When Hunting Goes Wrong(OPEN)

[Jaden White]

Timestamp: 12, Spring, 512AV
Location: Just outside the city of Sylira

Jaden's internal alarm clock awoke him at precisely six in the morning, like it always had. He allowed himself fifteen minutes for the drowsiness to clear his mind before getting up, and retrieving his hunting gear and going hunting. Once he collected some small game and berries, he would go into town and sell three fourths of what he had collected, and take the rest home for dinner. This was his routine. A routine that was nearly never broken by Jaden White.

Since beginning life on his own, Jaden had become dependent on having a to do at all times. When his routine was broken, it through his whole day off course. So after the fifteen minutes were up, Jaden continued what he had done the day before, and before that. He slung his wooden short bow around his shoulder, and his quiver around his back, and headed out the doors.

Jaden's house was a mere tent. A large tent, but still only a tent. It didn't provide him much shelter from the elements, but it provided enough. He had come out to live on his own many years ago with a boy whom he had chosen to forget. They lived out in the wildlands together, living off the land, and making money where they could. It was a great life, until the boy left, and Jaden was on his own.

Even a fool knew that it was dangerous to be alone in the Wildlands, even if for an hour, but to live out here? That was suicide, was it not? Not if you have a plan. Luckily, Jaden was good with plans.

See, even though Syliras and other cities gave the world hope, that everything was getting better, so many years after the Valterrian, Jaden knew that it was all false. He hadn't known, until he had witnessed some of the atrocities in the Wildlands. His own eyes had experienced things so gruesome any normal person would get sick thinking of.

But Jaden was careful. As he left the tent, positioned only twenty feet off the nearest road, but far enough back to not be seen, he headed west. His first arrow already strung, Jaden was ready to go. He walked carefully, his sense all on full alert.

Only fifty feet away from his home, a snap. Behind him. Jaden whirled around, to see a squirrel running along the ground. Jaden aimed, following the critter until it made a stop at the trunk of the nearest tree. The squirrel paused, momentarily, five seconds at max. That was enough time for Jaden to pull in a breath, hold it, aim, and fire.

It wasn't a perfect shot. Jaden hit the squirrel right through its hindquarters. Since he was only a few yards away however, it was pinned against the tree it paused at. Unforunately, still alive. Jaden walked over, and mercifully snapped the squirrels neck, and placed the small game in the bag he brought for his finds.

The woods were still dark, and the noises still gave Jaden the creeps. He decided he would go somewhere a little more safe, and headed to one of his regular berry picking spots. When he got there, he saw that the grape vines that had been growing in finally ripened, and there was quite a few that were salvageable. Jaden got to work.

After an hour, most of the good grapes were picked, and Jaden was about sick of picking them, so he headed on. Taking the next right at the tree Jaden had landmarked because it split awkwardly right down the center, Jaden spotted the tracks of what appeared to be a deer. He knelt down next to them, and luckily, they were fresh.

He began to follow them, and eventually, he ended up in a clearing. The tree's seemed to just stop. It was eerie, the sight. It seemed as though someone had cut a hole in the center of the forest, twenty feet wide. Jaden looked down one more time at the tracks, and sure enough, they were just gone.

There was a sharp, CRACK, right behind Jaden, and he instantly turned around, his adreneline now on overload. He had never been here before, and the unknown was the biggest no-no of the wildlands. Another, CRACK, to his right, Jaden pulled up his bow, ready to shoot. Then...

A sharp pain in the back of Jaden's head, like a baseball bat being swung into his skull. He had never seen it coming. Jaden let out a bloodcurtling scream, right before losing his eyes to blackness, and his mind to pain.