Survive the Monsters and Breed Chapter 1

My editor has been traveling for like ever... I'm finally okay to post this before it's released.

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I woke to the feeling of small feet on my chest, and I opened my eyes to see a strange lizard eye staring back at me.

Immediately, I recognized the creature as a chameleon. Its odd, cone-shaped eye darted back and forth as it looked at me, and then it took a small, slow step closer to my face.

I carefully grabbed the lizard by the belly, and it moved its strange little arms around in circles as I set it on the ground next to me. Its body changed from vibrant green to a dark brown as it walked over to a large tree root protruding from the ground, and I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was.

I was sitting under a large tree with hanging vines. The dirt beneath me was soft and moist, and there was foliage all around. Huge, green leaves protruded from just about everywhere, and I couldn’t make out a path that could have gotten me here.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. What the hell was going on? Where was I?

The last thing I remembered was leaving the Imagine Dragons concert. I was in Josh’s car, since he was the designated driver.

Had I drank too much?

Even if I had, that didn’t explain why I was here. This looked like some sort of tropical rainforest. I definitely wasn’t in California anymore.

I also wasn’t wearing my jeans, high tops, or concert T-shirt like I had at the concert. Instead, I had on a dark green jumpsuit that reminded me of something a mechanic would wear. On my feet were steel toe work boots like the ones I usually wore when I went on a geology expedition. The ones I wore now were black, though, while my usual pair were a dark tan color.

Who put these boots on me? And this jumpsuit?

Panic started to set in as I looked around and came to the sobering realization that there wasn’t another soul in sight. I was all alone in a strange jungle wearing clothes I knew I didn’t put on myself.

My first instinct was to call out for my friends. Was this a sick joke? Had Josh and Brandon gotten me wasted and then decided to play a prank on me? If so, this shit was far from funny.

I shook that feeling off so I didn’t scare myself, and then I slowly stood up. But as I did, something crinkled in my pocket.

Hesitantly, I pushed my hand inside and pulled out a small piece of lightly tanned paper folded in half just once.

My heart rate picked up as I looked around me. Who the fuck put this here? Was someone watching me?

With shaky hands, I opened the note. It read:

Jake,

Survive the monsters and breed with as many women as possible. The future of the human race depends on you.

What the actual fuck?

My stomach flip flopped half a dozen times as I realized something much larger was going on than I originally thought. My friends were idiots, but they weren’t sophisticated enough to think of a prank like this, let alone carry it out this well.

No, I’d been taken by someone, but who? And to where?

And why did the name “Jake” hardly ring a bell? Was that really my name?

I tried to recall what my friends looked like, but I could only get vague flashes of their faces.

What about my parents? I could remember my dad. At least, I thought I could.

The only memories I could pull up were of the two of us out in the woods. I’d grown up in Oregon, and I knew my mom’s face. She had long black hair and loved reading. She was… a professor, maybe?

Fuck, why couldn’t I remember anything?

I looked down at the note again, and this time the words sent a shiver down my spine.

Survive the monsters. What did that mean? What fucking monsters?

I’d known from the time I was five that monsters didn’t exist, and yet seeing that word written on this little piece of paper sent a wave of fear rushing through my body the likes of which I’d never experienced before.

And what about breeding? Did it really say “breed” with as many women as possible?

Breed?

What kind of sick shit was this?

I suddenly felt like I was in an episode of The Walking Dead. Was I somehow one of the last people left on Earth? Was it really my job to repopulate? And if so, what happened to everyone else?

Could this be some kind of elaborate Live Action Role Play? Had my friends gotten me drunk and brought me here?

As much as I hoped that was the case, nothing around me pointed to it.

The note was printed instead of handwritten, so whoever typed it out clearly had access to modern day technology. I’d seen a million movies, played a million video games about the apocalypse. I couldn’t seem to remember the names of any of them at the moment, but none had ever had this sort of premise. This felt more like an experiment than anything, and I suddenly became aware that I might be a lab rat.

I’d probably been drugged. Whoever brought me here had given me some sort of anesthetic that clearly hadn’t worn off yet.

