It was still dark, but wasn't too cold. I grabbed the bag of porridge and ate some until there was only half as much as there was yesterday when I grabbed it. I thought about leaving early so I could sneak up the mountain amid the dawn chorus. It was a perfect plan. So I grabbed the Wunderwaffe and the small bag of blue porridge. I kicked over the shelter and scattered the branches all over the treeline on the beach, and headed down the coast towards the mountain.
It was an easy walk this time. Nothing too hard apart from some rocks on the bay. I could see the mountain 100 metres from me, and it was stepped like the other spaceship mountain that belonged to the drones. I climbed up the first step, and the birds were starting to make some noise. It wasn't deafening yet, but soon it would be unbearable. I continued climbing the stepped mountain covered in lots of wild long grass and soil with various other plants.
Two steps from the top, and I was weary. The birds hadn't shut up. I hadn't noticed any signs of Wormians or Drones. I climbed up the next step, and sprawled myself on the flat terrain. One step up should be a control square control room, with blast doors. This mountain was much much higher than the other one that Dilshen and co were staying. The climb must had taken me two hours, and I couldn't even hear my own panting breath and beating chest above the irritating birds. Judging by the fact they were still chirping, it must still be in the morning, maybe 8 or 9 o'clock. I climbed up the final step. At the top was what looked like a normal square bit of land covered in plants. I walked around 2 sides and there were the blast doors. I tried miming that I wanted to come in and that I came in peace. The doors slowly started to open after ten minutes, and I stood beside them waiting for them to fully open, and when they did, a human like bird (A Drone) came out running, then half a second later it was engulfed in lightning lines swiveling around its whole body. The Drone went spastic, and dropped dead, twitching. A wormian must have shot him. I ran to the back of the control room, with my Wunderwaffe at the ready. I couldn't hear anything from inside. I kept low and sneaked to the wall of the control room between the back and front, then went prone and moved towards the door. I was a metre away now, and kept my concealed. "We have control of this ship. half of you stay here, me and the others will go by land to the other ship. Keep eyes on us and radio us informatin of any trouble makers until we get there. And get rid of the bodies." They had killed the drones inside the room. I ran to one of the side walls facing the direction of the blast doors. Some Wormians came out. They were headed to the other spaceship. I had to warn Dilshen and the others before the wormians got to them. I had come a long way for nothing, and had to Endeavour on another long journey. I cautiously walked inside, and a Wormian was standing at a dashboard with it's back to me. I crept up to it and stuck the Wunderwaffe barrel to the back of it's deformed head. "Is this a spaceship?" I asked.
"Yes." It replied, sticking it's hands in the air.
"How do you fly it?"
He replied with a tone in his voice."I was trying to figure that out until you came in."
"Ok then. What is you doing here"
"Trying to fly the space ship! are you stupid?"
"I mean, what are all you disgusting worm people doing here"
"Disgusting? Look at yourself. We used to be like you, thank heavens we're not trapped in those filthy bodies anymore"
"What do you mean used to be like me?"
"Humans. A large team from area 51 came here in 2166 , then they stumbled into a cave jammed full of Uranium and had terribly good effects."
"You mean they mutated?"
"No, a pretty pink fairy turned them into half worms and half humans. Idiot"
"So what are - Wait. Came here in 2166? its 2009, and you call me and idiot"
"No, its actually 3002."
"Thats impossible. I left to come here in 2009. A 1 1/2 hour journey doesnt take almost 1000 years."
"It didn't take almost 1000 years. Like you said it took 1 1/2 hours. You warped"
"Ok, but why did a team from area 51 come here in two thousand one hundred and something?"
"Too stop the drones."
"Who are the drones?"
"Beings from another planetary system. They came here to protect earth from the disastrous climate. They were destroying our nature and wildlife. You saw for yourself, They took birds and altered them into servants."
"Okay Okay." It was hard to take in so much information at once. "So Matainui Island. The drones came and put spaceships on it. What else did they do?"
"They're home village is on the mountain, but we can't get anywhere near it because they will do anything to keep us away."
"So you kidnapped us and tried to use some of us as hostages so you could get in thier village?"
"Yes. Then you were here. Now lower your weapon, someone is on thier way to escort you to a camp."
"I'll tell you what to do here, not you tell me. Get this thing off the ground, don't try anything funny. Don't think I won't shoot"
"Whatever boss" It started fiddling around on the dashboard, then I went to another board and looked for a glass button like the one that controlled a large camera. It didn't take long to find it, and I pressed it down. The screen lit up, and a view of the whole island from birds eye flicked on. I moved my hand over the button to drag the camera and centred the mountain that wasn't a spaceship on the screen. There were two arrow buttons next to it. I pressed one and the camera zoomed in. I held it down until it was zoomed in enough to see birds. I dragged the camera to the lake to see if anything was there. nothing abnormal. I dragged to the mountain, and after a bit of searching found the promised village. I zoomed out a bit until the whole mountain was in view. There was a loud explosion, and the blast doors were blasted apart. An armed Wormian walked in. "Drop it!" It demanded, looking at me. As it began to raise it's rifle I ducked behind the dashboard. A blue bolt flew over my head. I stood up and shot at the Wormian. Bullseye, or Wormseye, the bolt hit it square in the head. Before it dropped dead, I turned to the other Wormian. It pressed something, a stick popped out of the dashboard, it grabbed it, and the spaceship mountain stepped pyramid get airborne. It started violently shaking, and I could see the Wormian shaking the control stick. He was trying to throw me out the open doorway. I grabbed onto something, and started hanging vertical. I pulled up the wunderwaffe, and fired a shot at the Wormian. It hit the floor at its feet, and I shot again. This time it hit. The dieing sequence started again. It rolled around on the floor and rolled down towards the open doorway and fell what must have been at least 20 kilometres into the lake. I clawed up to the control stick and angled it safely. The sun was beggining to set. I decided not to do anything and sleep tonight, as the Wormians were most likely to attack the Drone mountain in the morning.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Return to Matainui - Day 6
I couldn't tell if I was awake or not because it was too dark, and i was still lying next to the door waiting for someone to come in. It felt like I had already been here for two days because I was starving and had no sense of what the time was.
The starvation pain was getting unbearable, then I heard some voices. "They've breached! grab the prisoners! hold them hostage" Who had breached what? the lair? maybe it was the bird people. It hit me, they must have been what the wormian's called the drones. I heard Wunderwaffe shots going off, and chaos everywhere. The door opened, an armed Wormian walked in, looked around and spotted me. Before he could grab me as a hostage, I dodged his lunge and held the knive to his throat. Deja vu. "Don't do anything funny." I walked out, and a Wunderwaffe lightning bolt flew past my head.
