The blinding glare of the sun caught the boy by surprise. An instinct culminated through years of warfare, the boy threw himself onto the soft bed of grass beneath him immediately.
The boy dropped his combat knife and clapped his hands over his ears.
Nothing. The boy blinked, bemused. He gripped the cold metal in his hand, sluggishly forcing a combat stance.
A flashbang? But flashbangs were designed to disorientate. Even if discharged on open ground, it could be heard for miles around. And how had he missed it?
Fearing for his eardrums, the boy carefully touched a ear to check for any bleeding. He squinted into the brilliant but lowering sun.
As his blurred vision gradually adjusted to the light, a new world began to form at the pace of a leisurely weekend stroll. An uneven carpet of mossy green spread out beneath him, the leafy blades of grass tickling his knees.
The soothing music of birds and chirping of creatures filled the area. The sigh of a subtle breeze reached the boy's ears as it washed over him, carrying with it the intoxicating fragrance of blossoming flowers in season. Multi-coloured butterflies flitted from one flower to another, dying the wild grassland in a mix of contrasting hues.
The boy felt his breath taken from him. This was not the Hutu camp he had just hightailed from. He wasn't even sure if this was Africa.
Unending fields of green stretched as far as the eye could see, untouched by civilisation. The boy's lips parted in a silent gasp as he marvelled at the beauty of nature.
The boy snapped out of his reverie, swivelling his head around to check for hostiles.
He was alone.
The boy felt weirdly dwarfed by the wide expanse of grassland. He seemed to be the only person left in this world of green.
The boy shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun, observing the treeline in the distance. Then he noticed his arm.
The boy froze as his eyes fell onto his arm. It was not his.
What the fuck? The boy gawked at his — no, the — arm for a few good seconds before he stooped his head to look at his torso.
Patting his filthy and faded clothes, he felt the cheap polyester of the tattered cloth to make doubly sure that the clothes were his.
The arms, the hands, the body, they were all white. In fact, they were so pale they almost seemed bleached. It almost hurt his eyes to look at them under the late afternoon sun.
The boy held out both hands in front of him. His arm was soft to the touch, fair and unblemished like an infant's. The boy curled his fingers and flexed his wrist.
To his pleasant surprise, his arm felt perfectly fine. Better yet, he felt like he was in peak condition. His mind was sober and his body felt light, like it was half-floating.
As far as memory served, his palms were coarse and weathered from years of battle. His build had been somewhere between rugged from carrying rifles and thin from malnutrition. His arms had been riddled with battle scars that never seemed to fade away completely. His dark skin of African descent was also gone.
The boy glanced back to the thick treeline in the distance. He had a lot of questions, but experience told him that his first priority was finding food, water and shelter.