But I was going to need my head if I wanted to get out of here. Now, I just had to figure out where exactly “here” was.

Think, think. Rainforests. Where was the closest rainforest to Berkeley?

The Redwood National Park was a temperate rainforest, but it was over five hours away from where I lived. I’d been there dozens of times, and I didn’t remember any part of it that looked like this.

I bent down and inspected the soil. It was loose and moist from the climate. I was definitely somewhere tropical, but the closest tropical rainforest I knew of was near Seattle, and that was a long way from Berkeley, especially if someone had brought me here overnight.

I looked up at the sky, but I couldn’t get a clear view because of the forest canopy, so I had no idea what time of day it was. Could it actually be late in the day? And what day was it? How long had I been drugged for?

My mind raced with a million thoughts and questions, but I knew I had to be smart if I was going to get out of whatever the hell I’d gotten myself into.

I breathed deeply and focused on the sounds around me to try and orient myself. Suddenly, I recognized the low rumble of rushing water. Water meant a stream or a brook, something that could provide me with a way to track my direction and progress.

There were huge leaves everywhere, so I pushed them aside as I walked toward the sound of the stream.

After a few minutes of fording through the thick brush, I came to a small clearing. There was a low waterfall, maybe ten feet high, that fed into a small pond below that looked to be about twenty by thirty feet wide.

Shit.

At least I’d found water, but whatever stream it was fed from was at the top of the waterfall, and there didn’t appear to be an easy way up. The cliffs were made of huge black rocks that had been worn down over time, and while the scene was beautiful, it did nothing to calm my nerves.

Okay, so I could try to climb up some slippery rocks and get to the top of the waterfall, or I could go around and try to find a lower incline to climb up and get to the stream.

Unless I wanted to possibly slip and die, the latter was my only option.

I looked over my shoulder as I walked over to the water, but then I glanced  and looked down to see if there were any fish. As soon as I approached, a couple splashes alerted me that there were in fact fish there.

The water was clear, and I was able to see more different species of fish than I could count, although none appeared to be bigger than my forearm at the very largest. And they were all colorful, with striped patterns or nearly glowing neon fins.

As I peered into the water, something else caught my attention. At first, I thought I was looking at a different reflection, but then I realized the man looking back at me was myself.

My eyes refocused on my reflection, and my jaw nearly fell open as I stared in awe. I tried to remember what I was supposed to look like, but my memory  was fuzzy. I looked like me, I thought, but also… not me.

I gave my head a little shake, and my hair shifted from side to side with the motion.

The man staring back at me had a nice gentleman’s cut that was shorter on the sides and longer on top. His hair was so dark brown that it looked nearly black, and his eyes were a deep green that matched the coveralls he was wearing. A small amount of stubble covered his cheeks and chin, and his features were all angular and ruggedly handsome. His chest and arms were huge, and I could see the muscles bulging through the work outfit.

Was that really me?

My dark eyebrows furrowed as I continued to stare at my reflection. Why couldn’t I remember what I was supposed to look like?

Was I really that ripped? I couldn’t remember working out that much. All I remembered was playing some video games, reading fantasy books, and listening to music.

The more I tried to think about my past,  the more I realized I barely knew anything.

Birthdays. Birthdays were something people remembered, right?

I closed my eyes and thought so hard that my jaw clenched tightly with despair. Why couldn’t I remember a single fucking birthday?

And if I couldn’t remember anything concrete, then how did I remember some fleeting and random details? Like the fact that I’d played some nameless video games? How did I know what everything around me was? I understood that the dark leafy plants around me were foliage that was common in rainforests. The creatures swimming in the pond were fish. But how did I know that, and yet I barely knew anything about who I was?

Was I really “Jake?”

My chest started to heave up and down as panic and anxiety set in. The air around me became stagnant, and all at once, I felt like the noise of the forest was turned up one hundred times what it had been.

My heart pounded, and my throat tightened, but I quickly splashed some water on my face to calm myself down. Then I took several deep breaths and gave myself a little pep talk.

It didn’t matter what happened before this point. I just had to use the little knowledge I did have, and the instincts I was born with, to get myself out of this place. If someone had brought me here, I’d deal with that when the time came. For now, I needed to at least try to get out.

