Forest of Monsters
Heidi ran, the thick jungle leaves whipped her face as she floundered through them with wild abandon, it was behind her. Heidi couldn't see it but she could hear it, a low shuffling, the snap of a branch, the thud of footsteps. Tears blinded her vision as she cried in terror.
She had been on a routine survey mission with her best friend after their exploratory ship had warped into this uncharted system. To the surprise and elation of the crew, they had discovered that the fifth planet was habitable. The system was unnamed as was the world, but it was a verdant green jewel, covered in endless jungles and vast rivers. This planet was perfect, millions would eventually call this world home, but for now, Heidi called it hell.
She cried out as a thorn cut her cheek but didn't dare to slow, her labored breathing almost drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in her ears, she took great heaving breaths but knew she couldn't run much longer. Staggering to a halt, she leaned against a large smooth barked tree that was draped in yellow vines.
As she struggled to catch her breath she heard a noise that caused her blood to freeze to ice in her veins. A chilling scream echoed from somewhere behind her, not a scream of a panicking creature, but a scream of blood maddened hunger.
Heidi groaned in fear as she resumed her headlong flight into the emerald unknown. She and her crewmate had set down on the planet to do some preliminary sample gathering and routine tests before the main survey party set down. Normally she relished these moments, where she and her best friend were the only two people on the entire planet, they could pretend they were the only two people in the universe.
Her breath was ragged as her tortured lungs screamed for relief, but fear fueled her limbs and she ran. She ran like her ancestors had run from the terrifying primordial predators of ancient earth. She ran like her life depended on it, because it did. Once more a blood hungry scream rang out through the dense jungle, as she lost her concentration for a moment she stumbled and almost fell. She caught herself using the vines hanging from the nearby trees, their surfaces rough and leathery to the touch. She remembered when it had gone wrong.
She had been walking around the perimeter of the ship when she had stumbled into a steep sided ravine, she was only a few dozen meters from the ship and so had called out loudly for her friend's help. Unfortunately for her, her shouting had attracted something else, something hungry.
Heidi pushed her way through a particularly dense patch of undergrowth, the damp leaves soaking her to her skin but doing little to alleviate the sheen of sweat that coated her from her excursions. As she clawed her way through she heard another scream, this one was closer, how was it closer, she was running as hard as she had in her whole life. What was this thing, what would it do to her if it caught her? With images of horrific rending teeth and shredding claws playing across her mind she once more ran through the undergrowth, she didn't know which direction and couldn't even see the suns due to the thick rooftop canopy.
Her wrist mounted assistant was busted, it had likely broken during her tumble down the ravine's steep embankment. She had tried desperately to claw her way back up the steep earthen wall, but the soggy soil had crumbled between her fingers and she had given up. That's when she had tried calling for help, leading to her current situation of being chased by some invisible nameless predator in some luck forsaken jungle in the middle of uncharted space.
Her booted feet slammed into the moist ground with a squelch as the soil became swampier, she growled in breathless anger as she felt herself slowing, looking desperately for a dryer route she spotted a fallen tree to her left. Squelching over to it she scrambled up its smooth barked side and straddled it for a moment, trying to catch her breath in the thick cloying air of the jungle. Her body felt as though it were on fire as all of her muscles screamed in agony.
Groaning in effort, she managed to get to her feet through sheer force of will alone, and slowly at first, made her way across the fallen tree. She noted with a small part of her brain that the tree was truly enormous, in life it must have stretched almost forty meters into the deep blue sky. She glanced up wistfully, what she wouldn't give to see the sky again, she had been trapped in a ship for months, and now that she had finally gotten planetside, the sky was not visible.
She reached the end of the titanic log and slid down onto firmer ground. With any luck her actions had thrown the predator off her trail. She stood for a moment listening in silence, her hair stood on end and a prickling sensation ran down her spine as she felt the eyes of something observing her from the impenetrable jungle. She tensed and then bolted in a new direction as she swore she heard heavy breathing.
