SHIFT: Book One: HORIZONS

Three: Dante

THIRTEEN HOURS TO RELEASE

IT WAS GETTING cooler already. He could feel it. He could hear it, too. The world got quieter as night drew nearer. Judging by the sun, it was probably about five o'clock pm. Of all the things that changed with the Shift, a day was still twenty-four hours. Also, scientists still measured a year as being three-hundred, sixty-five and a quarter days, despite the inaccuracy of the statement. 

Not a whole lot of astrological measurements could be made when about two-thirds of the dwindling human population was confined to the bunkers almost ten miles underground at their highest points. No person over the age of eighteen was permitted above ground. Only the children and adolescents have shown any resistance or adaptability to the climate and hostilities of the new Earth. 

They couldn't even tell for sure if tomorrow would be a success. First Attempt had proven to be extremely far from that, a miserable fail. The only thing that could make tomorrow any different was the fact that there had now been more time. The kids have had more exposure hours, more time to adapt, to evolve to fit the hostile environment of the world just as any other living species that wished to even have the slightest chance of survival had done. 

In other words, humanity was literally living on a prayer. 

Huh, Dante thought, where've I heard that before? 

Anyway, night was coming, and with night came cold, and with cold came weakness, and with weakness came death. Death was not good. There were few things left in life that Dante Karris cared for anymore, and life itself wasn't too high up on that list, but an almost extinct voice in his head still forced Dante to cling to the disease. 

Yes, life was a disease. There was one reason that Dante still forbid himself from curing his disease, and that was the microscopic sliver of hope that things would get better. 

But there was one thing you could still predict accurately in this post-apocalyptic world, and that was that things never, ever got better. 

It was time to go. Today's hunt was over. He threw on his pack over the dual katana sheathes that crossed over each other on his back and attached his game bag, which was light in weight, which wasn't fantastic. With his hands free, he picked up his bow. 

It was a good bow, a crossbow, not just a stick and some string put together to create some inaccurate ramshackle piece of garbage. No, it wasn't a bad weapon. His father had given it to him when he was four, despite his mother's protests. He'd practiced with it every day, and kept it in good shape. This, his swords and his machete he carried everywhere. 

After all, who was here to tell him he couldn't? 

He began the journey out of the forest, both swords at the ready, machete sheathed on his left hip for quick and easy access if anything was to go wrong, and crossbow fastened securely to his pack. After living on his own for over nine years in this hell, the golden rule of never going anywhere without a good weapon or two had been burned into his mind. Being overloaded used to pose a problem, so he had spent a day long ago modifying his pack to comfortably carry all of his weapons without a hassle. The entire load weighed a meager twenty pounds with the game bag empty. Dante could carry much more than this easily and still be very agile. 

He walked silent but swift through the woods. There was barely a path. There were no signs telling him which way to go. Only his infallible sense of direction and memory of the terrain kept him from becoming hopelessly lost in a world inhabited only by him and everything trying to kill him. He knew deep within his mind that he fought for nothing, that they would find him. Those things that took everything from him on that night almost ten false years ago would find him, and they would kill him.