An alternate timeline story that is loosely adapted from both The Smurfs comic book story "The Wild Smurf" and the 1980s cartoon show episode "Smurf On The Wild Side". In this alternate timeline explored by Traveler, Empath is born without a star mark and thus was a normal Smurf...until Papa Smurf lost his child out in the forest as an infant. About 150 years later, Empath returns to the village, but this time as the forest-dwelling hero named Wild Smurf.
This story provides examples of:
- Freudian Slip: This conversation:Smurfette: Oh, Smurflings, do you know where Wild smurfed off to this morning?Snappy: We were wondering that ourselves, Smurfette. He probably smurfed off into the forest with Nat very early.Smurfette: Oh, dear, and I was going to smurf him on a picnic sometime today, just he and I alone together.Slouchy: Who wouldn't? I mean...it's too bad he won't be home for a while, though.
- Grief-Induced Split: As in the main timeline, Papa Smurf and his wife split up when alternate Empath is presumed lost in the forest forever.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite the change in Empath's timeline where he was born a normal Smurf, the loss of Empath's alternate timeline self still results in Papa Smurf and his wife splitting.
- Shout-Out: To The Smurfette Village series, as the first alternate timeline Traveler appears in is one where he witnesses the Smurfs in the Smurf Village die as in the story "How Things Smurf".
