Dodge Another Bullet

Both Shiny and X froze. From the trees dropped down a large bat that was bigger then X. It screeched and started crawling towards them, sniffing around and flicking it's ears. It looking directly at them, instead the creature tilted it's head side to side trying to listen for anything to move. The beast moved slower now, feeling around with the hooks on the tip of it's wings and at one point almost caught X in the face but he managed to lean back enough to be missed. Shiny was holding his breath as he watched another crawl down from a tree. X and Shiny didn't dare move, afraid that even the slightest noise will alert the beasts that crawled slowly. They made soft chattering noises as they accidentally bumped into each other at one point. This time they clear had eyes but what looked to be almost like a dark shield slid over their eyes. It remind X of a shark's eyes as it's about to strike. Finally while both of them when were looking at each other, trying to signal each other about what they should do next one of the bat's hooks brushed Shiny's boot. It screeched triumphantly and hooked his foot, dragging him down.

Shiny instinctively screamed as he was being dragged towards the sharp teeth of the beast. X quickly dove for him, grabbing his arm and yanking him back. The second bat tries quickly feeling around and was sniffing the ground before accidentally lunging into a tree next to X instead of at him. It stumbled back dazed and hit X with it's wing before just collapsing to the ground. X grunted in pain while grabbing his back pack and throwing Shiny's at him. It was time to get moving or else they might not make it alive. Shiny stumbled but regained his balance right as the first bat that had initially hooked onto his foot lunge at him. He quickly dropped down and covered his head, not being able to see the big bat dive over him, crashing into another tree and knocking it down. Both of the men took that chance to take off running. Sharp pains were coming from Shiny's ankle but he ignored it for now. His sock felt wet as he ran so he assume he was bleeding, X was a few steps ahead of him, running as fast as he could despite being exhausted. They ran far from the bats, praying that they wouldn't run into anything else for awhile.

They found a lake and both got excited. They were low on water and felt that they had gotten far enough away from the bats. They both collapsed to the ground at the edge of the water, breathing heavily as the burning feeling began to fade in their legs. "You ok?..." X mumbled to Shiny who just flashed him a lazy thumbs up. He didn't know if X had saw but he didn't care. Shiny let his arm fall again while they rested there for awhile, thirsty, hungry, and exhausted. Shiny coughed a few times while trying to calm down. Too many things have happened in such a short period of time and he needed a moment. Shiny felt like crying again but was too tired to do so. He slowly sat up and dug through his bag and found the canteen. He sipped some and tried to get X to sit up and drink some water too but X refused to sit up. "X come on man.." Shiny nudged him again but X lazily swatted him away. It took so much effort just to do that X didn't want to bother trying to sit up.

Both his legs and back were hurting from the amount of running they just did and getting hit with the bat's wing. His head ached from being dehydrated and his stomach hurt badly from doing so much exercise on such little food. Shiny checked his ankle and saw a small cut. It wasn't deep but it was big. He began rummaging through X's bag to try to find their makeshift first aid kit. When he grabbed it he began cleaning the small wound and bandaging it. While he did that all of a sudden X got up and quickly walked off, too tired to jog but still was trying to get away quickly. Shiny was confused at first but then heard him gagging and sighed quietly. "I'm sorry..." Shiny mumbled, knowing that X couldn't hear him at the moment. After a few minutes X came stumbling back over, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "You ok?.." Shiny asked and X just shrugged and collapsed to the ground once more. Shiny made him sit up again and sip some water. X looked exhausted and sick which worried Shiny more. Once he was done sipping water he handed it back to Shiny and laid down on his side. He was barely managing to stay awake when he felt Shiny rubbing his back.

X thought Shiny had said something but it felt like his head was under water while Shiny was trying to talk to him. Even though he was hurting all over he still managed to fall back asleep. Once Shiny noticed he was no longer awake he got up and started to find small sticks to build a fire while his buddy slept. He needed to make a fire so he can filter some of the lake water. Once he found enough he built a small fire and began collecting some of the lake water and boiling it. It wasn't going to be perfectly clean water but he hoped it would be clean enough to not make them sick. He also cooked a squirrel he caught while he waited for the water to boil. Shiny wanted to make sure X got as much rest as possible so he just saved half of the meat for him which wasn't much. It had been a long week and Shiny silently hoped that he would find the others soon. He was getting worried that they may be hurt or lost somewhere but he tried to convince himself that they were ok. Right now he just needed to make sure X was ok and that they had enough food and water to continue their journey.