Rin
My head is pounding when my senses come back to me. My ribs hurt, my legs ache, my entire body feels like it just went through an industrial wash cycle. I groan as the memories start to return to me. Helicopters and pyramids. Blue lights and a tear in the fabric of space. You know, just the everyday things one might associate with a trip to Egypt. I don’t want to think though, I want to go back to sleep.
But it’s way too hot to sleep, and there is a weird smell in the air around us, like sulfur and rotting vegetation. I don’t know how long I’ve been laying here but I’m sticky with sweat. Something sharp is digging into my back and I roll over, trying to lie at an angle that doesn’t make me wince with pain. A moment later the ground starts rumbling and I open my eyes.
An earthquake on top of everything else that just happened? You’ve got to be kidding me.
“Is everyone alright?” I say. Just behind me Susan struggles to free herself from the harness, and Tina peeks out from between her fingers, both her hands still covering her face. I hadn’t noticed it but I’m still holding Becky’s hand, and when I look over to see if she’s alright a great wave of relief washes over me. She’s cut and bleeding a little, but she’s smiling. She slowly inches her way out of a crushed area of the helicopter and starts helping to free Alex. It seems despite the fact that the helicopter crashed upside down, most of the girls have made it through the crash without serious injuries. The cockpit must have absorbed the bulk of the impact.
“Where is Jess?” Becky asks. We look around, and that’s when I see the pilot. Unfortunately we must’ve landed nose first, because there’s not a lot left of him. For a second my stomach churns and I look away. I haven’t seen a lot of gore in my life and it’s hard to see someone who was alive a short while ago turned to mush. I know it’s going to give me nightmares for some time to come.
“I’d stay away from the cockpit if I were you,” I say to the other girls, not wanting them to have to witness the gore. I dry heave a few times and the girls look at me with fear in their eyes.
“Is it Jess?” Alex says, her voice unsteady. But before I can answer, Jess’ voice rings out from outside the helicopter. I exhale a sigh of relief and start moving toward her.
“You are all going to want to see this,” she says.
I crawl on my belly until I’m outside the wreckage, and when I rise to my feet and take a look around, I am left in utter shock. “Where the hell are we?” I say. We’re surrounded by a rocky clearing in the middle of a jungle, thick and green with a towering canopy that stretches as far as I can see. Tall red spires of rock jut out from the trees here and there, like something out of a fantasy novel. Off in the distance I can see the source of the rumbling, and realize it wasn’t an earthquake after all. Or at least not only an earthquake.
“Holy shit. Is that an erupting volcano in the distance?” says Susan.
By now the other ladies have joined us, and we stand shoulder to shoulder, no one able to move. Our mouths hang open in stupefied horror as we watch molten rock shoot into the sky as black clouds billow from a huge volcanic mountaintop. For a second I think I see a dark shadow with big black wings circling the flames, but when I look again whatever it was is gone.
“Well we sure as heck-fire aren’t in Egypt anymore,” says Tina.
For some reason I start laughing at her comment. I spin around slowly as sweat drips down my neck, taking in the sights and trying to gain my bearings. I feel like I’m on crazy pills as I look around. We are definitely in a tropical climate—I’m sweating like a pig. And there is nothing but dense foliage all around us. The air is as humid as a Georgia summer, making it hard to breath. I feel like we just got transported to that island from the show Lost. The problem: I’m not a Survivor Man type, or even a Bear Grylls. I’ve never been in a survival situation before, and I totally didn’t pay attention when I was a Girl Scout. I have no idea where to even start as far as forming a plan goes.
“Okay, seriously guys.” Jess turns to the group and wipes her face with her forearm. “Where are we? Because I’m no geology major, but there are no volcanoes like that on Earth.”
“There’s no way you can know that for sure,” chimes in Becky. “Maybe we somehow ended up in the Philippines. There are a bunch of tropical volcanoes there.”
A couple of us nod our heads. That answer still doesn’t explain how the hell we would’ve instantaneously traveled from Egypt to the Philippines, but it’s a start. And it gives me some hope that we are still close to home. Well, that we’re still on Earth at least.
“Do they have two moons in the Philippines?” replies Susan, pointing her finger straight up. “Because if you look above us, there are two fucking moons.”
I look up. She’s not kidding.
Shit. So much for optimism.
A collective moan goes up between us as we realize how terrifyingly correct she is. There are definitely two moons in the sky, two bright crescents, one overlapping the other—which rules out the Philippines. And Earth. I groan and hold my stomach as the sights sink in. “This is bad,” I say. It’s starting to feel more and more like we are completely and utterly screwed. “This is really, really bad.”
Susan rolls her eyes and speaks under her breath. “No shit, Sherlock.”
“There’s no reason why you need to be an asshole about it,” Becky retorts. “We’re all on the same side. We need to work together and figure out a plan.”
I nod my head and interject myself into the conversation. Everyone is tense right now, and the last thing we need is for tempers to flare out of control. Since I organized the trip, I feel partly responsible for us being in this predicament.
“She’s right, guys. We need to find our bearings.” A thought suddenly dawns on me, but I instantly regret it as my stomach feels sick again.
“What is it?” Jess asks, having noticed the flash of an idea in my eyes.
I groan. The smashed face of the pilot pops into my head and I nearly puke. “The first thing we should do is see if the radio on the helicopter works. I just really don’t want to be the one to go into the cockpit… I don’t know if I can handle it again.”
The girls look at each other for volunteers, and since no one jumps at the unenviable task, Alex raises her hand. She takes a deep breath and steps toward the helicopter. “I’ll take a look.”
