The forest was silent. It was Winter, although there was no snow despite the freezing temperature. An eerie quiet descended heavily upon the detritus which covered the ground, and there was no movement- not even from one of the search drones that often roamed the area, searching for survivors.
The silence was immediately broken by the crunching of tree leaves underfoot.
What began as a slow crawl immediately turned into a full-on sprint as Max Hale ran down a narrow path in the woods. Each tree returned to the same silence that had existed before only a couple minutes after Max passed it by. He was no longer being followed, heck, he was never being followed to begin with, but Max knew this and he was just playing it safe. After running through the forest for what seemed like a really long time he stopped to catch his breath. He looked through his backpack to inspect all of the belongings he had managed to salvage: Five cans of Tuna, some water bottles, some pencils, a notebook, two packs of cigarettes and a lighter.
As Max lit up a cigarette he thought of the commercials that used to play on the holoboards located at every major intersection, “a cigarette a day keeps displeasure away”. He was addicted, and although in the long run not having a cigarette addiction would be beneficial, he would spare himself this pleasure just this once. Max sat down, leaning his back against a tree, he tried to let his mind drift away from the situation he was currently in. He thought of his family and about the birthday party which they had thrown for his tenth birthday just a couple of years earlier. He thought about his friends from school and how they used to spend hours smoking cigarettes and debating who would win in a fight. That was all over now and it had been over ever since the war broke out four years ago. From that moment onward life had been different, almost a week after the conflict started schools began to shorten academic hours, now Max would have had no problem with this, as he hated school with a passion, if it weren’t for the fact that school hours quickly became replaced with factory hours. Many students from the school (especially those with lower grades) were removed from their classes to help support the war effort in the factories. Max came to despise everyday of factory life from the second he was assigned a worker number. He had failed three of his classes and so the government had seen it fit that he would labor in a factory for the rest of the war instead of being like one of those brainiac geniuses who would go on to become a scholar at one of the leading universities.
Max stubbed out his cigarette. He had become annoyed. Thinking of the past had reminded him how he had gotten into this situation and he did not want to think about it at the moment. Instead of thinking about the past Max decided to worry about the future, he placed his lighter in his pack, zipped it up, and continued on his way. It was cold outside and Max would need to keep moving in order to keep himself warm. He continued down the same narrow path in the forest that he had ran down earlier. As he walked he made sure to remain alert of everything around him Max was young, but he was no fool, he knew he was now in enemy territory, and that any patrols he encountered would most likely shoot him on sight.
After around 3 hours of hiking down the path Max finally came to the end, a dead end. The forest had cleared away and snow now covered the ground. Looking around Max discovered a couple of benches that probably made for a nice park area during the Summer. Max had been walking uphill along the trail and now stood near the top of a fairly large hill. The view from the top was great. Perhaps breathtaking during the Summer. He stopped for a second to take it all in, but just as he had decided to stay here for the night gunshots sounded from somewhere down the hill. Max paused for a second, and then continued on his way.

The next day Lieutenant Canch woke to the sound of sirens in the camp. A patrol barged in his tent with a kid who looked to be no older than thirteen.
“We found him trying to raid the supply cache, sir” said the corporal in charge of the patrol.
“He had been looking through the crate of rations”
The Lieutenant paused for a second
“Thank you corporal, I’ll take it from here”
Canch grabbed his 44. Revolver and dragged the boy outside. He brought the boy into the woods until they came to a ditch in the ground. Canch positioned the boy directly in front of the ditch. He felt that the boy at least deserved a burial. As Canch pointed his revolver at the boy's skull, he tried not to think of the innocent boy’s life he was taking. Instead the lieutenant thought of the lives of his men. The boy had not found any food because there was none. The platoon had run out of food a couple days ago. The men were starving, and Canch could not afford to have one more mouth to feed. As he pulled the trigger, Canch looked at the spark ignite in the barrel of the gun. Canch smiled because that spark had just saved a life.

Max Hale fell into the ditch.