Gemlin had stepped up next to Samwell and had placed her hand on his shoulder. She looked over at Jonah and then bowed her head as Samwell continued his quiet chant. Kane let go of Callie and grabbed Eliza and Josie’s hands and stepped closer to Samwell. He wasn’t sure what the process was. Did he need to be touching Samwell? Did they need to chant as well? Would they just suddenly disappear and reappear someplace else? What were they about to experience?

  “Jonah?” Kane started to ask but not sure what even to ask.

  Jonah looked over at Samwell and Gemlin and then back at Kane, “Close, must be close.”

  “How do you know?” Kane asked, “Have you seen this done before?”

  “No,” was all Jonah said as he took Eliza’s hand and knelt next to her, bowing his head.

  Kane looked at Callie unsure if they should do the same. Kane saw movement over Samwell’s shoulder. He dropped Josie and Eliza’s hands and brought his rifle up, but didn’t aim it as Samwell was in the way. For a tense moment, Kane stood there ready to lift his rifle and fire. Then Alex came leaping out of the underbrush.

  “My Lady!” Alex gasped for air as he continued his hopping towards them.

  Kane relaxed his rifle. Letting it rest across his chest, taking Josie’s hand again.

  “Alex! You made it!” Josie excitedly said.

  “Friend!” Zeus barked excitedly.

  Alex tripped and rolled into Callie’s leg. Callie had a sad smile on her face as she looked down at the creature at her feet.

  “My Lady is sad! Oh no, what can Alex do . . . “ Alex trailed off as he heard the chanting coming from Samwell, “Oh, we are going.”

  “Yes,” was all Callie could choke out.

  Alex reached up and grabbed Callie’s hand with one of his, “My Lady, it doesn’t hurt, but can be scary. Hold tight to Little Miss’s hand, don’t let go until your feet are on the ground again.”

  “Thank you Alex,” Kane said as Callie nodded, grabbing Josie’s hand while not letting go of one of Alex’s hands.

  Kane let the rifle rest on his chest and grabbed Eliza’s hand with his now free hand. Kane knelt down to be more at their level. As he did he heard the gunshot and felt the air movement. He looked up just in time to see Samwell get hit in the stomach, blood immediately oozing out of his upper abdomen.

  Gemlin screamed as Kane let go of his daughters and whipped around seeing a soldier with a blood soaked shoulder behind them. The soldier was holding his rifle at his hip with one hand and uneasily balancing it. Zeus went ballistic and it took all Callie had to keep ahold of him to keep him from running at the soldier.

  “You will not win, they are abominations and you are traitors!” The soldier venomously spit at them from about a hundred yards away. The roar of the bur Josie had been helping came from behind Kane. Kane heard the bur’s front paws hit the ground as another roar came ripping past him.

  “You will never know,” Kane whispered and took his shot, hitting the man between the eyes. Kane heard the cycled action of the round in the chamber and took his second shot to the man’s chest as the man was falling.

  “Samwell!” Gemlin was crying behind them.

  Kane could hear the young humanura struggling to breathe. As he turned around he looked at Samwell’s eyes. The determination that Kane saw startled him.

  “Pro vita, pro libertate, pro existentia,” Samwell said and then threw up his hands creating a circle of glowing energy around them the humans, humanura and the bur, “Mitte!”

  Kane felt his body get jolted like it was suddenly flung from a sling shot. Kane couldn’t see where or how he was flung. He didn’t have a hold of anyone’s hands when the ball of energy was formed and he couldn’t see anyone or anything in the darkness around him. He could just barely pick out the slight glow of energy of a sphere the size of what had formed before he was jerked away. He was inside the sphere but it hurt to turn his head to look.

  The sound of crying of his daughters and wife sounded so distant but they had been right next to him. Kane tried to move his arms to reach out to where he thought his kids would be, but his arms felt like lead weights had been put into them. They didn’t and wouldn’t move. Kane felt pressure on his head and torso and he felt himself sinking to his knees. Just as the pressure felt like it would crush him he felt himself hit the ground. It felt like a bad airborne jump, his knees and ankles buckled under him and he hit the ground hard.

