AVERY
The squawking of distant birds
called me from my sleep, and I sat up. The afternoon glare of the sun burned my
eyes and I rubbed my groggy eyes with the back of my hand as moths buzzed
lazily in the afternoon light. Jackie was still fast asleep, snuggled in her
sleeping bag so tightly she looked like a human burrito.
I rubbed my stomach, and on cue
it grumbled hungrily. I grabbed my rucksack and yanked it open, peering inside.
The only foodstuffs in the bag were a long ago melted chocolate bar, a bag of
biscuits I snatched from the kitchen (Haha) and two egg sandwiches packed
neatly within a thin layer of plastic.
I reached into my bag and pulled
out a long pair of scissors and neatly sliced a thin line across the plastic
wrapping, then ripped it open with my bare hands, dropping my scissors into the
bag. Gingerly I picked up an egg sandwich and stuffed it hungrily into my
mouth.
“Gonna eat alone?”
Startled, I whirled around, a
few bread crumbs falling onto the front of my shirt. I saw Jackie standing next
to my bed, more asleep than awake. Her forehead was beaded with sweat and her
hair was a wild tangled mess with bits of rock stuck in it. I doubted my hair
looked ay better.
I picked up the other sandwich
and handed it over to her, and she smiled, grateful, and crammed it into her
mouth, a small piece of egg falling from her mouth. She never knew how to eat
gracefully, but it was always a laugh watching her eat, especially when she ate
a taco. (Believe me, nobody can eat a taco as messy and un-gracefully as she
can)
“I didn’t get a good sleep,” I
whined as I bit into my sandwich. “It was full of crazy gigantic Tyca squids
and buzzing bee-shaped Jasmine bugs and faerie’s taking over Elvaeda.”
Jackie smiled at me
reassuringly as bits of egg and crumbs fell from her mouth, and instead of
being reassured I got grossed out by how the sandwich messed up the color of
her teeth, and I didn’t think I was any better.
After our short breakfast, we set
off on our journey to the ruins. Our legs screamed in protest as we walked
across the wide plain, not a single human being to be seen. I shoved my hand
deep into my pocket and drew out the pyramid, it’s smooth surface shining in
the afternoon sun. I pressed the golden button in the middle, the metal
scalding my skin for staying too long in the sun.
I watched as the familiar shape of
the elder-Samantha popped up and hovered a few inches above the tip of the
pyramid. “Mer-phhhhft-des, I am wonder-phfft-you’ll get-” Before the message
could be finished, I pressed the golden button again and the map popped up to
replace the hologram, the same red arrow pointing to our destination, the same
red dot blinking in the plain, signaling where we were, but I felt something
was wrong, and then I knew;
The
red dot was slightly off course.
“Jackie!!” I shouted to Jackie still barreling down the
plain in top speed. She looked back at me at the sound of her name. “Yo, Av,”
she said, and walked back towards me. “What’s wrong?”
“This is,” I muttered as I pushed
the hologram up to her face, so close she had to jerk away to see what was
wrong. She squinted at the hologram. Jackie was quite short sighted and didn’t
always wear her glasses, so she just squinted a lot.
“Um, sorry Avery, but I can’t see
what is wrong with this-” she stopped mid-way and peered closely at the little
red dot blinking innocently at us. “Are we….off course?”
I sighed, then folded my hands
across my chest and glared at her. “Jackie, next time, wear your glasses,” I
muttered, cupping the pyramid in my hands as the red dot blinked at us
mockingly. Jackie shrugged and said: “Um, no thank you. I think I’d rather wear
something else,” with that, she dropped her rucksack onto the ground with a
thump and rummaged through it, pulling out a pair of sunglasses with dark blue
rims and a little star at the side. She put on the pair of sunglasses and
stroke a pose with both her hands forming bunny ears and her right leg behind
her left.
I rolled my eyes at her. “C’mon,”
I muttered, but sunglasses did seem like a good idea, especially when the hot
sun was glaring down at us, so I rummaged through my rucksack and pulled out a
pair with fire red rims that I was quite proud of. I got it from a market
selling random stuff and it works like a charm. I mean, I can literally look at
the sun and my eyes don’t water, and thus, these fire red rims really suit me;
outside and inside.
As soon as I put on my sunglasses I stroke a
pose just like Jackie’s, and she whooped: “Wow! You go, girl!” I smiled and
pushed the sunglasses further up my nose. I watched as the glasses shrouded the
world around me in shade, and I looked up at the suns. Having seven suns here,
even though I had these awesome sunglasses my eyes still watered and I blinked.
