The Beginning of a New Race Chapter Two “Everyone needs to shut the hell up right now!” The group stopped shouting at each other over what kind of attitude was appropriate for the situation and turned to me, obviously stunned by my shattered silence. “Listen to the trees.” At that statement I immediately got a few weird glances, but soon enough everyone had exchanged those for ones of fear and worry. The voices had grown in volume to where everyone else could hear the mumbling in the tree tops. Not only did the fact that no one else from our ship had come out here come into play, but the fact that the trees were barren until their very tops did too. The trees shot up from the ground to about the height of a two story house without any kind of foot or handhold to be seen. They then branched out in every direction with thick leaves covering all the branches, making it impossible to see anything on the other side of the leaves. Each tree was about 10 feet apart from the next, with bushes covering every square inch of ground in between reaching to at least four feet up their trunks. There was no possible way for even the most athletically built human to climb those things without some sort of equipment, and that was something that we hadn’t brought along with us. The people who had funded the trip and provided everything for it probably didn’t think that we would start climbing trees when we first got here. Even if we had brought along the right equipment, it would have been in the cargo bay, which hadn’t been seen since the impact obviously. If someone from our ship even had made it up there, there was no way for them to be jumping around from tree to tree. The group faltered, no one knowing what to do about the weird voices coming from the trees. Amita had reached out to grab onto my hand, making me feel a lot better about the situation. Rachel had grabbed onto Darren in a hug-like way, but Darren ignored her and grabbed onto Donald in the same way. Rachel looked like she was on the verge of crying from all that was going on, and the rejection didn’t seem to help. Very mature, those two twins. Osborne was the odd one out, just standing there without anyone to look to for comfort. He looked lost and really afraid, and I felt pretty bad for him. He wasn’t that bad of a guy, at least in personality. He stilled weighed about as much as one of the heavy duty thrusters from the front of the ship, but it didn’t matter that the guy had a really big eating problem. He didn’t have the best looking face either, but in the end he was just another human, and no one could judge him on that end. I moved over to him, still maintaining contact with Amita, and grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it. He looked at me, and I nodded at him. He was stunned for a second by the small display of affection, but quickly regained his composure and nodded back. Jesse had stumbled in his tracks when I had first yelled about the words coming out from the tops of the trees. He was supposed to be our big strong leader, even if he was the shortest man there, and he had just been scared by the sudden loudness of my voice. Jesse was now just standing in the middle of all of this looking up at the trees pondering, looking more thoughtful about the situation that fearful. It would have been better if more of us could have been like him. “What the fuck is it?” Donald sounded more scared than a child after seeing The Conjuring. I guess that’s what happens when someone never takes anything seriously in their entire life, brushing it all off and finding a joke to tell about it. If not for the current circumstances I would have laughed at his lack of will power, or maybe the fact that his knees had started to wobble. Jesse seemed to make up a decision after realizing that he had an entire group of people to look after, and took charge of the group. “It doesn’t matter what the fuck it is, it just matters that we pick up the pace. If anything, the noises are being caused by the wind or some shit.” But there was no wind. Jesse started to jog ahead, quickly followed by the rest of us. Darren kept ahold of Donald, still completely ignoring the fact that Rachel had reached out for his hand. At this point it wouldn’t really matter to me if the twins got dragged away into the bushes, left to find out what was talking. Osborne was having trouble keeping up, but he didn’t, for even a second, try to complain or stop. I almost felt like cheering him on as I jogged beside him and Amita. As we picked up the pace, whatever was in the trees started to move. I could hear the branches above creaking and moaning under the weight of our followers as they jumped from one tree to another, easily keeping pace with our group. I tried to see what it was, but the trees were too close together, their branches linking together with one another. All I could hear were the voices, all speaking some weird kind of language that I couldn’t understand in the slightest. I was genuinely afraid for my life. You know, maybe whatever it is wants to be friends. I mean, even if it would be a little hard if we can’t understand each other, but we can work past that. I bet we can do, like, drawings or something. A howl started up behind and in front of us at the same time, making my blood turn to ice as it slowed its course through my veins. It wasn’t like anything I had ever heard before, it was something that couldn’t be thought up in human minds, because it was physically impossible to make. It started out low, almost the sound of a growl more than a howl, then rose rapidly to a pitch only a few women could