  Kane quickly scrambled to his feet hearing screams from all around him. Out of instinct he brought up his rifle and circled looking for his family. He was in a forest, but not the kind they had left in Colorado. All of these evergreen were limbed up and there was very little underbrush. Almost like someone had cleared the ground to make it more firewise. Kane could see figures moving through the trees, maybe 200 yards away from him. There were at least a dozen and they were running not only towards him, but also to his right and to his left.

  Kane looked around quickly for someplace to get cover, all he saw was what looked like a manzanita bush ten yards or so to his right. He dashed towards it and got behind it. He looked around for his family, he couldn’t see them.

  “WHAT THE FUCK!” Kane whispered to himself, getting so angry he felt like he could melt iron.

  Unbeknownst to Kane, 300 yards to his right Eliza and Jonah had a very similar landing to him. Jonah got up first and looked around. Thankfully they had landed just behind a cluster of shrubs. Jonah could hear the shouts and screams on the other side though.

  “Eliza, stay down, stay quiet,” Jonah instructed in a whisper barely loud enough for Eliza to hear as he crouched down next to her. Eliza nodded silently as she sat up, quietly dusting off her hands. Jonah went to the right edge of the shrubs and carefully looked around the edge.

  He could see at least three soldiers heading straight for their shrubs. There were a couple more heading to Jonah’s left, but he couldn’t tell how many more there may be. Jonah ducked back behind the shrubs so he wouldn’t be seen. He looked down at Eliza who had a confused but curious look on her face as she looked around at the world in front of her.

  Jonah looked where Eliza was looking. Just more forest, their shrubs were the biggest mass he could see to their immediate surroundings. Jonah let out a small sigh, he needed to keep Eliza safe, but Eliza wasn’t his ward. Sadness came over Jonah, he couldn’t believe he had just thought that. No Eliza wasn’t Josie, but Eliza deserved to live and thrive just like Josie and all the other children hurt by this war deserved as well. Jonah set himself at that moment, he didn’t have one ward, he had two. Both girls deserved a chance, both girls deserved his protection, equally, not one more than another. What Callie had threatened a day or so ago in their home was now resonating with him. Jonah swore the warding oath to himself over Eliza at that moment.

  “Jonah, my skin feels weird,” Eliza whispered to Jonah touching his arm.

  “Yes, little wizard,” Jonah whispered with a smile, “You are safe.”

  Eliza gave him a confused look and then nodded slowly, “Okay.”

  “What are we going to do? Where is my dad, and my mom, and Josie?” Eliza whispered but Jonah could hear the fear and the tears in her questions.

  “We will find them,” Jonah whispered, hearing the voices of the soldiers getting closer.

  “That druid has to be around here someplace,” one voice said.

  “Yeah, but they sent us out after those Frowlers. We aren’t trained to deal with Frowlers,” another said.

  “Shut up both of you! If that druid or those Frowlers are nearby you are alerting them to us!” the third said though with a slightly hushed tone.

  “You know they can sense us whether we are talking or not, might as well talk,” the second retorted.

  “Shut up!” the first said, probably louder than he had meant to.

  A scream was suddenly heard from one of the soldiers. Jonah looked down at Eliza who covered her ears and looked up at him, not really with fear in her eyes, but more of a questioning look. Jonah moved to the edge of the shrub cover and peaked around. He saw fire bolts and electrical energy hitting the soldiers. One soldier dropped dead smoldering before he had time to turn his rifle. The other two soldiers were backing up towards the bush Jonah and Eliza were hiding behind, firing their rifles as they retreated. Jonah turned to see if he could see where the attacks were coming.

  There was a faint haze forming to the front and slight right of the soldiers. Kane could just pick out the long colorful hair and tall features of a humanura. But not humanura if they were attacking the Hunters, they were Frowlers. Jonah was still watching as a spear with a glowing tip was thrown from the haze and hit one of the soldiers in the upper chest, almost the neck area. The soldier fell into the group of shrubs and its head and speared chest crashed through the branches landing between Eliza and Jonah. The body made a gap in the shrubs.

