The sky exploded, and Ronan awoke. He sat up so quickly, his neck cricked. Rubbing it resentfully, he glanced around hastily. Wind unexpectedly slapped him in the face, and his eyes snapped shut in response.
A shadow passed over him, blocking out the sunset. Blearily opening his eyes, he looked up. Ronan yelled in shock as parts of a small airplane soared over his trivial encampment, then stared as it zipped by, hitting the side of a tall mountain three miles away. He gaped in frozen astonishment for a few moments, then shook himself back to awareness. Springing to his feet, he stomped on the remains of his tiny fire, gathered up his two blankets, stuffed them in his pack, slung the pack over his shoulder and sprinted away from both the airplane and the direction it had come from.
The rumble of planes surrounded the forested area Ronan was running through. Cursing himself for not waking sooner, he pushed himself to run harder. A loud boom resounded throughout the forest, and the ground shook. Losing his balance, Ronan fell forward. He threw out his arms to break his fall and hit the ground painfully.
Cursing loudly, he stood up and brushed the leaves off of his clothes. The rumbling grew louder, and Ronan took off at a quicker pace.
A bone-rattling boom shook the landscape once more, but Ronan managed to stay on his feet this time. He pushed on, trying to ignore the airplanes that were sinking out of the clouds over his head. If they found him...
Ronan stopped in his tracks and yelped in fear as a large hunk of metal landed twenty feet ahead of him. It was the remains of the cockpit of a plane. Skirting around the wreck, Ronan kept running, hoping a large piece of debris wouldn't fall out of the sky and crush him.
Fiery pieces of wreckage would occasionally hit the branches of the trees above Ronan, but he would always manage to jump out of the way in time. He swore more in that half an hour than he normally did in a week.
Ronan had his eyes set on a small mountain about four miles away. Just the day before, he had found an obscure cave in the side of that mountain, and he knew it would be a good hiding spot until the planes were gone. His only worry was arriving there before he was found.
After another half mile of running, debris stopped unexpectedly falling from the sky. Ronan pushed on, knowing that this meant the search parties would begin soon. What the hell were the QIF doing in the area anyway? Their patrols weren't supposed to arrive for another week!
He heard a crashing sound from overhead. Cursing for the umpteenth time, he threw himself forward and landed just in front of a large plane engine. Gladly it wasn't running anymore, but it was smoking in an ominous way. Ronan leapt to his feet and sprinted like his life depended on it.
Three miles later, he was struggling to keep sprinting at full speed. His muscles were burning in exhaustion, so he allowed himself a few minutes' rest. Breathing hard while silently cursing the government and their lackeys, he neglected to watch out for falling objects. A large tree branch, dislodged by a stray parachute and its user, fell from the tree he was standing under and caught him on the shoulder. Ronan cried out in pain as he was knocked to the ground. He clenched his teeth to keep himself from making any further noises as pain shot through his left shoulder. Sitting up, he checked the wound and found that it was bleeding profusely. Grimacing, he carefully took his pack off of his back and gingerly searched for the first aid kit. He found it and quickly treated himself, daubing disinfectant on the gash and bandaging it. Ronan took a deep breath and looked up, ready to swear at whatever inanimate object that had knocked the branch out of the tree.
To his surprise, he didn't see an inanimate object. He scrambled to his feet and squinted, unable to believe his own eyes.
"Hello?" he called. There was no movement. He steeled his nerves and began climbing the tree, trying to ignore the wrenching pains in his shoulder. Once he was level with the parachute and its owner, he realized it was a teenage girl.
