Survive the Monsters and Breed 3 Chapter 2

“Oh, come on,” Sarah said as she stood up, but her shaky voice betrayed her false confidence. “The bubbles are really small, you think there’s a monster down there?”

“I would think monsters make larger bubbles,” Natasha said. “But I am no expert on swamp creatures.”

“No, you’re not,” Devonna said. “So listen to those who are. I’m tellin’ ya, whatever is down there, it ain’t gonna be pretty when it gets to the surface.”

“Here,” Sarah said, and she handed Devonna a spear. “If there is something, we should be—”

Sarah cut herself off with a gasp as something breached the surface of the water.

My heart pounded out of my chest, and my muscles ached as I lowered my stance into a defensive crouch.

A small ripple floated over to the shore as the creature poked its head out of the water, and everyone breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Instead of the massive monster I’d been expecting to see, there was a small turtle simply coming up for a breath of fresh air. The little creature blinked slowly, looked around, and then ducked back under the water.

“Shit,” Devonna breathed as she lowered her spear. “That was a close one.”

“A close one?” Sarah laughed. “Seriously? It was a tiny little turtle. You’re the one who made it a big deal.”

“Well, excuse me for not wantin’ to take any chances out here,” Devonna scoffed.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Shanice sighed, “she was right to assume it was something bad.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “We should assume everything is a monster until proven otherwise.”

“See?” Devonna narrowed her eyes on Sarah.

“Oh, be quiet,” Sarah chuckled and playfully pushed her friend.

“You’re just mad ‘cause I was right,” Devonna laughed.

“No, I’m mad because you just gotta be a bitch about it,” Sarah chuckled.

“Go easy on her,” Natasha said.

“Thank you,” Devonna sniffed.

“Is not every day she gets to be right about something,” the blonde added with a wry smile.

“Uh!” Devonna scoffed and swatted her friend on the arm. “You’re so rude!”

“Hey, hey,” Shanice said.  “That may not have been a monster, but there could still be monsters around. We need to be as quiet as possible while we’re out in the open here.”

“Shanice is right,” I agreed. “Let’s all settle down now.”

“Sorry,” Sarah whispered as everyone sat back down around the fire.

My heart was still beating harder than it needed to after the scare with the turtle, so I took some deep breaths to calm myself as I settled back against the cool metal door. Occasionally, I could still hear the rattle sound of the snake back in the desert, but after a while my eyes closed of their own accord.

The next morning, I woke to mostly darkness. My eyes shot wide open as I suddenly became suspicious of the amount of sleep I’d just gotten. I hadn’t slept that heavily in a while, but I knew my body was exhausted. Still, not waking up at all throughout the night was a strange feeling, especially when I usually kept watch.

I looked around and found that everyone was still asleep except for Natasha. The sweet Russian blonde sat cross-legged and stared out at the water, but she turned toward me and smiled when she heard me stir.

“You are awake,” she whispered, and she put her finger over her lips and gestured to everyone else. “Shhh. We should let them sleep until it gets light.”

“Yes,” I agreed as I carefully and quietly made my way over to sit next to her. “You kept watch?”

“Devonna, Sarah, and me.” She nodded. “We took turns.”

“Thank you.” I smiled at the beautiful woman next to me. “I’m sorry I fell asleep before sorting out the shifts. I was exhausted.”

“Is no problem,” she assured me. “We knew you, Shanice, and Em needed rest. Your bodies took most damage in battle yesterday.”

“We did,” I said, but then my lips pursed as I looked at the area under her hair line where she’d gotten hit a couple of days before. “But you got a head injury just two days ago. How are you feeling? I didn’t really get to check on you yesterday.”

“I’m fine,” she assured me with a small smile.

“Does it still hurt?” I asked as I reached up and gently pushed my hand through her short hair.

“Not so much.” She shrugged. “Is little bit tender, but I think is mostly healed by now.”

“I don’t feel any open wounds,” I said. “So, that’s good. It’s probably just bruising by now.”

“I’m sure you are right.” She nodded. “Thank you for checking on me, but right now, I am more concerned with you. How are you feeling?”

“Hm.” I stretched my arms up carefully to see how sore they were.  “Not too bad. Still a little sore, but nothing compared to last night. I think I’m on the mend.”

“Good,” she said with a grin. “We need you to get out of this place.”

“What, you don’t think you and the rest of the girls could make it without me?” I teased.

“Devonna and Shanice would kill each other within hours,” she answered with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, that’s probably true,” I chuckled and looked around. “Speaking of getting out of here, we need to figure out how we’re going to build the raft today.”

“You think we can build raft in one day?” Natasha asked with a curious look.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But I’d like to get it done as soon as possible. If we’re going to be in here for any length of time, then we’re going to need a source of fresh water. The amount we brought with us is only going to last a couple of days with how many of us there are.”

