Touchstone 1 - Stray

past 10am on my watch now. And dark around midnight. Now that I’m breathing better, it seems to take forever for the night to end. All I’ve done so far today is lie on the roof watching the birds on the lake. I’m worried that I’ve hurt my eyes somehow, since random parts of the world are blurry and not quite focused.
    I’m going to go down for a forage soon. If I feel stronger later, I might even try to clean my wool collection. Survivor Cass needs some time-consuming projects to keep her sane.
    Not that the prospect of trying to relight my fire is anything to look forward to. That’s going to have to wait more than a few days – it just takes too much concerted energy to do, and I can’t even climb a flight of stairs without having to sit down.
    Wednesday, December 12
    It’s not paranoia if they really are watching you
    I’m stronger today – woke up incredibly hungry, which made me realise how little I ate while I was ill. I’ve been getting a lot done this morning, just by stopping and resting every few minutes.
    The idea of lighting the fire is still in the way-too-much category, but I’ve managed to clean out my room again, and washed my wool mound and blanket. The blanket didn’t like that, and has developed splits. Once it’s dry I’m going to have to be careful taking it back up to my room, or I’ll have felt strips instead.
    While it dries I’m searching the nearest buildings. I’m increasing my collection of metal and pottery objects, though, and even have a few knives. They’re not very sharp, and the handles have all fallen to pieces, but I have a few ideas on how to fix that. In a few days I’ll have a go at making covers for the windows. I also want to make another blanket: if it wasn’t such a lot of work I’d make a mound of them. Though I suppose I’ll have plenty of time to try.
    My eyes are still strained. Not everything is blurry, and not all the time, but I’m starting to wonder if I’ll end up needing glasses. That’s annoying, but I’m more bothered by a sense of being watched all the time. I’m forever feeling there’s someone standing just behind me, or trying to catch movement out of the corner of my eye.
    It’s not the cats, or not so far as I can tell. There’s a few about, but they’ve never been very interested in me so long as I stay away from their amphitheatre. I’ve been taking a lot of interest in the birds, hoping they have some nests in convenient spots. After weeks living mainly on red pears and washews I’m really interested in the thought of eggs. I’m also going to experiment more with some of the other possible foods I’ve found – I’ve been a bit too scared after the vomiting day, but now I’m starting to wonder if missing out on some of the food groups was the reason I was so sick.
    Today’s mantra
    There are no black things
    Creeping
    In the corner of my eye
    And
    There are no claws
    Glinting
    In the shadow of that door
    But
    There’s nothing wrong with
    Me
    I’m just fine, I’m
    Sane
    Normal
    Not seeing things.
    Friday, December 14
    Laying their plans
    Mum has a CD of this old musical version of War of the Worlds . On that, the Martians make this incredible noise, this ‘uulllllaaaaa’ howl which is so totally unnatural, not a noise anything on Earth would make.
    I’m looking for tripods on the horizon.
    The noise isn’t the one from the CD, of course, but it is super weird. A mournful wail so deep I feel it more in my bones than my ears. I’m sitting on the roof of my tower, listening, watching, but I can’t see where it’s coming from. It sounds like the hills are moaning.
    Whatever it is, it’s big. Could even dinosaurs make a noise like this? After spending the last couple of days convinced that something’s been watching me, I was creeped out enough already. I wish tonight was a moonfall, or that I’d at least figured out a way to make a light for overnight. I’m not up for fire-lighting. I’m lying here with my pippin statue, pretending it’s company.
    At this point, I can’t decide whether it would be better to be going nuts, or to really have things lurking around every corner, stalking me.
    Mouse-like
    Is there any difference between being eaten by a bear or a big cat and being eaten by a huge and spooky monster? The monster might even be quicker. You could say that the bear would be more ‘natural’ I suppose – but that’s just familiarity. Bears and cats are the predators which are real to my