  Jonah ducked back behind what remained of his side of the shrubs and looked at Eliza. Eliza had dropped her hands and was looking at the wide-eyed dead man laying between them, his face contorted. Jonah peeked through the gap, not seeing any immediate danger, but saw the remaining soldier was now standing just on the other side of the shrub from Eliza. Jonah moved quickly over the man’s body and not knowing what else to do grabbed Eliza and started running while holding the child.

  Jonah heard the rustling of the shrub behind him, he wasn’t sure if the soldier had taken cover from their now vacated shrub or if he had been killed like his comrade. Either way the sound of the rifle fire had stopped. Jonah didn’t stop running, Frowlers weren’t going to be their friends anymore than Hunters were, he needed to get Eliza to safety. He needed to find Josie, Kane and Callie.

  Jonah heard shouting in his native tongue behind him, but he didn’t focus on it long enough to tell what the shouting said. He could tell there were both male and female voices in the shouting. Jonah saw another shrub cover just in the distance. It wasn't a great cover but it was something. A bur started roaring behind him, but Jonah kept running. Jonah felt magic energy go up around him. He briefly panicked but then heard the small voice.

  ”SHIELD,” Eliza had whispered.

  Jonah took a breath and relaxed a little, a magical shield wasn’t fool-proof but it lended him the protection they needed to get to safety. Jonah started feeling the pressure of things hitting the shield behind him. He didn’t know, and wasn’t going to look to see, what the Frowlers were launching at him. From what he had seen of the attacks on the Hunters, they could be magical or they could be spears. Frowlers also liked to improvise so they could have picked up the rifles from the dead soldiers, but Jonah hadn’t heard any rifle fire so he doubted that was what was hitting the shields.

  Jonah leaped behind a much smaller shrub than what they had been hiding behind. Midway over the shrub he saw Kane was scrunched up looking in the opposite direction of where they had come, his rifle raised to his eye scanning. As Jonah landed he saw the anger in Kane’s eyes change to surprise, then change finally to relief at the sight of Eliza. Kane let his rifle hang from its sling and grabbed Eliza from Jonah’s arms. Jonah could tell it wasn’t to get her away from him, it was more of a need to hold his child, so Jonah let him.

  Jonah let them just hold each other and looked around. He saw just to their left that there was a pair of soldiers moving with their rifles raised. Thankfully the pair wasn’t looking at them, they seemed to have their sights set on something further away. Jonah nearly had to crawl on his belly to stay low enough to peek around the left edge of the bush they were hiding behind. Jonah could see three more soldiers moving at a diagonal to where they had come from, to where three of their fellow soldiers had died. Jonah debated attacking the Hunters as they moved. The Hunters had caused him nothing but pain, but then he took a look over at Eliza and Kane. If he attacked now he would be risking them.

  Jonah slid back from the edge of the shrub and positioned himself in front of Kane and Eliza. Not knowing what else to do he waited for their embrace to be done.

  Kane didn’t want to let go of Eliza now that he had found her again. It probably hadn’t been long since they had been separated, but Kane had watched more soldiers appear and then disappear into the mist that was forming. He had his sights trained on two soldiers who had broken away from the group and looked like they would pass by his shrub. Kane watched them go from quietly discussing something with each other to bringing up their rifles like they had seen something.

  Kane had been getting his aiming points to try to take down both soldiers at the same time or in quick succession when he felt something in the air flying above him. Kane had been preparing to move his rifle when he saw that it was Jonah. As Jonah landed he saw Eliza was in his arms. The relief Kane felt was indescribable, but in the same moment he couldn’t fully relax, Callie and Josie weren’t with Jonah and Eliza.

  ”Hey, Eliza, are you missing something?” Kane whispered, pulling away from his daughter when he felt her start to relax her grip.

  Eliza gave him a questioning look and shook her head.

  ”Really,” Kane quietly asked as he pulled her teddy bear out of his vest, surprised she hadn’t felt the mound during their hug.

  Eliza let out a giant gasp and Kane could tell she was getting ready to scream with joy. Lightning quick, Jonah reached around and gently covered Eliza’s mouth with his hand while looking to his left where Kane assumed the two soldiers still were. Eliza, despite the hand over her mouth, grabbed her stuffed animal and hugged it close to her chest rocking back and forth slightly.

