Day 2

I believe we walked north, as I think I remember looking left to the coming sunset. We passed by smaller and more completely abandoned towns while searching for some hopefully natural concealed shelter. The quiet buildings were inviting, but the unknown was not a fear I opted to risk facing so early in my new life. We avoided hunting game during this first walk, as we found many of the trees bore fruit ripe to our liking. Eventually, we found a small opening in a rocky hillside, and I fashioned a rough door from brush and fallen trunks nearby. After settling in and securing the door, we slept.

My dog was missing when I rose the next morning. I decided to continue exploring further north without him, though I believe he followed at his own pace. Aside from the uninhabited towns and villages, I started noticing peculiar arrangements within other quiet yet clearly traveled areas. Makeshift fences, signs, and banners marked some previous adventurers' campaigns among the felled trees and skeletal remains they left behind. Some were grouped in large clusters, often surrounding a small cabin I could see in the distance. Others were left in straight lines, as far as I could see in either direction, like a road or border between farmlands.

Most of these crafts were in disorder, unkempt and ravaged by weather. Some, however, appeared recently placed with their proud and precise inscriptions or insignia denoting their owners' claim. I took note of those I could approach close enough for inspection, contented that I had consumed even some tiny morsel of information about my surroundings. It later occurred to me, treading over more and more of such marked territory, that this may be the way of things here. Towns are built, land is claimed, then people moved on. Did they intend to return? What was gained by expending such vast resources only to leave it behind unattended?

I decided I would stake my own claim. I could not know how long I would be here nor how long before my inevitable first interaction with other inhabitants, so I thought I should get to work on something as meaningful as I could manage; I would build in my own name. It may be the only home I ever know, and so my home I made.