After school, Sue goes to work and is allowed to have Lee with her in the office. Lee passes the time watching anime and movies; at the end of the day, they go and get Sakura back from school and head home.

  At home, Lee heads to his room and boots the computer, checks for homework, which he does immediately; as he looks at the clock, he notices that only an hour and a half have gone by.

  Looking out his window, he notices the woods just past the backyard; he then heads downstairs to find Sue.

  “Mum, am I alright to explore the forest near the back garden?” Lee asks.

  Sue looks at him, then at the kitchen counter, then with a sigh, she says, “Sure, but don’t go too deep into it, and put your boots on, and a coat!”

  Lee then runs out of the door and straight into the woods; as he enters, he finds himself examining where he is stepping, markings on trees and any signs that someone or something has been in the area; he continues walking, then after he turns around and can’t see any traces of his house, he looks up and takes a deep breath.

  He walks around for a bit longer without losing his way back home; eventually, he finds a boulder and takes a seat to rest, but instead, he finds himself looking for bits of rocks, for sturdy sticks… from the boulder, he finds a stick as long as himself; he then grabs one end and swings it; the stick whistles as it cuts the air; Lee then with a smile spins and smacks the stick on a tree; the stick bends but doesn’t break.

  Finally catching himself, he asks, “What am I doing? Why is this a good stick?” Almost like being called upon by the questions, Lee gets flashes of memories.

  So, as he is alone, he sits back on the boulder with the long stick laying on his lap; he crosses his legs and closes his eyes and starts to look at the memory.

  In the memory, he finds what he presumes is himself, as he sees in the first person; in his hands, he has a similar stick; as he tries to bend it, the image shakes, and Lee realises that the person to whom the memory belongs is shaking his head, unhappy with the stick; then he drops the stick into a long crate with water before grabbing another stick; this one bends; as the man stops applying pressure, the stick returns to its original position.

  Then Lee sees the man walking to a more lit-up room and starting to twist some thin rope; with a knife, the man makes a cut in one end of the stick and ties the rope; then placing the stick on a worktable, he holds it in place before turning a gear and the worktable starts to move, making the stick bend; the man ties the other end of the rope to the cut and groove at the other end of the stick.

  Slowly the man undoes the gear and the table starts to straighten itself, but only a bit; the man then grabs a pole and from a distance undoes the clips holding the stick in place; in an instant, the man’s free arm covers his face. When nothing happens, the man lets out a chuckle; he then grabs the stick with the string, and Lee sees a simple bow; the man takes a few steps away from the table with the bow in his hands, then tosses it onto the top of the table. As it remains in the main shape, the man grabs it again and pulls at the string, testing the strength of it. Once happy, he starts to carve some details and wraps a strip of leather in the middle for a hand grip.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “That was fascinating,” Lee says, opening his eyes; then, without thinking for too long, he heads back home; in no time, he is at the edge of the forest; he places the stick that he found in the woods and leans it against a tree.

  He enters the house and calls out as he takes off his boots, “Mum, I’m back!” No one answers, but Lee can hear people talking in the living room, so he walks to it and finds his parents on one sofa with a soldier across from them, and standing up behind the soldier are three other soldiers.

  Sensing movement, the soldiers look at Lee; so then looking over, Sue says, “Lee, come here.” Lee approaches his parents and casts side glances at the soldier on the sofa; then as he gets closer, he notices that there are some medals on the man’s uniform. “Lee, this is General Cooper; he was at the accident today.”

  Lee, looking at the general's face, smiles. “I remember now; he was the one that said I was right, then he asked me if I knew where you were.”

  Sue nods. “That is right.”

  “Young man!” calls out the general. “I came here to thank you again for saving everyone, and as well as to apologise for not being able to prevent the tank from falling.”

  Lee looks at the general, confused, not understanding why the man would apologise.

  “I am the general of the Humanity Galactic Defence,” says the general. “Unlike the regular army that defends and protects the country, I and my men, we protect the planet from things like this; we have a special aircraft that can catch it, but this one was going too fast and we didn’t catch it.” The general shakes his head. “If we had managed to hold it just a bit longer before heading back up.”

  Lee looks at the general, then at his mother and back at the general. “In that case sir, we have to thank you!” Everyone in the room looks at Lee, so he continues. “If you had it but dropped it again, the tank was slow; if you didn’t grab it, how many broken shops would we have?”

  The general looks at Lee, then sideways for a second before looking back at Lee; then the general starts to chuckle once, then again and slowly his chuckle turns into a booming laughter. The general wipes his eyes. “That is very smart child. If we hadn’t grabbed it, even for a bit, slowing down its descent, it would have exploded on impact.” He then looks at Sue and Kenji. “Your son has identified a crucial point that my superiors have not; they only saw the damage, not the ‘what if’ side of the worst that could have happened.” The general stands up and salutes. “Thank you for hosting me and allowing me to apologise.”

  Sue and Kenji stand up too, then Kenji adds, “It’s alright; and like Lee said, thank you for slowing the tank.” Kenji then extends his hand, which the general shakes.

  That night, Lee only has dreams about bows and arrows, the different shapes they have, the ways of making them, including the reason behind the invention of the worktable, that happened after one bow broke and nearly blinded the crafter.

  On the following day as he wakes up, Lee remembers every single way of making the bows and arrows.