I stood up, dusted the pants of my overalls off, and then marched into the brush that led around the waterfall.

The jungle was thick walls of all kinds of green leaves and vines, and as I walked, I took in incredible sights that almost made me forget I had no idea where I was. The forest canopy was bright green with the smallest amount of light managing to shine through, and birds of all different colors, shapes, and sizes fluttered back and forth.

Bugs were abundant, and they made annoying buzzing sounds as they whizzed past my face, but I tried my best to ignore them as I trudged along.

It was hot, and I used the back of my hand to wipe sweat from my forehead. Then I rolled up the sleeves of my overalls and pulled the zipper down slightly to let in some cool air. Apparently, I had no shirt underneath it, but that was a worry for a different day. I wanted nothing to do with this weirdness right then, all I wanted was to get the fuck out of here.

Wherever “here” was.

I had no idea how long it was going to take to get to the stream at the top of the small cliff with the waterfall, so as I walked, I asked myself questions to see if I could remember anything else.

What did I know so far?

Well, apparently, my name was Jake. What was my last name? People had last names, right?

Fuck, I didn’t know.

Okay, moving on. I remembered my parents, sort of. But what about me? I was a geology student in California, I knew that. I had two roommates, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what my house looked like. Was it a house or an apartment?

I forcefully wiped my hand down my face with frustration as more sweat dripped down. Even if I got out of here, I had to figure out who I was if I was ever going to make it home. I couldn’t just find someone on the street and tell them my name was Jake and that I went to college in California. They’d think I’d gone crazy.

Holy shit, what if they were right?

Had I gone crazy? Could this be some sort of delusion I was having? Wait, did crazy people know they were going crazy? Was that counterintuitive?

All I knew was that I looked like a fucking crazy person walking through the forest all on my own angrily wiping sweat from my brow and clenching my teeth. That wasn’t a great place to start.

Finally, I came to a small hill that looked like it could lead up to the stream that fed into the waterfall. I could faintly hear the sounds of running water, so I knew it had to be close. I pushed some hand-sized shiny leaves to the side as I climbed the small hill toward the low, rumbling sound of rushing water, but there was just more in my way.

The further up the hill I went, the less foliage I encountered, but the rockier the landscape became until it was made up of nothing but those sharp black rocks.

I bent down and brushed one of the rocks off. The outer layer of dirt and sediment made it appear darker than it was. Underneath, it was a deep gray with white and black spots. It was granite, which was why it was so hard.

When waterfalls formed, it was usually due to naturally occurring water eroding the softer rock like sandstone or limestone and leaving the harder rock, in this case granite, underneath. With how jagged the rocks were, I knew I had to be careful, even in these work boots. I didn’t want to slip and twist an ankle. For all I knew, that could mean certain death.

I pushed on but eventually came to a sort of rocky wall that surrounded the waterfall. My incline was gone, and there was no way I could climb the side of these massive granite cliffs that formed the surrounding area of the waterfall.

So much for getting to the top right now. I’d come this far, though, so I figured it was best to keep going in the same direction. I searched the ground until I found a more pointed rock that I could use to mark the trees as a reference point, and then I continued along the path of the granite wall until the jungle grew so thick I had to veer to the left.

Every few feet, I marked a tree or leaf so I’d know where I came from, but I couldn’t shake this strange feeling that I wasn’t actually where I thought I was.

I just couldn’t fathom how I’d gotten taken from a concert and wound up here. From the looks of it, I was in the middle of a rainforest. It wouldn’t be easy for someone to simply bring a full grown man here, and I was even more buff than I ever remembered being.

It would take a good deal of strength for someone to carry me, or even pull me to a spot this deep in the jungle. I hadn’t seen any signs of a road or vehicles or my feet getting dragged, so whoever brought me here probably carried me on foot. I hadn’t seen any footprints, but then again, they’d be a lot easier to cover than tracks from a vehicle.

Just then, the sound of a branch breaking pulled me out of my thoughts.

I whipped my head around to see a hand poke through the foliage behind me, and the fingers loosely grabbed a large leaf and pushed it to the side.

