, I felt all of them, but at that moment, when I saw the forest scene, which was something I shouldn't have seen, I felt something I didn't recognize, but I can assure you it wasn't a pleasant feeling. My mental state began to deteriorate; I didn't know where I was, hungry, injured, alone, and scared. I began to lose myself gradually until tears started to find their way down my face, soaking my clothes.

When I calmed down a bit, I started trying to think rationally. I knew that staying in this situation wouldn't help me. I needed a survival plan until rescue arrived, and if I stayed as I was, even if help came, it would be too late. At that moment, my obsession with wilderness survival and watching many YouTube videos about it made me try to think of a plan, which was simply to find a source of drinkable water, then food. Although applying this information in real life wasn't as easy as I imagined, it helped me. My first priority was to find a water source. I didn't know when I last drank water, and I started feeling dehydrated, but luckily, since it was raining, I was confident I would find a source, especially now that I was in a mountainous area, so my start would have been good if it weren't for my broken leg.

While searching for a water source, I slowly dragged myself using a stick I made from tree branches and tied with my clothes. Movement was difficult and painful, and every step reminded me of my injury. After some time, I heard a faint sound of running water, so I followed the sound until I found a small stream. I knelt by its edge and drank eagerly. The water was cold and refreshing, but I knew I needed to do more to survive.

I had two options: build a shelter near this water source to save myself from walking a lot or return to the cave I came out of. The choice was difficult. Returning later for water was hard since I might get lost and not find the cave due to the dense forest, and building a shelter wasn't something I had ever done, not to mention the difficulty of walking and working on a broken leg. But in the end, the more reasonable choice was to stay near the water.

I tried to stand using the stick and start working, but the pain was severe. So, I decided to make a splint for my leg. I cut a part of my shirt and tied it with strong branches around my leg. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it made me feel somewhat better. I started working on a simple shelter made of a small bush, using branches and leaves.

As night approached and while I was still working on the shelter, the sky began to cloud over, and it was clear that a storm was coming. I tried to reinforce my shelter with additional branches and large leaves, but the strong winds started shaking everything. Then the rain began to pour heavily. The rain was cold, and the clothes I had used to make the shelter became saturated with water. I began to feel intensely cold and was unable to sleep due to the strong winds and the rain that was penetrating the branches of the shelter. It was a harsh night, and all I could do was hope that morning would come quickly.

The next morning, I woke up feeling the symptoms of a cold. I was shivering and couldn't stop coughing. The previous night had been a disaster; I couldn't stay warm, and now I had a cold. I felt more helpless than ever. I knew I needed to warm myself up, so I tried to gather dry branches and leaves, but last night's rain had made everything wet. I attempted to start a fire using the flint stones I had found, and after several desperate attempts and a very long time, I finally managed to ignite a small flame. The fire was small and unstable, but it was enough to warm me up a little.

And then I tried to find food. I slowly wandered through the forest, trying to find something edible. I only found some bitter wild fruits, but I had no other choice. I collected as much as I could and saved it for later. Finding food was difficult due to my inability to move quickly because of my leg injury. I needed to take care of it, but I had nothing that I could use as a remedy.

After that i was mostly lying in the inadequate shelter, and whenever I felt hungry or thirsty, I would go out. But over time, I started to feel a slight improvement. Although the pain in my leg was still severe, I began to adapt to it and it eased a bit. I then started working on the shelter again and gathered more branches to build a better one, and also tried to repair the support I had made for my leg. Despite suffering from hunger because all the food I could find were unripe fruits, I really began to feel some hope. But the reality that, even after more than three days, help had not yet arrived, made me anxious. Additionally, the fear of the unknown was overwhelming. I wondered about this strange place and why it seemed so different from anywhere I knew. Was there hope for survival? Would I be able to return home?

Then a new problem emerged. Since I was close to a water source, insects began to become an unbearable part of my daily troubles. Mosquitoes were devouring me voraciously, adding to my sleeplessness and malnutrition. The cold symptoms still lingered, making my body weak and fragile like a tree branch in the wind. I knew it was time to leave this increasingly harsh place and search for a better shelter and a food source. If I stayed here, there were many factors that could lead to my death, the worst of which was contracting malaria from the mosquitoes, in addition to malnutrition that would surely finish me off.

I had to come up with a meticulous plan that included everything: finding a shelter, maintaining a water source, and securing food through foraging and hunting. These tasks seemed impossible for many reasons. I hadn't seen any wildlife except for the occasional bird sounds I heard. My physical abilities were not at their best due to my leg injury and malnutrition, which had significantly weakened me. Additionally, I had no experience in hunting and lacked the necessary tools.

After much thought and indescribable suffering, I came up with a plan: The first thing I would do was look for a new shelter. But to avoid losing the water source while searching, I had to do two things at the same time: exploring and making a map. The plan was to walk a hundred meters from the water source in every direction, then make a map using charcoal from my campfire and the white stones found in the area. I would review this map repeatedly until I memorized it because these maps could easily disappear if it rained. This way, I could search for a new shelter without fear of getting lost and losing the water source, and also explore the area more, possibly finding a food source or wild animals I could hunt.

As for hunting, I also had a plan. Since the only thing I was sure existed were birds, because of the sounds I heard, I would focus on hunting them. The best weapon I could make with the few available resources was the "Wadhaf," the Somali version of a sling. This weapon didn't require rubber bands or a frame, as it was made of several intertwined ropes until they became thick and strong, with two ends.

Using it was relatively easy. A stone is placed in the middle of the ropes, and the person holds both ends in one hand, spinning it very fast, then aims it at the target and releases one end. The result is a very powerful strike, much stronger than a regular sling. The good thing was that I used it when I was young, but it would require some practice to be able to hunt effectively with it.