What if Dawn was left behind instead of Guy?

Famine has reached the tribe, and so the tribe has left for greener, more bountiful pastures. Armed with nothing but the most rudimentary tools and their torches to light their way through the darkest nights, the tribe followed the sun, hoping to reach a better tomorrow.

Granted, their tribe wasn't very large, but one makes due with what one has. After all, that's what family is, right?

Dawn's memory of what happened was a little hazy. The last she saw her parents where when the tribe was being chased by a stampeding horde of... she was sure exactly, but she knew they were big and scary. There was a rock slide. People were crushed under those rocks, and those were the more fortunate ones.

She remembered her body was neck deep is a gross black tar. She would have drowned, if not for Guy's mom, who managed to yank her out of the muck with considerable effort and set her down on a nearby rock that led to safe passage to the beach.

She didn't see her mom or her dad or Guy either. It was just the three of them.

"Dawn, you're okay, you're gonna be okay!" Said Guy's dad.

"You need to get out of here!" Said Guy's mom.

Dawn believed that all of her tribe had died that day, and that she was the only one left.

With nothing but a stick, the clothes on her back and some sharp rocks tied up in a bag, Dawn trekked through lots of terrain. From lush jungles, to salty seas, scorching deserts, deceptively dangerous fruit patches and caveman territory, life was a struggle, but Dawn persevered. It was hard being the last person in the world, but Dawn found ways to occupy her time. Usually evading incredibly dangerous animals so weird, it was as if the world was designed by people constructing a moving picture show for family entertainment.

Dawn had a lot of free, thinking time, and her mind came up with a lot of weird ideas like that.

It was 29 moons since she lost her family.She was collecting strawberries in her bag. They were incredibly tart, but they grew on you once you've become too hungry to be picky.

Speaking of, she made a new friend. He was little orange sloth, his eyes big and adorable.

The sloth, which seemed to have taken a liking to her, nuzzled her arm affectionately as he clung to it. Dawn remembered how nice hugs were that day.

She was thinking of calling him "Armband."

It has been many moons since her journey began.

She had learned a lot of things since then. She learned how to make traps. She learned how to mend a broken bone. She learned not to eat the white mushrooms with pink spots on it (she still wasn't certain how she wound up in that tree).

What she didn't anticipate for was the sudden intense pain in her stomach. At first she thought she accidentally rolled onto the wrong rock in her sleep again, but she was dissuaded of that notion when she woke up with her trousers stained in blood.

When Dawn was very little, she overheard the moms talking about one of their daughters undergoing "moon-blood". Something about becoming a woman, so Dawn wasn't entirely clear on the specifics. So after a mild panic attack, Dawn did what she could to power through it.

Most girls her age would have this talk with their mothers, or their grandmothers, or they would try to have this talk with their dads who would try and pass it off to the nearest female.

But all Dawn had was herself. And Armband, though he didn't speak person. Also, she was thinking of changing his name to something better. He was getting too big for her arm.

After a growth spurt (and nearly getting gored by an ornery narwalrus), Dawn was in need of some new clothes. She managed to skin and repurpose a stray landshark into a fashionable pair of boots and trousers, but there wasn't enough for a shirt, so she wound up spending the next few days topless.

Something she noticed while running for her life the next day was that her chest was growing. It was growing little by little, but she found the new curves to be a tad obstructive.

Walking along a fresh water beach, she happened upon a clam. Figuring she would find some fresh meat, she took her sharpest rock and pried it open.

"Oh, nuts," said Dawn, discovering that the oyster was dead and rotten.

Then she had an idea. She took the two halves of the oyster's shells -- which had a delightful blue color that matched her new shark-skin pants -- and carefully weaved a vine through holes punched into the sides. The shells gave the curves in her chest the support they needed.

Dawn Betterman: Survivor, Woman of Action, Fashionista.

Dawn was bored.

She wasn't going to lie, "Tomorrow" was still out of sight, and she was really starting to feel her age.

"Ugg," said Dawn, lying on her back at the stars in the sky. "When is Tomorrow gonna be here?!"

Her pet sloth, now named "Backpack" since he liked to cling to her back, was half asleep on her exposed abs.

"Still no sign of Tomorrow, and it's been..."

She looked to her Travel Log. It was covered in notches, counting the moons. There were more marks than bark.

"...forever."

Dawn wasn't going to lie to herself: it felt like she was never going to get to... wherever her tribe was headed.

"Am I just... going in circles, Backpack? I mean, would I know what 'Tomorrow' looks like when I find it? What if I did and walked away? Should I turn back?!"

While Backpack was concerned, he could only curl up and try to get back to sleep. As much as he loved his human, he knew this mood. She'll get lost in her thoughts and get herself worked up before falling to sleep.

*Snap*

Dawn sat up at the sound, causing Backpack to tumble to the ground.

"Backpack, did you hear that?"

She scrambled into a crouching position, Backpack climbing up her back, his claws on her shoulders, as she grabbed her spear before crouching behind a rock. Then a silhouette landed in front of the campfire. Most animals avoided the fire, and those that didn't were easily spooked by the animals that did, but this one seemed to be drawn to it.

The silhouette stood upward in a very familiar way.

"Is that--"

Backpack covered her mouth, trying to keep her quiet as her mind raced.

A person?!

Dawn turned the other direction.

"I'm not the only one!" Dawn whisper-yelled. "Finally!"

The young cro-magnon nearly leapt into the air with a fright when the figure was suddenly towering over her on the rock she was hiding behind, lifting what looked like an even bigger rock over their head. Then they stopped when they realized that it wasn't an animal spying on them.

From the glow of the campfire several feet away, she had a better look at the intruder. It was a woman for one thing. Broad-shouldered, red-headed, covered in a thick layer of dirt, her modesty in a one-piece tiger-pelt, her arms disproportionately muscular.

The two girls locked eyes on each other.

Then, the other girl accidentally dropped her rock, right on Dawn's foot.