"They're getting away with one of the prisoners! After them!" I could hear the door to the lair open, and the Wormian escaped my grip. He got a few metres in front of me and turned around, firing a shot. Thankfully it failed miserably, striking a metal pipe on the hallway roof. That wasn't good. Most metals are conductors. I followed it with my eyes as the electricity traveled down the pipe, into another room. BOOM! I could see the door in which the electricity traveled through crumbling to bits, and I made a beeline for the exit. I escaped with my life, but as for the other prisoner or prisoners, I wasn't sure. To make things worse I was still starving.
I wasn't blinded by the light this time, and I had nothing. I was standing, thinking, outside the entry to the lair. I went inside, and scanvanged around. There were 3 prison cells, a large room with tables that looked like a cafeteria, and the armoury. I grabbed a wunderwaffe, and went in to the cafeteria. In there was another door, which I walked into. There were shelfs with sacks. I opened one and inside it there was some of the blue Porridge stuff I had been fed before. I gleefully devoured it, and fulled myself up.
I was lying on a small bed inside an unlocked prison cell, thinking of ways to find other people. Surely there were communications in the lair. I walked into the armourey looking for something. On one of the walls i spotted a hard to find small green switch. I flicked it down, and a 22" screen popped into the wall. On it was a diagram of the island, labelled in English. On the small mountain where Dilshen, Maddi, Kieran, Kim, Haylee were at when we saw them on the second day. The label read - Drones reserve spaceship. On the mountain which was by itself, the label read - Drones spaceship. Then in 7 or 8 different locations on the diagram, were camps, all lettered. The one that read "Camp E" was highlighted in green. It must have been the one I was at right now. I now knew where I was, Halfway between the lake and the edge of the island on the east. The small mountain was a straight forward walk down the beach and through one bay, but the treacherous scenery could of made it take quite some time. Plus to mention the threat of giant eagles with a 3 metre wingspan and wormians. There was one other problem. If I made it to the mountain the Drones would certainly consider me as a hostile being. But it felt like 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so I decided to head towards the mountain with a wunderwaffe and a small bag of the blue porridge.
My predictions were right, I had decided to head to the topmost west beach first to make a simple walk down the coast to the bay around the mountain, then walk inland towards. But to get to the coast first took me about an hour. I must have got lost and walked in circles for a bit. I had a copy of the map in my pocket, and pulled it out. I was smack bang where I wanted to be. The Forrest had no path to navigate through, and tramping had me exasperated. Luckily no trouble had ran in to me. I decided to make another stick shelter and finish the rest of the journey tomorrow.
The sun was setting, and I sat underneath my second stick shelter resting for the day ahead. I had a portion of the blue porridge, and looked out towards the beutiful blue ocean. There some clouds a few hundred metres off shore, and once again, they made a ring around the island. Not a single cloud had come inside the islands air space, neither could you see a single star. Maybe there was something gaurding the island, perhaps a forcefield. But it was too unrealistic, like everything else that had happened so far in these six days. I settled for the night ahead, andbegan to think about the deafening dawn chorus.
The starvation pain was getting unbearable, then I heard some voices. "They've breached! grab the prisoners! hold them hostage" Who had breached what? the lair? maybe it was the bird people. It hit me, they must have been what the wormian's called the drones. I heard Wunderwaffe shots going off, and chaos everywhere. The door opened, an armed Wormian walked in, looked around and spotted me. Before he could grab me as a hostage, I dodged his lunge and held the knive to his throat. Deja vu. "Don't do anything funny." I walked out, and a Wunderwaffe lightning bolt flew past my head.
"They're getting away with one of the prisoners! After them!" I could hear the door to the lair open, and the Wormian escaped my grip. He got a few metres in front of me and turned around, firing a shot. Thankfully it failed miserably, striking a metal pipe on the hallway roof. That wasn't good. Most metals are conductors. I followed it with my eyes as the electricity traveled down the pipe, into another room. BOOM! I could see the door in which the electricity traveled through crumbling to bits, and I made a beeline for the exit. I escaped with my life, but as for the other prisoner or prisoners, I wasn't sure. To make things worse I was still starving.
I wasn't blinded by the light this time, and I had nothing. I was standing, thinking, outside the entry to the lair. I went inside, and scanvanged around. There were 3 prison cells, a large room with tables that looked like a cafeteria, and the armoury. I grabbed a wunderwaffe, and went in to the cafeteria. In there was another door, which I walked into. There were shelfs with sacks. I opened one and inside it there was some of the blue Porridge stuff I had been fed before. I gleefully devoured it, and fulled myself up.
I was lying on a small bed inside an unlocked prison cell, thinking of ways to find other people. Surely there were communications in the lair. I walked into the armourey looking for something. On one of the walls i spotted a hard to find small green switch. I flicked it down, and a 22" screen popped into the wall. On it was a diagram of the island, labelled in English. On the small mountain where Dilshen, Maddi, Kieran, Kim, Haylee were at when we saw them on the second day. The label read - Drones reserve spaceship. On the mountain which was by itself, the label read - Drones spaceship. Then in 7 or 8 different locations on the diagram, were camps, all lettered. The one that read "Camp E" was highlighted in green. It must have been the one I was at right now. I now knew where I was, Halfway between the lake and the edge of the island on the east. The small mountain was a straight forward walk down the beach and through one bay, but the treacherous scenery could of made it take quite some time. Plus to mention the threat of giant eagles with a 3 metre wingspan and wormians. There was one other problem. If I made it to the mountain the Drones would certainly consider me as a hostile being. But it felt like 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so I decided to head towards the mountain with a wunderwaffe and a small bag of the blue porridge.
My predictions were right, I had decided to head to the topmost west beach first to make a simple walk down the coast to the bay around the mountain, then walk inland towards. But to get to the coast first took me about an hour. I must have got lost and walked in circles for a bit. I had a copy of the map in my pocket, and pulled it out. I was smack bang where I wanted to be. The Forrest had no path to navigate through, and tramping had me exasperated. Luckily no trouble had ran in to me. I decided to make another stick shelter and finish the rest of the journey tomorrow.