  Kane smiled but then followed Jonah’s look. The two soldiers still had their rifles raised and could clearly be seen now walking away from them. They still weren’t looking in the direction of Kane and Jonah, but a few paces behind them was another soldier. He also had his rifle up but he was scanning the area as he followed the other two. At the moment Kane saw him, he was looking to his right in the opposite direction as Kane. But he began rotating his view, he would, in maybe a few seconds, be looking in the direction of Kane and Jonah and Eliza.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Kane sat down so he was further from Eliza. He brought up his rifle at the same moment. Kane took a look at Jonah who still had one hand on Eliza’s mouth but his other hand was planted on the ground like he was getting ready for something. Kane looked back to his sights just as the soldier turned all the way to see them. Kane could see through his scope the shocked look on the soldier's face having seen them. Kane didn’t wait, he took the shot to the soldiers chest. The soldier doubled over and Kane took a second shot, making the soldier go limb and fall to the ground.

  The two soldiers in front of him immediately started turning towards them, spreading away from each other as they turned. As they did, Kane moved so that he could get a clear shot on one of the two. With the soldiers separating themselves it was going to be harder for Kane to take both down in quick succession. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Jonah had gently pushed Eliza to the ground. Eliza covered her ears the moment she landed on the ground.

  Before Kane could take a shot, cursing to himself about their tactical move to separate, bolts of lighting started coming down from above one of the soldiers heads. Kane had originally picked that soldier to aim at but seeing as how he was now distracted Kane turned his sights to the other. The unhindered soldier was pulling back his charging handle, which seemed strange to Kane, he would have thought with his rifle up that the soldier would have been ready to take his shot at any moment. That thought didn’t stop Kane from taking aim himself though. Kane took the risk and aimed for the soldier's head instead of his chest, the bigger, safer shot. Kane’s shot hit just above the soldier's left eye, not exactly where Kane was hoping to hit but the soldier dropped limb to the ground anyway.

  Kane swung the short distance to the other soldier. Just as Kane lined up for a shot, the soldier’s health bar appeared and started blinking. The screams from him could still be heard as he fell to the ground limb like his friend. Kane lowered his rifle just a little so he could see the bigger picture from above his scope. He could hear shouting from further in the distance sounding like it was getting closer with each word.

  Then Kane saw a komodo-dragon-like creature coming out of the mist past the fallen soldiers. Kane let his rifle drop a little from the shock of seeing the creature but quickly recovered and brought his rifle back up. The creature hissed at Kane, but turned to Jonah and stopped its advance. Kane wasn’t sure but it almost looked like the creature nodded at Jonah. Kane felt Jonah’s hand now on his arm, then the voice came in his head.

  “I am not your enemy.”

  “Bullshit,” was all Kane could think as he returned to looking through his sights at the lizard.

  “Josie needs you.”

  “How the fuck do you know Josie!” Kane practically yelled.

  “I know many things young one. We must leave this place.”

  Kane put his finger on the trigger, he couldn’t risk it. He started to squeeze but Jonah, whose hand was still on Kane’s arm, pushed and the bullet went over the lizard's left shoulder. The lizard hissed again at Kane.

  “Fool! This is what caused the war! Listen or lose your family and your life!”

  “Kane, stop, we need to find Josie and Callie,” Jonah said into Kane’s ear. Then Jonah picked up Eliza from the ground and started walking towards the lizard.

  ”Jonah! Put her down! What is that thing! We can’t trust it!” Kane stood up yelling.

  ”Yes we can, he is seniores, he is grandpa,” Jonah said looking over his shoulder but not stopping.

  Kane stood there, his rifle still in a ready position but stunned. This lizard thing couldn’t be grandpa. What was going on? Kane suddenly realized that the system hadn’t given him a description of the creature like it usually did when they encountered something new

  ”Dad! I want my dad!” Eliza cried in Jonah’s arms.

  That seemed to snap Kane out of what thoughts he was stuck in. Keeping his rifle at the ready he moved forward to follow Jonah. As Jonah got within a tongues whip of the lizard, it turned and looked further to its left, their right. Kane followed the creature's gaze. He saw a handful more of soldiers advancing on a fog cloud. The air caught in Kane’s chest, no that couldn’t be where Callie and Josie were. Kane remembered Josie casting her ‘fog’ spell earlier. The edge of the cloud was between 400 and 500 yards away through the open forest.