ever achieve in their prime, before dropping slowly to something that could be felt more than actually heard. I hadn’t known before this moment that my feet would be able to pick up sound before my ears. Well, there’s still a chance for them to be friends. Just because those howls made my body freeze over with fear doesn’t mean that they want to kill us, right? Horror movies make you want to hide some times, and they’re not terrible things made to kill the people who watch them. Maybe they’re just announcing our arrival to all their people so that they can prepare a feast or something. This could all be a simple game! At this point, if you couldn’t tell, I was trying to make up anything that could explain the blood curdling howls without the result being our death, the or severe mutilating of our bodies. Jesse started to break into something that was a little bit less than a full on sprint, and the rest of us trailed soon behind. Osborne was having some troubles, but he was trying his best. “Come on Osborne! You can’t slow down now, we’ve come too far!” Amita yelled at him, pushing against his back to get him to move faster. When she looked away from Osborne she looked at me, passing on the silent message of fear for Osborne. We all knew the saying as long as you’re faster than the guy next to you, you’re fine. Osborne wasn’t going to fare well if our followers actually start attacking us. Everyone kept their eyes trained forward, looking for any signs of the cargo bay. We were not going to be able to keep the pace up for much longer, especially Osborne. His face was starting to turn white. If the new color was from fear or from the little amount of air he was getting into his body, I couldn’t tell. The rustling in the trees had become a pounding on the ground, easily keeping pace with our group even after picking up our speed. There was a growling noise coming from every direction that pounding was coming from, and at this time I began to notice the wet spots on Donald and Darren’s crotches, which slightly lightened the mood for me, if you could lighten something that dark. Jesse yelled at the top of his lungs, “Look up ahead! Look you idiots, look!” With momentary offense, I looked away from the bushes and was met with a very welcoming sight; smoke was rising from a large heap of metal at the end of the trail we were running on. We had reached our destination, but we had also brought our chasers right to the rest of our ship. If they were anything more than savage animals, they would find interest in this new discovery. “When we get to the cargo bay I want everyone to get inside immediately! Once inside, everyone is to find something that can be used as a weapon. We are NOT dying from whatever these fucks are right after we arrive!” Jesse was facing away from all of us, making it harder to hear what he was saying, and some of the words were a little muffled by the howling of our chasers. As we approached the cargo bay I started scanning for entrances on the bright titanium surface. The torn off piece of ship looked like it had rolled over a couple of times after the impact, resulting in deep dents all over the surface, with a couple holes where the titanium had been ripped through. There was no longer a very definitive shape to the cargo bay. It looked more like a clay model made by a young child than a professionally made ship, welded and designed by experts. The four engines that had been on the sides of the cargo bay had been ripped off, two of which were lying around the left side, embedded in the ground deeply to where you could only see the top half, and the other two were not in sight. They had probably landed somewhere at the very beginning of the impact sight, which we could not see. They could also be the source of smoke, being that we still couldn’t see where the large pillar of blackness was coming from, but it was definitely not from the main building. The piece of the ship had finally stopped its rolling slightly tilted away from the path to the left, but it was only enough to notice without inspection. We would be able to get into easily, as long as we found an entrance. It turned out that the cargo bay had been ripped off slightly ahead of the wall that had separated it from the rest of the ship, making it still have all of the doors that led in and out of it. Two of the four were open, the very left and the middle right. “Hey, shouldn’t we split up or something and go in different doors? You know, so that we make it in faster?” I tried to project my voice to the entire group without yelling it too loud, just in case our followers were capable of understanding us. Even if they did speak in a language, if you could call it that, which I had never heard before, I wasn’t going to take a chance. It didn’t work, however, and my voice seemed to be louder than it had ever been. Panic really gets to me, it really does. “Great idea Ozzy! Amita and the Double D’s, follow him to the left door! Osborne and Rachel, follow me to the middle door! We move as fast as we can, no exceptions!” Jesse began to give out orders as he aligned his running path directly towards the middle door, not skipping a beat. I pulled ahead of my little group that had surrounded me, and moved to the outside of the wide path that was left by the rest of the ship on its journey to the lake. I knew by now that our followers had gotten an idea of what we were up to, so there was no point in hiding our movements. It would be hard not to. We practically told them. No, not even practically, we did tell them. I was too loud, for once in my lifetime when I don’t want to