“Okay,” I said, and Jackie stuffed
her hands in her pockets. With her hands in her pockets and the sunglasses she
was wearing, she looked pretty badass, like gangsters do on films. I stared
back down onto the pyramid projecting the hologram and said: “We have to find a
way to get back on course.”
“We’re only a little off course,”
Jackie said, packing all the stuff that spilled out of her rucksack when she
pulled out her sunglasses back in. “It’s not that bad, right?”
“No, I think it is,” I muttered,
my hair falling down my face. I tucked an escaped blonde ringlet behind my ear,
not taking my gaze of the map. “After walking the whole night we only JUST got
to the EDGE of the plain, which means the map is quite far from us, like it was
a picture taken from a plane.”
Jackie turned her head and
looked at me with her black eyes, confused. I sighed. “Look,” I said, dusting
the pyramid off. Bits of sand blew onto it as the lazy afternoon air blew
across the sandy plain, dusting the holo-projector with sand. “I don’t just
think we’re a little off course, Jack. I think we’re quite, even though the dot
says we’re not very.”
“I don’t follow you,” Jackie
muttered, scratching her head. Her sunglasses slid off her nose and landed on
the sandy ground with a thump. As she bent to pick it up, I sighed and said:
“Look, it doesn’t matter that you don’t understand, Einstein, as long as you
understand that we’re not A LITTLE off course, understand?”
Jackie picked her sunglasses
off the floor, dusted them off and put them back on, then gave me a thumbs up.
“Yep, now I understand ya, Avert
Einstein.”
“Nice nickname,” I said
sarcastically, and set off towards what seemed like the right direction,
leaving dusty footprints in my wake. Jackie started off after me, her rucksack
thumping against her back. The hot suns shot it’s intense rays at us as we
walked, making us spill with sweat. I pulled my long blonde hair into a simple
ponytail and then got out a packet of hair bands that I just bought the day before
we set off on this journey. I ripped the packet with my teeth, too lazy to
reach out for my scissors, and grabbed a handful of hair bands, loosening my
grip on them slowly until all the hair bands in my hand fell back into the
packet and I was only holding one in my hand.
I gripped my ponytail tightly and
I fidgeted with the hair band in my hand, and I tied a neat ponytail with
swayed in the lazy afternoon breeze. Jackie did the same with her hair, but
unlike my neatly tied one hers was a crazy shock of black hair as she only got
some of her hair wedged into the small hair band, but crazy suited her just
fine.
Suddenly a groaning noise sounded
as the ground around us started rolling like waves. A few trees in our area
groaned and fell to the floor, causing rubber leafs and stumpy branches to fly
every where. Loosing my balance, I fell to the floor and landed on my bum.
Jackie steadied herself with one hand placed firmly on the ground as she looked
around; wondering what was causing this earthquake.
Suddenly, with a horrifying
screech, a huge worm shot out of the ground, causing Jackie to loose her
balance. The worm had wrinkly peach skin and only a few teeth, but a few was
enough, judging by how sharp they were, and were bigger than 10 butcher knives
and pointy, like the needle my grandma uses to sew.
It had no eyes and only two
holes above it’s mouth for a nose. On it’s skin were thousands of spiky
needles, like those of a cactus. It screeched and we both slammed our palms to
our ears, doing our best to keep out the sound. Suddenly, smaller, black wormy
things shot out from the hole in the floor that the bigger worm created in the
plain, and they wriggled out of the hole, with gaping mouths and weird shaped
things on they’re back, like the ones on the back of a stegosaurus.
“Oh my friggin’ god!!!” I
screeched as one of the black worms wrapped itself around my foot and started
winding it’s way up to my stomach, it’s breath caught in my face as it hissed
at me.
Jackie drew out the bow she got
from my brief encounter with the man eating plant and fired two light arrows at
the black warmish thing, which screeched and fell to the ground, evaporating
into nothingness. I could feel my leg bruising at the places the worm wrapped
itself around, but it was no time to be complaining about an injured leg. I
scrambled to my feet and looked up at the giant worm that sent more black worms
crawling out of the hole around it, which screeched as they wrapped themselves
around trees, plants, and any living creature they stumbled upon, using they’re
acid like breath to liquidize the living creatures and sucking them into their
mouths like a straw. My stomach lurched at the sight of it.
