A Kid In The Woods

After finally finding the map he needed, he returned to the librarian's desk and asked, "How much for this map?"

"Sir, it's not for sale. These are for browsing only," the man responded, a dumbfounded look on his face.

"Is a thousand credits enough?" Henry persisted.

"As I said, Sir—"

"Two thousand then," Henry cut him.

"Okay, okay. Fine, take it for two thousand credits. But if you could bring it back, or at least a copy, the library would be eternally grateful to you, and we would gladly pay you back your money," the librarian said, finally conceding.

"Thank you, my friend. Of course, I'll try to bring it back safe and sound," Henry said, smiling widely.

Henry grabbed his stuff and headed out of the village. His trek towards the Tamarain camp was long, and he still had to find a place to hole in for the mission.

After walking for half a day, he found a cave for the night. He estimated that he was approximately ten kilometres away from the camp.

With the Tamarains' ships still airborne, any closer than this was too risky.

"This will make do for now," Henry said to himself.

Henry then proceeded to lay out a few booby traps around the cave so that he wouldn't be taken by surprise by unwanted visitors. He then lay on the cave floor and draped himself in a heat-refracting blanket.

This would keep his heat in for the chilly night and make him untraceable by heat sensors. With his precautions taken, he fell asleep.

Henry's smart comm started vibrating in the middle of the night, waking him right up. Something had tripped the proximity alarm; something human.

He had to reach that person before they tripped any trap, or they would surely die.

Henry ran out of the cave at full speed, following the direction his comm gave out the alarm. By the time he made it to the spot, the person was stepping on a pressure pad for a planted grenade.

Henry hurriedly ran to the person and stepped on his foot to keep him from lifting it off the pressure pad.

"STOP MOVING!" Henry exclaimed.

It was only a boy, no older than 14. The kid probably had no idea what was transpiring, but one thing was for sure: he was terrified.

Henry had just popped out of nowhere at an incredible speed, not giving the kid time to react.

"You're hurting me, mister!" the child whined.

"Don't move, or we both die, kid!" Henry replied.

The kid's face instantly turned pale. He stopped moving and held his breath.

Henry was already inside his comm, locating the grenades' set-up. His traps had pressure pads, wires, and timers, but they also had detonators for an instant blow-up, in case the enemy noticed they had stepped on a trap and wanted to disarm them.

He acted quickly, his timers being set to only 15 seconds. He tapped his screen like a madman to open the interface and disarmed the grenade trap before it blew up.

He entered the safety code at the last second, disarming the trap. He sighed and then lifted his foot off the kid's foot.

Henry then turned around and looked at the poor boy, who had fallen on his ass, gasping for air.

"What are you doing in the woods at night, boy?" Henry asked in a patronizing tone.

The kid looked up at Henry before calming down and answering in a rebel tone, "That's none of your business, mister!"

Henry almost laughed at the answer. That kid had spunk; he liked that.

"Answer me, child, or I'll rearm the bomb you're still sitting on!" Henry said, trying to look menacing.

The kid yelped and jumped up to his feet, fearing he might detonate the damn trap again.

After a few seconds of panting, the boy realized he was still okay. He turned around back to Henry, anger in his eyes.

"It's not nice to terrorize kids, you know!?" he screamed at Henry.

"Hahahaha!!!" Henry laughed out loud, not able to keep it in anymore.

"Come on, child, come with me; it's not safe here," Henry said, still laughing.

He then turned around and walked back towards the cave. The kid hesitated a little, then followed suit, too scared to stay here amidst who knew how many traps.

Once they both reached the cave, Henry pulled out a spare blanket and threw it at the boy.

"Here, wrap this around yourself. You must be freezing," Henry said to the boy.

"Uhh... Thank you... I guess?" the boy said, wrapping the blanket around his body.

"Now answer me, kid. What were you doing alone in the woods at night? This place is dangerous, you know?" Henry reiterated.

"My name is not kid! Nor boy or child!" The boy rebuked.

"Then what is your name?" Henry asked.

"My name is Jonathan. My parents call me Jhonny," the kid answered after a few seconds.

"Well, Jhonny, you still haven't answered my question," Henry said.

"I did. I told you it was none of your business!" Jhonny grumbled.

Henry was getting impatient. He hadn't dealt with a stubborn child in so long, and his patience was wearing thin already.

He pulled out one of his kukris and started fidgeting with it in an attempt to scare the kid into answering. The boy only quickly looked at the knife before looking Henry back in the eyes.

'He's got courage,' Henry thought.

'Or he wants to die.'

After sternly looking the kid in the eyes for a few more seconds, Henry gave up the scare tactics. The kid withstood his stare the whole time without budging.

Henry put his knife away and sighed. He saw the kid faintly sigh in relief.

"Start talking, kid, or I'm forcing you to walk away in the traps alone," Henry said, this time with a severe look.

He had no time to be babysitting. Jhonny gasped, and terror crept up in his eyes.

Jhonny took a few breaths and decided it was better to talk than take his chances out there, walking through a booby-trapped jungle.

"I was heading to save my parents from the Tamarains," Jhonny said resolutely.