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CHAPTER 3

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James took one final look at his friend and took off running. As he was sprinting through the thick trees of the forest away from the charred remains of the little clearing he started to hear noises around him, those of the crickets, toads, and the rattling of a snakes' tail. Wait a minute, he thought to himself, snakes? He stopped dead in his tracks and looked around. Sure enough there was a Mississauga Rattle Snake under a bush prepared to lunge out in an attempt to bite any vulnerable spot on James body. Now James was no idiot, so he backed up and began to walk away. Now that the danger was behind him once again he began to breathe at a normal rate so he began a slow jog.

Once he got around four kilometres out from the now scarred and barren area that remained of the clearing he slowed to a stop and thought to himself what a good thing it was that he had come to this town with his tent, sleeping bag, water filter, and fishing rod with tackle, along with a small tin cup, pocket knife, and switch blade just in case things got back quickly, and compactable metal pot. Now if he could just remember what things to look for in a camp site. The first thing he had to look for was a place with flat ground that had a stream or river near it. Once he found that he pulled out a little cube around the size of his palm, put it on a relatively flat patch of ground, pressed a small red button on the top of the box and stepped back. Just as James was about to go press the button again the box started to unfold into a nice sized three-person forest green tent, with a little awning above the entrance. Next he went down to the river and filled up his water filter, to next hang it on a tree.

Then he went into his tent and brought out another box that housed his sleeping bag, and repeated the same process of which he had opened the tent with. Next he grabbed his bag and headed down to the river where he grabbed his compactable blue fishing rod out of a side pocket. After that he reached into his bag once more and pulled out a tackle box. As he opened it he thought he heard a twig snap behind him. When he turned around he realized it was nothing more than a doe wandering through his camp. So he turned back to the river and extended his fishing pole. He then reached down, opened the tackle box, took out some bait, and attached it to the fishing line along with a bobber. He then cast it out into the river.

After a couple of hours of fishing he walked back to his camp with a 1 ½ foot bass in tow. As he started up his fire pit he took his pocket knife out and gutted the fish, keeping everything that was edible and stowing the intestines in a plastic bag to use as bait for the coming days. Next he gathered two Y sticks and one straight one, the latter of which he sharpened the end of, as to spear through it through the fish. After he had done so he shoved the two Y sticks into the ground at either side of the fire and put the stick that had the fish on it, on top of the two Y sticks. Next he went down to his water filter with his bag and pulled out a plastic cup so he could have a drink. Finally after about an hour of waiting he lifted the stick that had the fish off of the two Y's, sat down next to the fire and started to eat.

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When James woke up the next morning he pulled on some pants, a light sweater, some worn leather gloves, and his black fedora. He then unzipped his tent and stepped outside, just to feel the grass between his toes, he then put on a pair of sandals and started to walk around his laid out perimeter, as to check out the surroundings. As he started to walk back to his camp after checking out the surrounding area he felt happy with the area he had picked, there was a raspberry bush a few hundred yards back from his camp, close enough for him to reach easily and far enough that bears had no reason to wander into his camp. There was also a small lake with a little rock outcrop just beside it so that after a swim he could lay in the sun to dry off on or he could just sit and enjoy the peacefulness of the lake. The latter of which, he was doing now. While he was sitting there enjoying the calm he noticed a small bundle of scrap rope off to the side, curious as to why that would be there he picked it up and then started to look around to see if there was any explanation.

What he found around it surprised him; he found several small, sharp stones which he then pocketed as well. On his way back to camp he had an idea, so he started looking for a sturdy but flexible stick and multiple smaller ones which he brought back to camp. An hour later he was happy with the crude bow and arrows he had made, so as to test it out he lifted it up to the appropriate height, at around the shoulder, and dry-fired it. Glad with the thought of him being safer than before he went out to hunt some deer.

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Over the next few days James started to deal with a few problems, one of them was the fact that his good luck had run out, the deer and animals had become wary of his presence, and had started to become nervous around him. With a sigh, James realized that it had come time for him to move as well, so he went into his tent, packed everything up, and then typed a password onto a console beside the tent and sleeping bag, both of the said consoles being waterproof. He stepped back to let them compress into the respective cubes. After he collapsed his fishing rod, and put it into its respective place on his pack. Then he put the two cubes inside his bag, grabbed his water purifier, pulled on his trench coat and Fedora, shouldered his bag, and slung the quiver of arrows along with the bow onto his back, before starting off in search of a new place to stay.

By the time James had found a new place to stay, (on the border of a calm river, with plenty of wildlife to either hunt, or let be) it had become dusk, so he hurriedly unpacked his bag, set up the water purifier, opened his tent and sleeping bag, then went to sleep.

