On my fifth day in Octoworld, as I’d started to think of it, I finally reached the summit. I didn’t realize it at first. There was no pointy top where I could stand and survey the land for miles around, just a gradual flattening out of the terrain.

I stopped and looked around. The trees had changed, I realized — they were shorter and more spaced out. Instead of the clutter of pools and mossy fallen logs, the ground was dry and covered with pine needles. Dense patches of tall ferns grew here and there. For the first time, it wasn’t raining.

As I stood there, the tree-’pus gave me a hard squeeze. I looked around and didn’t see any other ’puses.

“What’s up little guy? Do you need to get off?”

It looked up at me out of its oblong pupil. As usual, it had nothing to say, but it did squeeze me again.

Sadness welled up. Okay, it was an octopus. But it was my companion and provider. Now I was going to have to leave it behind. I’d be well and truly alone.

Afraid it would be too dry for the ’pus where I was, I headed back the way I’d come. After ten minutes, the ground began to slope down again, and the rain picked up. I found a big tree with a nice pool near its roots.

I sidled up to the trunk to let the ’pus transfer itself. Instead it detached several tentacles and waved them in the downhill direction. When I didn’t move, it added a few more, stretching insistently. It pretty clearly wanted me to keep walking back into the rainforest.

“Your forest is really nice, little guy, but I can’t stay there. I’m pretty sure there’s no one there who can help me get home.”

It kept waving.

“I’m sorry, buddy, but I have to keep looking. It’s either that or just give up. There might not be anyone coming for me.”

Finally it stopped waving and flowed from my hip onto the tree trunk.

“Bye, little guy. Thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it. I guess I probably won’t be back this way, but I hope I’ll see you again, somehow.”

The ’pus didn’t pay any attention to my farewell speech. Instead it moved down the trunk, lurched over the roots to the pool, and plopped in. After a few seconds underwater, it climbed out, shimmering strangely. I knelt down to get a better look. It was covered with a thick shell of water.

The ’pus crawled over the ferns to my foot and started to climb up my leg. Instead of soaking into my clothes, its coat of water stayed intact. It seemed like magic to me, but it was probably a working.

“Wow, portable fishbowl. That’s some trick. So, you want to come with me? Is that it?”

It stared up at me, the water making its eye look even stranger.

I stood there, ambivalent. It obviously couldn’t live unassisted in the terrain beyond the rainforest. How long would it be able to sustain itself with its water jumpsuit? If it ran out of water, it would probably die.

“I really appreciate the help, but I don’t think you should come. It’s too dangerous. Besides, I might not come back this way.”

It didn’t move.

“Why don’t I just put you on this nice trunk, here?”

I pried one of its water-coated tentacles off my waist. At that point, I learned just how tenacious an octopus can be. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it off me. Every time I broke a tentacle’s grip, the slimy thing would whip out of my hands and wrap back around me. In the end, I gave up, afraid I was going to hurt the ’pus if I kept pulling at it.

“Okay, little guy. Thank you. I really hope I’m not going to get you killed.”

With its thick coating of water, the ’pus weighed a lot more than it had before, so I urged it to climb onto my upper back, like a living backpack.

Then, at last, I headed out of the rainforest, trying to feel hopeful about what lay ahead.

Two hours later, I stood on a ledge and surveyed the land beneath.

Walking down the dry side of the mountain, I’d noticed a rocky outcropping jutting out to my left. I’d backtracked up to its highest point of contact with the main slope, then walked out along the top of it, trying to get a view over the trees.

I’d had great hopes of seeing a city, a village, even a column of smoke — anything that would suggest human habitation. My hopes were disappointed.

All around me, the land fell away sharply, the pine forest thinning out as the mountain gave way to a lush, green river valley. On the far side of the valley, I could see more wooded hills. I stood there scanning the terrain for some time but couldn’t find any sign of people.

I thought about what to do. The rainforest was a known quantity. If I went back, I could use the moss to stay warm, and the tree-’puses would probably provide me with food, at least for a while.

But whatever the rainforest had going for it, I just couldn’t make myself turn back. Sitting there and doing nothing, day after day, waiting for a rescue that might never come — no. The thought made my skin crawl.