  Kane took off running, Jonah had Eliza, he had to trust that Jonah wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He needed to get to Callie and Josie, if that was really where they were. As Kane ran he heard shouts coming from one of the soldiers. The tone was like he was trying to convince someone of something even though Kane couldn’t hear the words.

  Kane dropped to a knee about 100 yards from what he thought was the edge of the fog cloud. He put his sights on the furthest back soldier. The soldier looked young and scared. He was holding his rifle across his chest but he was looking back and forth to the soldiers in front of him and shifting uneasily. He would be the most unpredictable, Kane shot and hit, the soldier dropped his rifle, the sling falling from his now bleeding arm.

  Kane shifted to the next soldier and took another shot, nothing. Kane swore at himself, he could have reloaded while he was running but he had forgotten to keep count. Kane got up and ran behind the largest tree within stepping distance. He put his back to the tree and grabbed a magazine from his vest.

  ”One more,” Kane thought as he reloaded and carefully knelt down to grab the empty magazine realizing that it wasn't empty, it just didn't cycle correctly. As he did he felt the splintering of the first shot hitting the tree trunk to his left. Kane leaned out from behind the tree and took a shot at the first soldier he saw. Ducking back behind the tree, Kane heard the soldier start screaming in pain. Kane switched hands and was reminded of the wound he hadn’t treated yet. Kane leaned out the right side of the tree trunk and took a shot at the next soldier he saw. Kane saw that soldier go limp immediately. Kane ducked back, he heard a shot hit the tree trunk to his left again. Kane took the gamble and leaned that way after switching hands again. He took another shot, Kane heard the shout of pain or startlement as he leaned back behind the tree. Kane looked out from the tree. He could see the lizard coming but he couldn’t see Jonah. Kane took a breath getting ready to take another shot when he saw a fire ball go flying from the lizard's mouth past him. He heard the screams of at least three soldiers. Kane leaned out of his hiding spot.

  There were two soldiers fully engulfed in flame. Kane saw the third rolling on the ground, seemingly trying to put himself out. Kane took a quick look, saw a fourth soldier fiddling with what was probably a jam in his gun. Kane lined up a shot and took it. Kane had to take one more shot at the soldier before he went limp.

  Kane leaned back against his tree to reload his last magazine. One soldier had stopped shouting and the last was now faintly still crying. Kane leaned out of his tree trunk coverage one last time and put the soldier out of his misery.

  Seeing no other standing soldiers, Kane fully stepped out from behind his tree and walked over to the first two soldiers' bodies that were still smoldering from the fire. Kane realized quickly that the bodies were too hot to touch, he then walked over to one of the other bodies. Kane looked up as he heard footprints coming towards him, thankfully it was the lizard-creature. Kane went back to focusing on the body, he wasn’t sure how cut off from his world they would be so he bent down and started feeling around the body.

  Kane was a bit startled seeing the notification, not just because it popped up but also because it seemed to have a voice attached to it unlike the notifications he had gotten in his 9world. The voice had a more feminine AI style tone but there was a metallic quality to it that made it sound unnatural. Where the AI voices in his world attempted to sound human, it seemed like this system didn’t try to hide that it wasn’t human.

  Kane shrugged his head to the right, unsure of what was going to happen next.

  Looking at the list in front of his face, it was transparent like the other notifications but it seemed to have a grey square behind the list of items. He could still see the trees and other things behind the words, but the grey square made it easier to see the list. Something else that was different in this world than his world. Why was this system so much different than the system in his world? But for the first time he wondered why there was a system in his world in the first place, it hadn’t been there before the Rift opened that he knew of.

  Kane was startled from his thoughts as he heard Eliza’s voice quietly talking to Jonah. Looking at the list again, Kane leaned his head to the left, mostly just to see what would happen.

  The words appeared over the list for a few seconds and then disappeared. The line below the list with the ‘select all’ option disappeared. The top line of the list was bolder than the other items. Kane looked down the list and the boldening of the words followed him as he went down. Kane, not knowing what else to do, blinked when he got back to the ‘partial magazine’ and blinked. Nothing happened. Kane thought ‘select’ and the line item disappeared. Kane went down to the next line and ‘selected’ it.