be. The bushes were rumbling with the movements of what seemed like hundreds of creatures, all of which were perfectly in sync with our movements. When we slowed down, they slowed down. When we sped up, they followed without a moment’s hesitation. It was as if they were robots, but that only made me more confused as I thought of the proposition. If it was true, that would mean someone made them, and sent them to hunt us. Not very nice to their guests I see. We were only about fifty yards away from the cargo bay’s left entrance when Amita stepped into a hole in the ground, falling immediately. It was a hard hit, I could tell and I wasn’t even looking when it had happened. There was a loud thud and a snap which had even gained a foothold amongst the sirens of weird howling and chanting. The howling instantly responded to this new loudness and started to grow in volume, easily besting this new sound. Amita’s painful wailing was almost lost in the fray of new sounds. Are they trying to intimidate us? Cuz if they are, someone needs to tell them they succeeded when they made the rustling noises in the trees. Maybe they can’t see the wet spots on most of the crotches here? I skidded to a halt and went back to Amita, almost vomiting as I saw bone sticking out of her left leg, jutting out of her ripped pants. There wasn’t much blood, which surprised me. The wound looked terrible to me, but it could be easily fixed with the correct medical attention. The protruding bone stuck out a little lower than the middle of the shin, but then again it didn’t really matter where it was, it just mattered that the bone was broken and there was no way for her to crawl, much less run. Lucky for her she weighed about as much as a twig. Bet most other dudes can’t say they carried their crush to safety, eh? I carefully picked her up and carried her with my left arm around her thighs and my right arm around her upper stomach. I tried not to jostle her a lot, but it was going to be hard to do that when I was running as fast as I could. She started to whimper at the terrible pain of being bounced back and forth, with her leg waving awkwardly to and fro. “It’s going to be okay Amita, we are not going to leave you. The pain is only temporary. We’re almost to the cargo bay; we’ll find medical supplies there and get you fixed up, good as new. Maybe this will even improve you, so instead of new we can call you better.” Amita barely looked up at me while I talked not even acknowledging my joke, which I had thought had been pretty good. She simply cried and kept her eyes closed. She was probably trying to avoid seeing her mangled leg, which had made me slightly sick when I had first saw it. I looked away from Amita and looked towards the door that we were headed to. Donald and Darren had already almost made it to there, and they were glancing back to see what had happened to the rest of their group. It made me sick that they hadn’t even slowed down when Amita had fallen, both of them being behind her in the first place. They hadn’t even stuttered with their movements. Even if the two men had already pissed themselves several times, soaking the khaki cargo shorts all the way through that they both sported. Even if their bodies were filled to the brim with the terrible sensation of fear, making their arms and legs grow heavy. They still should have pushed all that aside when someone cried out for help. Those two men are just little boys stuck in grown up bodies. I seriously doubt that they will have many friends when this is over. When we get through this, I’ll make sure of that. If we even do make it through this, that is. “Hey, you idiots! Get ready to close those goddamn doors when I get there!” There was no reason to be quiet at this point; those things knew what we were up to. I was surprised that they hadn’t attacked us already. They were obviously faster and stronger than humans. Are they toying with us? Playing with their food before they go in for the kill? This is so shitty, so fucking shitty. Why did I have to agree to go on this stupid ass mission? I could be at the beach helping out with food rations or building some kind of shelter… and they won’t even have to use all their shelters, we probably won’t be returning. The captain will send out a search party, and if they don’t die too, then they’ll see our blood all over the cargo bay and just assume some kind of predator ate us. We’ll be forgotten quickly, just another few humans who died off in the process of building a new home on a new planet. There was now a very high pitched whimpering on my left, staying right beside me. It wouldn’t slow down, nor pick up speed. Whatever the fuck it was, it was just watching me, waiting for its prey to notice that it had lost. Fuck that. I must have looked like a mess. I’m pretty sure I could no longer make fun of Darren or Donald for pissing their pants. My face couldn’t have looked too good either, being contorted in fear for the past several minutes had made it start to ache. My clothing didn’t look to great, with my shirt covered in the blood from Amita’s leg and my shorts splotched with mud on them from getting on the ground to help her. My hair was probably getting a little crazy too, but it was almost always like that. I had great taste when it came to hairstyles. Amita wasn’t much better; she had soaked her long skintight pants a little while back, both from blood and pee. I closed everything else out of mind and focused on her face. Her hair was messy to say the least. It was strewn about and waving as I ran, the wind created from our motion blowing through it. Her eyes were closed as hard as they could be, trying to block out the outside world and all of the pain that had come from it. Her cheeks were glistening with the trails tears had used to escape from her clamped eyes. Even in this state, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I hated every second I had to see her in pain; it almost drove me insane. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her face, couldn’t stop studying her features. As long as I looked at her I couldn’t feel the fear that was taking over my body. I noticed another feature that I hadn’t seen earlier as I scanned her face one last time; shiny spots on her forehead that had just started to appear a little bit ago. I had started to cry. Amidst all the terror and confusion, I had started to break down. All the thoughts of fear and death that had been coursing through my mind had finally broken through the mental barrier when I saw the pain on Amita’s face. The barrier was snapped in half like a twig under the weight of a car, and I hadn’t even noticed it. I was about 10 yards away from the entrance at the time I noticed I had started to cry. Only a few steps separated me from safety, even if it was temporary. But in the back of my head, I knew something dreadful. If these things wanted in, they would come in. The high pitched whimpering beside me turned to a gravely growl, and a very low one at that. To me it sounded as if the creature had just been told that he couldn’t do something that he had wanted to do for a very long time. Maybe this is good. For once, shit might be going my way. The rustling in the bushes didn’t seem to want to follow me all the way to the door, and it started to slow down. I didn’t really think this over until later however, being that I was completely focused on getting Amita to safety. “Get the fuck in here!” Darren screeched at the top of his lungs. The howling that had almost turned to white noise by now faltered at the unnatural sound. Darren noticed the slight weakness in the howls and continued his noise, screaming like a little girl who couldn’t get her way, except much louder. With each passing second the howling got weaker, until it was barely audible. More proof that these dudes are not men. As I ran through the opening, careful not to let Amita’s leg touch anything, two large steel doors scraped across the doorway to a close. I looked back just in time to see it inches away from closing. There was nothing out there. Nothing at all. Not a single creature. Whatever was chasing us for almost ten minutes wasn’t interested in catching us. The inside of the cargo bay was all but completely destroyed. The crates that had been neatly stacked and lined up in neat isles had been strewn about the inside of the gigantic titanium room, most of them broken open from the impact. Each of the crates had held something that was more or less vital in the process of setting up a new society on this planet, yet a few had some stupid, slightly useless things in them. One crate was dedicated to bath robes in here, which made a lot of people wonder what the creators were thinking. There were too many tools to count, most of them only able to do one or two jobs; wasteful in my eyes. The original creators had thought it was a good idea to put every tool they could think of on the ship. That resulted in about two tons of extra equipment, just waiting to be picked up and used only once. Different types of machines had also come out of the crates. Before the crash, each one would have had its own materials that we could have used when we arrived, but now they were separated from their counter parts. It wouldn’t take too long to find out what went with what, however, because each machine had a person who was trained to use it. The original crew had passed down their knowledge when the time was right, and so had the other generations. I wasn’t the one chosen to use a machine from my family. My sister, Jessica, was. Jessica along with a few others had gotten chosen for the sewing machine, a big bulk that wasn’t the quietest thing around. Her job was simply to make the clothes, and to continue this until she practically couldn’t do it anymore. What an exciting job! The remains of the gardens were everywhere, dirt and dead plants hanging off of everything. Even though they had stopped producing any kind of food a while back, the garden still had a couple plants that helped produce oxygen, such as the two trees I had secretly named Tom and Jerry, who had been thrown down onto the ground, no longer rooted in. Yes, we did have that show onboard and yes, it was my favorite. I must have watched it on repeat for almost 15 years straight. My life is so interesting. It really is. Darren and Donald ran over to me and cleared off two crates that had fallen next to each other, surprisingly not broken in any way. They then helped me lift Amita onto them and calm her down. She was still crying, even though the terrible noises that had come from our chasers were gone and had been for a small while now. I walked away from the double D’s, who had covered Amita’s wound and were trying to get her to calm down. My job at that point was to find medical supplies for her leg. Painkillers would be the best route, but anything that wasn’t a thermometer or Q-Tip would do great. I walked among all the debris, poking and prodding at anything that could shelter a small pill bottle filled with painkillers. Wood from the crates made up most of these objects, while some others consisted of mounds of dirt, machines that had been torn from their bindings, or tools that I thought could have