You Need to Build a Fire

You need to build a fire. It's an accident you're out here at all, with night starting to fall as the sun says its final goodbyes from the horizon. The trees cast long shadows all around you, stretching towards darkness. Your thin sweatshirt isn't going to be warm enough, you're already feeling the chill seep in through the fabric. You'll need warmth. Light would be nice, too. A fire. [[What do I need?|Necessities]]

You rack your brain to try and remember what you were taught, so long ago. An older voice. You weren't paying close attention, you thought it sounded like rambling as they talked through what they were doing. You remember now them saying this could save your life. You hate it when people manage to give you an "I told you so" from the next life. [[No, but what did they say?|Necessities 2]]

You remember now. There was a harmony, a rhythm, to the way they said it as they crouched at the fire ring, their old beat-up plaid flannel shirt draped around them. "You need three things: tinder, heat, and fuel." How are you going to get those? What should you do first? [[Heat.|Heat Not Yet]] [[Tinder.|Tinder Collection]] [[Fuel.|Fuel Collection]]

You're pretty sure that heat won't be useful without something to catch fire with it. [[Tinder.|Tinder Collection]] [[Fuel.|Fuel Collection]]

You search through the forest floor around you for anything that could be used as tinder. You dig around to find dry leaves not yet turned to mulch, miraculous given the recent rain. You find small twigs and sticks, snapping them into smaller pieces as you go, stuffing your sweatshirt pockets. You manage to get a few good handfuls together. Check tinder off the list. [[Fuel.|Fuel Collection with Tinder]] [[Heat.|Heat With Only Tinder]]

A few easy-to-find twigs might start the fire, but you know how hungry it can get. It'll need something large to satiate it, and to keep you warm though the night. You hunt in the dying light beneath the trees until you find it, an old fallen branch, protected from the rain by its former siblings. It takes work, to make it so you can carry it. You snap off smaller branches that shoot off from it, but the main trunk is still longer than you are tall. You grab the end, plant your boot further up, and pull, hard. You feel it bend, slowly, starting to drag you with it back towards the ground. With a grunt you yank with all your might, and fall as a satisfying snap resounds through the forest. There you go, just like that, a few more times. It's so cold out here. You manage it, on this branch and a few others, until you have an armload. You take it back to where you were first standing, a small clearing in the trees where the only branches are high overhead, towering evergreens you can't see to the top of. [[Heat.|Heat With Fuel Only]] [[Tinder.|Tinder Collection with Fuel]]

A few twigs might start the fire, but you know how hungry it can get. It'll need something large to satiate it, and to keep you warm though the night. You hunt in the dying light beneath the trees until you find it, an old fallen branch, protected from the rain by its former siblings. It takes work, to make it so you can carry it. You snap off smaller branches that shoot off from it, but the main trunk is still longer than you are tall. You grab the end, plant your boot further up, and pull, hard. You feel it bend, slowly, starting to drag you with it back towards the ground. With a grunt you yank with all your might, and fall as a satisfying snap resounds through the forest. There you go, just like that, a few more times. It's so cold out here. You manage it, on this branch and a few others, until you have an armload. You take it back to where you were first standing, a small clearing in the trees where the only branches are high overhead, towering evergreens you can't see to the top of. [[Heat.|Heat With Everything]]

This might be enough to start a fire, but you don't think it'll be enough to keep it going through the night. You'll need fuel before you can start this, or you'll have spent an hour of effort for two minutes of warmth. [[Fuel|Fuel Collection with Tinder]]

Night has fallen completely now, and you're starting to see your breath in the air by the little bit of moon and starlight that make their way down through the dense branches overhead. You work quickly, kicking away any debris from where your fire will be with your hands tucked in your armpits for warmth. The moving warms you up a little, but as you hunker down to try and get this fire started you feel the hairs on your body stand up in a callback to evolutionary times past, as it tries to fluff fur that hasn't been there for millions of years. Heat. This was the tricky part, you remember. It takes work, and time. It took them so much time. But your other option is already seeping into your bones, and your hands are starting to feel numb. You find a rough piece of bark, some tinder, and a stick from your collected items. You put the bark on the ground, pin it with your feet as you sit next to it, pile the tinder around where you plant the stick, and start twirling the stick between your hands as you grind it down into the piece of bark. It takes ages. Your hands start to burn and chafe before the numbness finishes taking them. But you keep going, even as muscles begin to cramp and you long to rest. Because this is the only option you have to survive right now, in this place. [[You Need to Build a Fire.|The Spark]]

When a fire smarts, is appetite is small. Even if you can make enough heat to start this thing, it's not going to be able to catch a lot from the start. It has to have a chance to grow first. It needs twigs, grass, something. [[Tinder.|Tinder Collection with Fuel]]

You carry your couple armfuls of broken branches back to the clearing you started in, piling them carefully under the branches of a big tree to keep them dry if any rain comes. You walk through the forest, searching the undergrowth around you for anything that could be used as tinder. You dig taround to find dry leaves not yet turned to mulch, miraculous given the recent rain. You find small twigs and sticks, snapping them into smaller pieces as you go, stuffing your sweatshirt pockets. You manage to get a few good handfuls together. Check tinder off the list. [[Heat.|Heat With Everything]]

There, glowing in the dark, you see a few embers at the base of your stick. You gently push the tinder on top of it and blow, softly, insistently, desperately. There! A tiny flame, eating at one of the leaves. You nudge the other pieces towards it, encouraging them to follow suit. Another lights. And another. You reach back and grab more tinder, piling it on a little bit at a time as your fire grows. You can already feel it chasing away the cold in your hands, even as a deep cold settles in the rest of you. But it is pushed back by the fire of your excitement as the last of your tinder catches. You put two of the larger fuel pieces on, and watch, terrified, wondering if you should run off to try and find more kindling. But it's so cold. You can't get yourself to go do it. You watch. You wait. With a snapping crackle, one of the logs lights. A moment later, the other. You yell for joy before putting another log on. It lights in time, as the warmth gathers inside of you. You lay down to rest for a moment, before you feed the fire again. The fire that will keep you warm and safe through the dark night. The fire that you built.