The sun was setting, and I sat underneath my second stick shelter resting for the day ahead. I had a portion of the blue porridge, and looked out towards the beutiful blue ocean. There some clouds a few hundred metres off shore, and once again, they made a ring around the island. Not a single cloud had come inside the islands air space, neither could you see a single star. Maybe there was something gaurding the island, perhaps a forcefield. But it was too unrealistic, like everything else that had happened so far in these six days. I settled for the night ahead, andbegan to think about the deafening dawn chorus.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Return to Matainui - Day 5
I woke up, in what seemed like a prison cell. The floor was concrete, the walls were concrete, and the ceiling was concrete. I lay on the cold floor with a thin green blanket over me. With all the technology the worm people probablay have, the could have easily made this room advanced and inescapable. But it was just like a regular prison cell. All that were inside was me, the blanket, a toilet, and some buckets in the corner. One wall had been replaced by metal bars about 2 inches wide, and there was a classic lock mechanism and part of the bar wall would slide. I stood up and walked to the bars, grasping one in each hand. "Hello?" I called. Shortly after a worm person slithered in front of the prison cell with a trey. He pulled out a key, unlocked the door, put the tray on the ground, locked the door, and left. "Eat" he said as he disapeared down the corridor outside my cell. It was just like the one in the worm people base I was at yesterday, but there were no other doors that I could see. I looked at the tray, and on it was some blue porridge like substance heaped up, a 2 litre water bottle and a cloth. I put some of the blue stuff on my fingers, tried it, and had some more. It tasted pretty good, I guess you can't judge a book by its cover after all.
I sat in the corner with my drinking bottle and started fiddling with the cloth. Then suddenly I got an idea from a movie I saw. I poured half the bottle into a bucket next to me, and dipped the cloth in it. Most clothing materials don't break when they are wet. When the cloth was fully soaked I took it out, and wrapped around two of the bars at the cell door, and pulled both ends as hard as i could. I was trying to squeeze the bars to make a bigger gap that I could slip through. The bars were slowly budging, millimeter by millimeter slowly but surely. I started too get dizzy, but kept on pulling the cloth. After 20 minutes the two bars were touching each other, creating a bigger gap between the bar next to it, but not big enough. So soaked the cloth again and wrapped it around the two bars next to the two bars I just twisted. This job was sapping all my energy. After half an hour there was a gap big enough to squeeze through, but I was too tired and lay down next to the bucket drinking the water out of my bottle. I pulled the thin blanket over myself and went to sleep again.
When I awoke for the second time today, I saw two worm people threatening me at wunderwaffe point. "What's this?" I asked. One of them turned around and pointed at the gap. "What's that?" It asked.
" I don't know. How'd that happen?"
"Don't play dumb with us. I saw the door this morning. It was fine. Now its bent at four bars, with a gap big enough to squeeze through."
"I swear I didn't notice that. If i did I would of squeezed through it. honest!"
"So you're saying you went sleep again and didn't know anything about the broken bars?"
"Yes that's exactly what I'm saying!"
"You're coming with us" they marched down the hall and up some stairs similar to that in the lair that i found. He unlocked the main door and as I stood outside, I was blinded by the brightness. it took 5 minutes for my eyes to adapt to the light, and by then I had no idea where I was. I couldn't hear any river flowing, so I couldn't have been near any rivers or streams. After half an hour of walking through green There was another small room covered in plants with two worm aliens guarding it. They took me inside to the darkness again, and down the hall, into an door arch. In it was nothing but a toilet. they pushed me in, pushed a button on the wall, and thick metal doors slammed down through the archway. I couldn't see a thing. It was pitch black. I felt for the walls and walked around the whole room, holding on to them. They were solid cold concrete. I sank into the corner, thinking of a way to get out. I remembered that I still had Marek's hunting knive in my hand, but it was no use. I had a cunning plan, and walked around the outsid eof the room using the wall as a guide and soon after My hands were on the wall. I moved to the left, next to the door, and lay down with the hunting knive in my hand. I was waiting until someone would come in, but I did't know when they would.
I sat in the corner with my drinking bottle and started fiddling with the cloth. Then suddenly I got an idea from a movie I saw. I poured half the bottle into a bucket next to me, and dipped the cloth in it. Most clothing materials don't break when they are wet. When the cloth was fully soaked I took it out, and wrapped around two of the bars at the cell door, and pulled both ends as hard as i could. I was trying to squeeze the bars to make a bigger gap that I could slip through. The bars were slowly budging, millimeter by millimeter slowly but surely. I started too get dizzy, but kept on pulling the cloth. After 20 minutes the two bars were touching each other, creating a bigger gap between the bar next to it, but not big enough. So soaked the cloth again and wrapped it around the two bars next to the two bars I just twisted. This job was sapping all my energy. After half an hour there was a gap big enough to squeeze through, but I was too tired and lay down next to the bucket drinking the water out of my bottle. I pulled the thin blanket over myself and went to sleep again.
When I awoke for the second time today, I saw two worm people threatening me at wunderwaffe point. "What's this?" I asked. One of them turned around and pointed at the gap. "What's that?" It asked.
" I don't know. How'd that happen?"
"Don't play dumb with us. I saw the door this morning. It was fine. Now its bent at four bars, with a gap big enough to squeeze through."
"I swear I didn't notice that. If i did I would of squeezed through it. honest!"
"So you're saying you went sleep again and didn't know anything about the broken bars?"
"Yes that's exactly what I'm saying!"
"You're coming with us" they marched down the hall and up some stairs similar to that in the lair that i found. He unlocked the main door and as I stood outside, I was blinded by the brightness. it took 5 minutes for my eyes to adapt to the light, and by then I had no idea where I was. I couldn't hear any river flowing, so I couldn't have been near any rivers or streams. After half an hour of walking through green There was another small room covered in plants with two worm aliens guarding it. They took me inside to the darkness again, and down the hall, into an door arch. In it was nothing but a toilet. they pushed me in, pushed a button on the wall, and thick metal doors slammed down through the archway. I couldn't see a thing. It was pitch black. I felt for the walls and walked around the whole room, holding on to them. They were solid cold concrete. I sank into the corner, thinking of a way to get out. I remembered that I still had Marek's hunting knive in my hand, but it was no use. I had a cunning plan, and walked around the outsid eof the room using the wall as a guide and soon after My hands were on the wall. I moved to the left, next to the door, and lay down with the hunting knive in my hand. I was waiting until someone would come in, but I did't know when they would.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Return to Matainui - Day 4
I sat up underneath my stick shelter, found the flashlight that was Kieran's, and flicked it on. I couldn't see anything except the funnel of light and I couldn't hear anything but the flow of the river. I crawled outside my little half of a hut and looked up, looking for stars. There was still nothing in the sky, which was sadly becoming a familiar sight. I crawled back under the shelter of my hut thing. It had two walls parallel of each other in a right triangle kind of shape, with more sticks making the hypotenuse roof. It was the third time i had awoken in the night. Sleep was impossible with no blanket or fire to keep me warm.
