LOL. I think he may have been being sarcastic. In a forest alone with no light and no weapon, you're likely to meet a rabbit hole and break your ankle.
I've been stuck in a forest at night.
We were a long way from the car, 2 of us, on foot as the dark came down. We'd miscalculated the time the walk would take. Noone knew where we'd gone. We knew it'd be morning at the least before anyone found us - if we couldn't get out alone.
The sun sinks away and steals all the days warmth right out of your bones. The fog swallows your courage. When you see the trees darken ahead and behind, you feel trapped and watched. You search the blackness for movement or reflective eyes. The forest comes alive with noises, which are so loud it feels as though a beast is walking right behind you.
You lose your bearings. Your palms start to sweat, your heart races. The path you think you can follow home disappears. In the near dark, the coloured waymarkers all blend into grey. You can't see the colours to find the marked route anymore, and every walker knows you never go off the trail without a compas and map. We had neither. Roots that you never noticed in the light now seem to lift up just in time to trip you. A ditch that carries a pretty stream becomes a hazard. You can't rush to escape, either. You have to pick your feet up extra high, and be ready for a trip at any second to save yourself a broken leg and a freezing night of pain.
Every noise sets you on edge, makes you want to run. You have to fight the urge to panic like you'd fight a man throttling you to death.
I've never been so afraid. A dog came bounding towards me out of the black. At first I thought it was a spirit, or something worse. When I saw it was someone's Alsatian, I'd never been so happy to see one! He ran off through the brush, and his direction showed us the way back.
You will meet God if you do this! But you might also meet the part of you that's still an animal, or still a child. The animal inside me was almost out of control, so strong in its terror that it very nearly swallowed all my morality, my higher logic, my human mind.
When you're in the woods at night you learn how small you are, how soft your flesh is, and how easy you'd be to kill.
I have to say...there are actually safer ways to get this lesson, LOL
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