A Trap in Waiting

By the time that Jonathan reached the edge of the frozen forest, the sun was high in the sky, reminding him that he had only half a day left to search for the necessary supplies. Getting frozen in the darkness of the night was the least of his trouble, not to mention getting lost in the dense forest.

It was very easy to get lost here due to the relatively flat ground and similar spacing between all of the trees. The only reason that he had found the bunker was because he was initially lost. He was actually looking for something to eat at the time.

The original owner probably had left the bunker to find foods or water, and since that person couldn't come back, it was his gain. While the bunker wasn't spacious, having only two rooms, it was protected and in a defendable position.

It also looked inconspicuous from the sky.

As long as Jonathan did not do anything stupid like setting up a smoke signal, no dragons would notice the bunker when flying overhead. And if they somehow did, he hoped that he wasn't inside then. Their fiery breaths could melt solid steels within a moment, but it seemed that not all of the dragons breath fires.

For example, the white dragon that just flew overhead did not spew out flames like a dragon should.

It spewed out something similar to white mist, almost invisible to the naked eyes from far away. That did not mean that the mist wasn't dangerous. It was, more so than flames.

The numerous popsicle animals in the forest was the result of its breaths. Its very presence was likely the cause of the unending winter within the forest despite the clear and sunny sky. Its presence caused his scars to pulse in pain, giving him an early warning system of sort.

Jonathan had wondered why the white dragon was still hanging around the forest. There was nothing left in the forest, and most people had moved towards the north to join the growing settlement a few years back with the promise of foods and security.

Those people were likely dead now. That was what Jonathan believed from his years of experience.

Dragons might not bother with a single person for one reason or another, but a dozen or so people at one area was definitely worth their time and stomach. That was the real reason why no body with any sane state of mind would move about in a group in this new world, especially out in the open.

There was no safety in numbers and having a settlement of any was the worst idea ever.

If the dragons had not buffeted on the settlement already then perhaps, they were just waiting for it to fatten up a little bit more. As starving as the dragons were from millennia of hibernation, not all of them were ruled by their ravenous hunger.

The dragons that just gobbled up anything and everything that got close to their jaws were the stupid ones. If they ate everything to extinction, there would be nothing left, and they would starve to death.

But stupidity did not make them any less dangerous in this age of dragon. No person had been able to kill a dragon in the past 16 years of hell.

Those murals depicting saints slaying dragons and saving princess in medieval text? They were lies. Or were they?

From what Jonathan had seen, dragons were impervious to almost everything short of a nuclear blast.

A nuclear weapon did go off years ago, but whether it actually killed a dragon or not was unknown. It did not seem like a victory with atomic weapons, as nuclear fire indiscriminating incinerate everyone, mostly humans.

There were also more dragons in the world than the amounts of bombs available, assuming that those bombs could be launched without using any form of electricity.

As that was the case, the future looked very bleak for the rest of the human race. In fact, most people had already stopped trying to fight them all together and hoped that they would just go back to sleep like before.

The dragons appeared to be intelligence, and with intelligence, they obviously did not want to cleanly wipe out humanity, considering that humans were more or less cattle to them. Thus, the right course of action would be allowing humanity to repopulate again (and also giving the humans time to figure out how to kill them effectively).

If only that was the case, and honestly, if the stupid dragons did not eat everything, their infight would inevitably destroy everything.

Dragons were highly territorial.

Therefore, as long as the white dragon stayed around the forest, no less dragons would come and try to hunt. Since that was the case, Jonathan only had to worry about that one dragon.

Other people were a different matter, however.

And past experience had taught to be distrustful of everyone.

Jonathan remained obscured by the tree lines and scouted the twin roads leading directly into nearby town for any sign of people. While he could not see any traces of recent traveler, it was still dangerous as there might be a scavenger camping somewhere in the bushes or nearby buildings, waiting to take a shot at him.

Not him specifically. Just anyone they could loot.

This was the norm now in the world. The result of diminishing supplies.

Jonathan continued to watch the road, finding something very odd about the snow along it. The snow looked too even, and he knew for a fact that snow do not fall evenly on the ground, all thanked to the shifting winds.

The bushes nearby bothered him as well, and he did not know what exactly. His instinct told him that it was dangerous, and he trusted his instinct. It had helped him numerous of times.

Jonathan pondered for a moment before taking out some ropes from his backpack. He then looped it around several trees, setting up a trap before covering it with snow. He also shaped a human from the snow on the ground.

He then placed the backpack onto the lying snowman and took out a bottle of water before emptying its content into his stomach. He poured some red dye into the empty bottle and then filled it up with some water from another bottle. He then placed it under his cloak and returned to scanning the road once more.

It was then that Jonathan realized that the bushes bare had any snow on one side. There was obviously someone there. Someone was camping for an easy prey.

Jonathan wasn't going to be an easy prey.

No. He was going to be a cunning prey.