This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

First published on my wordpress: Here

This chapter has been released ahead of schedule thank to a generous donator.

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After spending an entire day analyzing the demon dragon’s movement, I now had a good grasp of its hunting habits and now, knew that the beast left for a minimum of 3 to 4 hours each time. I had spent the entire day, rolled in a ball deep in my hole, listening to all the sounds surrounding me.

I had spent the entire time thinking of an exit strategy and was very limited in my options. I had ended up going around the cave and checking all the holes to know what was inside of each of them. There were 12 holes, 9 contained these blue greyish dragons which belonged to the same species as the one I had killed back in the days.

Since they seemed to be the most common ones, I decided to name them ‘common dragon’. I had also come across green and brown dragons, visibly from a different species but preferred to avoid them since they acted very aggressively toward me.

I had come up with an escape plan after seeing that one of these common dragons was quite big and wasn’t a baby anymore. It was a very stupid plan that I would have never considered if I wasn’t currently in a very precarious situation. When your life is in danger, even a very dangerous plan might sound like a good one, and this was what my current situation was like.

The plan was simple, drag this big dragon out of its hole and use it to glide down. The biggest problem in this idea was the fact that these dragons had never learned how to fly and had remained captive their entire lives. I could only hope that the creature would instinctively know how to fly or even glide to safety.

The demon dragon hadn’t brought another human since that time and I was very thankful for it. After seeing the poor girl being eaten, I couldn’t get these images out of my head. Could I have done something to help her? No there was nothing I could have done. The only thing I could do right now was to think of a way to kill this damned thing after getting back home.

This creature seemed so sturdy that I doubted that even my bomb ‘lil boy’ could even put a dent in its armour. I was also torn about what to do with the other dragons being prisoners in here with me. My love for animals made me wish to free them before escaping, but I knew they would grow to become man eaters in the future.

I was being torn between my love for animals and my human solidarity. If I killed them all, I would be doing a great service to humanity, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to seriously consider it. These grey dragons were quite friendly to me and acted a lot like dogs which made things even harder.

Deciding to concentrate on my own survival, I opted to simply close my eyes and ignore all these thoughts. The demon dragon which I had also decided to name “king dragon” was currently asleep and would go for a morning hunt at sunrise. I needed to be prepared for that vital opportunity.

King dragon seemed to be an appropriate name for the demonic beast since back on earth, king cobras were snakes eating other snakes which was similar to this dragon eating other dragons. I still hadn’t given names to the other dragon species since I still hadn’t seen many of them yet and didn’t know what were their specific characteristics.

My situation was bad, but not impossible to deal with just yet. I was already running out of water and dragon jerky so my escape had to be tomorrow or my chances of success would be greatly reduced. I had prepared a rope with a slipknot to one end that I planned to slip around the dragon’s neck then hoist him out of its hole. I hoped the dragon would help me drag him out and not resist, but there was no way to be sure before trying it.

I was still sitting in my hole, in pitch darkness, waiting for the sun to rise while staring at the egg next to me with the help of my flashlight. At first, I was stuck in a dilemma and actively wondered what I should do with that egg. Since it was still in it’s egg, maybe I could tame it somehow.

I used to own animals like parrots, dogs, cats and knew a bit about animal imprinting. If the first thing this creature saw after hatching was me, it should normally consider me as its parent. And if I raised it, maybe I could teach it that humans are off the menu.

In the end, the thought of leaving this poor baby dragon to a short life in prison was angering me, so I was already determined to bring the egg with me no matter what. This was my way to redeem myself for abandoning all the other dragons to their fate.

I waited the entire day in this hole, in a cave, surrounded by the grunts and noises of monsters. I was all alone, far from home, hungry, thirsty and terrified. I was living a real life nightmare from which I could only wake up by using my own strength. For me, to even consider jumping on the back of a dragon, then down a 800 metres cliff, I had to be seriously terrified.

Then finally, the sound of the king dragon going out for its morning hunt resonated through the dark prison that was this cave. I quickly placed the egg in my backpack then waited a few minutes to be safe before climbing out of my hole. I ran to the main chamber and looked out through the exit to make sure the king dragon was out of sight.

After making sure the way was clear, I ran back to hole number 8 which was containing the biggest dragon. I slowly lowered the noose in the hole and gently tried to get it around the dragon’s neck. It took me a few minutes, but the dragon eventually calmed down which made things easier. Having secured a rope around its neck, I began to expel a large amount of red mist that made the surrounding dragons go wild in their holes.