And just like that, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen appeared.

She stepped into the small clearing with me, and her dark brown eyes met mine. She was wearing the same dark green jumpsuit and black work boots I had on, except hers was fitted for her hourglass shape. Her long, deep orange hair was parted in the center, and it hung down nearly to her waist.

Her dark eyes narrowed on me as she cocked her head to the side and looked me up and down. From how tense her body was, I knew she was ready to run at a second’s notice, and I couldn’t blame her.

She had no idea who I was.

Hell, I wasn’t even entirely sure who I was.

“Hello,” I said softly, and I made sure to keep my arms where they were and not move an inch closer, even though I wanted to.

“Who are you?” she asked, and her deep orange eyebrows pulled together.

“Um, I’m Jake,” I said, and I ran my tongue along my bottom lip nervously. “At least, I think I am.”

“You don’t know who you are?” she asked, and she instinctively took a small step closer to me.

“I’m afraid not.” I shook my head and kept my feet in place.

The last thing I wanted to do was scare away the only other person I’d seen in the last hour.

“I don’t, either,” she said matter-of-factly. “I mean, I kind of do. I… I’m not sure who I am. My name’s Sarah. I think.”

“Hi, Sarah,” I said with a small nod. “It’s good to meet you.”

“I know it feels like you’re supposed to say that,” she said. “But this doesn’t seem like the time for niceties. Where the hell are we?”

“It seems like some kind of rainforest,” I said. “But I don’t know where exactly.”

“It’s got to be somewhere near Salt Lake,” she said as she looked around.

“Wait, Salt Lake?” I narrowed my eyes. “That sounds familiar. That’s a desert, isn’t it? Utah? There’s no way we’re anywhere near Utah.”

“We’ve got to be,” the beautiful redhead insisted. “Whoever brought us here couldn’t have been driving long, right?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well, we’ve got to figure this out,” she said decisively, and she put her hands on her hips. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Uh, I went to a concert with two of my friends,” I said. “I was in Josh’s car on the way back home, and the next thing I know, I’m here.”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “That’s too vague. It’s like I always tell my clients, you’ve got to visualize it in your head.”

Who the hell was this woman, and what did she know that I didn’t?

“Your clients?” I asked.

“I’m a fitness coach.” She propped her hands on her hips, and I suddenly felt like she was studying my exposed forearms and chest.

“What are you telling them to visualize?” I asked.

“In their cases, it’s the body they want,” she explained. “But for you, it’s every last detail of the time before you woke up here. Visualizing could help you remember things you didn’t at first.”

“Did it help you?” I questioned.

Whoever this woman was,  she was fiercely determined to figure this out, and she didn’t seem like the type to take no for an answer. She was a leader, that much was clear, but I wasn’t a follower.

“It did.” She nodded. “I was able to see what happened last night.”

“You were?” I asked, and my eyes widened.

“Well, up until I was taken.” She frowned. “I went out to the bar with Heather and Veronica. Veronica was celebrating a promotion at the office where she worked. We were having drinks, and I ordered a mojito since they’re all the rage right now. After that, everything just goes dark.”

“Do you think we were drugged?” I asked.

“If we were drugged, why would they bring us here?” She looked at me sharply. “Who are you really?”

“What?” I pulled my head back at her accusation.

“Are you working for someone?” she hissed.

“N-no,” I stuttered and held my hands up innocently. “I have no idea where the hell I am. I woke up under a tree with a fucking chameleon on my chest.”

“Mmm.” She pursed her lips, looked me up and down, and then nodded. “I believe you.”

“Um, thanks?” I said.

“So,” she continued, and she took another step toward me. “What concert were you at?”

“Imagine Dragons,” I answered.

“Never heard of them.” She shrugged.

“They’re all over the radio,” I said with a frown.

“Where was this concert?” she asked. “Could we have crossed paths? Maybe we were abducted together for a reason.”

“I’m from Calif--” I started to say, but a loud, high-pitched scream interrupted me.

Sarah’s dark brown eyes locked on mine as her body tensed yet again.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked.

“Someone’s in trouble,” I whispered.