She jerked in fear as once more the hungry scream wormed its way through the foliage to her. It sounded farther away now and she prayed that it had lost her trail as she made an attempt to go the way she had come. But without her assistant to guide her, and no way to see the sky, she couldn't be sure she was even going in the right direction.
Stumbling blindly through another thicket she screamed hoarsely as she lost her footing and tumbled to the ground, she let out a woof of air as she hit and laid there for a few seconds, dazed. Scrambling to her feet she looked around her, looking for something, anything she could use to defend herself. Leaning down she grabbed a large stick off the damp jungle floor, but it crumbled to pieces in her hands, too rotten to be of use. She tried to tear a vine from one of the surrounding trees, but found that it was as strong as braided rope. She began to walk backwards slowly, sure she would see the shining eyes of the predator any second. But there was nothing, perhaps it was just waiting for her to tire, or let down her guard.
Heidi scanned the forest wildly, looking for anything that may indicate a threat, but saw only the colors and shapes of the jungle. She began to walk briskly, no longer blind with fear she searched for a weapon, vowing not to go down without a fight. She stumbled as her foot caught on a protruding root as she was busy looking for something to defend herself with. As she fell she put out her hands and winced as she fell on her wrist in a bad way, she felt the joint roll painfully and she tried to keep from crying out.
As she rolled to her feet, she held her injured wrist in her other hand and moved it experimentally, it stung but didn't hurt too bad. Great, she had sprained her wrist, but it could have been worse. As the thought left her mind her head whipped around as another blood curdling scream echoed through the dense undergrowth. It sounded much closer, within fifty meters for sure. She stood and began to run again, but not the headlong, senseless pace from earlier.
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Continuing her pace, she kept vigilant of her surroundings for any sign of something dangerous with which to fight off this unseen enemy. She continued on like that for a short few minutes till to her horror she ran across another steep embankment running across her path. Looking first right, then left she decided to go left.
She dodged and weaved through the thick clinging fronds and leaves as she tried to stay ahead of the predator hunting her, as she rounded a particularly large tree she skidded to a stop in panic, the embankment turned sharply and formed a shallow curve in front of her, she was trapped. She started to make for the way she had come but stopped dead as she saw her pursuer for the first time.
It was large, about the size of a motorcycle. It had six long legs made for running and jumping that ended in wicked claws made for slashing and climbing. Its head was wide and blunt, a slavering mouth was opened and revealed a jagged tusk lined maw, like the horrific broken teeth of some huge comb. It's dark greenish gray fur blended into the shadowed undergrowth almost perfectly making it seem to swim in and out of sight as it stalked towards her, low to the ground as if ready to pounce.
She backed up as it fixed its shining yellow eyes on hers and let loose another piercing scream. She tripped as she tried to back away and raised her arm in defense as it tensed to spring, but suddenly it raised its furred head and seemed to cock it as if listening intently to some faint noise. It rose to a standing position and screamed at something she couldn't see before she heard it. The unmistakable sound of something massive crashing through the undergrowth towards them.
The predator leapt straight up in apparent surprise and tried to flee, but was slammed into by a huge dark blurr. The new monster was heavy and large, almost impossible to make out in the dim undergrowth as it grappled with the predator. She caught an impression of a multitude of insectoid legs and multiple larger appendages before the predator screamed in rage and bit at the monster. The monster seemed unaffected as the predator's tusked maw bounced ineffectually off its thick carapace armour.
The monster swung the predator to the side as it grappled, slamming it into a tree, the predator screamed again and Heidi heard a bone chilling hiss of anger from the newcomer as the predator rammed into the monster with terrific force. It was all she could do just to watch this horrific clash without fainting in abject terror. The monster reared up as if to strike at the predator, its many fighting appendages spread wide, before slamming them down on the predator's back and causing it to screech in pain. It swung a heavy clawed blow at its attacker but its claws again rebounded off thick chitinous armour.