7th times the charm , I awoke in daylight to the deafening dawn chorus. I had nothing to cover my ears with but my hands. I sat up thinking, and blotted out the chirping. What were the worm things? What was the human-like bird? and why were they fighting? The worm person was abducting people, and the bird was trying to protect them. Maybe they were what made the high-tech control room? yes, I was absolutely certain it was them. And the mountain was probably stepped to be some kind of a temple to something. I need to find other people, and get help. I can't survive with just a spear, a knife, and a flashlight which was bound to go dead soon. Well I had to survive with only that for now. I remembered the folded map in my pocket which led me here, and checked my location. I had moved a bit upstream from my arrival. "Maybe the people that were captured by the worm things left there stuff behind!" I thought. With a gleam of hope, I picked up all my stuff and started to run towards the dead fire where the other people were. I had a bit of trouble finding it but eventually I saw it near the river where the smaller eels are. I stopped and gazed around the surroundings, looking for anything. There was noting there, and I sat down in frustration. By now the birds had shut up. I pulled out the map, and looked for a place where people might be. I had washed up in a bay between two mountains. I didn't know where the plane wreckage was, or the survivors if there were any. Well there must of been, I saw them get abducted. Maybe the worm people had built another complex and taken the abductees there. I knew what I was going to do today: Find the worm people's prison and break out the prisoners with my mere spear. It was going to be hard, but I had to do it. I looked around for the tracks of the warm that had fled. over there, going into the Forrest, were large worm tracks. They had left a sort of engraved lane in the dirt, and had pressed down the wild plants.
The tracks were getting harder and harder to follow, and I had lost any idea of where I was on my map. "You hold it!" I heard Asser's voice, and froze. I frantically looked around, and kept listening to his complaints. I could tell where he was now, and ran through the bushes and trees. "Asser!" I yelled, glad to see other human life.
"What" came his dumb reply.
"Jordan" Interrupted Ben. "We got your bag. Kieran said that you had gone to the tent with Marek but neither of you were there. We tried to go back inside the control room but they locked us out"
"Yeah... They locked me out in the middle of the night. Listen. When I went into the tent to look for Marek when someone locked me out, He wasn't there. I found his spear and it had this blue liquid on it, and I thought it was some sort of alien blood. Then yesterday These 2 half worm half human things were trying g to capture people, and this Giant Walking bird was trying to scare them off by fighting with them with a spear. They killed the bird then I grabbed its spear and killed one of the worm things, but the other ran away with some people. I couldn't make out who they were and now I'm following the worm thing to where it took the people. Look, you can see its tracks" I pointed at the pressed down plant life.
"OK then, we'll go with you. Heres your bag" Ben snatched my backpack of Asser and passed it to me. I put it on and said "Follow me"
I explained everything to Ben in more detail, and Asser was still confused by the whole ordeal.
"Get Down" I firmly whispered. We all dropped to our bellies. "why are we-"
"Sshh! look, through those trees there. Two worm people, with.. ray guns? They're guarding something. probably the prison."
"now what" Ben questioned.
"I'll think of something" I said. Well i hoped so anyway. There was a small room, about the size of an elevator, behind them. Perhaps it led to an underground system. There was a few metres of clearing around the small room covered in plants. "Do you have a plan yet?" Asser kept nagging me. Their weird rifles didn't have a trigger guard, and they had some light bulbs sticking out the side. They started to murmur amongst each other, and one started to slither towards us. I thought they were on to us. "Shut up and follow me" I instructed. We kept low and moved through the trees to behind the small building. We were leaning against the back wall and i crept around the side to where the guard who might have seen us was. The door started to open, and I hurried back to the back wall. About 5 armed worm people came out, all armed. "quick, get inside" We were lucky that both guards went with the 5 other people who had came out. The door shut behind us all. Some steps leading to an underground tunnel had been carved out of the ground. I cautiously walked down them, and it led into a corridor with metal walls. Suddenly an unarmed worm guy walked out of an open doorway. "Oi!" he had seen us. Before I panicked i whacked him across the head with my spear's butt, and he fell to the ground. "Who are you!?" I questioned him. He didn't reply so I whacked him on the chest with the spear butt. "what is this place" He still wouldn't talk, so in one swift motion I cut his upper arm, and brought the spear's blade closer to my face to examine the blood. It was exactly the same as that on Marek's spear after he had disappeared. They were the ones who had taken him, and the other people, but why was still unknown. The worm tried to make a break for it but as it stood up I swooped the spear in front of its necked and grabbed it wit both hands, trapping him in a choke. "You're coming with us" I said. I lead Ben and Asser into the room the worm guy had come from. It was about the size of a bedroom, and looked like an armoury. There were weapons stashed all over the place, and most of them were the rifle that the two guards and other 5 worm people had. I tightened my grip on my choke. "What is that?" I asked, pointing at the strange rifles with light bulbs.
"Wunderwaffe" It replied.
"What does it do?"
"Zap, then boom"
"Ben, take one" He hesitantly walked towards the rack, and took one.
"What about me?" Said Asser.
"Go on then, get me one too" He walked to the gun rack with a look of glee on his face, I released the spears grip on the worm thing, and took a wunderwaffe off Asser. We all raised our rifles and aimed at the worm alien. We had him in a perfect position to interrogate him, but I couldn't think of any questions to ask him. "Ben... Ask him something"
"What is this place!?" Asser screamed.
"Its a base, sort of like a headquarters. We have lots of them on this island."
"What are they for?" I asked him.
"Some of them are bases, headquarters, some are camps"
"What kind of camps?"
"We take people and nurture them in a camp."
"Where are they all?"
"You found this one, you can find the other seven." Some voices were coming from down the corridor.
"Take this one to camp C, there's a vacant space there"
"What about Thorant, have they found his body?"
"They sent a search party out before. Once we get rid of this drones we can take campers to the others, use them as hostages, and negotiate." Me Ben and Asser all looked at each other in shock. We knew what they were taking people for now, and we had to stop them. They were delivering one right now. I grabbed the worm person we were interrogating, ran into the corridor with him, pushed him forward, and put the end of my wunderwaffe's barrel against his head. I could clearly see now that the person the two worm people were about to send to a camp was Grayson. "Release him now or your buddy here gets it!" Asser and Ben came out of the room and aimed at the other two worm people.
