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I slithered along surface of the jungle, looking for my next pray.  I hoped to find something large and weak, maybe a baby deer or a dog or something.  I wanted to swallow something that would sustain me for the next four or five weeks, I knew the winter was coming and that I wouldn’t find much food during it—so I needed a large feast now. I rattled my tongue against my fangs and moved rapidly along the jungle floor often hiding under the leaves. A deer, I wanted a deer.

A rabbit, pass.  Squirrel, pass.  Duck—oh! Ducks were good, but too small I’d have to go for quantity over quality, pass.  A monkey, it is tempting.  I’ll come back to that if I can’t find anything better.  A tiger… tiger! That was it!  I just needed to slip up tree and catch it off guard.  If I can poison it before it ripped me to shreds that’d be enough to keep me off the need for food for the next two months at least.  I was decided, I would go for the tiger.

I so slipped slowly up the tree, the entire tree moved with the massive beast’s casual breaths.  As I reached its branch I dislocated my jaw and spread it open extending a, I know impressive, four feet wide.  I contemplated whether I should do a quick clamp down and inject my poison or if I should do it slowly possibly poison the beast without even waking it.  I figured slowly would be a bad idea, my fangs were too massive.  Even the smallest prick would wake anything up. 

So quick it was.  I wrapped the rest of my body around the branch and lunged at its back.  The second I made contact the large cat jumped into the air and I took advantage of its surprise to wrap my body around it twice, locking its hind legs to its body and squeezing what little air the beast had out of it.  I ejaculated my poison. It was a kill—even if the ferocious cat managed to claw me to death this would be its last moments too, I doubted even an elephant would live against the amount of poison I forced into the tiger’s back. 

It snapped its large teeth at me, but I was able to tighten and slide my body away so it missed.  One of its forepaws lunged out of me, catching the flesh near my center. It was painful, but not deep enough to cause permanent damage.  With its noticeable weakening the tiger slouched a bit and slid on the tree, falling.  I held my breath for impact and was able to shift my body so that most the force was directed onto the tiger.  It didn’t move from its spot on the ground after that.  I loosened my tight hold on its hind legs and slithered up to its head, I wanted to swallow that first.

I once again stretched my mouth to its maximum width of four feet and engulfed its entire head to begin my feeding process.  This catch was going to be one to brag to the children in the years to come.  That was right their dad once ate a tiger.

As my mouth slowly reached for the tail a sudden wave of tiredness swooped along my body.  I always felt tired and lazy after a large meal; I had to find a place to sleep off the massive feast.  It didn’t take long to find an abandoned bear cave, slip into the back corner of it and fall fast asleep.

Awake. My hands went for the ground, I instantly assumed they were bound—it was what happened every time I was knocked out unwillingly.  They weren’t.

“’Ey!  ‘bout ‘ime you wo’e up ‘ere buddy!” of all the people that could of found me at the bottom of some hill it was the darn guy who couldn’t speak! “‘Ow you doin’ ‘ere ? ‘ope you don’’ go’ any bumps or sores eh?”

“No, no Perry.  I’m fine.  What happened?”  The moment after I asked that I regretted it, but what was done was done.

“‘ell, we ge’s hi’ by rai’ers.  Dhey came in pre’’y fas’ and shoo’ se’eral missi’es at ‘ur shi’.  It was quie’ a mess it wa’. We wen’ righ’ dow’. Smas’ed pre’’y good in’o da ‘round. Da rai’ers then s’ar’ed killin’ da crew, Vex and da Squa’ A wa’ firs’.  A few o’hers ran, and I foun’ you ‘ere.”

I didn’t have a clue what here was, and also had no desire of him to explain it so instead I had him help me up and decided it was best to be on my way—wherever that may be, and that he could, if he wanted, follow me.  Follow a blind man, that’s wonderful.

