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still many hours until morning, and he had a long, uncomfortable night ahead.
    ~
    He hurt.
    He hurt in his muscles and in every movement of his stiff, aching body. He hurt in his dry throat, with every breath, with every attempt to swallow. He hurt in the depths of his empty stomach.
    He hurt.
    Dawn’s light had only recently stolen through the woods, and Ben had watched the steady emergence of shapes from darkness, of details etched into those shapes, and finally, of colour. Birds sang and he cursed their joyfulness. What right had they to be so comfortable in this awful wood, when he was sore and damp and still so very tired?
    Ben thought again of those survival programmes he had seen on the television, and he wished he had paid more attention. He was hungry, but he knew that his most pressing need was something to drink. Without water he would not last long.
    He stretched his arms and legs, trying to free some of the night’s stiffness from his body.
    Back in the clearing there were puddles from the night’s rain and he squatted by one and looked into its muddy depths. He scooped some of the water out in a cupped hand and eyed the brown liquid.
    He stood, shook his hand dry and looked around.
    The trees’ leaves were shiny with moisture. He took one, pulled it over his open mouth and shook it, but only a drop or two of water fell. He licked the leaf, finding more of the moisture that way. He licked others, and then felt suddenly self-conscious and stopped. This clearing had formed where a tree had fallen, and now Ben found a puddle in a cleft in the horizontal trunk. The water was clearer and he scooped handfuls up to his mouth and drank gratefully.
    When he had finished, he leaned against the trunk and gathered his thoughts. Would he be ill from drinking this water, he wondered? He had no choice, though.
    He looked around to find his bearings, then headed deeper into the woods.
    ~
    Soon, he came to the railway. Its steep, rocky embankment was ahead of him, cutting a straight line through the woods.
    There was a fence at the foot of the embankment: two strands of wire to mark the boundary between woods and railway property. The path followed the fence for a distance here, and suddenly Ben remembered something his older cousin Sophie had once pointed out to him on a train journey to London. All along the track there were rambling apple trees, grown from the seeds in apple cores passengers had thrown out of train windows.
    He swung his legs over the fence and scrambled up the embankment.
    Sure enough, a short distance along and part way up the slope, he came to an apple tree. The fruit were hard and green and he had to pull hard to snap them from their stalks. It was too early in the summer for them to be ripe, but even so he bit into one. It was hard and he found it difficult to break a piece off. It was dry and bitter, too, but he managed to chew it, and to swallow, and he found that he wanted more.
    He ate what he could of the apple, and part of another, and then he stuffed more under-ripe apples into his pockets.
    Near to the top of the embankment he listened. Hearing no trains, he crossed the track and scrambled down the far side into the shade of the woods again.
    ~
    The woods were different, here, to how he remembered them. He began to realise that they must extend much farther to the north and west in this strange world. No wonder the so-called ‘ferals’ could hide themselves out here.
    He walked, stopping often to listen, but all he ever heard were the sounds of the woods, and the distant roar of the occasional train.
    It was a long day, and despite the apples in his pocket and the occasional clean-looking puddle of water, his hunger and thirst grew.
    It was stupid to think that he could find the ferals like this. Even if they really existed they would be well hidden. He might as well just call out at the top of his voice, asking them to come and get him.
    But what alternative did he have?
    He walked on,