  Kane debated on the body armor but decided not to get it. He went down to the boots, he thankfully wore a size 10 so he grabbed them. Next Kane selected the insignia. Kane took a final look at what was left on the list, the bold words sat on the ‘personal item’. Thinking back to his military time, he had carried a picture of Callie with him, this soldier probably had the same. Kane didn’t select it and shook his head trying to get out of the option. As he opened his eyes, shaking his head he saw the items he had selected were in a pile at his feet.

  Kane looked at Jonah and Eliza who were now standing next to him with the lizard. Kane knelt down and took the backpack off his back to put the items in. He looked at the boots before putting them in his backpack. Other than being a little dirty they looked like they were in pretty good shape. Kane then grabbed the partial magazine and took one of the bullets out. Thankfully it was a 5.56, the same as what his gun was chambered for. Kane took the empty magazine from his vest and put it in his backpack and put the two new magazines in the slots of his vest. He swore at himself, he hadn’t picked up the discarded magazine in the tree trunk maze back in his world.

  Kane looked down and almost missed the brown insignia on the ground. It had a brown background with an almost black American-like flag over the top. The flag had 13 stripes like the American flag, but there were too many stars. Kane had spent his military career looking at that flag and he had a flag on his desk at work and one outside his house. It was close but it was just off enough to be unsettling. Just one more thing that was different about this world then his. Kane took the insignia and put it in one of the pockets of his tactical pants.

  Kane closed up the backpack and stood up swinging the pack onto his back. He looked over at the other body, went over and looted it. He took another partial magazine. His body armor was 50% so Kane left that as well. The soldier's boots were a size 12, nowhere close to fitting him or anyone else in his family so he left those. This soldier didn’t have any personal items, and Kane already had an insignia, he didn’t need another.

  As Kane took the partial magazine and combined it with his already partial magazine he heard the light moans of the first soldier he had shot. Kane finished what he was doing gesturing for Jonah to stay where he was and put his rifle at the ready as he walked over to the lightly moaning soldier.

  As he stepped next to the soldier he saw that not only had his bullet broken the guy's arm it had gone through and punctured the side of his chest. Blood was oozing from the wound as the soldier looked up with pain and fear on his face. The soldier started to reach for the rifle he had dropped. Kane stepped over him and kicked it away, then leveled his rifle at the soldier's chest.

  ”Who are you?” Kane said with a gruff tone.

  ”I . . . I am nobody. They recruited me from my family’s store because I turned 18. I didn’t want to be here! Please . . . “ He couldn’t get out the rest of what he wanted to say as blood gurgled from his mouth. Kane’s bullet must have punctured his lung.

  ”Why are you out here?” Kane asked a little louder.

  ”We . . . We got word of a group of Frowlers. We were sent to see if there was a mage. I just got out of training, they didn’t tell me anything,” the soldier cried, tears streaming down his face.

  Kane felt bad for the kid, but he needed answers, “Why were you looking for the mage?”

  ”I don’t know, I was just told we were going to find it. Please . . . It hurts,” the last part came out as a whisper as more blood came from the kids mouth.

  Before Kane could ask anything else the lizard walked over and dropped its scaled head over the soldier. Kane saw the pain leave the kids face and saw his chest stop rising.

  ”I needed answers,” Kane growled at the lizard.

  ”No, you needed to show mercy,” the lizard said.

  Kane glared at the lizard and then reached down to loot the body.

  ”No,” the lizard said, sending out its tongue to block Kane’s hand, “Do not dishonor those that did not have choice.”

  Kane swore to himself and then stood up tall and started looking around. He had seen more soldiers go off opposite of where they had come from. Kane thought for a moment, Jonah and Eliza had been on his right when Samwell cast his spell and they had come from what would have been his right. So if Josie and Callie had been on his left, then they should be in the direction the other soldiers had gone.

  “I think we need to go this way to get to Josie and Callie,” Kane said, pointing to where he had seen the other soldiers go.

  Jonah looked in the direction Kane pointed and looked down at Eliza before turning to look at the lizard.

  ”Yes,” was all the lizard said.

