John awoke the next morning to a light rain. He was already pretty wet and cold by the time he realized what was going on. He took shelter beneath a nearby tree to wait out the rain. It wasn’t a perfect shelter since he still got dripped on a plenty but it was better than nothing. How it was raining inside was just the next unfathomable question in a long line of quandaries he couldn’t figure out. It wasn’t sprinklers, he knew, because looking up he could actually see the clouds inside the dome.

His stomach growled while he waited for the rain to stop but there was nothing he could do about that. His thirst, on the other hand, was dealt with by sipping out of pools of water as they formed on the ground from the rain. Again, it was earthy but he didn’t have much of a choice. He tried to set out his trail mix bag but it only managed to collect a few gulps worth of water. Hardly worth anything.

When the rain did stop and the clouds melted away the temperature remained low and John’s teeth began to chatter, his wet clothes sticking to him and making it all but impossible to warm up. If he could build a fire or something, that would help, but he lacked any tools or knowledge of how to build one from scratch. Besides, everything was wet here.

With no one else around, John decided to strip down to at least not be covered in wet clothes. He hung his wet clothes on a tree branch where they could catch the sunlight and hopefully dry out sooner rather than later. Even though he knew he was alone, he couldn’t help but feel exposed and so he hunkered down among some exposed tree roots to wait for his clothes to dry.

In the distance, someone screamed.

John sat bolt upright and looked around. The voice was too far away for him to have any hope of seeing whoever it was that had screamed but he hoped to pick out the direction the voice had come from.

“Hello?” he shouted.

A moment later, a second scream sounded. This time, John was able to pinpoint the direction.

“Hello! I’m over here! Are you alright?”

He waited but no further response come. Not wanting to lose this opportunity, John dressed himself in his damp clothes and hurried in the direction of the voice. He shouted periodically, hoping for another response, but none came. After a good fifteen or twenty minutes of searching, he gave up. Whoever it was that had screamed either couldn’t hear him or was actively avoiding him.

Or they couldn’t reply. He didn’t want to think about why someone might be screaming out here but as the day passed by and the silence continued, John couldn’t help but wonder who else, or what else, might be in here with him.

Since there was nothing else for him to do, he resumed his westward march, ignoring the growing hunger he felt. By midday he was finally dry and no longer shivering. It was also then that he found a large hill that rose almost to the top of the dome. This was the first such feature he’d come across, with the rest of the arboretum being relatively flat. He was panting by the time he climbed to the top and looked around. He had an even greater view than when he’d climbed the tree the day before. From up here he could see over even the tallest of the trees. As before, he saw no sign of the outer walls, just more forest beneath the dome. However, this time, he spied what could only be described as a massive tree house. It was a few miles west of him, but was very clearly a man-made structure.

He already knew he wasn’t alone out here, due to the screams, but seeing this tree house brought a new hope to him. Perhaps someone was still there. Together they could figure out what was going on. Then again, he looked up to the ceiling of the dome, a mere ten feet or so above his head. If he could build a platform of some kind, he could reach it and then break his way out. Then he could get above even the dome. Without any of the thick underbrush to slow him down he would be able to run in whatever direction he wanted and get to the edge much faster.

Both options were tempting, but his hunger won out. If someone had built a tree house, they clearly had been here for a while and that meant they had food. So, marking as best he could the direction of the tree house, John began making his way back down the hill. He figured that since he could see the tree house from the hill, he would be able to see the hill from the tree house and come back here later, perhaps with help.