something underneath them, which most of the time they didn’t. At one point I stopped to pick up what looked like a chainsaw, although almost completely bent in half after the impact, and found that the half that was used to cut trees had gone through the bottom of the ship. After about three minutes of yanking with all my might, as little as that may be, I gave up and began moving once again. We all know that that was where the meds were. Why would they be under anything easily moved? The crate that had held all the medical supplies had been located on the side of the cargo bay that Jesse’s group had gone in. I had decided against going straight over to that side, thinking that it would be easier to gradually make my way over to it. The cargo bay had been about ninety yards wide, and about one hundred-and-twenty long. When I added all this up in my mind I reached the number too goddamn high. It wouldn’t take me too long to go through all of that space without looking at every nook and cranny for a small bottle of pills or some medical wrap, but it wouldn’t be the fastest thing to search for something that quite possibly could have stayed in one piece and place. I had taken about ten steps away from the chainsaw, which I could still see, and had been pushing things aside after every step I took. I leaned over on the eleventh and picked up a piece of wood, chucking it aside to see if I had a prize to claim from my slight muscle exertion. A thermometer. Whoopdee fucking doo. I had covered almost a third of the ship at that point. Even if this third was the farthest from the original location of the medical crate, I thought that I should have come across something by now. I hadn’t had any luck, and besides seeing just a few meager scraps of food and plenty of pants for some reason; I had seen nothing of any importance at all. My back was beginning to hurt from bending over after every step and lifting pieces of crate or machine parts. The only thing that cycled through my mind was that I should have found a pair of walking shoes before this trip. I couldn’t see the entrance anymore, having made it to the back wall on the left side. As I tried to look back to the place I had come from I was met with the sight of piles of debris covering my view path, making it impossible to see anything but light filtering in from the small five inch “peep-hole” that sat a little bit lower than my chin, creating a very dim, but noticeable, patch of light that cast across a small portion of the cargo bay. I didn’t like the feeling of loneliness that had started to crawl up my spine, leaving a cold sensation in my limbs. Man up. Think of how it could get so much worse, cuz that always helps when you’re in a terrible situation. Just think, you could be feeling like someone is watching you, and that’s never good. Or maybe someone is watching you, and they’re about to make their move on you, and that DEFINANTLY not good. I picked up my pace. It had taken about fifteen minutes to make it to this point in the cargo bay, so it would be about another thirty to make it to the other side, and as long as I kept up my newly invigorated pace I could get it done in an even faster time. I could have the world record, if I really tried. OH MY GOD! New world, new records! I gotta start immediately when this whole mess is over. I’ll be famous! I have a really bad train of thought. It gets derailed a lot. My plan was to just go up and down the rows that had originally been in the cargo bay, but occasionally, more than I wanted too, I would have to adjust my path for some kind of blockage on the isle ways. As I started down another row, I could tell I would be making some detours, being that the other side of the bay wasn’t in sight. This row was relatively clean aside from the usual two or three crates that had come out of their places, smashed to bits, however I still checked for any kind of hidey-holes that could be covering medicine from my searching eyes. About fifteen minutes later (I shall spare you from my terrible search process and excessive cursing), I had covered almost all the ship, besides the middle of the back walls, which had been completely blocked off by a gigantic wall of debris, which seemed to have been magnetically attracted to that spot. When I had first realized that there was no way for me to get over it or around it, I got a little disappointed. On the back wall, the animal pods rested with numerous locks and security codes, all made with high priority clearance in mind. Only a select few could get into them, but being that there had been no reason for the cats, dogs, or other animals to come out, they had remained in the cryo pods since the beginning of the trip. Nobody really knew how the animals would react to waking up so many years later, but at least humanity had tried to save our furry friends, even if they didn’t wake up from the sleep. I myself had no idea what animals acted like, and had only previously seen them from a small distance away. The regular people on the ship weren’t allowed to be near them from fear of something being touched that shouldn’t, ruining all the work that had been put toward keeping the animals alive. I was approaching the front of the cargo bay, which I had avoided previously due to debris blocking my path at several places. I hadn’t heard from Jesse or his group since we split outside, and I was eager to see if they had made it without any hiccups like Amita had experienced. I was surprised that they hadn’t been out searching for my group, but I couldn’t really blame them. They had to look after Osborne after all, and even