Shadows of JiangXi

[Jansen]

The engine stopped while driving, she had expected it much more early, but now it had happened. She ran out of fuel. Running our of fuel meant walking again, walking towards the sea without any real protection from animals. She grabbed all her things and started to walk, southwards.

A half day had passed, she made 2 breaks of around 5 minutes each. That had to be enough to eat something, the radiation levels werent that dangerous here, so she could have walked without the mask. But she already got used to it, she even forgot to take it away for short while eating. Two animals tried to attack her, both seemed to be fast hunters, attacking from the sides. She killed one with 5 bullets while it was running towards her and the second one with 3 bullets while it was waiting for her in behind some higher grass. The first one made a small hole into her suit, she hadnt been able to kill it fast enough, but it didnt have the time to hurt her. Just a few small holes in the suit.

After everything was silent again, she was able to hear the sea. It still seemed to be far away, but it was reachable, maybe even today. The sound of the sea gave her a reason to walk faster. She didnt need any breaks now, she kept walking and walking until she reached it another 6 hours later. Now she had to find a way to move over the sea, to get to the islands."I need a boat..." But there was nothing then a beach that would have been a great place to spend the holidays at, if the radiation would have been gone.

She checked the small hand drawn map she had, but there were no marking that could have shown a settlement. The only thing there was a rough drawing of the coast line, the map was pretty much useless now. She decided to walk westwards, nothing after one hour and nothing after two hours and again nothing after three hours of walking. She was about to search for a place to sleep as she spotted a few small buildings at the horizon. They would have served well as a place for the night.

While getting closer a few rotten sails were visibile, but they didnt seem to be intact anymore. A half hour later she reached the small village, one that turned out to have been a populated by fishermen. Nets everywhere, most ships were equipped with sails, but two or three seemed to be small trawlers with engines. She tried to launch the one next to her, but nothing happened. The second one started for a few seconds before stopping again. The last one was dead as well. The second ship was the most promissing one, so she removed the fuel from the other two vessels and poured everything into that one. She tried it again and the engine started.

She still had 3 liters of water left, as well as 2 food rations, but she thought it would have been smarter to get everything she could from the village, just in case something would happen. She brought all tools she found, as well as 15 cans of peas, 4 cans of water and 2 bottles of vodka on board and then left the harbor. The ship wasnt the fastest, but it worked. The Gps device was still showing the last path the fisherman had used, so she set the autopilot to follow exactly this course at slow speed and went to sleep.

---