Shadows of JiangXi

[mtjsmith]

Chun Ki Ling. That's what his name was. Why was he having trouble remembering it? Or his age? He didn't understand what was happening. All he knew he had to do was to keep going along the canal. The first boat had run out of fuel as expected at the end of day 1 on the canal. He kept on going during the night, guessing correctly that it would be far better to run out of fuel during mid-day of day 2 rather than spend a night in this barren country.

"Dammit, don't you have anything left?!"

He pointed the small boat to the shoreline, its momentum easing it there. From there, he continued walking along the shoreline. The land was flat and nearly lifeless. There were scuttles and scurries here and there of small rat like beasts burrowing around. Chun kept along the shoreline, he tried to remember the last few days, but almost everything was a blur. Why he was here he could remember - It was a test. What he was doing he could remember - Surviving, but he could barely remember the actual events of the last few days. The poison that entered his system was nearly gone, the radiation medication seeing to that. His blood was a cocktail of poison and antidote, eventually the two would cancel each other out.

He walked on for another hour. He came to a crossing over the canal, and found a road which he then moved on to - rather than the canal. He stopped for a short break.

"Home. Will it ever recover?"

Suddenly, there was a noise. A devilish noise. Looking up ahead, he saw what could only be described as a pterodactyl. It must have been mutated from a bird like creature, but it was huge! It's wings spanned 2 meters by themselves! What's worse, it looked hungry - and little Ling seemed like a good snack.

"That's gotta be real. Arrggh!"

Ling threw his backpack off and grabbed the flare. He struck it and it began flaring red smoke and shining a deep bright red. The flare distracted the bird, while Ling struggled with his assault rifle. Remembering he had barely any ammo, he fired his first shot. It struck the bird clumsily in the neck. Cursing his right arm mucking up his aim, he fired a second. This time it penetrated it's eye and impacted the creatures brain - Killing it.

"I really hope there aren't more of those."

He was mistaken, there were. A squadron of them appeared on the horizon. Seeing the flare was still smoking and shining - Chun made a dash along the road. He hoped the flare would distract the creatures for long enough to make his escape. He spotted something in the distance, further up the road. It looked man-made, and a fresh Coalition flag was flying. Chun ran now as fast as he could, hoping he had reached humanity and hoping the damn bird things weren't following.

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