Unaware of the danger close to it the pigeon descended on the ground in search for worms and little insects. Just a few meters away a pair of dark eyes followed its every single movement.

"AAAAAH!"

A big shadow emerged between the bushes and leaped towards the small bird. Startled it opened its wings and quickly escaped to a tree from which it curiously stared at the teen yelling and swearing at it.

"Damn it! This already the third time!"

Angrily he hit the trunk another time and stuffed his hands into his pockets. Disappointed he turned around and made his way through the forest.

"Stupid ass bird!", he grumbled.

His mood got even worse when he saw his two fellow castaways back at the beach, sitting on broad logs which they set up in front of the cave. Excited Claire waved her arm when she saw him.

"There you are! How did the hunt go?!"

Disappointed he stared at his empty hands. They were full of scratches and bruises but it was all for nothing.

"Sorry, I had no luck this time…", he admit. "But hey, wanna hear a bird joke?!"

"No.", Sam groaned in response.

Annoyed he looked at the ladder who continued to stare concentrated at the fire, straight up ignoring him. Expecting this kind of answer James´ smile got brighter.

"Well, that's hawkward!"

Claire burst out into laughter, and it got even louder when she saw Sam´s annoyed expression.

"Oh, James!", she giggled. "I´m so happy you joined us, please never change!"

Proud of his achievement to piss Sam off and make Claire laugh he brushed through his hair and he sat down on the log right next to her. The smell of grilled food made his stomach growl.

"Where did you get all that fish from?!"

"Oh, you should have seen this! Sam´s idea was pretty amazing!", she told him with shining eyes. "Come on, tell him!"

Flustered he scratched his cheek.

"It´s really not that complicated. I just noticed the many puddles which are full of fish during a tide…", he explained. "So we made a small wall and waited a while for them to get trapped. We even caught some shrimp."

With a bright smile Claire handed him a large fish pierced on a stick. Unsure he chewed on it and if Sam hadn´t caught it he would have actually enjoyed it.

Envious he glared at the older teen. He must have noticed it because shortly after he sent an evil stare back.

"What a psycho…", they thought of each other.

Claire, unaware of the mental showdown that was unfolding around her stared sighing at the sky. Before she used to eat scarcely, afraid that her fans and viewers would perceived her differently if she would have gained weight but now she wished she never did. She held her stomach, cursing herself of having deprived herself of the pleasure for such a reason. Yearning she watched the seagulls playing catch with the wind. How much she craved for something different to eat apart from the things the sea offered.

"How nice it would be if we could eat chicken…", she sighed. "If only we could catch something…"

Noticing his tattered jeans and leaves in his hair Sam wondered how many times he must have fallen to the ground. It must have been quite frustrating for him.

"Why don´t you just build a trap, James?", he asked with a small smirk on his face.

Angry he squint his eyes, realizing that Sam knew that he couldn´t catch one up until now.

"I would if I had any idea how to build one but too bad I never learned it because I never expected to get thrown off a ship and strand on a deserted island!", he said and grinned at him.

It was only now that Claire noticed the growing tension between the two. Without looking away she grabbed a coconut next to her and put a small stalk inside.

"Here it goes…", she whispered and started drinking out of it, while constantly shifting her gaze between the two.

Trying not to get his anger and growing frustration the better of him Sam tried to come up with a mature response.

"At least I try to do something so that we don´t starve to death, unlike a certain someone who treats this whole thing as a joke.", he replied calmly.

This was the last straw James needed to finally snap the twig between his hands and throw it into the fire. With wide eyes he pointed his fingers at Sam.

"Oh, you´ll just wait. I will hunt something and then we´ll see who…starves the last!"

He turned around and kneeled down at Claire's feet.

"Please wait for me! I swear, I won´t stop until I get a Poulet de Provence for you, Claire!"

"Oh, James!"

Touched she placed her coconut drink aside and put her hand over her heart. Before he left she gave him a spear and a water bottle. Dramatically he waltzed away.

Worried she watched him leaving the beach and disappearing into the woods. Once he was gone she turned around to Sam with her hand on her hips, feeling the anger swirling up in her.

