The nights became colder, and the animals slowly began hiding from the increasingly low temperatures. The river slowly became less and less packed with animals until there were only wolves drinking.
Iris ran as much as possible to keep her body hot; the small, thin linen dress became more of a problem to her than actual protection from the other world. It was the last fragment of her past life.
Iris collects as much wood and the little remaining fruit to distract herself and create larger fires to decrease the cold at night.
She soon realized that almost all of the remaining fruit was rotting or being eaten by other animals, leaving her to think carefully about rationing her food. Her ideas ranged from using it as bait to kill small animals or to eating three a day so that it would last for a week; however, each had a side effect. If she were to fail and attract a larger or faster animal, she would lose her fruit. On the other hand, if she doesn't eat a lot, she will lose a lot of strength and will fall to the elements.
Iris decided to take it easy and conserve her fruit; she doesn't have the energy to run for food if she is already losing her strength in running to keep herself warm, which day by day is becoming a worse and worse idea.
…
After a week, Iris decides to take the gamble and create a bait; her body is freezing and out of fuel, and she runs everything away; the coldness increases to an extreme level, and her pale face shows no signs of life. If you were to see her sleeping, you would think she was dead.
Iris finds a place close to her in the first while having some leaves to not make her trap obvious. She creates a simple trap, leaving behind a branch that every time something touches it holds it in place for approximately ten seconds. She then plants a fruit on top of the branch; she then goes hiding below a rotting fallen tree.
She shivers and shivers waiting for the trap to work; she hugs her body and puts her hands on her armpits to not feel cold.
She waits less than five minutes before contemplating giving up; she doesn't believe she has the mental fortitude to survive the freezing temperatures. But before giving in, she hears small jumps with increasing magnitude.
Her eyes glow; she prepares her sharp shield carefully and slowly positions it very high so that she can use her force and the force of gravity to kill the unsuspecting guest.
She tries not to move; her mind becomes foggy. She trained hard enough not to pass out while trying to have her shield that far away from her while conserving its strength. All she can do is mutter, Survive, survive, for them, for them.
Crack
Iris, hearing the crack sound of the grabbing branch, with all her strength drops her shield on the animal.
Thump
Shrick!
Iris looks up, her eyes tear up, and her stomach rumbles. She runs up and picks up the dead rabbit, its head cleanly cut off; it surprises her how sharp she was able to make her shield.
She cheerfully makes her way back; a sudden wave of paranoia hits her; she begins to think animals are looking at her, waiting to take her new catch; she strongly hugs the rabbit, trying to conceal any sign that something is with her.
When she arrived at her camp, that feeling faded. With calmness, she barbarically rips the skin; her hunger can't be contained; all she wants is to eat and will do anything to achieve that goal. After ripping its skin, she quickly grabs a stick, inserts the rabbit, and puts it on top of the fire.
Iris stared at the cooking rabbit, her mouth salivating, the smells engulfing her nose; she hadn't felt as much happiness since she was able to swim.
The cooking of the rabbit took less time than Iris expected; in less than ten minutes, the rabbit appeared to be perfectly cooked. She expected to be waiting for thirty minutes, but she wouldn't complain.
She tried waiting for the rabbit to cool down, but her hunger was so great that she bit into the rabbit and burned her tongue; however, she didn't care; she continued eating until the pain disappeared as her stomach and mind felt a huge amount of relief and joy that brought tears to her eyes.
She quickly devoured the rabbit, leaving behind some of its back parts for another day. Her body felt its energy and heat return.
…
The rabbit lasted for an entire week with Iris rationing it to last for a week, not eating for two days, then eating half of the remaining, with her conserving her energy but not running and just sleeping and finding sticks to make more fire.
She then returned to create another bait and had the same result. Another rabbit fell to her. She cooked it, and instead of rationing her food, she ate it all in three days, trusting her abilities to hunt.
…
Winter arrived; Iris didn't expect the change in temperature and atmosphere to have such a drastic change.
Every night the temperature lowers so much that Iris has to sleep covered with everything that has not been rotten with the animal fur and wood. Sleeping extremely close to the fire.
Then snow arrived; it was all over for Iris. The first night with the snow, she realized that she would not survive this winter. It appeared rather harsh as the times of day when she could leave, she would see animals straight dead by the lowered temperature.
Iris collected the animals she saw, all ice cold, their feet stuck to the snow; she had to use her shield to dig and grab the animals. On her first walk, she saw many different unrecognizable species dead.
Collecting them, she made her way back, her fear increasing with how these animals with fur and experience living in the snow were dying.
All of the cold eventually culminated in Iris falling ill with an unknown illness.