“Da.” Natasha nodded. “We will need water. So, what did you have in mind as far as raft?”

“There’s some trees on the little islands nearby,” I said with a point. “I’m sure I can get over there and cut some down for us to use.”

“You will have to travel through water,” Natasha pointed out.

“Yeah, but the first little grove there isn’t very far,” I said. “That’s only maybe ten or fifteen feet from us. It should be simple enough to get over there.”

“I think Shanice brought string with her from jumpsuits of dead men,” Natasha said in reference to the rapist assholes Shanice killed before we arrived. “We could use it to tie wood together.”

“Good idea,” I agreed.

“I did bring some,” Shanice said, and her voice cracked from sleep as she sat up. “But I’m not sure we’ll have enough for a whole raft.”

“We’ll have to use it wisely,” I said.

“Use what wisely?” Sarah yawned.

“Uggghhh, I can never get a good night’s rest around here, can I?” Devonna grumbled and flipped over.

“I think everyone’s getting up,” Em said as she sat up and patted Devonna’s shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” Devonna sighed and stretched. “I can’t wait to get out of here so I never have to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn ever again.”

“You act like it’s a new thing for people to wake up early,” Shanice said with an eye roll.

“It’s new to me,” Devonna scoffed. “Anybody who does this on a daily basis is out of their damn mind.”

“I used to get up at five every morning to work out,” Sarah said.

“Four-thirty.” Shanice smiled at the redhead.

“I stand by my previous statement,” Devonna said dryly. “Y’all are out of your damn minds.”

“I didn’t get up quite as early,” Em said. “But I would get up at six to get ready for school.”

“What about you, Natasha?” Devonna asked. “There’s gotta be somebody with some sense around here.”

“I would usually wake up around nine o’clock.” Natasha shrugged.

“What?” Sarah asked. “Didn’t you have an office job? Were you late every day?”

“I conducted my own experiments,” Natasha explained with a shrug. “I worked on my own time. Besides, I have always been a sort of, how you say… evening owl?”

“Night owl,” Shanice corrected.

“You know, I never understood that phrase,” Em muttered. “I mean, owls are nocturnal, so using the word ‘night’ is redundant.”

“Y’all smart ones overthink everything,” Devonna chuckled.

“There’s no such thing as overthinking,” Shanice said, and Devonna rolled her eyes. “Just proper planning. And speaking of, we should get back to figuring out how we’re going to make this raft.”

“I was telling Natasha that I can head over to the next little island area with the tree and chop it down,” I said. “We should be able to get a good amount of wood from it.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Sarah said. “Though, I’m not sure I like you wandering out there alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “It’s not that far from where we’re at. You’ll be able to see me the whole time.”

“Yeah, but you’re injured.” Em frowned.

“I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday,” I assured her with a small smile.

“Me, too,” Shanice agreed. “I’ll come with you.”

“I think it’s best if I go.” I shook my head. “I need you guys over here catching the wood.”

“Catching it?” Sarah asked. “Are you going to throw it to us?”

“I was thinking floating it to you would be better,” I said. “I should be able to just push it over to the shore.”

“Good idea.” Shanice nodded. “We can work on putting everything together while you cut it down.”

“We might be getting ahead of ourselves there,” I said. “I don’t think you’ll be able to fit anything together right away. You’ll need to remove all the smaller branches before we can actually turn the wood into a raft.”

“You’re right,” Shanice sighed. “And that’s going to take a lot longer than it will take you to cut it down.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “You all can get a headstart on that, and when I’m done cutting the tree down, I’ll come over and help.”

“We’re going to need a pretty big raft to hold all of us up,” Em said. “You think we can get enough wood from right there?”

“I hope so,” I said. “But if not, then we’ll move on to the next set of trees.”

“They’re a lot further out.” Sarah bit her lip nervously.

“Let’s hope we don’t need to go to them,” Shanice added.

“We’ll chop down the first tree and then see where we’re at,” I said. “But I do want to try and get this done today. We should get started.”

“You should eat first,” Em suggested. “I’ve noticed that eating helps our bodies heal faster.”

“Good idea,” I agreed, and I looked up at the false sky to see that it was just as murky as the water below.

I hadn’t noticed the day before, but this room didn’t have the same bright blue sky as the desert room did. We’d arrived mid afternoon, so I figured it was close to sundown, but now I could see that it almost appeared as though a murky greenish-brown haze covered the ceiling. There was a small amount of light that came through, but nothing substantial, and it seemed this was going to be an inherently dark room.

The sky had lightened some since we’d all woken up, but not as much as it would have in the desert or the jungle. There was no thick canopy like there was in the jungle to block out the light, but the haze above us made me feel incredibly closed in.

Em helped Sarah pull out some supplies for everyone, and as we ate and passed the water basket around, I took a mental note of the fact that the first of our two baskets was nearly half empty already. We needed to find fresh water, and we needed to do it fast. If we were going to get out of here, we needed to survive first.