Heidi watched, transfixed, as the monster tackled the stunned predator and seemed to wrap around it, coiling itself like a snake. It began to constrict the predator, the predator screamed again, this time in fear and agony as its bones began to crack and its muscles tore with sickening snaps. With a final crackle of splintering bone, the monster crushed the life from the predator and uncoiled, releasing the now limp and sundered corpse to the jungle floor with a slight thump.
Heidi watched as the monster seemed to rear up like a snake, the forward third of its nearly six-meter-long body raised up in a cobra like manner. Suddenly it turned her direction, her breath froze in her throat as she made out a pair of compound eyes, glinting in her direction.
Suddenly the monster shot towards her, faster than anything of that size should have been able to move. She yelled in alarm as she felt it sweep her off her feet and coil itself around her in the same way it had to the now dead predator.
But death did not follow, instead the monster spoke "Heidi, what were you thinking? Running away like that on an uncharted planet? You could have been killed, If I hadn't been able to follow your personal beacon you may very well have been." She heard the monster say from beneath its heavy coils.
"Sorry Yvonne, I didn't mean to run off and almost die, it was an accident I swear." Heidi protested weakly, but in reality she was relieved beyond words for the timely arrival of her friend.
Finally releasing her from her prison of heavy coils, Yvonne let her go and scuttled back a meter to let Heidi regain her bearings. Heidi brushed herself off in mock indignation, but was in reality just trying to gather her thoughts. She stopped and looked at her friend.
Yvonne was a Vinarfel, an insectoid race resembling a massive centipede, but with five pairs of arms and a multitude of short, knife-like legs. She had two compound eyes and two long antennae that she generally kept folded down her back like a pair of braids. Her back was covered in heavy armour plates and her chest was armoured in much thinner and more flexible sheets of chiton. Her underbelly was rather soft and unarmoured but was held close to the ground due to her scuttling walking posture. The front third of her body was reared up in a vaguely S shape like a cobra and her mouth was a series of chitinous plates arrayed over a slit like mouth in which was situated her radula, an organ resembling a toothed tongue used for stripping meat from bone.
Yvonne looked Heidi over and asked her concernedly "Are you fit to head back to the shuttle, I know that Human endurance has its limits, and being chased through this Motherforsaken jungle by a ravenous wild beast has got to top that list." Heidi chuckled at her comment and nodded.
She began "Thanks, Yvonne, if you hadn't shown up…" but the Vinarfel female cut her off with a three armed wave.
"But I did show up, so let's not speculate on the alternatives, please." Yvonne grimaced at the thought.
Heidi smiled as the huge female swayed slightly in discomfort, her antenna twitching. Heidi reached out and patted the woman on her armoured flank saying "It's all over now. You got to me, everything is fine."
Yvonne nodded in sympathetic understanding and straightened, turning with surprising flexibility, she pointed to the carcass behind her. "Should we bring that thing with us? Maybe it's edible."
"Oh you're impossible, you are always thinking with your stomach you greedy bug." Heidi said in exasperation.
Yvonne shrugged and pulled a large skinning knife out of a sheath on her side "No sense letting it go to waste, plus it's all tenderized just the way I like. When are we going to get a chance to eat fresh killed meat like this again? In two years?" Heidi sighed as she watched her friend butcher the animal with practiced ease.
"Okay, but at least let me scan it before you start to eat it this time. We aren't going to have a repeat of the last time you found something 'tasty'." She said with air quotes.
Yvonne winced at the memory and said "Okay, that's fair. But you are going to have some, right?"
Heidi smiled and replied warmly "Of course I will, I'm not a bloody herbivore for luck's sake." She laughed at Yvonne's expression as she mentioned herbivores. She walked over to the large insectoid woman and gave her a ferocious hug that seemed to surprise the large alien.
Rather than push her away, Yvonne lowered her antenna and brushed them over Heidi's face, the two shared a moment to enjoy each other's company before turning back to the task of butchering the dead predator.
As the two of them hoisted chunks of meat and shared a last look at the dead creature, they began to laugh. They laughed as they walked off into the jungle, knowing that together, nothing in the universe could harm them.
End of Story