Taking a drive in the recap lane, we go back to after Michael keeps Andrew a bit distance away from the battle about happening.
After leaving Andrew alone at the place, he hides behind a dense bush watching the battle as it rages on.
"So all the animals in this world are huge and powerful. Just what the hell is wrong with this world?", says Andrew. As the battle continues, he is fascinated by the speed of Michael and his use of the cutlass. They were all fighting as a team, with each person covering for the other and helping themselves in case a flaw comes up.
While watching the battle, he doesn't seem to realize that something was crawling its way behind him as he has his full focus on the battle, even if he didn't, am not sure he would have noticed nonetheless. His eyes were all sparkling watching the fight and seeing the frog perform such intelligent action he speaks inwardly to himself, 'Seems the animals of this world have a nice perception and are way more intelligent than the ones back on earth. If the frog is this intelligent how much more would the normally intelligent animals be? They would be way more frightening', while the thing keeps on creeping behind his back moving towards him in a gentle, unhurried and nice manner. There were not many movements or noise taking place and it started silently coiling around Andrew not too noticeable first at his legs, then going upwards around its abdomen, when it was approaching Andrew's neck was when he noticed that it was the stem of a plant coiling around him. He reacts by putting his right hand in front of his neck to prevent the stem from strangling him. Seems it was effective as the stem was not able to strangle him but it continues coiling around him.
Seeing the stem continuing its action of coiling around him, Andrew struggles with his left hand to grab a hold of his knife which was strapped around his waist. But the stem starts coiling around the hands seeming to know of its action of wanting to grab the knife. Struggling under the grasp of the stem he is at a loss of words thinking about how the stem was able to summon such strength and gripping power but he doesn't give up as he gathers all his available strength to break through with his left hand with his right hand still protecting his neck. Breaking through, he grabs the knife and starts slashing at the stem. He seems to start being loose from the grip of the stem but the stem stops its action of wanting to strangle him and instead starts dragging him, seems like it was pulling him towards a particular location but Andrew uses his knife to stab into the ground multiple times to stop the pulling motion before he was finally stopped by the stump of a tree, understanding that if he was to be dragged in that location he did be killed without a doubt and without an option of even resisting.
His right hand has become free after slashing at the stem wrapped around him formerly and he uses his right hand to hold onto a tree while struggling with his full strength to get his body to lay beside the tree. While performing such a motion his left hand where the knife lies is not at rest as it continues its action of slashing at the stem. Cutting up all the stem holding him, he breathes a sign of relief forgetting he is still in a dangerous area. But at the next moment, he stands up and starts running for his life since he sees various stems rushing towards him. He is far away from the battle scene due to the pulling of the stem, 'Shit, why did this have to target me', he screams inwardly while running back to the battle scene. On getting there, the stem stops at a distance and starts retreating seeming to have given up on catching him.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
He tries to catch his breath for a moment then he notices something flying in his direction, he was jolted and moves back a bit. After the shadow lands, he seems to recognize what it was, as it was Jerry who has been knocked away, his chest caved in, with his ribs protruding outwards. He seems to be beyond saving at this moment. After a slight pause, Andrew runs towards him looking at his injury, Jerry was coughing out blood profusely and his cough seems to carry with it his inward flesh.
Andrew raises his head to look at the battle which was still ongoing and all of a sudden he receives a jolt which causes him to pick up the axe which was flung along with Jerry and throw it in a certain direction without looking. The direction happens to coincide with where the frog moved to and happened to be in the place where he has the deepest injury where its beating heart was visible. The axe landed right on track on its heart as it was about to destroy its poison gland and killed it before it was able to. It was a close call, a good finishing albeit at the cost of Jerry.
Now coming back to the present, all the warriors turned to look at Andrew with disbelief. Wondering how he was able to pull the feat of aiming directly at its heart. Even Andrew looks incredulously at his hands in disbelief over what has just happened. He hasn't practised axe throwing or something like that, although he did understand how to control his body to an above-average rate, that was all there was to it, it was almost impossible to achieve such a feat without years of practising, except if due to some bizarre circumstance based on luck but it was achieved by a young boy of ten years of age.
Recovering from their shock the men rushed toward Jerry to check on their old friend. Seeing the degree of his injuries, there was a quiet moment between them understanding there was no chance that he could survive.
Michael shifts his gaze from Jerry and asks Andrew in a gentle tone, "How were you able to do that so precisely?". The rest warriors look at him with askance in their eyes. There was silence for a while, and then Andrew breathes in deeply before saying, "I also don't know how I did it, I just felt like picking up the axe and throwing it in that direction. I didn't know the frog was going to move in that direction nor did I know that its heart would be at that location. I just threw it with all my might and it was like that". None of them seems to believe it but they didn't continue asking about what happened either after all everyone has their secrets which they didn't want to talk about and their gaze came back to Jerry holding onto him as he takes his last breath.