Waiting for whatever happened to me to happen — that’s what I’d been doing ever since I ran home from college. I couldn’t afford to be that person anymore. Whatever I might’ve lost, at this moment, I had the power to make a choice, and I was going to choose action, not passivity.

I could follow the river. People often built cities and towns along rivers or where rivers met the sea. Maybe that would be my best bet. The river would be good for the ’pus, too — plenty of water.

Decision made, I walked back along the outcropping to the main slope and continued down the mountain.

After about forty-five minutes of easy downhill walking, I heard movement off to my right. Since leaving the rainforest, I hadn’t seen any creatures larger than a dragonfly, so I crept closer to investigate. When I got near enough, I peered cautiously around a tree trunk.

What I saw could only be a dinosaur. It was small — its back might’ve come up to my knee — and bipedal. It had a narrow, snakelike head, which it was using to root around in the thick carpet of dead pine needles. Everything about it looked light and agile, from its long neck and tail to its small body and slender limbs. It was covered in downy feathers, and its forelimbs hosted a winglike panel of thick plumes. As I watched, it used its clawed hands to shift a small fallen branch, then snapped up a lizard that had been hiding underneath.

The creature pumped its head, gulping down its prey like an owl swallowing a mouse. Then it caught sight of me and froze, staring at me with large yellow eyes, a bit of lizard tail sticking comically from the corner of its mouth. Then it whirled and darted off. The dark-brown-and-rufous pattern of its plumage blended perfectly with the surrounding forest, and I quickly lost sight of it.

“Well, what do you know about that?” I said to the ’pus. “I guess there are some larger vertebrates here, after all.”

But except for one mini-dinosaur, the forest seemed strangely empty. Maybe I’d entered mini-dinosaur paradise — all the lizards you could eat and no competition.

After about another hour of walking, the tree-’pus gave me a hard squeeze. I stopped and surveyed the terrain before me. I couldn’t see anything. It squeezed me again, harder, and I turned a slow circle, looking behind and to the sides. Nothing.

I walked on, spooked. The ’pus kept squeezing me, but every time I stopped to look around, there was nothing there.

Finally, about twenty minutes later, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned quickly and saw a patch of ferns swaying, as though something had just darted into them. I saw another movement to my left and spun around, this time just catching a bit of feathery tail as it disappeared behind a fallen log.

Minis-dinos. They were following me.

My heart rate shot up, and I quickly reached for my rubber band. It wasn’t there. At some point it had come off, and I hadn’t even noticed. I took several slow breaths, reaching for calm.

I hadn’t been afraid of the one I’d seen. It’d be like fearing a housecat. Sure, it had teeth, but it was quite small. It might bite me, but do serious damage? No. Furthermore, it had seemed afraid of me.

A whole pack of the things was a different matter, though. I backed away slowly, picking up a few fist-sized stones as I went.

Over the next few minutes, they grew bolder about showing themselves. Finally, one darted at me, feinting at the last moment and retreating. Several more emerged from the ground cover. They came forward slowly, crouching a bit, heads held low and weaving slightly. It sure looked like stalking behavior to me. Not good.

“Okay, ’pus, hold on,” I murmured.

I gathered myself and rushed them, shouting and throwing stones. They immediately spun around and raced back into the ferns. Once they were out of sight, I turned and sprinted downhill, hoping I’d scared them off.

I wasn’t counting on it, though. After a few minutes, I slowed and began looking for more rocks. I pulled off my T-shirt and knotted it into a little bag, which I filled with stones.

Within half an hour, they were back on my trail — I could tell by the ’pus’s squeezes. They trailed me for about an hour before they began getting bold enough to show themselves again. Several times I drove them off by shouting and throwing stones, but eventually that tactic lost its effect, and they began darting in, nipping at my ankles or jumping to snap at my hands.

I knew I was in trouble. Now that they were getting close, I could see they had a formidable array of teeth — small but sharp and numerous. Their claws also looked perfectly capable of cutting skin.

I considered climbing a tree, but what if they didn’t lose interest once I was up there? I couldn’t stay in a tree forever. Besides, they might well be able to climb.