if it had been almost a half hour after arriving at the cargo bay, he was probably still recovering from the running. I had to go all the way to the right side of the cargo bay, and then make my way back to the middle over and through hills of debris. It wouldn’t take too long, only a couple more minutes to my boring journey through the “wastelands” that now inhabited the inside of the rear end of the ship. I had already drenched my shirt with sweat, and my pants weren’t very far behind, although they had been previously soaked. What a great smell. I rounded a corner and was met with a wonderful sight, or as wonderful as it could get in this situation. Jesse sat on the ground, with Rachel and Osborne sitting next to him. They looked defeated, as if they had lost something near and dear to them. They looked like they were all in one piece, but Osborne was still taking abnormally deep breathes, which couldn’t be a good sign. But it also wasn’t such a good sign that he was so heavy in the first place, and no one was doing anything about that, so he would be okay. “Hey! Don’t be so sad! I’m alive!” If they hadn’t already had enough fear, then I had just filled their quotas. Osborne fell over and tried to turn onto his belly, but couldn’t move himself from off his back. Rachel jumped up immediately and turned to me, surprisingly with her fist raised, and so did Jesse. “Whoa, watch it! No reason to beat up one of your new best friends!” At this everyone finally realized who was speaking to them, and the fists dropped from in front of Jesse, while Rachel charged towards me with her hands still up, charging in for a hug. As I stumbled back from the newly added weight, I saw Osborne go limp on his back, lifting his head to see if what his ears had heard was true. “So is anyone gonna say anything, or do I need to do all the talking?” Jesse had started to smile, but had refrained from saying anything, choosing instead to watch me get tackled by Rachel. “Well fuck, I’ll say something. Where’s everyone else?” Osborne managed to get out those two sentences, and after letting his head bounce to the ground, he started breathing heavier. “Well Amita has a nasty looking broken leg, but besides that and a few wet spots on our pants, we should be fine.” I pointed at my own crotch after Rachel got off me. I hadn’t actually examined them, but my pants were getting a little bit cold now that the urine was drying. “So what should we do Jesse? Charge back to get her or find something to help her out first? I think that we should find some meds, but you’re our leader, so it’s up to you.” Rachel looked back at Jesse, who hadn’t stopped smiling. It was a little bit eerie, being that when I had first seen them, without them knowing that I was watching, they all looked mentally broken. Almost like empty shells. “Well…” Jesse drew out the first word, making it sound as if he was really thinking. The whole time he made the noise he kept up his ear to ear smile, showing almost bleached white teeth. Wish I could care enough to have those. Continuing his drawn out sentence, looking as if he had finally made a decision, “I say we find the meds first. It’s not like we can do anything if we don’t have the right supplies to help Amita. Besides, if Ozzy has been searching this long for them, why should we stop now?” Jesse waved me over to help Osborne up, and after two attempts, and very big ones at that, we got him on his feet, though he didn’t look like he wanted to move at all. He wavered on his feet, looking drunk. Rachel grabbed onto his side and we started moving, with Jesse and me up front. As we walked back the way I had just come, I looked over at our leader. He was still grinning, and when I tried to look away, he whipped his head around and stared at me. “What’s wrong Ozzy, something going on in that head of yours? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Still Smiling. His eyes started to look weird too, almost as if they had gotten bigger since the last time I had looked at him. His pupils were fully dilated, making the center of his eye completely black. Granted, it was really dark in here, with the only lights being a few holes on the top of the ship, but I had never seen eyes like that before. My limbs started to grow cold again, but this time it wasn’t from loneliness. It was dread. I locked my eyes to the ground, not wanting to make myself any more uncomfortable around friends. My brain had started to buzz, making it hard to concentrate on anything. We came around a corner, which lead to the most direct route back to Amita and the double D’s. Jesse slowed down, and without thinking I just kept walking. My brain had simply blocked out the rest of the group, which I had enjoyed until this point. “Holy shit!” I was met with a set of glowing eyes, level with mine, blazing bright yellow. Not only did I see the eyes, but I heard the growl that came from the exact same place, right in front of me. It was one of those fucking things that chased us. Needless to say, I was pissed. And I did piss. “Shouldn’t have found us Ozzy.” I felt a searing pain in the back of my neck, instantly falling to the floor from shock. I grabbed my neck, finding a cold, small object directly in the center of the raging fire above my shoulders. I ripped it out, finding a small needle, missing the tube that would be holding some really strong drugs on the other end. The last sight that went through my throbbing head was my three friends, standing over me, looking down at with large grins on each of their faces. Yet there was one difference about all of them. They looked like animals.