7th times the charm , I awoke in daylight to the deafening dawn chorus. I had nothing to cover my ears with but my hands. I sat up thinking, and blotted out the chirping. What were the worm things? What was the human-like bird? and why were they fighting? The worm person was abducting people, and the bird was trying to protect them. Maybe they were what made the high-tech control room? yes, I was absolutely certain it was them. And the mountain was probably stepped to be some kind of a temple to something. I need to find other people, and get help. I can't survive with just a spear, a knife, and a flashlight which was bound to go dead soon. Well I had to survive with only that for now. I remembered the folded map in my pocket which led me here, and checked my location. I had moved a bit upstream from my arrival. "Maybe the people that were captured by the worm things left there stuff behind!" I thought. With a gleam of hope, I picked up all my stuff and started to run towards the dead fire where the other people were. I had a bit of trouble finding it but eventually I saw it near the river where the smaller eels are. I stopped and gazed around the surroundings, looking for anything. There was noting there, and I sat down in frustration. By now the birds had shut up. I pulled out the map, and looked for a place where people might be. I had washed up in a bay between two mountains. I didn't know where the plane wreckage was, or the survivors if there were any. Well there must of been, I saw them get abducted. Maybe the worm people had built another complex and taken the abductees there. I knew what I was going to do today: Find the worm people's prison and break out the prisoners with my mere spear. It was going to be hard, but I had to do it. I looked around for the tracks of the warm that had fled. over there, going into the Forrest, were large worm tracks. They had left a sort of engraved lane in the dirt, and had pressed down the wild plants.
The tracks were getting harder and harder to follow, and I had lost any idea of where I was on my map. "You hold it!" I heard Asser's voice, and froze. I frantically looked around, and kept listening to his complaints. I could tell where he was now, and ran through the bushes and trees. "Asser!" I yelled, glad to see other human life.
"What" came his dumb reply.
"Jordan" Interrupted Ben. "We got your bag. Kieran said that you had gone to the tent with Marek but neither of you were there. We tried to go back inside the control room but they locked us out"
"Yeah... They locked me out in the middle of the night. Listen. When I went into the tent to look for Marek when someone locked me out, He wasn't there. I found his spear and it had this blue liquid on it, and I thought it was some sort of alien blood. Then yesterday These 2 half worm half human things were trying g to capture people, and this Giant Walking bird was trying to scare them off by fighting with them with a spear. They killed the bird then I grabbed its spear and killed one of the worm things, but the other ran away with some people. I couldn't make out who they were and now I'm following the worm thing to where it took the people. Look, you can see its tracks" I pointed at the pressed down plant life.
"OK then, we'll go with you. Heres your bag" Ben snatched my backpack of Asser and passed it to me. I put it on and said "Follow me"
I explained everything to Ben in more detail, and Asser was still confused by the whole ordeal.
"Get Down" I firmly whispered. We all dropped to our bellies. "why are we-"
"Sshh! look, through those trees there. Two worm people, with.. ray guns? They're guarding something. probably the prison."
"now what" Ben questioned.
"I'll think of something" I said. Well i hoped so anyway. There was a small room, about the size of an elevator, behind them. Perhaps it led to an underground system. There was a few metres of clearing around the small room covered in plants. "Do you have a plan yet?" Asser kept nagging me. Their weird rifles didn't have a trigger guard, and they had some light bulbs sticking out the side. They started to murmur amongst each other, and one started to slither towards us. I thought they were on to us. "Shut up and follow me" I instructed. We kept low and moved through the trees to behind the small building. We were leaning against the back wall and i crept around the side to where the guard who might have seen us was. The door started to open, and I hurried back to the back wall. About 5 armed worm people came out, all armed. "quick, get inside" We were lucky that both guards went with the 5 other people who had came out. The door shut behind us all. Some steps leading to an underground tunnel had been carved out of the ground. I cautiously walked down them, and it led into a corridor with metal walls. Suddenly an unarmed worm guy walked out of an open doorway. "Oi!" he had seen us. Before I panicked i whacked him across the head with my spear's butt, and he fell to the ground. "Who are you!?" I questioned him. He didn't reply so I whacked him on the chest with the spear butt. "what is this place" He still wouldn't talk, so in one swift motion I cut his upper arm, and brought the spear's blade closer to my face to examine the blood. It was exactly the same as that on Marek's spear after he had disappeared. They were the ones who had taken him, and the other people, but why was still unknown. The worm tried to make a break for it but as it stood up I swooped the spear in front of its necked and grabbed it wit both hands, trapping him in a choke. "You're coming with us" I said. I lead Ben and Asser into the room the worm guy had come from. It was about the size of a bedroom, and looked like an armoury. There were weapons stashed all over the place, and most of them were the rifle that the two guards and other 5 worm people had. I tightened my grip on my choke. "What is that?" I asked, pointing at the strange rifles with light bulbs.
"Wunderwaffe" It replied.
"What does it do?"
"Zap, then boom"
"Ben, take one" He hesitantly walked towards the rack, and took one.
"What about me?" Said Asser.
"Go on then, get me one too" He walked to the gun rack with a look of glee on his face, I released the spears grip on the worm thing, and took a wunderwaffe off Asser. We all raised our rifles and aimed at the worm alien. We had him in a perfect position to interrogate him, but I couldn't think of any questions to ask him. "Ben... Ask him something"
"What is this place!?" Asser screamed.
"Its a base, sort of like a headquarters. We have lots of them on this island."
"What are they for?" I asked him.
"Some of them are bases, headquarters, some are camps"
"What kind of camps?"
"We take people and nurture them in a camp."
"Where are they all?"
"You found this one, you can find the other seven." Some voices were coming from down the corridor.
"Take this one to camp C, there's a vacant space there"
"What about Thorant, have they found his body?"
"They sent a search party out before. Once we get rid of this drones we can take campers to the others, use them as hostages, and negotiate." Me Ben and Asser all looked at each other in shock. We knew what they were taking people for now, and we had to stop them. They were delivering one right now. I grabbed the worm person we were interrogating, ran into the corridor with him, pushed him forward, and put the end of my wunderwaffe's barrel against his head. I could clearly see now that the person the two worm people were about to send to a camp was Grayson. "Release him now or your buddy here gets it!" Asser and Ben came out of the room and aimed at the other two worm people.
"You heard him" Asser shouted at them. "Drop your weapons" they had Wunderwaffes as well, and they both dropped them.
"Now let him go" I demanded. They calmly released Grayson from their grasp, and he ran behind Ben. "This is to easy" I whispered to Ben. "They're up to something"
"Tell me, where are your camps and why are holding people prisoner?" They ignored me and turned around, and started calmly heading towards the exit. "Get back here now!" They stopped and turned around. Then I could hear the door opening, and an armed worm guy ran in and fired a shot. The wunderwaffe shot out a magnificent electric blue lightning bolt, and I hid behind the worm person we were holding captive. It hit him, and flashes of electricity were sweeping all over his body. He was violently shaking, it was a horrible sight. He dropped dead. "Don't move!" the worm that just shot at me said. "Drop them! Don't think I won't shoot!" I did exactly as he said and dropped my gun. He was scared to death, and he slithered right up to me. The ugly thing started examining me, then raised it's wunderwaffe and smacked me across the face, and I fell unconscious.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Return to Matainui - Day 3
I Awoke while it was still dark, and everyone else was still doing, It must of been a couple of hours after midnight. I unwrapped myself from my survival blanket and stood up. I couldn't make out much, even though I could see outside it was still very dark because there were no stars. I fumbled around and found someones bag. I took it to the portion of the room where there was most light, and could make out that the backpack had "Kieran written in it. Inside it i find our small flashlight. Flicking it on, I scanned the large and complicated dashboard looking for buttons that I knew would do something. One of the buttons was round and made from thick glass. I pushed it. One of the screens flickered on, and it showed a view of the island. The picture was dark, so i assumed it was streaming live. My finger slipped over the button, and the image on the screen panned in sync with my finger. It was like a touch screen computer. Someone must have a camera in space, or something. I kept panning until I reached part of the world that was experiencing daylight.
