Warrior of the Stars- Book one of the Jay Shang Chronicles

Chapter 21 - Alone

Chapter 21- Alone

Jay knew something was wrong the moment he awoke. It was too quiet. The only sounds were the faint twitters of snow birds somewhere from the tree tops.

The forest should have been filled with the sounds of rowdy teenage boys eating breakfast and packing up their camp before they ventured deeper into the woods. Someone should have woken him up with some cruel prank, throwing snow at him or maybe even peeing in front of him again.

But there was nothing. Only the kind muffled silence that a fresh blanket of snow can bring.

Jay scrambled to his feet and began walking around the abandoned campsite, searching for footprints or broken branches, any sign of his companions.

But again, there was nothing. The snow had buried all traces of the older boys, including the remains of their campfire.

Jay began to worry, and tried to think of what he should do next.

The path markers!

Jay began running towards the area where he had searched for tinder the night before. He fell to his knees and began tearing through the bushes as he searched for the strips of cloth that could lead him back to the main camp

He couldn't find any.

His searching became even more frantic. His hands and wrists were bleeding from the small cuts the branches had caused as they scraped against him.

Still, he couldn't find any of the markers; every last one of them had been removed.

Panic began to set in. He quickly followed his footprints back to his supplies before the snow could hide them.

His vision began to blur over so he knelt with his head pressed to the ground and closed his eyes.

They left me.... Serena was right. They must've been planning this the whole time. What am I going to do now? I don't know how to get back to camp and I don't know where they continued on to.

I don't know how to survive out here....

I thought I was special....

I'm going to die out here, alone.

***

Jay sat on the ground for so long that a small pile of snow had begun to accumulate on his back.

His mind had been stuck in a massive whirlpool of hysteria. He knew he should be trying to come up with some kind of plan but was unable to pull himself together.

With his successes over the recent weeks he had honestly started to think that maybe he could be someone strong and brave, someone who could lead others and handle any kind of danger.

But he was wrong. He was trash, just like Lynwee had reminded him of nearly every day since they had met. He was just a scared little boy from a tiny village by the sea.

He wondered if his family would even care if they found out he died, or if they already thought that he was dead. Maybe they would be glad he died like this, alone and scared in the woods. It would be a fitting punishment for the pain he had caused them.

Maybe he should be glad he was going to die this way. If he had continued on with his training he would have eventually become a full warrior, and he would have had to travel the world tormenting people and destroying their homes. It was a fact he had been pretending didn't exist because he didn't know how he would have handled it. He didn't know if he would have been able to strike down an innocent person.

I guess now I won't ever have to find out...

Jays's mind drifted to Serena, whose friendship had helped carry him through past months.

He thought of her warm smile, and the way she always brought him little gifts to cheer him up. He thought of how much it had helped him to have a friend to talk to, and who understood, about the struggles of growing up with a curse upon your head.

Suddenly a memory came crashing through his wall of fear. It was a memory of him and Serena sitting in a shabby tree fort, and a promise he had made;

"Serena, I know I'm no good right now but I promise someday I will be a great officer, and I will have lots of money and I'm going to free you. I promise."

He couldn't die out here.

He had promised Serena that he would free her someday. He had promised himself that he would never allow her to end up with the same fate as her mother.

Jay would never again be able to help his father tend the crops, or carry in his mother's bags on market days, or help bandage his little sister's skinned knee. But, he could help Serena avoid a life of slavery and abuse at the hands of cruel men.

He opened his eyes and forced his head off of the ground, his heart filling with a fierce determination that squashed the chains of terror that had been holding him hostage.

Jay laid out all his supplies and began to make a plan. He had enough food for two more days if he ate small meals. That meant he had two days to find his way back to camp, since he didn't have any clue about trapping or cleaning an animal.

Let me think...if it took us three days to get here, and that's counting their slow pace and all the playing around they did, I should definitely be able to make it back within two days if I keep my stops to a minimum.

I don't know the exact path we took, but I know the general direction and I think if I try hard enough I can find my way back.

Jay repacked his rations and slung his pack across his back. He positioned his quiver so that he could easily reach his bow since he no longer had the protection of the other boys in case of an animal attack.

Ha, I bet they wouldn't have protected me anyways. It would have been even easier for them to let some wild animal tear me apart than it was to sneak off like they did.

The snow began to fall harder as Jay began making his way back towards where he thought the main camp was, but he was too focused on trying to remember any landmarks to notice the change in the weather.

Just as he had was too focused to have noticed the giant pair of yellow eyes spying on him from the brush.

The eyes watched as the boy disappeared into the woods, and then a snout emerged from the shadows and gently sniffed at the spot where the boy had slept the night before.

It inhaled the scent and let out a drawn out howl; the sound of a predator that has begun to track its prey.

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