Shadows of JiangXi

[mtjsmith]

Chun slowly awoke in a haze. He was confused, he could not remember getting into the position in was currently in - or in fact getting to where he was. He didn't have as bad as a headache this afternoon though, which he took as a plus. He tried moving his arms and legs. Aside from some pain and discomfort, they all moved. He looked down and was very confused - Why was he wearing orange hockey pants and a green armoured top?

"River, boat."

A message left by someone, or something. He vaguely remembered shooting at a dark ghost which scared him terribly. He had managed to fire an entire clip into something without so much as a scratch. That was the last thing he could remember, and suddenly he panicked. How much ammo did he have left? He got up and located his backpack. In it lay disappointment and dismay. He had one clip, one grenade, a flare and some random other trinkets left. The compass he wasn't using stood out. Since his radiation meter was lost and broken in the jungle, the compass could at least tell him if there were hot-spots nearby. This didn't fill him with much comfort however.

He packed his gear and stood outside, he found himself on the main shopping street in the heart of the city. This gave him a small comfort, he was once a tourist here and he knew that the canal down to the shore was a short walk from here. What didn't give him comfort was the tall, broken buildings. He felt as if he was being watched. He wasted no time in moving, looking at an old street sign - he found a side street down to the canal. It was about 20 minutes walk before he found it. The canal had a few shops and stands alongside it. Chun looked at one in particular, the windows were broken - but not enough for anyone to have fit through. The door was still shut, and locked. Chun slowly drew his Jian and thrust it into the window and out again - smashing it completely and hauled himself inside. It was a sweet shop. Almost a kid's dream. The problem was that many of the snacks, sweets and treats in the front of the shop looked discoloured, rotting and poisonous. Chun found the door to the back storeroom, it was locked. Chun kicked the door down and smiled. His luck was turning. He found a closed sealed pack of water, a pack of Cola and boxes of sweets. These did not look discoloured. They looked at least edible. If one discounted the sell-by date of course. Fitting what supplies he could into his backpack, he left the shop and stood by the canal. He felt like he was being watched again, this made his pace quicken until he found a small harbour. A few row bows were about and a couple of motorised ones. He lobbed his backpack into the biggest. It was a red and white two man boat. No more than 2 meters long. He sparked the engine into life, but was greeted by another problem. There was barely one day's fuel in this thing. He checked the other boat, it was a similar story. He couldn't drain the tank of it's fuel as he had nothing to transport it with, and he couldn't give up his supplies to make room for the fuel. He hatched upon an idea, he would use one boat and have the other tied to it. Then when the first boat ran out of fuel, he would switch to the other. There was plenty of rope tying boats to the canal side so this wouldn't be a problem. He set to work, started the engine and started making his way down the river. He didn't know how he was going to continue down the rest of the river, or out into sea.

But he was doing better than the day before he reminded himself.

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