Someone could have been operating the camera right now. I moved it so it was back looking at Matainui island. Thoughts of the strange silver light from yesterday morning instantly jumped into my head. Maybe this was what it was? someone must have been playing with the button. Or the light could have been something completely different. I hovered the flashlight over the button that switched the wall visibility and pressed one next to it, hoping it would affect the visibility of the wall outside. I pressed the button that Kieran had used to open the blast doors. I Eagerly ran outside, to see if my idea had worked, and it had! I ran back inside and looked for something to test if the camera was streaming live. I tried a button next to the camera controller one. Nothing. I tried another button. Nothing. I tried another button... And the screen got brighter. The camera must of had a massive light on it. I ran outside to see if things got brighter, but they hadn't s it must of been an effect on the camera lens. I looked through the wall at the screen to check for any movement on the island. It was zoomed in so that Matainui had engulfed the whole screen. There was no movement of myself. But.. There was a small, red, thing. It was dancing about in the same spot. I instantly thought it was a fire. Mixed emotions streamed through my head, I knew there were other people alive on the island now. "Hey"! I yelled. The blast doors were closing on me! I ran back but I was too late. A silhoutte was standing behind the dashboard. Suddenly I couldn't see inside the control room.
Great. Someone had locked me out. I didn't have my backpack either. All I had were my clothes and Kieran's flash light.
After a bit of swearing out loud I went back down to the tent where Marek was. I unzipped the tent. "Marek" I called. No reply. I went outside the tent. "Marek!" You there!?" Still nothing. This wasn't good. Someone had taken him. Or he buggered off. I went back inside the tent because it was cold. His backpack was still there, and so was his spear, still intact. I looked at everything closely for any clues of his disappearance. As my light moved over his spear, I saw a spot of blue on it. I touched it, and it felt a lot like blood. Only that it was blue. I lifted my finger to my nose and smelt, but it smelt of nothing. "That's peculiar" I whispered to myself. "No way, that impossible" I discarded the thought that he could of attacked a strange creature with the spear, or maybe even some kind of alien. Whatever it was, it had taken him. "There must be some explanation for this" I thought to myself, but an alien attack seemed like the only reasonable explanation at this point. I took Marek's survival blanket and went to sleep.
"Oh thank heavens" I said to myself, because there were no deafening bird sounds. I must of slept in and missed the dawn chorus. I thought that the events at midnight were all just a dream, but they can't have been because I was sleeping in the tent. This was very unreal, but it was in fact real. Sometimes its hard to face the truth, but this is just unbelievable. Marek's missing, Someone locked me out from any human life I knew with only the clothes on my back. I needed a plan, a good one. Above the majestic scenery, I saw smoke rising through the air. Then I remembered the fire on the control room's screen. My first thoughts were "Thats where I'm headed." I packed up the tent and marked its spot on the map. I didn't even bother going back to the control room, I thought Asser and Ben would be fine on their own with the others. It was Marek who needed help and I couldn't help him own my own. I began my trek down the stepped mountain, two hands firmly grasping Marek's spear incase anything shall jump out at me.
The plants brushed against my back as I lay against the bottom step of the stepped mountain trying to get back some breath, even though it was no wear as challenging as the journey up. I pulled out my map and looked at the position of the fire. It was near one of the streams, probably so the people there could get fresh water. The island is only 3 or 4 kilometres across, so I stood up and set off again. It may seem like a short walk, but the thick plant life and sumptuous bird life make it very easy to get lost.
I looked up at the forrest roof, little light got through to me. But there was one opening ahead. I ran up to and looked up. SQQUUAAWWKK! A gigantic black eagle flew overhead. "Cor Blimey" I thought. They must have been the giant eagle with a 3 metre wingspan that made the Moas extinct. And if they can eliminate all Moa life, imagine what they could do to people. I continued walking, extra careful of what was happening in the sky now.
I could hear the crackling of the fire now, and I ran towards a clearing near the river, but stopped and hid behind a tree. I saw and heard people screaming and running but I couldn't make it who they were. Then I saw a giant worm with a human torso and distorted face, and it was attacking someone. Just then a bird about the size of a person, standing on its feet, with a spear, fluttered in and assualted the worm thing. I thought I should help the bird but I was too scared to risk my own life. The worm embraced the bird and slammed it to the ground. no one had noticed me yet, and the worm had its back faced at me. I charged at the worm with Marek's spear, but it stole the birds spare and faced to fight me. It tried to drive the spear straight through me, but I knocked down with My spear, whacked it over it's demented face, and thrusted Marek's spear through its gut. Another worm, so nimble, slithered in and attacked the giant bird as it was getting to its feet. Helpless, the poor bird was thrown on the fire and left to die. The second worm grabbed someone behind a bush and starting running - or slithering - away. Bloodlust. I ran after it but it's speed and agility was princely. With no chance of catching it, I tended to the bird, but I was far too late. It was unarmed. It wasn't breathing. It wasn't moving. A sudden woosh and the whole corpse was ablaze. Its spear lay on the ground. I waltzed over and grabbed it. It felt much better than Marek's budget spear. The blade was properly attached to it and the weight was evenly distributed. I juggled it around in my hands and twirled it round and round. It was the only good point on top of my situation, any chance at finding human life had been virtually stolen from me. I sat down and took Marek's spear, removing the hunting knife and slipping it into my tattered short's pocket. The bird thing was still scorching, so I kicked it into the small river with my sneakers. As the flames fizzled out and the carkus drifted down stream, I raised my head to my hand in a salute. It was fighting on the same side as me, against the worm people. That probably meant that they had experience of them in the past. But how could either of them exist? the only explanation for this one was that a worm and person were badly affected by the uranium on Matainui island, and the bird must of mutated from a Kea to an even bigger more intelligent Kea. But if the worm people were mutated from worms and people, who would they mutate from? there were no humans on this island before our class crashed here.
A faint "plop" sound came from the river next to me. I jerked my head and saw nothing.