Afraid to keep my back to them, I turned to face them, walking backwards slowly. I was taken by surprise when one rushed in from behind me and bit my calf. I shouted and lost my balance. I twisted and swung my arms wildly, trying not to fall. By sheer luck, my bag of rocks caught the mini in the head as it let go of me and feinted to my right. It weaved around, disoriented. I lost my battle with gravity and fell right on it.

I scrambled to my feet. My attacker lay there, twitching. I’d crushed it.

Heart racing, I backed away as at least a dozen other minis advanced. But when they pounced, their target was their dying comrade, not me. I turned and ran.

Five minutes later, I had to stop. The stitch in my side made it impossible to breathe, and my leg hurt. I could tell it was bleeding from the squishy feeling in my shoe.

I stood there, bent over, gasping. If I got out of this situation, I was never going to complain about Gwen’s workouts again — clearly, I needed them.

Only after a couple minutes did I realize I was lucky not to have left the tree-’pus behind. Usually it bailed out when I fell. This time it hadn’t, but I hadn’t stopped to think about it before I ran.

“Sorry, buddy,” I said, reaching through its watery casing to pat the limb it had wrapped around my chest.

Feeling very shaky, I limped downhill. Hopefully the minis would be satisfied with their meal. If not, I didn’t think I could escape. There was nothing at the bottom of the mountain but fields of grass. Nowhere to hide.

The dead mini bought me more than an hour. I pushed as fast as I could with my injured leg. By the time they caught up with me, the slope had begun to flatten out. The trees were growing sparser, and the patches of ferns came more often. I was leaving a trail of bloody footprints.

This time, they came on without hesitation. I heard the rustling in the ferns and didn’t even get fully turned around before they were darting in all around me, clawing and biting. I swung the sack of stones and connected a few times, but there were too many. They started leaping up at me, aiming at my face and neck. I staggered back and fell, and they swarmed me. Instinctively, I threw my arms up to shield my face and neck, even though it was pointless.

Something wet shuddered past me with a deep whump, and a force pressed me down into the ground for a split second. The biting stopped.

After a few moments, I raised my head. Everything within a forty-foot ring around me was destroyed — there was nothing but flattened ferns and downed trees. A few minis were lying some distance from me, moving feebly. The others were out of sight.

I looked for the ’pus and found it a few feet behind me. Its watery coating was gone, and it was coated in pine needles.

Painfully, I rolled over and stood. I’d been bitten many times and could feel blood running down my legs. I gathered up the ’pus and staggered on.

Half an hour later, the ground leveled and the trees petered out. The lush, green valley I’d seen that morning stretched out ahead of me. The greenery wasn’t grass, as I’d assumed — it was ferns, a dense sea of ferns.

I limped out past the last of the trees, moving toward the river I remembered seeing. I badly needed water, and the ’pus’s skin had taken on a dry, sticky feel that couldn’t be good.

Once out in the ferns, I looked back.

There were the minis, grouped near the last tree, stretching up to watch me over the fronds. I stood for a moment, frozen with terror. If they attacked again, I didn’t think the ’pus would be able to save me. I wasn’t sure what it had done the last time — an explosion of some kind — but it had clearly used up its water doing it.

The minis didn’t attack. They watched me for a minute and then turned and retreated back into the forest. The trees seemed to mark the edge of their territory.

So whose territory was this? I looked around with renewed fear, but couldn’t see anything but waves of soft green, moving gently in the breeze.

I tucked the ’pus up under my sweater. Maybe the poor critter would stay a little moister under there. Then I struggled on, desperate for water.

I found the river fairly quickly, thank god. I was so thirsty, and was starting to feel sick and dizzy, as well.

Knee-high ferns grew right up to the banks. Their dense roots formed a spongy mat that kept my feet from sinking into the mud.

When I reached the water’s edge, it occurred to me that there might be aquatic predators to worry about. I took a few steps back and surveyed the river. It was wide, slow moving, and very clear. For some ways out, it was only a foot or two deep, but then the water darkened, as though with great depth.

I couldn’t see anything moving out there, but that didn’t really mean anything.

