gone. I was alone again.
After Balow left, it didn't take long for me to head out. Balow and I decided it would be too dangerous to travel along the river or on any roads near the Cumberlan River. The people here are crazy and aggressive. Balow suggest I travel through the woods and off any beaten path. The traveling will be slow, but it will be safer. The woods around here has sporadic clumps of vegetation separated by fairly open woods with few obstacles. The hard part will be climbing some of the steep, slippery hill sides. I miss smooth level roads.
I gave Balow my other MRE to eat while fulfilling his PULL. I knew he'd need the nutrition for his fight. I'm worried for him and hope we rejoin soon. His Pull is to the north and I am traveling north-east. So we are traveling almost parallel. People cannot be accompanied while on their Pull, so we have to travel separate. The PULL is a journey traveled and accomplished (or failed) alone.
Besides I had my own problems. I wasn't sure where I was now on the map and I had no roads or rivers to follow. I had to use my compass skills. Reading and using a compass can be tricky. It takes constant attention. If you try walking without one, you will probably find yourself walking in circles. I think I read somewhere, that humans have a tendency to overstep slightly with either their left or right steps. Over shorts distances, this doesn't matter. But over miles and miles, you will eventually walk in a circle.
So when using a compass, you have to set a coarse (mine is north-east), and follow it. To do this accurately, you have to site different objects in the distance that follow your path and then walk to that point. Once you reach that point, you have to take another bearing on a different object further down your path. You have to keep doing this over and over. It's not so bad in less dense woods, because you can find a point far off and follow your path to it. But when it is a thick woods, where visibility is only a few meters, then navigation can be very repetitive and time consuming.
I had been walking for some time, when I had a reoccurring feeling of being watch and followed. I thought I caught glimpses of movement in my peripheral vision. Occasionally I heard leaves rustle and twigs break. It started to freak me out and I quickened my pace. As I moved further down my path, I heard more and more rustling. It didn't take long for me to realize that I was being followed. The noise was now coming from all around me and I began to run.
The faster I ran, the faster my pursuers chased me. Before long, I found myself in an all-out sprint. I was running so fast and carelessly, that I was barreling through picker vines and hanging branches. The vegetation was getting thick and running was getting harder. I felt like I was in a giant spider web made of razor wire. Any exposed skin was shredded and bleeding. I could feel the burn from my sweat dripping over the cuts. I didn't know what was chasing me, but I wasn't stopping to find out.
The vegetation opened into what seem like a wide path. Trees were knocked down in the same direction and there was signs of destruction by a large object. The further I ran down this wide path the more I saw man made debris. I saw chunks of metal, wiring, and what appeared to be insulation.
I moved along the path further and then saw the biggest wheel I ever seen. Not too far in the distance, I made out an airplane wing and rear tail. Off to the right was a jet engine the size of a small bus. And then there it was, a huge military jet airplane. It looked like it had attempted to land here in the woods but was unsuccessful. It was torn to pieces. Only one wing remained intact and the body of the plane was crushed like a discarded pop can.
It looked like it had been there for a few years. There were vines growing all over it and small bushes were growing between cracks of the wing.
All airplanes were grounded after a few of the blackouts caused mass