But what ended up happening was that I followed him, being that I was the blind one and he’d apparently been lost in these now parts at least once before.  Though I do admit, I wasn’t quite sure about letting the guy who knew the place by getting lost in it lead, he may—of course—get us lost in it again.  But he lived through getting lost once so—why not?

I learned through painfully terrible English that Raiders were extremists from the North that took pride and maiming and eating their victims.  I also learned that their existence was some sort of government conspiracy to try and start war so the country wouldn’t go extinct. Well, that was the second conspiracy to start war I’ve heard of so far.

From the narration in front of me directed into the empty space in front of it and not at me, we were approaching a ‘Y village’ their customs were different and they were very sheltered.  So I was to be prepared to experience some really interesting traditions.  We were of course going to the town because avoiding it was an offence and thus death.  He also stated that only about five thousand people visit the town a year so it was a treat.

Excited about going to Y village, well not really but Perry was excited, we marched forward for some time.  As I stepped in wet mushy mound after wet mushy mound with no warning from the guy leading me around the trees and other obstacles, I took note of the dozens upon dozens of twigs we nearly avoided. The twigs must have been hundreds of tiny branches sprouting from a marshland. 

They must have been nearly impossible to break, being that we were walking around them instead of just pushing them or breaking them.  I figured they were some grey color, maybe even steel grey and they sparkled in the sunlight.  The twigs shot hundreds of feet into the air only to blossom into hundreds of thousands of green needle-like leaves so sharp you could stick them through your hand and not even feel the sting.  The bark, according to my fingers running across the twigs we passed by, was wet and soft—squishy from the over-abundance of rain in the past couple of weeks.  

The ground, soaking wet as it was, was covered in green moss and brown goo that was what was left of what used to be the hundreds of thousands of needles that had fallen during the heavy rains.  Some of the twigs had moss growing up their stems several feet as if the moss, struggling for sunlight, was trying to climb its way into the sky—only to run into the terrible disaster of a dry creeping breeze.  The light breeze, now at my back, was bitter even at this fairly warm temperature, and it turned the green wet moss that had gone too far up into brown stone-like shells for the steams cherish in the winter months. 

This evolution of the climbing moss, the brown goo, and the tall twigs repeated itself year after year, century after century.  If one thing altered the fragile ecosystem everything collapsed.  Without the ecosystem the entire forest would die.  The Y village, because it was close, would suffer from lack of a forest to hide in. Millions of acres, I assumed the forest must have been massive, of lush forest would turn into millions of acres or barren swampland—unable to hold or produce life.

“What a fragile ecosystem…” I pondered out loud as Perry led me around one twig, through a puddle of something that felt like more than just water, and down a slight incline.

“Doub’ it,” Perry responded to my rhetorical statement, “This p’ace cou’d l’ve a bom’. ma’’er of fac’ it’s l’ved two if I remem’er.”  Well, he just crushed my wonderful idea of the forest, “I ‘hink we’re almos’ d’ere   we shoul’ be runnin’ in’o d’he killer squa’s soon. Dhey will be d’he ones tha’ ‘ake us to d’he ci’y!”

Well, I’m pretty sure I just heard him say something like killer squad or killer squads, or it may of just been killer squash.  But either way it did have the word killer in it.  Well, I had attracted a few of these close moments with killer, first you know, waking up… here.  Then the potato man, then the crazy driver, then train that fell God knows how far, then the threats to cut me up, then the crashing ship—and now killer squash?  Great.

Stop. We stopped.

Maybe Perry finally realized he had been pulling me through mush and stuff I no longer thought was just water. Maybe he decided to direct me around the ponds and shit instead of through them?  “Som’ing mo’ed in fron’ of us,” he said. No he still had no regard for the mush.

“What is it?” I asked, in hopes of getting a description.

“I ‘hink it’s d’he killer squa’.  May’e or may’e no’,” he stopped for a moment and squeezed on my arm only to pull me forward once more, “no it’s no’ d’he squa’. I didn’ ‘hink so. Dhey don’ norma’’y  come ou’ this far, I’m pre’’y sure dhey aren’ even ‘ill  abou’ ano’her fi’e or si’ more miles. We go’ a ways.”

