In the distance the lights danced and twinkled like teasing dancers. Isis watched them with wonder lust filling his primitive little heart. He tripped over a board and grumbled when a rock tickled the inside of his worn shoe. Still, he trudged on.

The railroad was as foreign as the electric lights to the boy. He questioned what they were and where they lead, but he was no better off even if someone told him. He wouldn't understand the language anyway. Why did the Chief Shaman choose him?

"Follow the setting sun child with great haste," the greatest elder of their clan spoke as he placed the last tool in his pack.

"But why? Why me?" The boy's eyes glistened.

"Not all things are as simple as 'why' child. The Great Mother did not ask why but she knew that she must and so she did."

How he hated those cryptic messages. They answered nothing, but you were taught to never argue with the great elders. But I'm just a human, he thought. Why not send one of the Shifters? "Can I ask where I am going?"

The Old One nursed his back and scratched his beard. "The wind tells me toward the setting sun. You may deviate your path once and only once. Should you disobey you will find death amongst your allies."

Allies? Now I'm to meet someone? "I have my doubts, but you have chosen me so--"

A cold chilling feeling consumed Isis as familiar as when he first arrived. Unlike his arrival on the island where he felt he was going burst with life he now felt an overwhelming fear choke him awoke. Alone. Deep in the dense woods. At first he went the wrong way, not sure if the sun was rising or sinking. Then he lost twelve hours when he realized it was lowering behind him.

Weeks of starving and thirst and living on instinct alone. A trial no ten year old boy should endure, but he was. Treading the railway he only held onto the boyish wonder of where his feet would lead him next and ignored the gunshots and explosions that twinkled and danced in the distance.