Answer:The slithering sound continues, and Brian can see a vague shape going toward the door of the shelter and moving outside. He feels his leg and finds that there are needles in it—the intruder was a porcupine, and its quills are stuck in his calf.
One by one, although it hurts a lot, Brian pulls all eight quills out of his leg. When he's finally finished, he sits in the dark, crying and thinking that he just can't take any more. He puts his head down and cries until he's all cried out.
Later, the narrator tells us, Brian would look back on this time as the point where he learned "the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work" (8.12). Wow, and here Shmoop thought it was "always bring an extra pair of underwear." You learn something new every day.
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