Mad Croc

“Wake him up”,

“I am trying”, the voice came from beside me.

“Slap him . . .”

“Slap him? No!”.

I groaned and my eyes opened.

Now, where am I?

I scanned my surroundings, “We’re still in the plane”.

“We are approaching our destination”, the boy spoke,

What was his name now? Alph, yes, Alph something-something.

“I hope you do not mind the way you have been treated"

Really?

What part was he even talking about- tieing me up? shooting me? or kidnapping me in the first place?

Definitely not okay.

"It's okay", I stated.

At first, I saw nothing but the ocean stretching all around, then I noticed a line at the horizon. It was an island, green all over. I couldn’t make out much about the island as it was very far.

The plane was heading straight for it. One of the many things that amazed me was the rate at which the plane covered the distance.

The island grew larger in front of us and soon we were racing over the treetops.

The plane took an abrupt turn, I squinted against the afternoon sun, there was some kind of campsite along the lake, though it was still- pretty far away.

The touchdown was a rather soft and pretty non-conventional vertical touchdown.

"Time to go", the boy said, holding me up.

I am not going!

"Where?", I asked.

"I suggest you better get up, or we'll have to carry you unconscious again", he said pointing his eyes at the lady who decided to step out of the cockpit.

I am going!

Instantly I walked out of the plane.

My memory was returning but it was still cloudy in a lot of places.

Another guard followed the lady, wearing the same uniform he had a long black rifle hanging from his waist.

He glanced at me and shuffled into the attention position. He raised his forearm and placed it parallel to his face, his palm was facing his cheek.

I presumed he was saluting me.

"Bracer Phoenix", he said confidently, "A pleasure".

I looked over from him to the lady, "Alph", she said "I suggest you better arm him", she said nodding at me.

"Yeah", Alph pulled out a black pistol from his trousers and placed two magazines in my hand.

Whoa, this is cool

"This should be enough for the time being, the magazine contains air pellets, not enough to kill but can push an opponent away from you", he explained.

"It's yours?", I asked, examining the gun- it was a pretty decent one.

"For the time being, Yeah, I need to return it later. You can keep it, I am not very good at using them anyways", he said shrugging.

Oh, and the plane wasn't really a plane.

Yeah

It was a shuttle, like one of those which go to space, its swept-back wings glistened in the sunlight, the saw huge boosts which still had a slight blue glow on them. They were piping hot and radiated heat. There were scary missiles under the wings and many more attached to the body.

"That is a Navy shuttle", Alph had said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

There was a soft sound of the humming of a speed boat.

"They're here", Alph said gazing at the lady.

A speed boat appeared out of the thick forest. A girl was piloting, while two other kids stood behind her, one of them had a dangerous-looking assault rifle in his hand.

Since when did they start giving such guns to kids?

COOL!

I watched expressionlessly as the kids docked the boat and walked up to us, I guess they were all around my age.

"This is your package", the lady said moving forward.”

I am not a package

But of course- I did not voice my thoughts

"Thank you captain", the girl spoke, she had a hair-raising slim -athletic figure. Her skin was a light shade of brown, her swirling piercing brown seemed to turn misty and disintegrate as I looked into them, she stared at me for a while. "Oblin Macdine sends his acknowledgements".

Oblipus McDonald's- what?

"Very well, we must fly out now", the lady spoke. Her hand went to her ear which had some sort of glowing communication device on it, "This is XO, package secure, returning to mother, over".

"You", the brown girl spoke, moving close to examine me. I could smell her sweet mint breath, "get into the boat, before I change my mind and leave you here".

I had serious second thoughts about getting into the boats, but I really had no other option. Alph nudged me towards the boat, the other kids followed us, both were wearing helms, one of them was a girl, her ponytail hanging outside her helm.

The other two kids introduced themselves, one was Flaud and the girl was- Dream. Weird names were clearly a thing around here.

"Suhani isn't that bad- you're just new", Flaud grinned.

