Morning came too fast, barely giving Ralph time to hold on to the last scraps of his dreams before the sun rose. Light spilt through the window panes and stretched across the room, reaching the pit where the firewood's remaining embers glowed faintly in the new warmth.
The beam caught the surface of the mirror, bouncing straight onto his face and dragging him out of his dream-quest. He blinked once, then twice, until his eyes finally fluttered open. With a quiet groan, he lifted a hand to block the glare, then reached over and tilted the mirror out of the sun's path.
He glanced down and sighed when he noticed the telltale morning situation pressing against his clothes.
"Right.." he sighed.
With a tired groan, he shifted his position and palmed it down, trying to will it into behaving before he stood up from the floor.
Gathering the remaining ash, he shifted it to the end of the room and cleaned the soot-stained floor with a rag that had seen better days than this.
He packed the ash afterwards, using some of it to spray on the corners of the room to reduce the smell, especially from the fish situation.
Then he packed some on his hands, so he could brush his teeth with it, at the riverbank and have a clean bath.
The remaining, he kept safe in a small container to use for later, to keep the evening fire burning or any other useful things that got on his mind.
"Morning self, time to have a bath and get to work. Don't have time slacking off, after all, this is day two of gathering useful items for the travel."
At the base of the tree the shed sat on, rodents scattered around, though he didn't know why.
He stood on a branch, staring down at them.
'Hmm, what could have led to this?' A thought ran across his mind.
Staring closer at the squabbling rodents, he noticed they all held stems and seeds, food items and other necessary items one would need for survival.
"That's new.." he whispered to himself, fog forming from his speech.
"That's not good, what could this possibly mean?" He asked himself, a sudden spiral of thoughts forming inside his head.
He jumped down from the tree, using the fragile stem he had created as a ladder the day before to get down to the forest ground.
Upon landing on the forest floor, he noticed the plants were slowly losing their chlorophyll, their bright green colour a bit duller than normal.
He stared at the plants for almost a minute, trying to make out what it could mean.
A rodent ran behind him, startling him and jolting him from his thoughts.
"Dear heavens!!" A silent word escaped his lips.
He watched the rodent run into a burrowed hole, also carrying stems in its mouth as it moved.
He couldn't piece together any of these coincidences or what they could possibly mean, so he turned around and headed for a riverbank.
'That's the first time I've seen animals run around like this, almost like they're afraid of something.'
He did a 360 spin around, glancing between the trees for any signs of life but there seemed to be none apart from the squabbling rodents.
'Is there a beast around these parts?!, are they afraid of it or something else?!.'
The fresh sound of rushing water reached his ears as he approached the riverbank, flowing towards the waterfall at the end.
Almost immediately the thoughts left his mind, the cool breeze of the water already caressing his skin though he was still meters away from it.
"That's unusually cold..must be because the sun hasn't come out yet.." a conclusion formed after the thought.
Hovering his hand above the river water, he could feel the cold air evaporating from the water.
'Way too cold for me to bathe in, also...I don't think it was this cold yesterday or maybe I just don't remember because of all the excitement I had yesterday."
On the spot, he took off his garments after glancing between the trees for half a minute to make sure nothing was wandering around the vicinity.
It looked clear, so he jumped straight into the flowing water. His skin meeting with the cold water upon impact, and the splash spread around him.
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr" a hiss escaped his lips from the cold water touching his bare, naked skin.
"Mannnn, I don't know but t-this is unusually cold today."
His teeth gnashed against each other, his nervous system responding to his cold surroundings.
Scooping the ash into his palm from his clothes at the riverbank, he returned with his brush in his hand.
He spread the ash on the teeth of the brush, then used it to start scrubbing his teeth, while also using his free hand to rub against his body.
Mist escaped his lips as he continued hissing against the cold water, with his mouth open.
After a while in the water, he struggled to ascend to higher ground because of the cold.
The sun finally came out, warming up the environment including the moving water.
He used the opportunity to escape the water and warm his body using the raw, unfiltered rays of the sun against his naked body.
"I think it's getting unusually colder than it should, I don't want to guess it's what I think it is.." The thought finally hit him hard.
He quickly picked up his clothes and put them on, after making sure his skin was warm from the sun.
He picked up his brush and dipped it inside the pocket of his garment, water still trickling down his shoulder-length hair.
"Next is the shed then I'll head over to the other sheds i found, to gather more items I could use." A shivering grin appeared on his face.
He arrived at the shed, climbed inside and dropped his clothes in his bag.
Before he left, he picked up the mirror and stared at his reflection for a while.
"The ash did a good job, my teeth looks clean enough. And my hair...I might as well apply ash on it.." he chuckled, dropping the mirror back on the floor, close to his bag.
Then headed out the shed, his next quest for the day already waiting for him to arrive.