Chapters 1-5| Chapter 6 |Chapter 7| Chapter 8| Chapter 9|Chapter 10| Chapter 11| Chapter 12|Chapter 13| Chapter 14|Chapter 15|Chapter 16| Chapter 17| Chapter 18|Chapter 19
Jet led the party through the jungle, bounding tirelessly through the brush and parting dense shrubs to make way for the strangers. They followed quickly, not wanting to lose him or themselves again. Even with reassurance such as the familiar sounds of wildlife, the jungle had been hostile and difficult to navigate.
During their rest at the nearby camp, Seb had been able to repair his scanner and track down their shuttle, Callisto. He had given the coordinates to Jet and – as much as it worried him to learn– Jet knew exactly where the shuttle was.
“You know this jungle well, then?” he asked.
“Like the back of my hand.” Jet replied.
Seb found the young man’s expressionless face unsettling. “The guy never smiles,” he had whispered in his report back to Owen.
“Who are we to judge? It’s a miserable place,” Owen had said, remembering back to recent events. “Keep your guard up, anyway.” It was Owen’s nature to give anyone he met the benefit of the doubt. “He’s probably just as wary of us as we are of him and he has a right to be.”
Jet was indeed wary of them all. Accustomed to spending most of his time alone, fighting with Derrien occasionally and only having Thea to talk to, he was not much of a conversationalist in new company. Several times, the eye contact he made with the others felt awkward and accusatory. He decided to walk at the front and keep speech as limited as possible. They could think what they liked, he thought.
Seb had continued to eye their guide with a quiet suspicion. If Jet knew he made them feel uncomfortable, he didn’t show it. He approached every task with a monk-like focus, mostly saying nothing if he could help it. With Seb’s help, the stretcher was constructed in a matter of minutes. Seb could not recall having ever met a person with such rapid problem solving skills. The strange young man was a marvel. “We could really do with someone like you on my team,” Seb said. Jet looked at him, unsure of how to respond. Seb raised his eyebrows, “of course, only if there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.” Jet stared into the flames with his trademark, serious expression. He had never thought of leaving since his mother died.
“Leave this?” he asked, sitting back in a squat. Seb looked at him for a moment until Jet broke the pause with a wry laugh. “There’s an easier life out there, right?”
“Much easier, probably.”
Jet thought about the work that was demanded of him in order to survive on Oceanus and looked down at his calloused, rough hands that were heavily tanned. Seb’s hands were almost like a woman’s hands to him, with long, white fingers and clean nails, even in a damp, earthy jungle. “What’s your job?” Jet asked him. Seb straightened slightly, as though surprised at the sudden question.
“Mostly security. I’m Owen's assistant, but I do other work sometimes.”
“What like?”
“Anything that pays well. You’d be a good fit for some of the stuff I have to do.” Seb looked around at Owen, Geraint and Ade while they worked on their tents and shelters. They hadn’t heard him. “We’re always looking for skills like yours.”
“I’ll think about it,” Jet said, looking back into the orange flames.
For the hours that they waited for the rain to stop, Seb had rested with one eye open, always watching and waiting. The jungle was unbearably humid, with warm droplets of water worsening what Seb thought was an already-overwhelming sensation of clamminess. He was rudely awakened from his catnap by the guttural barks of howler monkeys echoing overhead, followed dutifully by the squeaks and squawks of the macaws.
“They sound worse than they are.” Jet remarked with a smirk. Seb looked over to him. “They sound awful, don’t they?”
“Oh, yeah.” said Seb. “What are they?”
“Howler monkeys were those loud barking sounds. The squawking is Hyacinth macaws. Ever seen them before?”
“No,” Seb thought of the old files on earth and its jungles. “I think they all died out on Earth.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Nah, I’m from Mars.”
“No jungles there?”
“Nope.” Seb sat back on his elbows. “Where are you from?”
“Here.”
“Born here?”