This was a big dragon, but I was strong and confident in being able to pull it out of there. Dragons were the sturdiest creatures I had ever met, so I knew for sure that a noose around their neck had no chance of hurting them. My only worries were, how the creature would react once outside the hole, and obviously the 800 metres jump that should follow.

With my muscles bulging under the red mist doping and determination in my eyes, I tightly grabbed the rope with both hands. Using a large stone as support for my feet, I began to tug on the rope as hard as I could. The dragon instantly began to grunt and scream but I kept pulling with all my might. Eventually, its head appeared out of the hole and the creature began to use its forelimbs to pull itself out of it. The dragon was looking a bit confused, so I slowly walked up to it and tried to act in a nonthreatening manner.

While standing on its hind legs, the beast was just a bit taller than me. A dragon of this size almost gave the feeling of a carnivorous ostrich. Still trying to move as slowly as possible, I gently tugged on the rope and guided the dragon toward the main room. Once in the room, my young partner began to act agitated.

Probably because of all the dragon remains littering the room. “Shhhh sShhhhhh Calm down big boy. Nothing we can do about the dead, but you and me need to get the fuck out of here so please calm down.” Maybe because I was using a very calm and reassuring voice, but the creature immediately calmed down after hearing my words.

It could probably sense that I was trying to help it and wasn’t his enemy. I kept pulling on the rope and guided it in the direction of the giant hole being used as doorway. After seeing daylight, the young dragon jumped back and tugged on the rope, trying to go back into the darkness. Being heavier than me, I was being dragged and knew I couldn’t win a tug war against it.

Using a big crack in the ground, I locked my feet in place and dragged it back to me. I was very proud to see that I was capable of overpowering a dragon of this size. After a few more minutes of struggle, I finally managed to get the dragon in position in front of the giant 800 metres drop.

The beast seemed scared and nervous as if it knew what was about to happen. As for me, I looked to the sky and prepared myself mentally before the next step. Once ready, I threw my last piece of jerky right next to the cliff and stealthily side-stepped behind the creature. As it lowered itself to grab the jerky, I ran and abruptly jumped on its back, grabbing its neck with my arms and forcing it off the cliff with my momentum.

We fell for at least a quarter of the way before the young dragon finally began to move its wings. I had hoped that flying would come to it instinctively as it fell and it seemed I was right. The only problem was that I was way too heavy for this little dragon to carry me, so we kept plunging toward the ground at a scary speed.

The dragon began to flap its wings as hard as it could but all it did was slightly reduce our falling speed. As the trees became closer, I began to expel as much red mist as possible and braced myself for impact. We then hit the trees at a scary speed which made them literally explode as we plowed through them.

We began to spin out of control as we teared through the vegetation and eventually crashed to the ground with enough force to generate a small crater. The young dragon instantly stood up and sent me flying off its back before thrashing around uncontrollably. It didn’t seemed hurt, but it was definitely pissed off at something.

Worried for my egg, I quickly took off my bag and inspected it. The egg was perfectly intact as if nothing had happened. Dragons truly are something else, even their eggs are unbreakable. Reassured, I rapidly inspected my gear and prepared for the long journey ahead. I had my 338 sniper rifle, my handgun, my machete, 6 pipe bombs and 2 special incendiary dragon napalm bombs.

I was far from home and had no idea how to get back there but I had a plan. I only needed to get in range of our walkies-talkie radios for it to work. With that in mind, I only needed an approximated direction to follow. Even if I was barely conscious while being captured, I still knew that I had been transported west from my town.

Logically, if I headed east long enough, I would eventually get close enough for my radio to reach them and have the guys build a smoke signal for me to follow back home. As I was ready to leave, the young dragon began to glare at me. “Yes yes I know. I will take that rope off your neck, but you better behave.”

I removed the rope without too much difficulty and walked away from it. The young dragon then climbed on some rocks and seemed to practice flapping its wings. I hoped that it would be able to fly and leave this place on its own before the king dragon came back. I didn’t have time to deal with it anymore and needed to use every minute of daylight I could get.

I took a quick look at the compass on my wristwatch and began to walk east. The landscape was making progress very slowly with all its crevasses, ravines, cliffs and other irregularities. Due to the rocky surface, vegetation was relatively sparse and allowed me to keep an eye on the purple sky.

The sounds in this alien forest were all foreign and scary. A small bird like reptile could emit a sound that sounded like a giant lion and a giant monster could sound like a small piglet. Eventually, I began to react violently to any new sound I came across and was always ready to climb up a tree.

After a few hours, I reached a dead end and ended up climbing a vertical cliff which made progress even slower. At this speed, I wondered how long it would take me to travel 30 miles. All the plants looked poisonous to me, and all the small insects and creatures around would make me jump in fear every time they moved.