Once we had a quick breakfast, I took my boots off and rolled my pants up as far as they would go. Then I grabbed my sword and pocket knives before stepping up to the water.

As I stared down at the brown sludge in front of me, I took a deep breath to steady the intrusive thoughts that began to bombard me. This water was probably a lot more deadly than it looked, and I needed to be incredibly careful. As far as I could recall, I’d grown up going to the ocean and different rivers and things like that, but this wasn’t the same at all.

I couldn’t recall ever seeing a river this dirty, and while the ocean on the west coast could be dark and unforgiving, this murky brown water gave me a worse feeling than I’d ever gotten at the beach.

Still, I wasn’t going to let my women down, that was for sure.

I gripped my sword tightly and stepped into the water. The cool feel of it on my skin sent a shiver through my body, and I fought off a chill as I pulled my other foot forward.

I knew I needed to be particularly careful with my shoes off since there could be sharp rocks at the bottom of the water, but it was better to have my shoes stay dry. If they got wet, it could take hours for them to dry out again, even by the fire. It made sense to make sure our supplies were well taken care of since they were the only ones we had. Besides, I had faith in my ability to carefully navigate this water, no matter how terrifying it looked.

My feet sunk slightly into the mud as I kept walking toward the small area above water with the trees. After a few steps, the water was nearly up to my knees, and I knew it was going to get deeper before it got shallow again.

Then something brushed my calf, and a shiver ran down my spine, but it felt like just a small fish, so I kept my wits about me and continued on.

It only took maybe three minutes for me to get to the next island over, but it was the most nerve wracking three minutes of my life. Once I was on the small shore, I took a deep breath to steady my heart rate.

“You alright?” Sarah called from the little island by the door.

“I’m fine,” I assured her.

“You didn’t step on anything, did you?” she asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m fine, I promise. Just get ready, I’m going to send the branches your way as soon as I cut them down.”

“We’re ready,” the redhead said.

I nodded, and then I lifted my sword and hacked at the branches of the small tree. Part of me had expected it to be larger, but I guess it appeared bigger from far away. I had no idea what kind of tree it was, but it had plenty of long, spindly branches that scattered in every direction.

The first branch I cut down fell to the sand with a small thud, so I picked it up and carefully set it in the water. Then I used the best aim I could to push it across the small area between my island and the one the women were on.

Ripples flooded the water as the branch made its way over to them, and I was surprised to see that it made it all the way there. Sarah was only a step or so in the water, and she easily reached down, picked up the branch, and handed it to Shanice.

Our plan was working, so I continued to cut branch after branch and send them over to the women. By the time I was halfway through the tree, the ladies had cleaned up nearly half of what I sent them. They’d taken all the smaller branches and twigs off of the larger branches so they could fit nicely together to make a raft for us.

Sweat beaded down my forehead and ran into my eyes, but I wiped my brow and continued on. The humid air definitely wouldn’t have been my first choice, but at least it wasn’t quite as hot in here as it had been in the desert.

I hacked at one particularly large branch for a moment before it finally snapped and fell to the ground. Before I reached for it, I checked my sword and was happy to see that the edge had held up nicely. I could always sharpen it, but I wasn’t entirely sure what material it was made from, so I didn’t want to sharpen it any more than absolutely necessary. For now, it was holding up well, so whatever it was made from was strong.

I finished chopping all the branches off from the tree. Then I cut the trunk down,  too, and I sent the last of the wood over to the women. By that time, they were over halfway through everything I’d sailed over to them. And even though they weren’t completely done yet, I could already tell that the number of branches we had simply wasn’t going to be enough.

There were six of us, and since we were making a raft out of literal sticks, we were going to need a lot of them. The wood had to hold the weight of us all, which meant we needed a large raft that was well formed, and the amount of branches I saw over there just wasn’t going to cut it.

The tree had looked a lot bigger from further away. Or maybe I’d simply been optimistic and misjudged the amount of wood I needed. Either way, we were definitely going to get more, and there was only one way to do it.

I looked around at my options. There were several small islands around, but not all of them had trees.

The ones that did were spread out, and no matter which direction I looked, I couldn’t see an option other than going further out into the water. There was a small island area behind me with a tree barely larger than the one I’d just cut down. There was another on the opposite side of the island by the door, but that would mean I’d have to go back to the island with the women and then through the water to the other side. Plus, that island seemed to be even further than the one behind me.

The island behind me was at least double the distance I’d gone before, which would put me three times as far away from the island with the women. That wasn’t exactly ideal, but between the five of them, I was sure they could handle themselves.

No matter which I chose, I wasn’t going to be able to float the branches over to the women from either of those islands like I had the first one. They were both too far, but the one behind me was closer to where I was currently, which was why I decided that was the one I was going to.

It was time to get back in the water.