"plop"
I scanned the river for movement, and saw some eels breaking surface about 20 metres downstream. I darted to the site with my new spear, and examined the scene. There were quite a few of them eels, and it felt about lunch time. I waded into the water, and jabbed the spear into the water. I withdrew it, but there was no eel on the end. I jabbed again, and there was still no lunch on the end of my spear. 10 metres down the stream, hundreds of eels were rapidly coming my way. I ignored them, and kept fishing. As they got closer I got more nervous, but they were just harmless eels. But I found out the hard way that they weren't harmless. My legs were wrapped in black, and I couldn't move. The eels had somehow anchored themselfs to the ground. I frantically and aimlessly thrusted the spear into the water around me, but it was no use. I threw the spear to shore, and pulled out Marek's hunting knive. I started stabbing and tearing the sheet of eels choking my legs, but there were too many of them. All the water around me was black. I strained, and used all my force, to move my right leg one step closer towards the shore. As I did, all the eels on that leg scampered off. I stabbed my left leg, but just before the knive made contact, the eels broke up and scampered off with the other crew and it tore the flesh on my shin. "AAAAHHHH!" Birds in the trees paniced and flew away, and I started to slowly get out of the water. I turned around and picked up half a slimy eel on the riverbed and got out of the water. It slipped out of my hands onto the ground with a thud, and I picked up the spear and stabbed the eel.
Preparing the eel was much easier than preparing a Moa, and I had learnt from the fishing trips with my dad. I sat round the fire eating lunch with all my gear sitting next to me - A hunting knive, a spear, and a small flashlight.
As I marched further down the river looking for human life, I thought that maybe people could have crossed it in search for shelter near the lake. "plop" I quickly moved my head in the direction of the familiar sound, and saw a giant eel swimming in the river. It was the size of an Anaconda. Any thoughts of crossing the 20 metre wide river quickly faded.
The sky was pitch black, no stars, a now familiar sight. I lay under a few well put together sticks and branches hat would serve as my shelter for the long night ahead, with my spear by my side to fend off predators in my slumber.
The plants brushed against my back as I lay against the bottom step of the stepped mountain trying to get back some breath, even though it was no wear as challenging as the journey up. I pulled out my map and looked at the position of the fire. It was near one of the streams, probably so the people there could get fresh water. The island is only 3 or 4 kilometres across, so I stood up and set off again. It may seem like a short walk, but the thick plant life and sumptuous bird life make it very easy to get lost.
I looked up at the forrest roof, little light got through to me. But there was one opening ahead. I ran up to and looked up. SQQUUAAWWKK! A gigantic black eagle flew overhead. "Cor Blimey" I thought. They must have been the giant eagle with a 3 metre wingspan that made the Moas extinct. And if they can eliminate all Moa life, imagine what they could do to people. I continued walking, extra careful of what was happening in the sky now.
I could hear the crackling of the fire now, and I ran towards a clearing near the river, but stopped and hid behind a tree. I saw and heard people screaming and running but I couldn't make it who they were. Then I saw a giant worm with a human torso and distorted face, and it was attacking someone. Just then a bird about the size of a person, standing on its feet, with a spear, fluttered in and assualted the worm thing. I thought I should help the bird but I was too scared to risk my own life. The worm embraced the bird and slammed it to the ground. no one had noticed me yet, and the worm had its back faced at me. I charged at the worm with Marek's spear, but it stole the birds spare and faced to fight me. It tried to drive the spear straight through me, but I knocked down with My spear, whacked it over it's demented face, and thrusted Marek's spear through its gut. Another worm, so nimble, slithered in and attacked the giant bird as it was getting to its feet. Helpless, the poor bird was thrown on the fire and left to die. The second worm grabbed someone behind a bush and starting running - or slithering - away. Bloodlust. I ran after it but it's speed and agility was princely. With no chance of catching it, I tended to the bird, but I was far too late. It was unarmed. It wasn't breathing. It wasn't moving. A sudden woosh and the whole corpse was ablaze. Its spear lay on the ground. I waltzed over and grabbed it. It felt much better than Marek's budget spear. The blade was properly attached to it and the weight was evenly distributed. I juggled it around in my hands and twirled it round and round. It was the only good point on top of my situation, any chance at finding human life had been virtually stolen from me. I sat down and took Marek's spear, removing the hunting knife and slipping it into my tattered short's pocket. The bird thing was still scorching, so I kicked it into the small river with my sneakers. As the flames fizzled out and the carkus drifted down stream, I raised my head to my hand in a salute. It was fighting on the same side as me, against the worm people. That probably meant that they had experience of them in the past. But how could either of them exist? the only explanation for this one was that a worm and person were badly affected by the uranium on Matainui island, and the bird must of mutated from a Kea to an even bigger more intelligent Kea. But if the worm people were mutated from worms and people, who would they mutate from? there were no humans on this island before our class crashed here.
A faint "plop" sound came from the river next to me. I jerked my head and saw nothing.
"plop"
I scanned the river for movement, and saw some eels breaking surface about 20 metres downstream. I darted to the site with my new spear, and examined the scene. There were quite a few of them eels, and it felt about lunch time. I waded into the water, and jabbed the spear into the water. I withdrew it, but there was no eel on the end. I jabbed again, and there was still no lunch on the end of my spear. 10 metres down the stream, hundreds of eels were rapidly coming my way. I ignored them, and kept fishing. As they got closer I got more nervous, but they were just harmless eels. But I found out the hard way that they weren't harmless. My legs were wrapped in black, and I couldn't move. The eels had somehow anchored themselfs to the ground. I frantically and aimlessly thrusted the spear into the water around me, but it was no use. I threw the spear to shore, and pulled out Marek's hunting knive. I started stabbing and tearing the sheet of eels choking my legs, but there were too many of them. All the water around me was black. I strained, and used all my force, to move my right leg one step closer towards the shore. As I did, all the eels on that leg scampered off. I stabbed my left leg, but just before the knive made contact, the eels broke up and scampered off with the other crew and it tore the flesh on my shin. "AAAAHHHH!" Birds in the trees paniced and flew away, and I started to slowly get out of the water. I turned around and picked up half a slimy eel on the riverbed and got out of the water. It slipped out of my hands onto the ground with a thud, and I picked up the spear and stabbed the eel.
Preparing the eel was much easier than preparing a Moa, and I had learnt from the fishing trips with my dad. I sat round the fire eating lunch with all my gear sitting next to me - A hunting knive, a spear, and a small flashlight.
As I marched further down the river looking for human life, I thought that maybe people could have crossed it in search for shelter near the lake. "plop" I quickly moved my head in the direction of the familiar sound, and saw a giant eel swimming in the river. It was the size of an Anaconda. Any thoughts of crossing the 20 metre wide river quickly faded.