I was already calling this forest ‘the green hell’ after only a few hours of trekking. The temperature was extremely hot and humid, I was wearing full body armour, a very heavy backpack and weapons. No need to say that I was soaking wet and beginning to fear being victim of a heatstroke.

Not wanting to drop dead because of the heat, I stopped to take a break near a rocky cliff and lit my first cigarette in almost two days. It felt so good, I was thirsty and hungry but at least now, I wasn’t in withdrawal anymore. I took my bag off and removed the top part of my armour in the hope of letting some of my sweat dry.

I had yet to come across any source of water which made me worry. I could last weeks without food, but without water, I would be dead in two days in this heat. As I was catching my breath back, I began to notice a low buzzing sound coming from the ground.

Knowing that everything in this world was dangerous, I immediately raised my guard up. I hurriedly put my clothes and backpack on and grabbed my 338. I backed away until I couldn’t hear the sound anymore but kept an eye on the small rocky mountain. Eventually, my eyes caught some movement from between some rocks.

Apparently, this small mountain was home to a species of insectoid that seemed to live in holes and caves all around the area. These things were horrifying like everything in this world so far. They had 12 limbs and each one of them seemed to have its uses. 6 legs to walk, 2 to be used as small hands to eat, 2 longer and stronger arms probably meant to grab and 2 more limbs that were visibly meant to kill.

The two murderous limbs that the creature always kept high up above its head, were looking like a mix between scythes and the arms or a praying mantis. This insect obviously had a face only a mother could love and a jaw that seemed to be capable of cutting through anything. The creatures also had wings which were probably what made this buzzing sound that had warned me of their presence.

Actually, there was something more to it. I had the feeling that I had ‘felt’ them before hearing them. I was beginning to be more and more aware of it but I felt like I could sense the presences of nearby creatures. This ability also seemed to be more effective against powerful creatures and in areas that contained a lower concentration of red mist, as if red mist itself was interfering with my ‘sensing’ ability.

From then on, I decided to try and train this ability as I continued my journey. Noticing that the sun was rapidly going down, I decided to make shelter for the night. The last thing I wanted was to be caught unprepared in this alien jungle at night. Who knows what might roam these lands at night.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Walking to the biggest skyscraper tree I could find, I doped my body on red mist and climbed it by digging my hands and feet into the soft wood. Climbing a Styrofoam trees was very easy and its height was going to procure me more safety than staying at ground level.

Once I was high enough, I took my machete and began to dig into the tree like a woodpecker. I dug a hole just big enough for me to fit through and dug the inside until I had a big enough room to lay in foetal position for the night. Having kept the round cap from the entry, I used it to block it and just like that, I had completely disappeared from anyone’s sight.

That night ended up being a very long one during which I had barely slept at all. The forest at night was even more noisy than during the day, and I kept hearing monsters fighting and killing each other all night. At least, this is what it sounded like to me, terrified and hidden in my hole high in a tree.

With an egg as only companion, I kept it in my arms the entire night and even spoke to it out of boredom. I was unsure if it was due to pure exhaustion, but I was already calling it my baby. At the break of dawn, I was already up and ready to go. I was getting a headache due to dehydration and seriously needed to find water today.

With this goal in mind, I resumed my journey east. I could clearly see that the forest was getting denser up ahead and had already assumed that I would find water over there. I was growing weary and knew that the closer to water I was getting, the more wildlife I would encounter.

Arriving in the denser forest, I unsheathed my machete and began to hack away at the vegetation to open a path. The vegetation was so dense that I could see only a few metres ahead of me. At this point, I was very grateful to the plants for being so easy to cut through.

Even though I could plow through the plants very easily, making my way through them was exhausting and slowed progress considerably. This was until I spotted a game-trail. As a hunter, I was very familiar with these trails commonly found in forests all around the world.

Game trails are paths or trails created and used by the fauna that pass through or live in an area. Lots of game trails have been maintained by generations of animals. Animals create these trails by repeatedly walking the same areas for hunting and grazing.

The trail was heading east and was obviously the fastest route back home, but following a game-trail also meant a higher chance of coming across the creatures using them. Keeping my rifle ready for action, my decision was already made. Following an existing path was a lot faster than making my own after all.

Having weighed the risk, I made my way forward while constantly keeping my attention on this ‘life force sensing ability’. Actually, I was most likely sensing the red mist emitted by the creatures rather than life force but I had yet to understand exactly how it worked.

After an hour, I finally sensed something coming and once again ran up a tree and waited. Five familiar creatures eventually appeared and stopped as soon as they arrived to the area I had walked on. These 5 creatures were a pack of hell dogs like the ones from back then but these ones seemed bigger and more dangerous looking.