  Kane rolled his eyes as he turned away from the lizard. He checked his pack was secure on his back and brought his rifle to a ready position. Kane took a small breath and moved in the direction that he thought Callie and Josie might be.

  They went 100 yards or so with Kane scanning the area as they walked. Not seeing much Kane continued on another 50 yards or so before pausing and taking a knee motioning for Jonah and Eliza to stop behind him. Kane heard the footprints stop but didn’t hear them get down. Kane glared to himself as he looked around with his scope, angry that something as tall as Jonah was keeping himself a target. Especially when they didn’t know how many more Hunters were out there.

  Not seeing or hearing much besides the slithering of the lizard's tongue, Kane got back to his feet and started walking in the direction of a larger cluster of shrubs to his 11 o’clock. They hadn’t gone two steps when Kane heard the barking and growling of what sounded like Zeus. Kane paused to listen for where the noise was coming from and then he heard someone start screaming. Kane didn’t wait; he went running in the direction the scream was coming from, suddenly remembering his injured calf. He didn’t bother looking down, he figured the bandage hadn’t held or he had bled through it by now. Especially with the hard landing he had as they came to this new world.

  As Kane ran, with a slight limp, towards the screaming he heard gunshots. Kane mentally forced himself to forget about his leg and ran faster towards the screams. He heard a scream of pain he recognized as Zeus and then screams of pain from a human, Kane couldn’t tell if the human voice was Callie’s or someone else.

  Kane made it to the large cluster of shrubs he had been aiming for and rounded them leveling his rifle. There was no one behind the shrubs. Kane stopped and looked around, he had been certain he would round the shrubs and see his wife and daughter and dog. Kane limped to the other side of the shrubs as he heard more screams and heard Zeus growling again. As he got to the edge of the shrubs he saw a thicker stand of shrubs maybe 75 yards away. He saw two soldiers running from his right towards the stand.

  Kane didn’t hesitate; he took a shot at the front-most soldier. The soldier took a half step more and then fell to the ground. The other soldier turned to look where the shot had come from, dropping to his knee. Kane took aim and shot before the soldier could fully raise his sights to his eye. Kane had missed his mark, but not by much. Kane could see the blood coming from the soldier's shoulder. Kane took another shot and downed the soldier. Kane took a quick look at his rifle as he prepared to move again. He heard footsteps come around the edge of the shrubs.

  Seeing it was Eliza and Jonah he yelled, “Stay there!” and ran towards the thicker stand of shrubs.

  ”Dad!” Eliza cried behind him. Kane didn’t stop; he still heard Zeus growling and there were at least two people shouting. Neither sounded female, so Kane assumed they were the Hunters.

  Kane cleared the 75-or so yards in a heartbeat and looked for a way through the shrubs. He found a thin spot and crashed his way through, certain he would find his wife and daughter on the other side. Kane wasn’t wrong about his wife, but he didn’t see Josie. He did see a bleeding Zeus chomping hard on a soldier's arm. The soldier was hitting Zeus with the butt of his rifle. The other soldier was facing Kane and was pulling back his charging handle aiming his rifle at Zeus. Kane came to a sliding halt raising his rifle and aiming just enough to know he wouldn’t hit and Zeus took his shot. The soldier behind Zeus dropped his rifle and screamed. Kane moved to his left to get a clearer shot at the soldier and fired again. The soldier collapsed mid-scream.

  Kane turned on the soldier that Zeus was attached to.

  ”Zeus, release!” Kane yelled at his dog. Zeus hesitated but when Kane said the command again Zeus dropped to the ground releasing the soldier's arm. Kane had already lined up his shot and took it as soon as the dog was clear. The soldier didn’t have time to let out a scream, Kane hit him square between the eyes, hitting the ‘off-switch’.

  Kane collapsed to his knees on the ground, the pain in his calf making him so light-headed it took all of him to stay conscious on his way to the ground. Kane looked around to see if there were any more enemies, but he couldn’t bring up his rifle, his arms weren’t working. As Kane turned to look at Callie, his world went dark.

  ”Kane!!!” Callie yelled seeing Kane hit the ground with his knees, take one look at her, and then fall face forward onto the ground.