Are you still there? I have been spreading the word and have a few new questions.

It has only been a second for me. I'm not falling asleep yet, go ahead and ask.

Ok, good. The first question: Are you safe in the tent for the night?

I've camped here before, so I'm probably as safe as usual for tonight.

Do you have enough to eat and drink? Do you even know what you can eat? Do you need to start looking for food?

I brought some dinner and breakfast. I'll have to figure out if I can still eat all the same things. I smell some berries not too far away, and they smell good, so I hope that means I can eat them. 

Speaking of scents, I am not completely loving being able to smell things more intensely. My tent smells of mildew and plastic and duct tape while my sleeping bag smells like old human me. I didn't notice any of that before, but now I'm tempted to go out and brave the mosquitoes to look for somewhere else to sleep.

Could you climb a tree to get away from something if you had to?

Hmm, my fingers and toes do have claws. They are usually hidden away like a cat's, but I can squeeze just so and they come out. I'm curious to try climbing, but I'm also a lot bigger than a pet cat, so I would want to find a large tree to practice on. Y'know what? It's not all the way dark yet and I was thinking of going out again anyway. I'll be right back…

Ahh, well, that was interesting. First, I can report that my fur is pretty good at preventing mosquito bites, but it does not cover me completely and tree climbing practice is not a good time for swatting them away. Next, I had high hopes that I could scamper right up, but it turns out that climbing a tree is not an instinctive thing I am automatically good at. I did a little too much hugging the tree at first. My fur protected me from the rough bark a bit, but not everywhere. It turns out that I have four spots on my chest that are not completely furry. The nearby fur normally covers these spots loosely so you wouldn't notice them, but rubbing against a tree, well, I am still regretting it. “Why four and not two?" I can imagine someone asking. Well, think about cats and dogs. They have litters larger than two and can feed their young all at once. “Does this prove you are female?" might be the next question, but male mammals also have one or more pairs of these even though theirs are not as useful.

Anyway, I did keep working on how to climb for a little while. I did not go up very high, but I did get a better idea of how to do it. It was good to get some fresh air, but it was exhausting and a bit painful and it's dark now so I think I'm in for the night. Let's see how well I resist the temptation to see if the cube has a cure for minor scrapes and mosquito bites. Seriously, though, I'm really scared of what the cube could do and am not ready to try using it again.

Well, thank you for that update, but please don't go hurting yourself just to answer a question.

Oh, it's no big deal, I was curious anyway and it was probably useful for me to see what I can do. Like the question said, what if I'm running for my life next time? I'm not fast enough at it now to try it if I'm running away, but with more practice I'm sure I could get better at it.

Climbing does seem like it could be a worthwhile skill. Please keep us up to date on whether you work on it more.

Back in your answer you talked about how something about your body might prove you are one gender or the other, but I wanted to say that whatever your body is like you can still tell us how you feel, how you want to be addressed, whether or not it matches your old or new body.

Okay. It still all seems strange. I guess I'm still fine with “they" for now, but I still haven't really wrapped my head around who or what I am. Maybe more practice figuring out what I can do tomorrow will help. I'm going to see if I can calm down enough to fall asleep.

. . .

It is the next day now and I finally have a moment to sit calmly and send you an update.

I woke up from a dream about running away from something shadowy and dangerous. In the dream I tried to escape by going up a tree, but I couldn't climb quickly enough, and the monster was going to grab me. When I realized I was in the tent and it had been a dream, I started to calm down, taking some slow, deep breaths, trying to clear my mind. I concentrated on breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth, like I learned from a school counselor when I was dealing with anxiety.

This time, it was not as calming as it had been before. I was overwhelmed by how intensely I was smelling the tent, so I went out into the early morning sun and sat upwind of the tent to try again. Closing my eyes and concentrating on the feeling of breathing in made me face how different my nose is. The moist parts that feel cooler when I breathe used to be only on the inside, but now my nose has a moist tip that feels what direction the air is moving. Have you tried licking a finger and sticking it up to feel which way a slight breeze is blowing? My new nose does that all the time. It's like having another sense. The air was not moving enough to be noticeable to most of me, but my nose had no problem telling me which way was upwind, especially if I turned my head. I definitely had an idea which direction to go to find those berries I smelled nearby. There were so many other smells to consider, too, not all of them familiar. It was like a room full of people all talking to me at once and I wasn't even sure I knew what language each of them was speaking so I couldn't tell what most of them were saying.

The faint breeze shifted slightly and a new musky scent grabbed my attention. My mind went right back to my nightmare of something large and dangerous. Maybe a whiff of this scent had triggered the dream? My ears immediately pointed upwind and I opened my eyes. I sat very still. “It can't smell me with the breeze this direction," I tried to reassure myself, but I could feel the adrenaline start to flow while I tried to stay very still. Soon I heard faint sounds that I guessed must be footsteps, and they were getting closer. I decided to quietly move to the other side of my tent. Maybe I could hide behind it. At the tent, I reached inside and grabbed my Blackberry. If I was going to run, I wanted to keep it with me if I could. After a moment's hesitation, I also grabbed the metal cube and saw the same confusing visions as before. Footsteps louder and scent stronger now, I wished my blackberry into the cube. Hopefully it would be safer in there. Still afraid of what it might do, I didn't want the cube touching me, and didn't want to drop it, so I wrapped it in my old shirt and tied the shirt around my wrist as tightly as I could.

Finally, the beast came around a bush and I could see it. I could not believe how big and dangerous and fantastical it looked. The increasing scent of danger and the adrenaline it was triggering already had me ready to flee, but seeing those teeth was enough to freeze me with fear. I should have been behind the tent, but there I was in full view. It saw me right away and I saw its ears perk up and eyes open fully. It immediately bounded toward me. I finally remembered how to move my legs and backed away one step, then two, then as fast as I could on all fours, while still staring back at it. I was suddenly weightless and the world was whizzing by me. Yes, I had run off the cliff.

Spoiler: Our friend must have survived this misstep somehow to have written this. Please comment with questions or advice for them!