The forest was thick with deciduous trees, with amber leaves, brown, and burgundy and though the ground lie coated in this foliage, the trees still seemed to be full.

  There were orange and red bushes with berries, certainly ripe for the picking and crabapple trees everywhere you looked. So much that you couldn’t help from stepping on the tiny rotten apples everywhere on the ground. There were wild flowers galore of purples and pinks, yellows and blues, and a variety of reds. Tall plants and short plants and medium plants and miniature plants. And tall weeds and short weeds, and wild grass.

  There were rocks and pebbles, and small boulders where Barney took to sitting. He was a very old man and was in no shape for hiking.

  “This is pointless, Bastian.” The old man said fatigued, “We’re going to die out here.”

  Having had enough of his complaining, Bastian said, “Alright! Fine! So be it! What do you want to do? Dig a hole with our bare hands and lie in it? Waiting to die?”

  The old man was speechless.

  Bastian continued, “We can sit here and do nothing… We can eat crabapples and grow beards that will hopefully keep us warm come winter. Or maybe, we’ll find a cave we can live in and learn to hunt rabbits with our bare hands, and cook the meat on a fire we start by rubbing two sticks together… sound good? Or we can persevere, and keep going.”

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  “Don’t bark at me, boy. I’ll knock your teeth into next Tuesday.”

  “I’d like to see that, old man.”

  “You want a piece of me?”

  “Bring it!”

  Suddenly, the old man popped Bastian in the nose, and Bastian dropped to the ground out cold. The old man laughed, “Pussy…”

  Then the old man woke him up.

  “What the fuck?” Bastian regained his wits, “Did you just hit me?”

  “Get up.”

  Bastian stood.

  “What are we going to do here?” The old man asked.

  “I told you. Keep walking.”

  “To what end?”

  “Until we find other people, or…”

  “Or, what?”

  “We die.”

  The two men continued walking aimlessly. As the sun was beginning to set they came upon an oddly large maple tree, whose roots were bulging out from the ground. They nuzzled up at the base of the tree and as the night came on it became very cold and windy. Bastian fell asleep first and after he did, the old man got up, “Good luck, my friend.” he said, and wandered off into the dark woods.

  When Bastian awoke at dawn, the old man was nowhere to be found. Bastian called out his name, but it was only a few moments before he realized… he was gone.