Chapter 1: The Wanderer<br/><br/>Awaking once more to a overcast and dry day, Dillan Novotny stretched his sore and battered body, flexing the 157 lbs. of muscle on his toned exterior. The army sleeping bag he dozed on was once again filled with sand, and to his personal dismay, no critters had made a home in his bag, so that he might partake of their vitamin-filled flesh.<br/>Standing, Dillan rolled his head around, scratching his ash-colored hair.<br/>"Another day in paradise," he murmured.<br/>The sun gently set over the endless glimmering dunes, and the battered pavement of the lone highway began to blend into the horizon once more. It was time to set out.<br/>Dillan knew that going out at night anywhere else in the world was a bad idea, but where else of the world was there? After the bombs fell, the fallout faded, and the infected starved to death, or wandered to nearby cities to renew their ranks, Dillan knew that only the strong in spirit could survive.<br/>As he wandered, torch in hand, Dillan thought about how lucky he was to have survived the End. He managed to escape the blasts, to wait on the edge of the fallout radius, and stay away from the infected for 3 years. His wife and child were not so lucky. The memory of them cut through Dillan's mind like a shard of glass, as it usually did; but the pain was only as much as a paper-cut would be.<br/><br/>After milling through yet another wreckage on the highway, Dillan found something out of norm: a strange wreckage, something that looked like an old SUV, yet more structurally integral. Inside Dillan found something amazing: a longbow, with a full quiver of arrows. The bow and arrows were wrapped in cloth, managing to keep them in such a pristine condition. Yet, the longbow itself was strange... It seemed as if the bow was only half the size it should be.<br/><br/>After a bit of looking over, Dillan found a button that triggered the bow's limbs to eject from the main grip and arrow rest, their steel-and-wood structure glistening in the torchlight. The eccentric wheels and top cable were made of a strong carbon fiber material, to give the weapon durability and power. The bowstring was a thin, yet tightly-wound cable of polypropylene fibers,the hunting stabilizer and bow-sight of an inexpensive plastic. The amount of detail and painstaking time put into the weapon astonished Dillan. It was as if someone had spent half their life trying to craft it, and then left it, for someone to find. In fact, there was a note that laid in the cloth, next to the quiver. It wrote:<br/><br/>"To whomever this may concern, this weapon is for survival- use it well."<br/><br/>Tears rolled down Dillan's cheeks. Even in death, humanity was still a wonderful thing.