I glanced at the slim girl, Suhani, who had just finished talking to the madbulletshootingpinkhairlady, was making her way back to us.

"You boy", she pointed at me.

"Yeah?", I cursed myself for sounding like a clown.

"Sit at the back and do not disturb me", she ordered.

I caught Dream nodding at me from the corner of my eyes.

The Flaud sat down beside me, his finger was on the trigger of his assault rifle which he kept on his lap. Suhani pulled a few levers, the rotor whizzed to life and we were cruising smoothly, into the thickets.

Some vines hung on the tree barks and branches and created a roof for us. The ground on either side was mossy and wet, I wasn't planning to make a run for it any time soon.

"Where am I?", I whispered.

"Zube", Flaud replied casually, as if it was meant to explain everything.

Everything was perfect-

Other than the fact I did not know where I was, why I was here and who were these people.

We were zipping, through the murky liquid.

Once in a while, we came across a huge white rock that looked like a prehistoric egg. There were some numbers written on them.

"Those are for navigation", Flaud explained, keeping a hand on his forehead to protect his brown eyes from the glare of the sun.

Things had been going well for too long, just too long.

The boat shook violently and the right side lifted above the water level before plunging back down.

There was a startling growl and I knew exactly what it was.

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc. Echoed in my mind.

Suhani grunted as she steadied the boat, "Flaud crocodile, at your six-light it up".

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc.

I remembered a movie where a crocodile had killed everybody in a boat.

Now is not the time.

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc

Flaud turned around and aimed at the crocodile

COOL

Through the scope and pressed the trigger, I saw bursts of air, at the muzzle of his rifle.

Air pellets, I sighed.

Things might have gone differently had Flaud not been such a bad shot, one out of twenty shots hit the crocodile, which wasn’t helping a bit.

“It isn’t working Suhani”, Flaud decided.

Bracer, support him”, she hollered.

Me? Why?

What is that new trendy word stupid kids say nowadays?

LOL

LOL, why should I help?

LOL

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc.

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc.

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc.

"Shut up!", I yelled.

Everybody stared at me.

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc.

"I said that to my mind", I explained, "not to you guys, don't worry"

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc.

I pulled out the air pistol and cocked it.

“Aim for its eye”.

Mad croc, mad croc, mad croc, mad croc.

So five minutes into the future, we had pretty much-achieved nothing, the croc was still raging after us.

Flaud was pretty useless, hit shots barely hit the croc and mostly caused ripples in the water.

We're gonna die, I decided.

The boat tilted more as the full head of the croc appeared over the rear end. I emptied another clip at the croc, who just grunted in the end, so much for my bravery.

"I'm out of ammo", I said shrugging.

"Here", Flaud said, taking out a clip from his bag, "It's my last", he said tossing it over to me.

And I smartly tossed it into the mouth of the crocodile.

Die mad croc

Nothing happened for a few seconds, the croc chewed the magazine contentedly, everybody stared at me- then the pellets exploded in its mouth and I watched it slumber back into the water.

Victory

“How do you feel?”, Alph asked a while later.

I grinned at him, despite the circumstances, “Like I could throw a hippo hundred meters far”.

The stream narrowed down, there were cliffs on both sides and we barely had two feet on both sides.

“Hold tight guys”, Suhani yelled, as she pushed the throttle down full, and we sped between the cliffs.

We were now cruising above crystal clear water, which was definitely better. Coloured pebbles were spread across the riverbed looking like eggs fallen into the water, or were they actually eggs?

At this point, I couldn't be sure

We went through a couple of creepy tunnels- then all of a sudden the cliffs disappeared.

Disappeared

The water wasn't choppy anymore, we were in a lake and ahead of me- was the campsite.

Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like cabins—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheatre, a shooting arena, a basketball court—. Kids in bright blue jumpers like Alph’s were chasing each other around several cabins spread out around the huge lake in a semicircle.

As we came closer, I noticed a crowd had assembled around the docks waiting for us.

Alph put his hand on my shoulder, "Welcome, to Zube"