Faulty Bridge

The snake crashed on the rope bridges, and Joji grabbed onto the rope. The force from the snake's landing tossed him in the air as the bridge shook wildly.

He tightened his grip, hanging on for dear life as he got repeated flashbacks of the sand pool, not again, he thought. Why is he always like this?

The rope felt dry and soft in his hands, he didn't feel reassured by them. He could hear the snake hiss as the bridge dipped downwards from the weight of its immense weight.

Joji looked straight ahead and saw the anchors of the bridge cracking. The wood was old, and every crack brought out a cloud of dust. The rope was being stretched to its limits any moment now and could snap.

Joji knew this, but what he didn't know was that the snake had wrapped himself around bridges. Joji started pulling himself on the rope. He turned back and saw the snake on his heel, he was a sitting duck and it lunged at him.

Joji was trembling in the rope, but he held on tightly as he was swallowed whole. The wooden step of the bridge broke, and the snake lunged for him as it swallowed Joji, its body spinning the rope, twisting it, and causing it to snap.

The bridge falls apart driving a piece of its wood into the belly of the snake. The snake fell into the river, but Joji was still hanging onto the rope of the bridge.

He held onto it from within the snake's mouth. Most of the snake's tail was being tossed left and right by the raging river, with the rest of its body being held from falling in by Joji's indomitable grip; he maxed out his strength just hanging onto the rope.

Joji had the snake hanging like a hooked fish, with him being the hook, but the anchor of the bridge that still had the rope tied to it began to snap.

The snake's jaws were shut and Joji couldn't see the anchors. The snakes dip into the water as the anchor bends down.

A creaking sound filled the air as the wooden anchor slowly bent, breaking to its limit, its snaps and they both fell. In anger, Joji punches the top of the snake's mouth.

A splash of water as high as five meters jetted upwards at the snake crashed into the water. It twisted and turned, trying to find its balance, but the current was unkind and hostile; it moved it as it saw fit, subduing it and making all its efforts futile.

The current dragged it down to the waterfall; helpless to change its fate, the snake coiled itself as it fell into a spiky terrain with large, pointed rocks stretching out like a field of knives.

The snakes crashed on the rocks with the force of the waterfall behind them. It was covered in a spree of water droplets splashing out of the impact zone, and from the distance, they looked like a white hazy cloud.

The water turns red, and the redness runs down the streams, and that carries it across the whole island, and surely enough, more than a couple of people spot it.

Parts of the snake were pushed to the bank of the river via the current. It was its head and a huge chunk of its body. A pointed black rock stuck out of its body. Evidently, the snake had crashed on it, and the rock had broken off on impact.

The snake's eyes were open, and they beamed with life; its jaws slowly opened, and out of the depths, its throat crawled out Joji with the rope still in his hand.

Joji crawled out of its mouth onto the wet sand of the river bank, he coughed up more than enough water, he looked pale and cold like he was dead

He raised his hand and punched the air, "yes!" He screamed, "I'm alive." With his back still on the ground, he raised his head to see the snake.

It still looks alive, he thought. The snake's mouth was still open

Damn you, I am not your lunch! The snake's mouth fell shut, and Joji panicked, thinking it had come back to life. He quickly regained his composure.

He dropped his head down, resting before he had to move on again. His spear had been lost at the waterfall but it washed up at the river bank.

Joji couldn't tell, but a couple of eyes were watching him; they were well hidden in the woods, peeking out quietly from the leaves, patiently watching him catch his breath.

After a while, these foreign people walked off without making a single sound, and when they were out of Joji's earshot, they burst into a sprint, moving at such an immense speed that they could only be seen as blurs.

When he had enough rest, he woke up to find a gash on his leg; he wondered what had caused it and suspected it could be from one of the rocks. So he tied a piece of his loincloth around the wound.

Joji looked around from left to right, trying to get his bearings again. He brought out the map and to his surprise, the x had moved

He looked closely at it and saw it was by a cliff, on closer inspection he discovered the cliff was indeed a waterfall,

"I think I'm X," Joji said. It's following me, it's me.

He looked around, trying to fit the world around him into the map, but the only landmark he could clearly see was the towering volcano. He was at a lower ground now and had to make his way out of the lower depths of the island.

Joji finally got his bearings, and he took off jogging toward the open field, towards the summit of the mission, to the boat, and away from this doomed island.

He ran for a while and soon felt a stabbing pain in his leg; he shrieked and dropped to his knees. What's this now, he thought. It was the wound on his legs; he looked down at it and saw a black vein stretching out of the wound. No! "It's poison!" I don't understand.

Then he remembered it was the snake! He thought, realizing that in the struggle he must have gotten his leg caught up against the snake's fangs. He punched the wound in anger and screamed in pain.

"Damn it, why now!"

He tapped in his chest and saw how many lives he had left. He closed his eyes and dropped his head in frustration. "Damn it!" he screamed into the murky woods

Only 2 lives left