Rin

 

 

 

I’ve been running for hours, slipping on rocks, teetering from ledges, looking over my shoulder with fright, terrified of what I witnessed back there in the cave. The moons hang high overhead—fuller now, brighter. Their illumination is all I have to go by. The silver light helps, but sometimes the shadows on the ground look like holes, and cliff faces look like shadows. I’m so afraid I’ll step in the wrong place and fall to my death. Or worse yet, fall and break my ankle. I’d be left stranded and alone, just waiting for some creature to come along and eat me alive.

But I can’t go back. I’m too afraid.

When I fell asleep last night, it was in the arms of a beautiful man. He helped me with my wounds and made me feel safe for the first time since I arrived on this damned planet. He gave me hope that my friends and I might actually make it through this experience alive. But sometime in the night I was jostled awake. My eyes opened and my blood went cold with fear. I found myself in the arms of the dragon. He was fighting and slashing at the walls, plumes of smoke billowing from his nostrils, his teeth flashing in the darkness. He was out of his mind and I had no choice but to flee. So here I am, climbing down a strange mountain in the dark.

I come to an overlook and peer out into the night sky. The black conic rise of the volcano towers just behind me, and I find myself at the top of a craggy mountain pass. It’s freezing cold, gusts of icy air whip down from the massive peaks, and I look out onto the jungle below, eager to get down there before I freeze to death. I never thought I’d want that—to be in the jungle with whatever lurks in the thick foliage, but right now it’s my only way back to the girls.

My thoughts are alive with memories of the night before: the clattering of rocks, the terrifying sounds of the dragon as he thrashed his head about and dug his claws into the stone. I’d rolled away from him the moment my eyes opened, huddling in the corner of the cave, waiting for an opportunity to escape. He must’ve been asleep still, because he paid no attention to me. Dreaming, perhaps. But it must’ve been an awful dream. A nightmare.

The ground trembles and a crackling sound echoes down the pass. My foot slips out from beneath me and I teeter on the edge of the rock face. My heart stops as adrenaline fires through my chest. With my icy fingers I clutch a lip in the rock and stay upright, but just barely. I easily could’ve fallen. I shiver. My nerves are shot.

Soon I’m sliding on my ass down a steep muddy grade, and then, just as the pastel tinges of dawn color the horizon, I make it to the tree line.

I breathe in a lungful of the warm, humid air and steady my breathing, thankful to be off that treacherous mountain. My legs are like jelly now—I don’t think I could take much more climbing. I can see the cone of the volcano as I look over my shoulder. It’s huge and ringed by wispy clouds. Dark gray smoke rises from its peak. I sure hope that think doesn’t decide to erupt today. But the ground rumbles beneath me, more violent this time. I don’t have time to gawk. I have to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other until I’m out of the shadow of this mountain and back with the girls.

The only problem is I have no idea which direction to go.

A flash of panic shoots through me, but I exhale deeply and try to calm myself. This is no time to freak out, Rin. Hold your shit together. I’m in a bad enough spot as it is, what with dragons and volcanoes, crazy lizard men and whatever lurks down here in the bush. From behind me there is a sudden groaning, as if the planet itself were in pain. The ground rumbles, and a great shadow falls over me. I look up and see black smoke roiling up from the peak. Large rocks arc into the sky, casting their shadows down onto the clouds.

This is it. The volcano is about to blow.

I move as fast as I can, ducking beneath low hanging vines, weaving between fallen logs and sharp rocks. There’s no time to figure out where I’m going. I just have to go. I cross a field of folded black rock, the remnants of an earlier lava flow. It’s hot and wisps of steam rise from fissures in the ground. By the time I get to the other side the bottoms of my shoes have melted. I’m making some ground, getting into my rhythm, but then a massive explosion blasts through the heavy tree cover. I stumble and drop to my knees. The ground trembles hard and long, and to my horror I see a red trail of lava heading down the mountain in my direction.

The bushes around me erupt with life. Strange bird-like creatures flit all around, flashing with bright colors, their sharp little beaks yapping as they sound the alarm. I have to admit I’m a bit jealous as I watch the lucky little guys fly up through the canopy to safety. It makes me think of a scene from Forrest Gump, where a little girl prays in a field, dear God, make me a bird, so I can fly far far away from here. I laugh nervously, my subconscious trying hard to keep me calm and focused, but I’m absolutely terrified. I imagine the lava flowing over me with no sign left that I was ever here. My family will never know what happened to me. I shudder.

You have to keep moving.

Something heavy is moving in the brush. I heard it a few moments earlier, too. I was hoping it was just my imagination. But now it’s unmistakable. The noises come from either side of me—crashing and rustling, snapping branches and a strange clucking sound. I have this sinking feeling that I’m being followed.

The ground jolts under my feet and I tumble. Leaves and branches fall from the canopy. Some kind of weird white nuts and giant purple bananas fall all around, hitting me in the head and bouncing along the jungle floor. Everything is shaking. I hug the ground, waiting for it to stop. But when it eventually does I’m faced with an even more frightening situation.