"Good job, Sam! Now he´s gone! Can´t you two just get along with each other?!"

He closed his eyes and chuckled.

"Oh my sweet summer child, there is so much that you don´t know…Just like the sun and moon we´re chasing each other in circles, so close…yet far away…and never meant to be together…", he told as he dreamingly stared at the ocean.

"Oh, Sam…that was beautiful…", she gasped.

It worked!

Content he crossed his arms behind his head and let the sun warming up his body. Now that James was gone he finally could get some rest from the constant stares, pranks and jokes. Remembering to keep up the diary, he grabbed for his bag and opened it. The pages were full of illuminati signs and other cryptic symbols and commentary.

"JAMES!"

Confused he raised his head. He was sure to have heard somebody shouting his name.

"The wild is calling me!", he whispered ominously.

Holding the spear high he walked deeper into the forest. The terrain he entered was still mostly unexplored. None of them knew how big the island actually was but just by looking at the forest it must have been quite large, James assumed.

The lush green trees under which he walked provided shelter for all forms of wildlife, small shrews rustled in the grass and once or twice a squirrel. After a while he heard the familiar cooing sound of a wild pigeon above his head.

"You!"

He almost oversaw the black shimmering body with the small head sitting on a branch. From afar it could have been easily mistaken for a crow. It looked nothing like the plain grey pigeons he was used to seeing in the city.

Knowing that he couldn´t climb on the tree he ignored it.

There was no point in wasting his time hunting a prey he wouldn´t be able to catch so he continued his way. Looking from the map he found in Sam´s diary there was a river nearby.

"Something tells me that I may find something around the water."

Aimlessly he wandered around and to his surprise he found himself passing the same tree two times.

"What the hell, man?!", he wondered.

He slowed down and closed his eyes. Intensely he listened to the sounds of nature, which were nothing like the ones he heard in Milwaukee, seeing how they didn´t have much nature to begin with.

In between the occasional random animal scream and rustling of the leaves he heard the faint ripple of a nearby stream. Triumphant he clenched his fists and jumped up.

"Gotcha!"

In his assumption wherever there was a body of water he would find something that would drink out of it. Animals tended to gather around a creek, especially during midday, the hottest time of the day.

"Weird, what are those?"

Wondering he kneeled over the small impressions in the mud and scratched his head. Those patterns didn´t resemble anything he had ever seen before. Until now they never encountered any larger animals, let alone any dangerous ones, but that didn´t mean that there weren't any living here

"Maybe there are lions living here?", he wondered and the grip around his spear tightened. "Awesome, I always wanted to have a fur coat or at least a cool scar!"

Noticing more traces of animal footprints on the ground he followed the trails down a path.

Excited he ran down and fought his way to the river but once he arrived at the creek a small group of pheasants, startled by the approaching noise, flapped their wings and disappeared screaming into the thicket.

"Goddammit!", he yelled frustrated and stomped on the grass. "Why?! Why does this keep happening to me?!"

He was so sure he could use his strength and speed for survival but now he found himself with an empty stomach. Wondering he stared at the water. It was impossible for him to build a trap from the scratch and hope for an animal to get caught. It would take time and the knowledge of building one, none of them which he had.

He could hear Sam snickering in the back of his head. Just the thought of returning without anything made his blood boil. Before he realized it he accidently broke the spear apart.

"Great …"

Annoyed he threw it away and sat down by a nearby in moss covered rock, remembering the time when he lost his fight against a much smaller opponent during a match.

"Urgh!"

He landed hard on the ground and blinked disoriented at the ceiling. The shocked gasps and whispers of his fellow karateka didn´t annoy him as much as the triumphant smile of the teen towering over him and the small nod of his teacher who appeared right next to them.

"This is enough. Thank you, Mark."

"Yes, Sensei."

Stunned he pulled himself up and joined his friends, who nervously moved aside. None of them dared to say a word. They´d never seen him getting beaten so easily. The rest of the lesson he paid no longer attention, the shock of the defeat made him forget his surroundings. By the times everybody already left he was still staying with clenched fists in the dojo, waiting for his sensei to tell him the truth. But instead of coming towards him he calmly meditated.