“No, I’m from somewhere else, I guess. I just don’t remember.” Jet tossed some more kindling into the fire. “My family are all dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It happened a long time ago.” Jet said, snapping more twigs.
The two men sat in silence for some time, wiping the drizzle from their faces as it trickled down from the dense canopy. Jet felt himself strained with silence by the time Owen approached them. “Would you say the rain has lightened enough, Jet?” Owen asked. He looked refreshed, notwithstanding the recently acquired scruffy stubble on his jawline. “I’d like to get them as soon as is possible.”
Jet looked up at him and nodded, seeming relieved. A longtime creature of solitary habits, he was comfortably out of the spotlight now. Seb’s attention, although at first welcomed, left him feeling like a bird in a cage; he didn’t know why.
As was expected of him, Jet led the rescue effort, guiding the sling down with ease. They did exactly as he said, pulling Anthony out first and laying him on a stretcher. He was heavy and half awake but Ade checked him and encouraged him to take more medication immediately. Trin, being half the size of Anthony and a strong climber, had proven to be much easier to retrieve. Notwithstanding her physical and mental exhaustion, she pulled herself up for the most part; as Owen had observed, she was almost in tears with relief after receiving a helping hand or two.
Unlike the others, Trin did not eye Jet with suspicion. As was her gift, she seemed to always see the positives. “Thank you, so much,” she had said to the stranger earnestly, shaking his hand. He didn’t have to give her it: she took it with minimal resistance. His hand felt rough and huge compared to the smaller, softer one that grabbed his as though it belonged to an old friend. Her demeanour sparked his interest immediately, forcing him to exchange his aloofness for intrigue. She was not like the others.
“It was nothing,” he shrugged, “but you’re welcome.” Trin stung him with another friendly smile and returned to Anthony’s side.
“We’ll have to find the shuttle today,” Seb said to Owen as they trudged through the jungle. “Half my tent is under Anthony’s arse.”
Anthony, fatigued from another night of hardly any sleep and another helping of hallucinations, lay on the makeshift stretcher in a semi-conscious state. His skin, ashen and clammy, emphasised the dark rings under his eyes. Seb, Ade, Trin, Geraint and Owen carried him, sharing his weight. “I can walk, you know,” he grumbled, looking up at the sky with disdain.
“Let’s wait ‘til we get to the shuttle.” Trin smiled. He looked up at her and wondered how she did it. How, even when they’d had to sit in a cold pit covered in mud, was Trin still smiling? Despite the compulsion to rant, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The very presence of Trin Rowan was disarming. “I’d really love a cup of tea,” she said with chattering teeth and an unapologetically open yawn. She looked up and down the length of the stretcher and added, “I wouldn’t say no to a lie down either.”
“I’ve had enough of lying down.”
“Anthony,” Ade cleared his throat, “that sedative was enough to stop a giraffe from walking for the day. Take it easy,” Anthony sighed and rested his clasped hands on his chest in defeat. His clothing was torn and damp, he was tired and weak and his mood was rotten with a familiar glumness.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” he mused. Trin looked at Ade nervously.
“You’ll be all right, Anthony. There’s something about this place that seems to trigger hallucinations in some people. It could be a hallucinogen in the air, perhaps? I don’t have all the equipment and I’m going with my gut, of course but it would explain a lot. I think we’re all losing our minds, in one way or another.”
“Don’t say that,” Trin said, quietly.
“That’s my only theory, anyway.” Ade shrugged. “No one’s been the same since we got here.”
“Geraint,” said Owen, changing the subject with a heavy breath. “Tell us about how you landed.” All eyes were on Geraint.
“Oh, I don’t really remember.” He felt his skin flush a betraying shade of crimson, burning through his cheeks as he smiled nervously. “I think I must have passed out in the shuttle.”
“Was it just you in the shuttle?” asked Anthony, finding a second wind.
“Yes. I was asleep when the alarms started.” Geraint admitted.
