Looking out the shuttle viewport beside him, Hunter surveyed the receding landscape before him. As they pulled away from the surface, he looked up at the midnight sky. His father would be waking soon and would discover the note that Hunter had left. Flaar, Hunter’s father, had been getting rapidly sicker and sicker after Hunter’s mother, Shusha, had come down with that horrible disease. He knew he shouldn’t of left his father on his own, but Hunter just had to get away from it all.

He again turned his head downward and searched for his house. Even from this height, he could see it. All of the sudden, a light come on. Then another and another. Soon, he saw a door open and light spill out of the house onto the dark lawn where he had played with his toys so long ago. He could just hear his father’s anguished voice screaming into the darkness. A tear rolled down his cheek and he wiped it away. It wasn’t a time for regrets. What was done was done. All he could do was look ahead for the future and the brighter – or darker – times it promised.

He turned away from the viewport and picked up the worn backpack that was in the seat beside him. Opening it, he pulled out various items, stopping when he reached the bottom of the bag. All his possessions fit into the bag, which was still only about half full. Though, that didn’t matter much because the backpack was huge. His appearance belied what was beneath. He had sold most of his stuff that afternoon before and took the credits and split them up into two piles. The larger he had given to his mother and father, while the noticeably smaller pile he kept for himself. Some of it had been spent getting gear and things that he would most likely need.

He slowly packed all of the stuff back up, leaving his datapad in his lap. His datapad was his most prized possession. Before he had left, he installed numerous practical programs on it and had many more in storage on a datachip. Sighing, he switched the datapad on and accessed the game menu. Pulling up sabaac, he started a new game. It was a great way to pass the time and now, he had nothing but time.