“You gotta thank me, Avery,” Jackie
panted as another light arrow formed itself on her palm. “If it wasn’t for me
you’d be juice in a worm belly.” I nodded at her, my short way of saying
thanks, and caught sight of two other worms heading our way. I hit Jackie in
the shoulder and pointed to the worms. “Jackie, incoming!”
Catching sight of the worms I
was pointing to, Jackie put the arrow in the bow and shot at the two worms in
lightning speed. I eyed Jackie in wonder. I mean, I knew she was good, because
she was always telling me about getting first in every competition she was
invited to. Not bragging, Jackie never bragged, just telling. (Plus I had seen
the trophies stacked all around her house and her mother bragging that Jackie
was the best in the world) but I never knew she could shoot that fast.
“Jackie,” I breathed, eyes not
moving from the bow she had in her hand. “Nice moves, Jack.” And she grinned at
me for a split second before she continued to shoot arrows at top speed. “I
have no idea how I can shoot so fast, actually. It’s like, it came with the
package.”
Soon all the black warmish
things around us had arrows stuck to them and evaporated into the ground.
Jackie loosened her grip on her bow as soon as she realized that the black
worms had stopped crawling out of the crater in the plain. The huge peach worm
screeched and tunneled back into the ground.
“Yeah, that’s right!!” Jackie
cheered. “Go back crying to your mommy, you scaredy-cat!!!” Maybe she shouldn’t
have said that, as the ground suddenly rumbled again and the worm shot out from
the ground the second time, this time behind us, sending dust, sand and pieces
of the ground flying in all directions. The impact of the worm shooting out
from the ground repelled us backwards and sent us sprawling.
As soon as I hit the ground the
wind was knocked out of me, and I scrambled to get onto my feet. Jackie dropped
her bow as she fell to the ground, and the monster worm screeched and tunneled
back into the ground where the bow was lying, knocking it further from Jackie’s
hand. As she struggled to get up, the worm shot out from the ground in front of
her and she just stared at it in horror.
“Jackie!!” I yelled. “Get
up!!” As soon as she heard my voice shrieking to her, she struggled to get up.
But as soon as she did, the worm let out a piercing screech and lunged towards
her, and before she could do anything, it had sunk it’s needle teeth into her
left arm, drawing blood. She screeched, and I couldn’t think of anything to do.
Then I caught sight of
Jackie’s bow just lying on the dusty ground just a few inches away from me, and
I grabbed it. I couldn’t summon a holy arrow like Jackie could, but the bow was
a weapon enough itself, with the tips of it as sharp as needles and all that.
Without thinking, I leaped towards the monster still having a struggling Jackie
in it’s grasp and sunk the sharp tip of the bow deep into where it’s eye was supposed
to be if it had one.
It screeched louder than it ever
did before, letting go of Jackie and sinking back into the ground, never to
surface again. Jackie lay crumpled on the floor, her good hand pressing into
one of the multiple bite marks on her arm to stop the bleeding, which worked.
Slightly.
“Jackie!!” I screamed and ran
towards her, my rucksack thumping against my bag and the pyramid still in my
hand, sending out the hologram of the wide plain and dense rubber tree forest.
I knelt beside her as she gave me a weak smile.
“It’s not too bad; I guess…” she
said, wincing. “Like having multiple injections all at the same time….” I
wanted to tell her that this was no laughing matter, but I was too focused on
the first aid kit I drew from my rucksack.
I wasn’t a doctor or nurse of any
sort, so I just slathered some sort of cream across her wounds and wrapped
almost her whole hand in bandages. After the medication I stuffed the remaining
bandages and cream back into the kit and squashed it back into my rucksack.
“Wow, nice medication skills,
Avery,” she said, looking better already. “What is that cream? It’s a total
painkiller.” I had no idea what cream that was, but I knew it would help kill
pain because I saw mom use it once when my dad almost hacked his entire finger
off with a knife when ‘trying’ to prepare dinner and saying “what a stupid man
you are!!”
“Panta!! Panta!!”
We heard somebody scream from
over the plain and jerked our heads to look. Suddenly, a huge mob of what
looked like red Indians charged over to us, waving spears and swords in the
air. With Jackie injured, she couldn’t run without her hand aching every few
seconds, so we were caught by the red Indians pretty quickly. They all had dark
skin and painted faces with hawk feathers stuck to they’re head bands and
handmade clothing. One particular Red Indian jabbed a spear in my face and
said, in a very unpleasant tone: “Sayuer conno miilier?”
“This….is bad,” Jackie muttered, and I
nodded. Things just kept going from bad to worse.