“Funny, I can barely remember landing now. I know it was only two days ago but it’s been a long two days at that,” Owen said, looking at Geraint. The sight of his only son once again thrust everything into his face for reconsideration. Owen reflected on everything they had been through as a team and everything he had experienced not just as a leader but as a father, too. He had felt the sense of loss and grief and the agonising fear that he had lost his son to a strange world. The malevolence of the jungle and Anthony’s hallucinations had depleted any energy reserves he had left, leaving him tired and wanting nothing more than to go home. Stuff The Rimar, he thought to himself. He had his boy back.
“Tell me about it.” Anthony sighed. “I swear they’re trying to kill me.”
“But you’re feeling better now, aren’t you?” asked Trin.
“I am, yes. Thanks to you nagging– sorry, keeping me awake.” Trin scoffed and shook her head. He thought that the crown of frizzy curls graced her face like a golden halo. “Seriously, that soy was to die for. You know how to treat a patient.”
“Have you been having any more hallucinations since coming out of the pit?” asked Ade.
“No. The last one was in the pit.”
“Good. What about you, Geraint? Did anything happen to you while you were out there?”
“I… actually, yes.” Geraint felt that if looks could kill, he’d have been obliterated into the ether by the concentration of eyeballs fixed on his face. “When I was on my way here to find you, something was breathing on my neck, following me.” He thought of the tight grip and wondered if the bruise was still there. Something had been able to touch him but he couldn’t see it. “It… It was strangling me by the time I told Jet about it. He couldn’t see it but he believed me… It stopped, anyway. I put it down to fatigue.”
There was a pause as they each looked at one another.
“It’s not just me, then,” said Anthony.
“Anthony, I did just tell you this.” Ade said.
“Oi, I told you I’d seen things, too. I thought Geraint was dead.” Owen added, looking down at Anthony who was sulking in the stretcher.
“I suppose you did, yes,” Anthony admitted with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s weird though… how it doesn’t happen to all of us, isn’t it?” asked Seb. “Or maybe it does and we aren’t aware.”
“We all got lost in the jungle and somehow ended up in that pit without falling.” Ade said.
“You know, it felt like one of those dreams,” Trin began. “One of those times when you dream you’re putting your foot through a hole or a puddle. Your stomach drops and you jolt awake. I remember it feeling like that! Do you?”
“Yes, actually,” said Seb, taken aback by the description. They all nodded in agreement. “We came back to our senses but were actually in the hole.”
“The pit felt as real as anything.” Owen said. “I can’t begin to think of how we got in there. I’m just glad we got out.”
The tension among the group was palpable. Each felt that their minds had been violated but not by each other. Something else took the privacy of their dreams away from them. “Call me crazy but I think we’re all being messed with.” Trin said, looking at Anthony once more. “By someone or something.”
Owen glanced ahead at Jet who was powering through the trail as though he knew exactly where they were going. “None of us know why this happened and none of us know why we’re here in the first place.” His eyes met with Geraint’s. He had not told anyone beside his son about Derrien Victor Smith.
Their resigned silence was interrupted by Jet as he gestured for them to follow quickly. “I’ve found it,” he said.
They picked up speed and hobbled along in Jet’s shadow. The young guide bolted ahead and started removing palm leaves and debris from the battered shuttle.
The vessel was deceptively large enough for the crew of five, with a flat roof and portholes– none of which were damaged. Although dented, it had the appearance of having only just landed. Owen, at the sight of the red stripes and the markings denoting a familiar name: Callisto, sighed a breath of relief.
Chapters 1-5| Chapter 6 |Chapter 7| Chapter 8| Chapter 9|Chapter 10| Chapter 11| Chapter 12|Chapter 13| Chapter 14|Chapter 15|Chapter 16| Chapter 17| Chapter 18|Chapter 19
Good chapter. It feels like there was a lot of setup here and it has me wondering about the future of this group and if they will actually be able to get off Oceanus. Good work.