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When James woke up the next morning and stepped outside of his tent, he could barely see five feet in front of him, sometime during the night, a heavy fog had rolled in. Carefully, James walked in the direction of his water purifier, grabbed a drink, and stepped behind a tree to relieve himself, after he stepped back out from the tree, he went back to his tent, and pulled out the rest of the rope he had left after making the bow, he then hung it between two trees, took out some of his dirty clothes, walked down to the river, washed them, then hung them onto the makeshift drying line. With a sigh, and thinking to himself that this new place would do quite nicely, he then went back into his tent for a nap, trying to wait out the heavy fog.

When James woke up from his nap in a cold sweat, it was sudden, he had had a nightmare of his friend Avery In his final moments, but instead of Avery standing there, it was instead James himself in the cheetah's position, currently that reoccurring nightmare had happened five times, and instead of practically ripping apart his enemy's like Avery, he had died within minutes, when a spine from the one dragons tail had hit him square in the head, a completely lucky hit, and no matter what he tried, he couldn't counter it, when his hand actually connected with his hand, it had gone through it like it wasn't even there. It was at this last part that James always woke up, just as the spine reached his eye.

When James's breathing had calmed down, and the cold sweat had dried off, he noticed a shaft of sunlight spearing into his tent, James smiled and stepped outside breathing in deeply, enjoying the cool air flowing into his lungs. After he had his fill of cool air, he surveyed the area, having not much time to explore it the day previous, he found some lemon grass, along with some dandelions that would help to make a nice salad for once, with determination James set out with his bow to find a rabbit, believing it to go nicely with the salad. A few hours later James returned, not with a rabbit, but with some wild blueberries, and strawberries.

Later that night, James set about making his salad, including some of the blueberries in it, and when he finished, he set about stoking his fire from the previous night. It took a lot of effort, including plenty of twigs, leaves, and bark to get it to a point where he was able to put sticks on it, eventually putting larger sticks on, then logs, and finally sitting down beside it, enjoying the warmth from it. Later that night James wandered back into the forest, remembering that he thought he had seen some mint, and sure enough, highlighted from a patch of moonlight, and just in front of a patch of moss, was where it grew. James grabbed a small amount to make sure that it could regrow easily, and headed back to camp, on the way grabbing some more lemon grass. When he returned back to his camp he pulled out his compactable pot, went down to the river to fill it up, and brought it back to set it carefully on the fire, putting the mint and lemon grass into the pot beforehand.

Finally, after James had drunk his tea, and had watched the last rays of sunlight disappear over the horizon that he decided to go into his tent and get some well-deserved sleep. The next morning when he unzipped his tent, he heard rustling sounds from three different places around his camp; warily he backed up into his tent, hoping that whatever would be out there hadn't seen him. He then grabbed his bow, strapped his makeshift quiver to his back, made sure he had his pocket knife, and switch blade on his person. He then knocked an arrow, and stepped warily outside, right into a group of 10 dragons. James warily looked around at the group of blood red dragons, with cream fur around their necks that resembled a scarf, but vaguely resembled one at all, these dragons were each around six to seven feet tall, with deeply coloured eyes, their eyelids were shaped in a forward scalene position, as if to make them look fierce, or focused, he couldn't really determine which at the moment, they also appeared to have two small horns on each of their heads. Abruptly one of the dragons stepped forward, shaking James from his trance like state.

"Greetings," the dragon said in a deep tone, which James compared to that of when you hear thunder from far away, deep and rolling, while easily projecting itself, "I am the leader of the Werle." The dragon hesitated for a moment, waiting to see if James would react, and when he didn't, the dragon continued, "You have been very tiresome to find, truth be told, it was fun, but that's besides the point, now you're coming with us."

James smirked at the dragon, "Not in your lifetime," and with that, he whipped around, and saw a gap in-between two of the dragons, and went for it. The two dragons on either side of the gap moved to close it, but weren't fast enough, next thing James knew was that he was running through the forest with the dragons right behind him, and an arrow knocked on his bow, wondering if he was to try, would he be able to pierce their eye, or perhaps the under the fur was skin, and if that was the case, why not try it? So James stopped for a second, pulled the bowstring back, and fired the arrow into the skin at the dragons' neck, hearing a satisfactory squelch, he knocked another arrow and aimed at the next dragon behind the first, using this tactic he managed to fell five of their numbers, before they finally got too close for him to be able to use his bow.

James then dropped his bow as it was now useless, and pulled his switch blade, attacking the next dragon and killing him with a stab to the neck, he managed to fell another two with his knife before they finally overtook him, and shoved something into the back of his neck.