The hellish dogs seemed agitated and were frantically smelling the ground. I knew for a fact that when these creatures began to sniff someone’s trail, they could stalk for months and never gave up. Luckily, I also knew that these creatures were the weak blue blooded type and could be dealt with without too much difficulty.

Grabbing my machete in my left hand and my handgun in the right, I jumped down from my tree while under the red mist influence. I landed with a loud thump only a few metres from the dogs which made them jump in surprise. Like a bad-ass from an action movie, I aimed at their heads and opened fire. BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!*

I emptied an entire clip at lightning speed and managed to kill 3 of them and injure the other 2 that had turned tail and run away. The two that were still alive would most likely die from their injuries later and shouldn’t be a problem in the future.

I reloaded my gun and scanned the surroundings before placing it back in its holster. Machete in hand, I moved toward one of the three corpses for a closer inspection. I was starving, but even though I was slowly dying of hunger, the thought of eating blue meat still made me gag.

From what I had seen so far, blue blooded creatures could eat red meat, and red blooded creatures could eat blue meat. This meant that I could most likely digest this blue meat but… Gag* No, I needed to man up and eat. This was all psychological, I had to get into the zone and eat the damned thing. I had salt and pepper in my bag for situations like this as well.

Using my Rambo knife, I butchered some pieces of meat and placed them in a plastic bag in my backpack. I was very dehydrated and needed water before anything else. To digest food, the body needs water. Eating food without drinking would only dehydrate your body faster.

With that taken care of, I resumed my journey with a crippling headache that kept forcing me to take pain killers. The pain was really debilitating but there was worse, I was already starting to feel dizziness when I moved too quickly because of being highly dehydrated.

Luckily, the trail eventually led to a small creek where I finally found a small stream of water. Instantly getting tunnel vision, I filled my canteen while intensely staring at it. It was a similar feeling to when you finally see a toilet after hours of keeping it in. My mouth screamed to get a sip but who knew what type of viruses and bacteria lived in this water.

Boiling it for 15 minutes was the minimum I could do in such a situation. Selecting the biggest tree I could find, I climbed and stopped at the biggest branch. This tree was so big that the branch I was currently sitting on was big enough to make a big conference table out of it.

With my machete, I dug a bowl shaped hole on top of it before climbing back down. I gathered some clay from the stream and climbed back up the tree with it. Using the clay, I covered the freshly exposed wood in my bowl and that way, created a clay bowl embedded in the tree.

What I was doing was quite simple, I was making a fire-pit up in a tree. The clay was only to prevent the branch from catching on fire because of it. I would need to keep it a small controlled fire but as long as I had enough flames to boil my water, all was good.

I gathered some twigs and dry grass and effortlessly lit a fire with my cigarette lighter. I placed my canteen next to the flame and waited for it to boil while observing the forest down below. Once the water had boiled for long enough I waited for it to cool down a bit and slowly drank it.

I was incredibly thirsty but knew that chugging it down while being so dehydrated would cause me to vomit it back out uncontrollably. I repeated the process a few time until my belly was swollen with the precious fluid. Only then did my attention revert back to my hunger.

I pulled the blue meat from my bag and placed it on sticks over the fire. Usually, meat gets brown as it cooks but this one was slowly turning grey. Truly disgusting in every way, but if this was what I needed to eat to survive, I would eat the damned thing no matter what.

I cooked the meat until it began to turn black before taking it out in front of me. I used a bit of salt and a large amount of pepper on it, but the thing still looked unappetizing. I remained silent while staring at it for a while, but eventually mustered my courage and threw a piece of it in my mouth. Munch* Munch* Munch* Munch* Munch* Munch*

The meat was rubbery and tasted sweet. Something sweet might sound delicious but who would put sugar on meat? The fact that the meat didn’t taste anything like meat made my eyes water as the gag reflex kept on coming. The only thing I could think of that would have been more disgusting than this, would have been to eat raw bull testicles or something.

I eventually managed to force myself to eat the entire thing, and even though I felt grossed out, my body was already feeling better. Since I had just proven that we could eat blue meat, the next thing would be to find a way to make it taste better. Maybe I would try boiling it next time.

I spent the rest of the day re-hydrating and eventually slept in that tree. During my time in the jungle, I had already come across tens of new species and had felt many more that would simply avoid me. It had been a while since the last time I had come across a cockroach and knew they were around since I could see some of their tracks.