I sank to my knees and pulled the ’pus out from under my shirt. I lowered it into the water. It sat there stiffly for a minute, and I was afraid it had died. But then it unfurled its tentacles and relaxed into the water, its oblong pupil staring up at me.

“Drink it up, little guy,” I said.

I leaned down and drank as well.

After a few minutes, the ’pus started crawling back up my arm, its cocoon of water reformed around it. I pulled it up onto the shore but was too weak to lift it — it must’ve weighed thirty pounds with its watery coat. So I sat back and let it crawl into my lap.

Jesus, I owed my life to an octopus.

At least for the time being. I wasn’t in good shape.

Why the hell had I left the rainforest? I’d been safe and well fed, there. Now I was injured — in a minute I’d have to try to figure out how badly — with no food, no shelter, and no possibility of retracing my steps. And so far as I could tell, I was no closer to finding help than I had been before.

I seemed incapable of making a good decision.

Moving slowly, I set the ’pus aside and stripped down to my underwear. My legs, hips, and rear were covered with bites and scratches, and I had some on my back and arms, too. None of the wounds were deep, but all were bleeding. From my woozy feeling, I thought the loss was adding up.

I sat there, stupefied. I had no idea what to do.

I should clean the bites, I thought.

The only thing I could clean them with was river water, and who knows what bacteria it held. Then again, I’d just drunk it. But what might I attract if I got into the water with open wounds?

I realized I was probably going to die pretty much where I was. I was too weak to keep going. It was late afternoon. The sun had already sunk behind the mountain. It wasn’t as cold as it had been in the rainforest, but it would be chilly overnight. I had no food.

Really, what could I do?

I sat there a while, hurting and deeply angry at myself. Then I heard a strange, rasping noise behind me. I twisted around to look, too exhausted and low to be as afraid as I probably should’ve been.

The ferns were moving weirdly. I staggered to my feet, expecting a mini to come darting out, but after a second, I realized it was the plants themselves that were moving — not just near me, but as far out along the plain as I could see.

I stared in disbelief as they writhed.

Not long ago I’d wondered what kind of world a tree would invent for itself. The idea that a fern might work essence seemed even stranger. A tree had size, longevity. But a fern?

All the movement had purpose, I realized — the ferns were churning up the soil. The plants closest to me pulled something up with a small explosion of dirt. They grappled it upright and began to coil around it, like vines. They climbed to the top, then shot out feelers, questing for something else to grip.

I’d recognized the object before they covered it. It was a massive bone, half as tall as I was.

With another burst of soil, a matching bone emerged and was propped up and covered. Then two much bigger bones were passed up and woven into place atop the initial ones. Then two more. I backed away. More fern-vines boiled out atop the twin columns, which were by then two or three times my height. More and more vines grew, until a seething mass of green loomed over me, stretching forward as the columns swayed and bent.

As the ferns proliferated, more bones were brought up from the soil and passed into the mass of plant matter, which bucked and writhed itself into shape to accommodate each new arrival. As vertebrae were added, the mass stretched to create a torso and tail. Rib bones gave the torso depth and form.

I looked away from the spectacle, hoping to see an escape route, but similar constructions were underway all across the plain. I wasn’t sure what to do. Were these things going to attack me?

I stumbled back as, almost at my feet, the plants churned up a massive skull. It was gigantic and had dozens of serrated teeth. As thousands of tiny vines passed it toward the growing creature, I scooped up my clothes. If this thing turned out to be friendly, I’d be surprised.

The ’pus grasped my calf and started climbing up. I limped downstream as fast as I could go, stealing looks over my shoulder at the growing monster I’d left behind. The skull was being hefted into place, vines wrapping around it at incredible speed. Even before it was fully covered, the creature shuddered and flexed, as though coming to life. It stepped forward and swung its head back and forth. Was it seeking me? All over its body, vines shot into the air and rewrapped themselves in a frenzy, creating a churning corona of green.

Across the plain, other creatures were on the move toward me. The skeletons the plants had resurrected were all dinosaurs. Some were unbelievably large, dwarfing the huge carnivore that had been constructed closest to me. Others were small. Minis were well represented. They must’ve learned the hard way to stick to the woods. Many of the creatures looked like plant-eaters, but that didn’t reassure me — some of them were enormous beyond belief.

