Chapter 5: Arrival Part 2

Fear grips me like a hand to the throat. Suffocation takes over. I'm about to fall but the assault at my neck keeps me standing, each limb too frozen to move, too weak to fight back. I need to find movement in my body but I can't. I'm trapped inside myself. And out here, in the wild.

I close my eyes and count to ten, listening to the jungle breathe around me. It comes in droplets first, a soft trickling stream of dew from petal to petal and leaf to leaf. Some are quick, rushed descents while others take their time, slowly dripping drop by drop, their songs overlapping to create a chorus of watery chimes. And then the windswept leaves start rustling into themselves. Humming erupts and I open my eyes again, the golden lavender bulbs releasing a soft glow, some cricket or animal responding in its own mewling screech.

My heart slows to its normal rate, the grip of fear at my neck dissipating, freeing my limbs to move again. I trek forward, swiping wet leaves from my way and ducking under sodden branches. A few more overgrown bushes of the yellow-tipped tongues and I'm there.

The edge of the jungle.

All lush plant life stops at my feet and a new ecosystem exists. The desert to this ocean. The dry, cracked skeleton of a dead earth left to its eroding bones - a wasteland of dust and ash. Cinder rises over the rocky ground leading up to and beyond the iron-gate, which stands as tall as the trees behind me.

Something flashes ahead.

It's a movement, darting over the gate - a giant bug zipping from rod to rod. Another appears, springing down the railings, zigzagging until it reaches the ground. Paused in its curled state, it's hunched over and small... until it starts to rise, standing erect on two mountainous, greenish-brown legs.

A lizard.

But he stands like a man.

A man with amphibian skin and covered in dark green armor that shines iridescent like cockroach wings. The rear of his head is rounded but the front is longer and hangs lower with a snout, two slits for nostrils and yellow eyes like the sun. He picks up a long brown rod with his scaled hand, his black talons clenching it close to his shelled torso. With his other hand, he strokes a cluster of cascading whiskers that fall at the base of his snout and back toward the soft skin of his throat.

The second lizard-man descends to the ground with a hard thud next to the first. A grey cloud floats in the air, shielding them from sight as a loud hiss erupts. Then it's silent until the dust settles, the two facing each other, their glowing eyes darting about. The first continues to play with his whiskers while the other zips around, practicing assault with the rod, aiming at imaginary opponents. A few loud clicking bursts are exchanged before the second returns to its legs, shaking the rod high in the air. The first leaps on the second and the two roll in the dirt, causing a second dust cloud to whirl about them.

I step back and my heel hits a pile of leaves which crunch.

The creatures still, their yellow eyes peering in my direction, darting about the greenery before the first one drops to all fours, racing toward me.

I freeze, keeping my arms pulled to the side, opening the leaves like separating a curtain. I don't move. I don't breathe. My heart is a bomb about to explode, just as the first one slowly approaches. He lifts two growling slits in the air, sniffing mere yards to the right. His partner jumps to the gate, shaking his rod over his head again, signaling the other's return. The first one gives up, glowering at the shrubbery before returning with a hissing snarl to the gate again.

Once he reaches it, I spin to the jungle and take off. Fast as I can, fast as my legs will take me.

Keep moving, keep moving...

The jungle's laden with obstacles - giant roots sit like boulders in the dirt, bubbling over uneven ground and swinging branches reach across one another, slicing the air like ready nooses. Vines try to trap me in seemingly endless walled webs and I'm barely able to navigate the tiny gaps. But as soon as I tear free from a nasty tangle and out into a clearing, my foot gets caught on a hidden root and I fall, face first, into the ground.

I hit it with a violent smack but something tiny and sharp slices my left cheek. I bring my fingers to the bone. Red.

A hissing blue flower with orange-coated petals sneaks back into its bush of siblings. The group of thirty all turn, pointing a sharp yellow stinger at me, vibrating before retracting. I spring to my feet, wiping the wet cheekbone just in time to dodge the yellow stingers shooting darts into the ground that sizzle and evaporate into nothing.

Racing, I push past a curtain of hanging yellow leaves and come to a shield of vertical vines, hanging from the canopy and dotted with crimson blossoms that dip to the ground. Clusters of trees intermingled in a sea of the spitting blue and orange flowers block the path on either side. A breeze floats through the vines and they all sway to the left.

I sweep a few to the right but the instant I touch them, the crimson blossoms spit out red goo that burns my fingers like acid. Only a few drops land on my fingers but the pain is so intense, I snap them to my chest, nursing one throbbing knuckle in my mouth. There's a clearing just beyond the curtain of vines but it's about fifteen feet away. I pass another aching knuckle to my mouth and clench my fists, locating the largest gaps in the sea of hanging fire.

I'll have to run.

But what if I can't make it? What if they snap awake and try to trap me and I burn alive? There's no other way. The blue and orange dusted flowers have their yellow stingers aimed in my direction, arrows ready to fire.

I wish I could remember someone. Anyone. A person I loved, one who could tell me it'd be alright, no matter what happens. Someone to offer comfort. But there's no one. No one to remember. Just the fire and sooty faces, the cold walks and fights. Just survival.

Like this.

I take a breath and focus on the clearing ahead. I can make it. I just have to be fast. I count myself down.

Three...

I'll just have to move really quickly.

Two...

I'll grit my teeth. It'll only be a few seconds.

One...