Realizing that he would continue unless he would say something he stepped forward.

"Why did I lose? You told me I was your strongest student!"

Mister Hayashi raised his head and stared out of the window. A light chuckle escaped him.

"I knew that this would happen."

"Then why did you let me fight him if you knew that I´d lose? That´s not cool, man!", he stared in disbelief at his teacher who calmly stood up and wiped the dust off his uniform.

"Have you ever heard of the Weber-Fechner law?", when he saw James shaking his head he continued. "It refers to two laws in the field of psychophysics, also known as human perception."

"And what does it have to do with karate?!", he asked impatient.

"A lot actually. Maybe if you would start paying attention at school you would learn something. You possess discipline and determination that I´ve rarely seen in my lifetime as a karate teacher...it makes me wonder why I don´t hear the same thing from the teachers at your school."

"I don´t know okay?! Yeah okay, I admit, sometimes I draw blue arrows on my arms and shoot paper airplanes but seriously, apart from English and Drama everything is so boring. Oh, and because the teachers are assholes.", he added.

"Maybe they are. After all they´re teachers.", he replied with a smirk.

"Yeah, not all of them are. I mean, you´re a teacher and you´re fine."

"Even if I let you run into a fight you would lose?"

"Okay, that wasn´t cool. I already suck hard at school. This is the only thing I´m good at, or at least I thought I was...", he mumbled. "Why can´t you just tell me where I went wrong?"

"Because I believe that you can learn important lessons on your own. There will be moments in your life where you will be alone and I cannot be there for you."

Worried he stared at his teacher. The thought of him no longer being there one day made him shudder.

"But right now you are.", he argued and smiled awkwardly.

He let out a hearty laugh and shook his head.

"I guess I really am."

Eagerly James sat down and watched his sensei exercising and although he was an elderly man he performed the katas with elegance and preciseness.

"I understand why you want to be the best but you can´t force improvement by simply being the strongest.", he said and looked James directly into the eyes. "If you want to speed up you have to slow down."

"I have no idea what you mean by that!", he whined and threw his hands into the air. "Why you always speaking in riddles?!"

Visibly amused by his confusion Hayashi Sensei sat by his side and patted his shoulder.

"Because I´m the old crazy karate master from next door."

Looking back now Hayashi-Sensei was probably the closest of a grandfather he ever had, but just as often, you come to appreciate something when it´s no longer there.

Just like his teacher used to do James sat on his knees and closed his eyes. He had ignored the spiritual aspect of karate for too long.

For the first minutes he nervously twitched. His consciousness was filled with thousands of irrelevant thoughts buzzing in his mind. But the longer he sat the weaker they became.

"Speed up, slow down…"

He stood up and repeated the Heian Shodan Katas but much slower than he usually would. It felt much more intense than before, every single muscle burned and the sweat was running down his face but now he noticed the small twitches in his techniques, the blind spots.

"So that´s what he meant! Man, was I stupid!", he laughed in surprise.

He went to the edge of the water to cool his face, when he suddenly heard as faint rustling just a few meters away from him. Surprised his body froze, even his breathing stopped for a few seconds. Right in front of him appeared a green pheasant breaking through the bushes.

Carefully he followed the bird around the river, always making sure to keep a safe distance. "Focus…James…focus!", he repeated in his head. "Slow down!"

Like a predator he blended into the dark green fauna and stalked the unaware prey to a small clearing. His whole body was burning with energy but he kept it under control.

As if all his strength and speed were challenged into one single movement, directed at one single target, he went into a trance like state. The pheasant came so close James could see every single feather.

"Now!"

The last thing it saw was a dark shadow leaping towards it.

"You´re back!"

Relieved Claire saw him returning from his day long trip, tired but nonetheless satisfied. Incredibly thankful she gave him a hug and took the bird to prepare it for dinner.

Sam coldly replied that by the end of the day it didn´t matter who brought food as long as they had something to eat. Triumphant James chewed on a leg and watched him being visibly envious of his catch.

"Speak for yourself, pheasant!"