The World Still Turns

"How long has it been?"

I used to ask myself that. From the moment I lost the trail, I knew there was no finding out though. I was warned not to leave, to stay put while they went out. But it had been three days and nobody had returned. I was hungry, so I decided I'd try my hand at hunting. Warned a million times to fear the outside, it was a hard decision to come to... "Humans don't own the earth anymore, son... The creatures out there? They're different than the old texts..." My father would tell me with a grim look on his face. Yet despite this warning, I picked up one of father's guns and opened the door.

It was amazing... Like nothing I'd ever seen before... Green plants everywhere, blue skies above with white clouds... And the deeper I went, the more lovely it got. Pinks and purples, yellows and oranges. Flowers in full bloom and vines cascading down from branches above. I wondered how this world could be so bad... Why were we afraid of it? Then it happened. For the first time in my life, I felt true terror...

From the woods across a river, something came out of the woods... It was easily twice my size with paws as big as my head. Claws and teeth both razor sharp... Green fur, striped with darker patches... And those eyes... Those piercing orange eyes that stared at me with such hunger... And then it charged. I shot a few times, but the bullets didn't seem to even slow the great beast's thundering run. I turned and I ran, but I couldn't find home... Oh gods, which way was home?

Ducking into a small cave, I spent the night curled up, trying to stay hidden from anything else that might find me. Over time, I found smaller prey, learned to hunt with a makeshift spear... Then a bow... Now I live here, out among the forest... I have slain the great beasts that hunt me, though not easily, nor without wound. I still wonder what happened to the others... Did they suffer the same fate as me? Did they make it back home...? Or perhaps... They died out here...

I was only a boy when I left... I am now a man, battle-scared and weary of this world... Every now again that question enters my mind again...

"How long has it been?"

5/7 perfect score.