Ahead of me, several reached the river bank and stopped, swinging their heads over the water. One of them was as tall as a five-story building. Panicked, I stopped. Others closed in from the side and behind.

I waded out into the river. I’d have to swim across. It was a long way to the other side, and I didn’t know what was in it, but that was my only hope.

About twenty feet out, there was a sandbank. The water there was less than a foot deep. On the other side of the sandbank was a drop-off. I stood looking into it. Things were swimming in the deeper water. Really big things.

Dozens of plant-dinos were massing where I’d stepped off the bank. They opened their mouths, as though roaring, but the only sound was the rasp and slap of fern vines. I was paralyzed, too terrified to jump into the deep water, with its huge, unknown creatures, but clearly unable to go back to dry land.

One of the dinos stepped into the water. Jolted into action, I turned and splashed my way down the sandbank, but I ran out of bank long before I’d passed the crowd of creatures waiting on the shore.

The splashing seemed to key them into my location, and more began stepping into the river. Desperately, I turned back to the deep water. Something huge was swimming in there — something twenty feet long, at least. I just couldn’t jump in. I stood there trying to make myself, and I just couldn’t.

I felt the ’pus tighten around my waist. A wall of water rose out of the river and, faster than my eye could follow, smashed into the nearest dinos. An avalanche of bone and shredded vines blasted back through the assembled creatures. The river churned, almost knocking me down.

I couldn’t sense whatever was happening, but it had to be the ’pus.

More dinos surged forward, and the ’pus flung another water wall at them. Then it did it again. And again.

Behind the carnage on shore, I could see the vines putting the destroyed dinos back together. The ’pus wasn’t going to save me. It was just delaying the inevitable.

And the delay was brief. Its sixth strike was noticeably weakened, and its seventh did little more than knock a couple dinos down. It tried once more, and only succeeded in misting the creatures with water droplets.

Its grip on me tightened for a moment, and then it just fell off. It landed in the water, slid off the sandbar, and sank.

With a cry, I lunged for it, but it had disappeared into the deeps.

I knelt there in the water, stripped of every hope. I held my hands up at the oncoming creatures.

“Stop! Please!”

They didn’t stop.

Things seemed to slow down. I saw the way individual plants unwrapped and rewrapped themselves over the bones as the creatures picked their legs up and stepped toward me through the shallows. I saw the gleam of their ancient teeth as they opened their mouths in soundless calls. I saw my own bones being passed through the ferns, being picked clean and buried in the peaty soil, locked in this place forever. I saw them resurrected into some horrifying parody of my body to destroy other intruders and add them to the sentinel horde.

The very core of me said, No.

Inside me, something tore. In front of me, something exploded. A roaring sound deafened me, and a wave of superheated air threw me back into the river’s deeper channel. Disoriented, I struggled for the surface, panicked and flailing.

When my head came up, I saw fire. Not just a little fire — flames everywhere. The air scorched my lungs. I ducked back beneath the surface and swam for the shallows. When I reached the sandbar, I crawled out onto it.

The far bank of the river was untouched, but the side where I’d walked was a work in devastation. The ferns near the river were gone — only blackened earth remained.

Unsteadily, I stood.

A wall of flame hundreds of feet long was marching away from me across the valley, toward the mountain. The bank was littered with bones. The smaller ones were burned almost to ash. The larger ones were still burning.

The wind kicked up from behind me and, in the space of a minute, rose to a gale that almost knocked me down. It howled past me, plastering my wet hair across my face. The fire accelerated and grew. As I watched, it reached the tree line and began sweeping up through the canopy.

I’d done this. I didn’t know how, but I had.

Exultation coursed through me.

Those things had tried to kill me, and I’d killed them instead.

I started shaking. It took several long seconds to realize why — I was laughing. I sat down in the water and let it take me, the weird, crazy laughter.

Finally, the laughing stopped, and I just sat there, too exhausted to move.

Eventually I realized I was quite cold, so I waded back to the bank and pulled myself out onto the warm, blackened ground. I had no idea where my clothes had gone, and there was no sign of the ’pus, so I just sat there, shivering, as late afternoon became night.