Youth World

Chapter 3 – A battle? Or not.

I would reckon it has been around three hours since I woke up. However, I did not think there could have been this much chaos in that short of a time span.

I saw rocks being flung from behind trees, aiming for the charging body of buff athletes wielding wooden sticks. Most of them were nȧkėd, as they probably couldn't have been bothered to put on clothing. In the corner of my eye, I could make out what seemed to be… never mind, I can't say what happened there without being too explicit.

I gave an order to my scores of tween and teen followers, many who were aghast at the scene playing out before them despite themselves doing nearly the same thing a bit prior.

"Let's march in a column like they do in those military parades. Wave your sticks and stones in the air. Men and women, let's advance!"

"Do we attack?"

"No. Let's advance menacingly and try to stop the ongoing war between I don't even know who. We don't want to hurt anybody. On the count of three. One."

"Two!" The kids joined in.

"Threee!!!!" I cried as I began to march forwards like a soldier. The other children behind me decided to follow, like a flock of sheep behind a shepherd.

My force of around a thousand kids started to march towards the ongoing battle at a very slow pace. They weren't organized and appeared to be little more than a massive mob, but sheer numbers alone were enough to deter the ongoing skirmish at the high school.

The buck nȧkėd athletes stopped running, picking up leaves to cover themselves. The girls and nerds with rocks stopped hurling them, turning around to face us. The people doing indecent acts behind a tree also stood up, covering their privates out of embarrassment.

"Ehhhhhh!" A tall, buff man walked up to me. He was the star offensive lineman on the football team. "If it isn't Alexander! I was wondering where you were!"

"Wassup, Larry!" I greeted the towering man. "Everyone, stop marching!"

It took a while, but eventually the mob of kids stopped their march towards the high schoolers.

After waiting for the quarreling teenagers to at least somewhat cover themselves with foliage and leaves, I asked them the same question that I had asked the middle schoolers.

"What happened to you guys?"

"Well, we were in class, and then we fainted and woke up buck nȧkėd in the middle of this forest. Immediately, everybody freaked out, and a bunch of people wanted to lead the group. A bunch of people left along with their "tribes", and we had a dispute here with the girls, so then we began to fight…"

"And I can see that a bunch of people over there did… you know what, forget it. I'm not that surprised that about half the school left, or that a bunch of these teenagers are horny. So, did anybody die during this whole altercation? None of the middle schoolers did, so that's lucky."

"Some died. They were trying to attack us, so we had to do it. Also a few people got injured during our fight with the girls and the nerds."

"We'll talk about this later. First things first, we should try to save as many of the injured as possible. Then, we'll discuss leadership and a course of action. Sounds good!"

"That sounds good. Not sure if those guys over there are going to make it though…"

"Well, we've got to at least try. I'm not the most knowledgeable about medicine or first aid, but I'll try my best. Hey, you guys over there, could you go get some water and come back here as soon as possible? Elena," I pointed to a ninth-grade girl, "I know that you're in the girl scouts, and you know a lot about weaving. Could you maybe weave some baskets to carry water in? Thanks!"

"No problem!" Elena exclaimed. "Just happy to help however I can! Guys, let's go!"

About three dozen kids followed the girl in the southern direction, where the stream flowed. Hopefully they could do what they were tasked to do.

Grabbing some vines and leaves from the ground, I ran up to one of the injured and began applying intense pressure on the wound to try to stop it from bleeding. The middle schoolers that had followed me began to follow suit, and soon enough the high schoolers did so as well.

After scanning the area for a split second, I could make out about 5 dead and a dozen wounded. The casualties weren't too bad, but it was appalling that people who were studying together just a bit prior got into such a massive fight that people even died.

It took a while, with my hands soaked in blood, but I had taken care of the guy that I had been healing. Looking around me, I could see that many of the injured were already properly tended to. I headed to a more placid area of the forest and began to lay down a bunch of moss and soft grass.

I spread the news to a few people around me, who then turned around and told a few more. Pretty soon, over 2,000 people were gathered around me. I was feeling quite small in comparison to this horde, but I was unfathomed due to my public speaking skills coming from my status as the debate team captain.

"In order to hunt and establish a strong enough army of sorts that other people and animals won't attack us; we will need adequate weapons. Everybody understands this much, right?"

"Yep." Some of the kids murmured.

"Good. First, I will demonstrate how to construct a spear. First, you find a very long and rather straight stick, preferably around 5 feet in length."

I looked around, and after a few seconds spotted a stick of just the right dimensions lying on the ground. I also picked up a rather long and sharp rock.

"Well, I got the stick. Now, you take this rock and sharpen it."

I squatted on the ground and picked up another rock. Then, I began grinding down the sharp rock until it finally achieved a shape resembling that of an ȧssegai tip, the spear used by the Zulus. This was what I was aiming for, anyways. Lastly, I used the sharpened rock to cut a thick slit through the long and straight stick.

"We're almost done. Now, we just have to attach the spearhead to the stick, and we've got ourselves a functional spear that can be used for close quarter combat or as a javelin."

Sliding the non-sharpened end of the spear into the slit that I had cut out, I used some vine to tie the rock to the stick. After tying it a few more times and making sure it wouldn't fall off under heavy use, I raised the spear in the air and presented it to everybody.

"Yeah!" Grant and Larry exclaimed.

Stoked by this show of support, the other kids joined in.

"YEAHHHH!"

"I'm not done yet," I silenced the crowd, "I need to show you guys how to construct a few more weapons. I only need about a hundred people, so the rest of you can get to making spears."

"Alrighty," Larry agreed, "I'll help these few thousand people with it, so don't worry about us. You just get on with teaching these guys how to make other weapons."

"Thanks, Larry, I appreciate it. Now, it's time to teach you guys how to make a sling."

I found a few vines and cut them until each was about three feet in length. After braiding them together into a rope, I used the rest of the vines to make a small diamond shaped pouch at the end of the vine rope. On the other end, I made a small loop to allow better handling of the weapon.

"You guys may think that slings are lame, but I'll show you otherwise. Can you guys see that tree over there?"

"That tree?" One high schooler questioned. "The one four football fields away?"

I picked up an ovular rock and placed it on the diamond pouch. Then, lobbing it at a high trajectory, I slinged the sling with all my strength.

WHEEEWWWW!

All eyes were on the flying projectile. After soaring through the sky for a while, the rock lodged itself in the tree.

"Wowww!"

All the kids were clapping at this demonstration. Clearly, I had impressed them.

"Lastly," I spoke after the kids were done clapping, "I will teach you guys how to make a longbow. Be sure to pass the sling around, so you all know what a complete example looks like."

Man, I sure did sound like my English teacher, Ms. Driskill.

"Note that these longbows are relatively hard to produce, so it will take a good 5 hours to make one. However, Grant will probably lead some of the spearmen to go hunting, so we can focus on making these while resting ȧssured that we won't go hungry."

"Alright," one twelfth grader said, "Go on."

"No need."

"Who said that?"

"It took me forever, but I finally found you!"

Where did that sound come from? I looked around, trying to identify the source of the deep, baritone voice. No way. He couldn't have possibly come. He was supposed to be miles away!

An older looking teen, slightly shorter than me but built much more muscularly with an extremely chiseled jaw, was standing right before me. He had a stone axe slung over his shoulder, and a vine with a few tools attached to it around his waist.

I ran up to him and gave him a massive bear hug, lifting the guy into the air.

"Lucas! You don't know how badly I missed you!"