So we continued, luckily the mush lessened so I wasn’t stepping in shit anymore.  But the damage was already done; the bottoms of my pants were completely ruined and my bare feet felt like something vile.  Well, good news was I could clean my feet, at this point I was kind of glad I didn’t have shoes on or those would be soaked through as well. 

I heard a deep growl, almost like someone’s stomach rumbling from hunger.  Perry heard it too because his hand squeezed hard on my arm, “Run!” he shouted as he picked his fairly brisk walk into a clumsy run with me being dragged behind him.

What was chasing us? What was chasing us?  The rumbling increased as my loose arm bounced off one of the many twigs we were poorly circling.  It must be one of the carnivores that shot down the ship.  It must be!  I stumbled over a root, almost falling, but Perry’s body did a good job at catching me and keeping me upright. 

We kept running through the forest of twigs.  As we ran I turned my head around.  Truthfully I didn’t know why, but at the moment I just wanted to see what was going on.  Instead images flooded through my head—it was the Dream Catcher working to push visions of what might, or might not be happening behind me.

The metal twigs smashed down all around us, the wood splintering into thousands of directions.  White claws burst through the darkness spawned in front of me.  A dark red chunk of meat in between the claws prowled after us wrecking everything in its way.  As the claws forced themselves open the chunk of meat lunged out wrapping itself tightly around one of the metal twigs inches in front of me.

Perry forced us down, shoving me forward. I turned towards him just in time to impact the ground with my elbow and side of my face.  I didn’t even have time to catch my breath before he forced me up only for drag me into a second dive.  A loud whipping sound slapped the ground beside me.  I could feel the wind across my nose right before leaves flung up into my face.  Perry pulled me up again and we continued to run.

I tried to turn around as my body bounced off a twig.  Perry didn’t seem to notice and kept me from going down as he pulled me through the air.  I wanted to see!  In the blackness the white claws reemerged. The chunk of meat looked like a split muscle, two points at its end—a tongue.  The claws were teeth, large droplets of liquid dripped off the claws as a growl ricocheted off the surrounding twigs. 

I watched as waves of sound rippled through my surroundings and refracted off the twigs into dozens of directions.  Perry pulled us behind a larger tree, blocking my line of sight, and everything went black.  I heard crunching as sound rippled through the darkness, eating away the nothing.  “Bono!” Perry yelled in between breaths, “it woul’ es’plain d’he pur’le sac’s we been s’eppin’ on! And why are d’he ‘ree’s are so small!”

Black, black, black—nothing was working, it couldn’t capture the trees.  Black, black, black, black, black—green, sharp. Claws! A sparkle of light bounced off the pair of sharp claws as they ripped through the large tree we circled moments ago.  A glimmer of red sprayed out of the tree. I tried to search the blurry shadows for more.  Bead like white eyes and connected with me, I turned away from them as I noticed Perry slowing down.  I looked at him.  The darkness forced three red scratches down his arm into my mind.  Had the Bono really gotten that close? Had it made contact with Perry?

 A loud crack.  Something smelled like rotten eggs.  Sound waves boomed across my almost completely black vision. Clicking. Air refused to force itself down my throat.  Perry fell, I went down with him.  My hand went for my throat, only to grab the metal pole of the breathing machine.  It turned itself off.  I couldn’t breathe. Something sharp stabbed through my hand, the one Perry was still holding onto. 

Whatever stabbed me went through his hand too. I moved my hand away from my metal throat and reached out for Perry’s back, it was covered in the needles just like the one shoved through his and my hand.  He wasn’t moving—I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t roll around in the puss and mud.  My focus faded.  Numbness overthrew my body as my hand grew heavy on top of his still body and pushed down against his back sending several of the sharp points through my own hand.

Nothing.  Nothing… nothing.  Stillness.  End.