Looked like cockroaches wouldn’t be a problem to me any longer. I had most likely grown even stronger than before but didn’t know exactly how much. Fact was that I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt red mist poisoning. I had spent months without needed an emergency red mist expulsion even though I had consumed a large amount of dragon meat in the meantime.

To me, it felt like I was now totally immunized to red mist poisoning and my body didn’t seem to have any limit in the amount it could hold. I would have to begin the other survivors’ training as soon as I got back home so they would be able to survive without their air purifier.

By the third night, I felt like I had made good progress so I decided to climb the highest tree in the area. Once on top of it, I leaned against a branch and turned my radio on. “Hello, here’s Nate. Can anyone hear me?” I then waited but nothing came through so I kept repeating and waiting until I finally heard something.

“Static* H-Static* Nate? Is that you?” Urggg.. That voice was Marc’s. Not exactly the one I wanted to hear but I ignored that detail. “Yes, is everybody alright over there?” Then instead of an answer, what I got sounded more like a fight over the radio. As a confirmation of who had won the battle for the radio, what I heard next was Robert’s voice.

“Hello? Nate! Everyone’s fine over here so don’t worry. But you! Are you alright? Where are you? Alone in the jungle? How can we help? Are you injured? Give us your general direction and we will send a rescue party.” Robert sounded genuinely worried and was speaking so fast, I could barely understand what he said.

“Calm down Rob. (Yep, I had decided to call him that just now.) I have walked for 3 days now so I should be getting closer to town. There’s a lot we need to talk about. I might also have found a way to get back on earth.” I was so excited by the possibility that I couldn’t wait to share the good news with them.

“WHATTTTTTTtttttttt?” That was not only Robert’s voice but something that sounded more like a choir. “We’ll talk about it when I’m back but for now I need you to do me a favour. I will never be able to get back without it.“ I then continued with the main reason why I had contacted them.

“Anything! What do you want us to do?” Anxiously asked Robert. “I need a smoke signal so that I can see where our town is located. I suggest you burn tires, this will make a black smoke that’s easy to see from afar. Just keep it burning during the day until I’m back. Can you do that?”

“Of course! We will do that first thing tomorrow morning. Anything else we can do? Are you sure you are alright?” Robert must have been worrying about me from the way he spoke. Not wanting to worry him even more, I decided to keep most of my worries to myself.

“I’m perfectly alright. This jungle is beautiful and fun to walk through. The wildlife is also quite docile and playful. Food and water are abundant and readily available. I’m having a blast out here really.” I said with a playful voice. “Hahahahaha* Alright, if it’s you, I’m sure you can thrive alone over there. We’ll get your smoke signal ready but don’t overdo it okay?” Added Robert in a motherly tone.

“Yes mom!! Heheheh*” It felt good to talk with someone after so long. I was not ashamed to admit it, I was missing them more and more as days went by. As I was about to turn the radio off, Camille’s voice came through. “Nate? Are you really alright? Are you eating well? How do you sleep at night? You’re not injured are you?”

Sigh, well there was no doubt that I had many people caring about me over there. Camille’s voice was like a warm blanket over my fatigued mind. “Hey Cami, (Yes, I missed them so much that I was starting to give them nicknames.) I’m not doing too bad really, so don’t worry. I don’t know how long it will take me to trek back home but I will definitely come back.”

After that I kept talking with her for around 10 minutes before deciding to shut the radio off to save the batteries for later. I had ended up asking her where she and Robert were the day I went looking for them, but only got a vague answer. I was suspecting a secret relationship between her and Rob but didn’t feel jealousy. I loved both of them and was really happy for them if it was really the case. I would need to make things clear with them when I get back home.

In the morning, I climbed back up to the top of my tree and had a quick look around. There, through the horizon, a big column of black smoke was visible at around 10 miles to the north east. I was lucky to have a radio since I would have never known that I was too far south at the time.

With my new coordinates in mind, I resumed my journey for the fourth consecutive day. I came across some grass eating giant creatures with spikes all over their bodies, a giant flying creature looking like a reptilian vulture and all kinds of weird stuff. I had even seen a plant that bled if you cut it. Even if some things looked similar to what could be found on earth, this world truly was an alien world in every way.

Travelling during the day, sleeping up in a tree at night, my journey continued in a routine manner up to the 5th day. On that night, I was sleeping inside the trunk of a giant tree while cuddling with my egg as usual, when an unusual sensation woke me up.

For some reason, I was bathing into a warm and slimy substance. I first thought I had puked in my sleep, but then felt movements next to me. Quickly reaching for my flashlight, I shone light on whatever was moving but was stomped by what I saw.

“Ha crap… No no no no no! Why the fuck are you hatching now!????”