Jason swallowed nervously. He knew from his reading that crocodiles wouldn't attack a large boat, but small boats? That was a problem. A large crocodile was powerful enough in the water to flip a small boat. They were powerful enough to simply launch themselves out of the water and drag an unsuspecting boater off the boat as well.

Several of the crocs had apparently decided the boat was interesting enough to come and check it out. They were slowly stalking towards his path of travel. He maneuvered to the sides and managed to skirt through the first half, but dozen or so had managed to spread across the entire river ahead. There was no way around.

He waited for the right timing. There was no way around, so he'd have to go through. The croc to the left of his path of travel drifted away a little bit. There!

With a twist of his wrist, Jason reved the motor to top speed and shot for the opening! There was a thunk as the boat skipped off the tail of the large reptile and the outboard jolted as the prop came into contact with the beast as well. He made it through!

Jason looked behind him while breathing heavily. Blood slowly came to the top of the water and the crocdile thrashed violently at the sudden pain. There was no way to catch up to Jason, but it was quite apparent that the thrashing had an effect as all the other crocodiles suddenly turned their attention on the injured one. As Jason urged the dingy away, the water turned into a frenzy of blood and thrashing water. Apparently crocodiles had no problem with cannibalizing one of their own. Jason just was glad it wasn't him.

Jason turned to look at the river ahead. Thankfully, it was clear of crocs as far as he could see, but he’d have to keep a sharp eye out for more dangers. After all, this was the congo river basin. Apart from crocs, he could face hippos as well. That didn’t even account for other dangerous creatures like gorillas, snakes, and various disease carrying bugs.

After about a half of an hour of clear boating, Jason realized that he was getting hungry. He dug through his pack. There were a few bottles of water, various purification devices, and some anti-parasite and antibacterial tablets for water, but there didn’t seem to be any rations? How had he survived up until now?

‘I’m getting way too into this? Did I forget that this is some sort of weird fantasy while I’m driving to work?’ Jason wasn’t sure if he should grin, be worried, or what he should feel. He just knew that he was, oddly enough, kind of enjoying himself!

That was when he noticed that the water was accelerating.

‘Oh crap.’

He look ahead and sure enough, after the next bend in the river, there was a white cloud of water vapor rising in the air. Just as he noticed it, a low rumbling sound started to reach his ears.

‘A waterfall!’ Jason didn’t know what waterfall it was, but looking at the boat he was sitting in, he didn’t want to find out!

He rapidly scanned the shores for a place to land the boat. There! On the left bank of the river, there was a small patch of beach that looked clear. He immediately turned the boat towards the shore and gunned the motor.

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He almost made it too. Suddenly, the motor began to sputter and lose power. ‘What now!?’ It was then he noticed the small E on the gas can, and the little red metal arrow that was pointing towards it.

“No!” Jason’s eyes widened. Why hadn’t he thought to conserve his gas? He immediately hit the choke and shut down the outboard, then he grabbed a pair of oars resting near the sides of the dingy. The beach was only 30 meters away, but the current was accelerating! He dropped the pegs on the oars into the oarlocks and frantically began rowing.

20 meters! 10 meters! 5! He passed the closest beach head and rowed as hard as he could. Jason’s arms screamed in agony. 2 meters! The boat touched it’s bottom on sand in the shallows but started to get dragged back into the current. The rear of the boat began to swing to the side.

There wasn’t enough pressure from the oars to push him closer to the shore, but neither was there enough friction to prevent him from getting dragged back into the river.

The rope! He spotted a rope coiled at the front of the boat. It appeared to be tied through a hole in the bow. Jason dove forward to grab the rope and accidentally kicked an oar into the river. He didn’t have time to worry about that though.

He threw the pack over items over his shoulder. Without another thought, he jumped over the side into the waist-deep water and trudged towards the shore. The current threatened to pull him off his feet, but he managed to hang on. Unfortunately, the boat had other ideas and, with the sudden reduction in weight, quickly slid back into the current. The sudden release pulled the rope straight from his hand and Jason watched helplessly as the dingy disappeared down the bend.

Judging by the now-prominent roar of the falls ahead, Jason doubted he would see it again- at least not in one piece.

Well, there wasn’t much he could do about that now. He looked around at his new surroundings. Away from the river the foliage quickly blocked an incredible amount of the light. To make matters worse,

Thankfully, there were no animal paths to the beach and no tracks around him. He looked overhead, there weren’t snakes either, that was another blessing.

A sudden crunch of wood was heard in the distance. Obviously, the dingy had met its final fate on a rock before the falls.

‘What should I do?’ Obviously, Jason was reluctant to traipse off into the forest. That sounded extremely dangerous. The river was no longer an option though. His stomach growled.

‘Well, first things first, I suppose.’ As he had been digging through the bag, he had noticed a large spool of fishing line, a jar of dried bait, and a bobber. In addition, there was a large package of waterproof matches, and a machete.

‘It looks like fish is my best option.’

While disheartened by the loss of the boat, Jason didn’t feel too worried. After all, this wasn’t his world, and he hadn’t purchased the boat. Technically, he wasn’t out anything from the loss, just some time on this quest. Though he didn’t know how far he had to go, he at least knew that he could gather some food.

While Jason caught a fish, he thought about his next steps. With the boat gone, overland was the only option now. Thankfully, he could still follow the river towards the meeting place. Hopefully no predators were around in the jungles. Though he’d now been on the beach for a total of fifteen minutes, he hadn’t heard or seen anything. That was a good sign, though it would have been difficult to hear anything over the falls anyway.

After another thirty minutes, Jason finally managed to land a fish. It was a decent size at around 2.5 kilograms, dull brown in color, and appeared to be edible. He cleaned it, managed to start a fire with some dried driftwood on the beach, and ate until he was full. The sky overhead began to show golden hues at the edges of the small white clouds. It was almost sundown.

He was tempted to save the leftovers for breakfast but was concerned the smell would attract unwanted attention from the forest.

Without another option, Jason decided that the beach was as good a place as any to camp for the night. He threw a few more large pieces of wood onto the fire, put his head on the pack for a pillow, a bedroll around his body, and restlessly drifted off to sleep.

He awoke a few hours later to the sound of a large piece of breaking wood nearby and a campfire that was little more than a even-darker smudge on the sand.