While she fiddles around in the wreckage the rest of us start checking out our immediate surroundings. The sky is already turning red, and not just from the eruption. Black clouds are starting to block out a lot of the available sunlight, but judging by the way the sun has been moving overhead, we don’t have much daylight left either. Plus the sun here is different than that on Earth. It is smaller, redder. Maybe a brown dwarf. Long shadows are starting to fall around the trees and I don’t want us stranded in the open at night. Who knows what could be lurking out there. I’ve seen jungle documentaries, and if these jungles are anything like the ones on Earth, they are full of poisonous creepy crawlies and big people-eating meanies.
Lucky for us we’re on some sort of rocky ledge overlooking the jungle valley below, and I happen to notice a cave not too far away. It’s hard to tell from here, but it looks like it goes sort of deep. I figure if worse comes to worse and we are stuck here for a while, we can at least take shelter inside. But we’re definitely going to need some sort of weapons. There could be anything inside that cave—bears, vampire bats, crazy hobos—and I want something sharp in my hands to put between me and them.
“It’s a no-go,” I hear from behind me. Alex is back from the cockpit, and apparently she handles gore way better than I do, because she looks as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “I tried the radio but the whole thing is toast. In fact there doesn’t seem to be any power available at all.” She wipes her hands along the seams of her pants and lowers her head. “I think we’re stuck here until someone comes along and finds us, or we go find them.”
As I’m listening to Alex a strange sound catches my attention in the distance. I tilt my head and look toward the source, but I don’t see anything. “Did anyone else just hear that?”
The ladies shake their heads no.
“What did you hear?” asks Tina.
“I’m not sure, but it sounded like a horn. You know, like someone blowing a conch or something.” I watch their reactions and instantly regret telling them about the noise. I’m afraid I just scared them and it’s making things worse. “You know what—it was probably just my imagination. It’s been a crazy day. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m just hearing things.” Inside though, I’m certain of it. My head might still be ringing from our crash but I’m not crazy. I heard a horn, or a howl, or a venting of some sort from deep within the jungle, but until there is something we can do about it, I’m keeping any future noises to myself. I don’t want to spread panic when what we need most right now is clear thinking.
“If we’re going to be here for a while then I suggest we go out and find some water,” says Jess. “It’s too hot for us to be wandering around without replacing bodily fluids.”
“Yes,” I say. “Why don’t we split off into groups and look around for anything that might be useful.” I point back over my shoulder. “I noticed that cave a little bit ago. Maybe once we’ve gathered a few things together we can use it for shelter tonight.”
“You want us to go inside there?” says Tina. She raises her eyebrows incredulously.
“Do you have a better plan?” I reply.
Tina looks again at the cave and shudders. “Okay, but if I get mauled by a bear it’s on you.”
“We’re going to need supplies too,” Susan replies. “First aid, blankets, food, water. Oh, and weapons to fight off Tina’s bears.”
“The most obvious place to check is the helicopter,” Alex says. “Why don’t Susan and I go through the compartments, while the rest of you scout out the cave and look for water.”
Sounds like a plan to me,” says Jess. “Me and Tina can check out the cave while Rin and Becky go look for water.”
Alex walks up and tosses an empty bottle to me. “Here, I brought this for our Egypt desert excursion, but it will work just fine here as well. We should be able to find better water storage containers in the helicopter wreckage for later.”
I nod and we separate off into our groups. Me and Becky cautiously make our way up to the edge of the jungle and begin following the rocky clearing all the way down to lower ground, where I figure water might pool. We don’t have a whole lot of daylight left, but we can at least try to find a stream or river. Tomorrow we can come back with containers from inside the helicopter and collect as much water as we need.
It’s sort of spooky walking along the edge of the jungle. I pause every few seconds because I keep thinking I hear rustling, but whenever I stop there’s no sound. I don’t want to scare Becky so I keep quiet, but I’ll be glad once we accomplish our mission and get back with the other ladies.
The rocks beneath my feet are loose and it’s hard to keep my footing as I make it down the dusty red clearing into the jungle below. Every once in a while I look back over my shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of the crashed helicopter and the other girls. The last thing I want to do is get lost on an alien planet—we’re already in enough trouble as it is. The thing is, the trees here are so tall, a lot like palm trees but with thicker canopies, and I quickly lose sight of where we came from.
We walk for some time, not saying much to each other. I think we both have a lot on our minds and just want to get back. So we’re walking and listening, and soon I hear a trickling sound coming from the jungle to our left. I motion for Becky to follow me, and I pick up a stick and start thrashing at the underbrush, clearing a path for us to follow.
After a short time I see a clearing ahead of us, and the trickle sound I heard earlier has grown to a constant roar. I dash ahead, excited to find a source of water so we can get back to camp, and when I turn around, I notice for the first time that Becky isn’t behind me. I strain my neck around looking for her, and just when I’m about to call out her name there is a loud crashing sound coming from the opposite direction.
“Becky?” I say, curious as to how she got around to the other side of me. But the sound of snapping twigs and rustling bushes grows louder, and there’s no way all that noise is coming from one person. My heart begins racing. I slowly start to back away, fear growing inside me as my mind twists and turns with frightening images. I imagine jaguars and lions, cobras and huge spiders. What could possibly be big enough to make all that noise? I say to myself. But I don’t really want to know.
“Becky?” I say again, louder this time. I strain my ears for her response, but it isn’t Becky I hear in reply. It is the blast of a horn—loud and unmistakable. It comes from the bushes right in front of me. Branches snap in half, brush is stomped down to the jungle floor, strange cries ring out from the shadows. Then something breaks through the undergrowth right in front of me.
I scream.