A beak juts out of the brush ahead of me, followed by two sharp horns. It’s a creature, about the height of an ostrich, with long fangs and a powerful looking jaw. It’s watching me with fish-like eyes. They are cold and merciless. It steps out of the foliage, revealing a plume of feathers out its back side, and long scrawny bird legs with two razor-hooked claws. I grasp a broken branch, intent on using it as a weapon. Slowly I come to my feet and point my improvised spear at the creature.

“Shoo!” I yell at it, thrusting the stick in the air. Smoldering volcanic rocks clatter down from the sky. They smash into tree trunks and bite deep into the ground. But I don’t have time to worry about that. I thrust my spear at the creature again, trying my best to sound intimidating. “Be a good little birdy-lizard thing and get away from me,” I yell.

Another creature appears from the brush. There are two of them now, watching me with their hungry fish-eyes. I glance over my shoulder, looking for an escape, but there is nowhere to go. They will catch me if I run. The one ahead of me makes a final clucking sound, and then they both charge.

I scream and tightly clutch my pointy stick. A voice in the back of my head is chanting, this is not how it ends. This is not how it ends. A burst of adrenaline rushes through me, and I decide right then and there that if I’m going to get eaten today, these big fucking turkeys are going to have to earn their meal.

I’m scared—completely out-of-my-mind terrified to be honest. I can feel the warmth running down the inside of my leg as my bladder decides it’s had enough. My teeth chatter wildly, and my legs are about to give out. Images flash through my head of my mom and dad and growing up in the suburbs on a nice quiet street—not a dragon or killer ostrich in sight. I think about the girls back at the helicopter and hope they’re having better luck than I am. I’m at my wit’s end with this planet and I just peed myself. But there’s no way I’m getting eaten without shoving this branch right up one of these big dumb bird’s asses. Not after all the shit I’ve been through.

I lean in close to the ground and aim my spear at the one ahead of me. It rushes full speed in my direction, lowering its head and gnashing its filthy maw. It’s so god-awful ugly it sends chills down my spine. I can just make out the second one in my peripheral. There’s another loud boom from the mountains and another shower of rocks rain down, clinking and clanging off the trees. A fire starts in the undergrowth ahead of me as a glowing volcanic rock smashes into the ground.

The first creature leaps into the air, jutting its claws toward me and slashing at my face. I duck down and barely avoid getting my face sliced off. I rise up, aiming my spear right at the creature’s belly. I thrust. The pointy end sinks in deep and the creature screams. Its momentum carries it over me and I fall to the ground, trapped beneath the creature’s body. I desperately search around me but I can’t find my spear. It was pulled out of my hands when we collided. The animal’s jaw starts snapping and biting at my face and I grab it by the head, digging my fingers into its eye sockets.

I let loose a blood-curdling scream as I gouge out its eyes.

“Fuck you!” I yell again and again. I’m in crazy-mode and I’m blind with rage. I react almost without thinking. My fingers sink in deeply and after a couple half-hearted bites the creature slumps over, dead.

There’s a high-pitched scream above me and then the other creature appears. It’s staring down at me, blinking its fish eyes and licking its chops. I struggle to free myself from the corpse of the other creature but it’s just too heavy. I’m pinned in place and my spear is nowhere to be found. I take a deep breath and exhale. So this really is the end? I think to myself. And to think I was doing so well defending myself—what a shame.

The creature steps toward me with its huge scimitar-like claws and rears its head. Its jaw hinges open, gruel drips off long yellow fangs. I rest my head against the ground, waiting for the creature to finish me while happy thoughts run through my mind: At least I got to see the pyramids, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends and family—not in a million years. My heart slows, my hands stop shaking. Warmth flows over me, and a strange contentment calms my nerves.

I smile. “Let’s get this over with bird-brains.”

From my peripheral I see a hot white streak come flashing in, shooting through the jungle canopy like a bolt of lightning. Volcanic rocks clatter all around, and then that white hot streak flies right into the creature’s face. It hits it so hard that its head pops off and its body goes tumbling into the bushes. I watch its head bounce through the vegetation with my mouth hanging open in shock.

Holy shit! I blink a few times, unable to believe my eyes. Did that seriously just happen?

I’m stunned. I look around and wiggle my fingers. Then I wiggle my toes. It’s all there.

“I’m safe,” I say, calmly at first, but then with an energy that wells up from deep within me. “I’m safe! I’m alive! I’m not bird food!”

I begin struggling to get out from beneath this big stinky ostrich, but I’m stuck fast to the ground. Now that I’m not about to be eaten, I smell the heavy smoke and hear the crackling of flames as fire spreads over the jungle floor. The flames have grown large, licking up the tree trunks and hopping quickly through the dead undergrowth.

“Well, so much for being safe.”

The ground rocks again, shuddering as the groans of the volcano become ever more powerful. A shadow passes overhead, big like the shadows of the flying rocks. I shake my fist at the sky. I hate this damned planet so much.

“Just get it over with already!” I yell with everything I have.

But then the big shadow turns and it starts circling overhead. I stare up through the canopy, squinting hard to make out the object flying above me, and soon I see the fiery eyes of the dragon. He circles again and then his eyes lock onto mine. He swoops down through the trees, landing with a thud beside me, and lifts away the carcass with his sharp teeth. A moment later I’m holding onto his claws, flying through the sky, watching as a river of lava splashes down the mountainside and flows over the bodies of the killer-ostriches.