The sky was pitch black, no stars, a now familiar sight. I lay under a few well put together sticks and branches hat would serve as my shelter for the long night ahead, with my spear by my side to fend off predators in my slumber.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Return to Matainui - Day 2
During the night I got little sleep, so I zipped open the tent door and tried resting with my head outside. I looked up at the black sky. And it was actually black. All of it. For some reason there were no stars at all. Just a pitch black sky. Then out of the corner of my eye, a stray silver light slowly moved across the night sky. It continued to progress until it was right above, then it paused. It stayed there for a few moments, then started to move in the same direction, then accelerated before it blitzed out of sight. What on earth was that? or more like, what out of earth was that? and why did it stop right above my head?. I decided to think about it in the morning and went back to sleep.
I woke up with my head still outside the tent, and heard a few birds chirping. More birds joined in. Their calls were so unique, like something i had never heard before. More and more birds continued contributing their calls to the symphony, and it got louder and louder. Then the noise got too loud. It still climbed in volume, until it was deafening. I zipped the tent closed to filter out some of the sound, but it was still deafening. Asser and Ben woke up to the dawn chorus, and quickly clamped their ears with their hands. I saw Ben's mouth moving but couldn't hear him above the ruckus. I don't know how but Marek was still asleep.
Half an hour had passed since the dawn chorus had started, and now we could hear each other if we shouted. It continued to get quieter and quieter until there were just a few birds singing. I opened the tent and walked out with the survival blanket wrapped around me. It was a bit windy. Asser and Ben walked out of the tent, and I could see that Marek was just awaking.
"Mornin' my boys. Any food left?"
"No. We need to find a tree with fruit or catch something and eat it." Ben sat down thinking, probably about getting food and probably because he was very hungry.
"We could hunt something" Marek suggested. I've got a hunting knife in my bag" He opened his backpack and pulled out a sharp knife.
"What are you planning on hunting?" I retorted, "there's probably only birds on this island. "
"Look over there!" Asser pointed at the treeline, and we all saw a small Moa. It was about 5 foot tall. Marek leaped out of the tent and ran at the Moa with the knife. It was to nimble and quick for him, and it fled into the forest. "Great. now what!?" Marek threw his knife on the ground in frustration.
"We can still get it" Ben rebutted. "We just need to think smarter. Look! there it is, behind those trees. Try sneaking up on it. Use stealth." Marek picked up his hunting knife, then crept a few metres along the tree line. He went behind the first tree, then slowly moved towards the Moa in a low stance. Me Asser and Ben watched him as he got a few feet away from the Moa. He then lunged at the thought-to-be extinct creature, but it was still to quick for him. It dodged his stab and fled deeper into the forest. Marek ccame out of the bush into the beach, shouting profanities at the air. "What if we tried attack it from long range, maybe with a spear?" Ben suggested.
Marek ran off and climbed up a tree, snapping off an elegantly straight branch, He ran back to the tent with the stick and hunting knife. Marek was fiddling around in the tent, then came out with a spear cheaply made spear put together from the branch, his hunting knife, and some nylon string to bound them together. He waited until he could see the Moa from the beach. He then launched his home made spear through the air. It flailed in the air, and hit the ground with its blunt end, missing the Moa completely.
"We've tried everything!" Marek complained. "We'll just starve to death. Stupid field trip"
"We haven't tried everything. What if we surrounded it so then it would have nowhere to run to." I suggested.
"One more try, then we call it quits and starve to death" Marek agreed.
We better catch it. I'm hungry as" Ben droned on. Asser didn't want to help kill it, so me, Marek and Ben took up positions surrounding the Moa in a triangle. We closed the gap around the Moa. It suddenly bolted, then Marek and Ben moved towards each other making a wall. The Moa halted and and tried to turn around, but I ran at it before it could and took out its legs. Ben helped me hold it down as it wriggled around like a fire hose. Marek stabbed it multiple times, even though it was long dead before he finished. I turned my heads toward the beach and saw Asser tending to a fire. "Help me carry this thing to the fire" Marek requested.
We were lucky enough to have Marek with us, because he had the skills to pluck the Moa, skin it, and gut it. It was quite gruesome, but food was food. He drove his spear through meat and spit roasted it through the fire. "I can't believe we caught a Moa" proclaimed Ben, with a proud look on his face. We all sat around the fire, and Asser came out of the tent with something in his hand. "We better get moving and find some of the others, if they're still alive. But first we need to find out where we are. Help me out here" Asser put a map down on the sand, and I examined it carefully with him like two archaeologists. Looking towards the treleine from the beach i could see a large mountain covered in forrest on the left hand side. On the map there were three mountains, two of them larger than the other. One of the larger ones was right next to the small mountan, and from our view, We could only see one. So we figured out that we were on one of the beaches on the side of mountain, but we weren't sure wich. One was a sort of a straight line, and the other one was like a bay. From where we were we had a lovely view, and the land curved in like a bay, so we fiured out we were on the bay by the lone mountain.
"Ok, we know where we are." Asser Remarked, "We should go to this beach on the other side of the mountain. There might be other people there."
"True. Should we go around the mountain or through the forrest?"I questioned Asser, they were both dangerous paths."
"Well the bush probably has no track to the beach and we cold get attacked by a Moa or giant bird. If we go around the mountain it could be rocky and narrow at some points, but we could find stuff that washed up on the cliffs. So we should go around the mountain."
"Alright. What you said." I was amazed by Asser's thinking, he wasn't usually like this in class. But this is something totally different to class.
After we gobbled down our Moa we packed up the tent and all the gear. Asser instructed what our plans were for the day.
On the way around the mountain, down a short rocky cliff, there were two bags. "Look!" I shouted.
"Sweet, some bags" Marek said. He carefully lifted them to ground level with his budget spear he had quickly reassembled.
"Oh my lord, it my bag!" While I was celebrating the discovery of my backpack, Ben was celebrating his afterMarek lifted up the second one. Luckily we had both wrapped all our gear in plastic so it was still dry, and there was some lunch. We also had some cooked Moa left over that Asser was carrying.
When we got to the beach, we were hungry again. Asser grabbed his flint and whipped up another fire. He got a metal bucket from one of the bags, and filled it up with salt water from the ocean and started boiling it so that when it was cool we would be able to drink it. We had some Moa and and some of the food from Me and Ben's lunch boxes that hadn't gone rotten. After our late lunch we still had enough Moa left to last us one or two meals. After seeing the weird light this morning, I was staring up at the sky looking for something suspicious. Then i saw a cylinder about two feet high and 7 feet across, descend from the sky into the centre of the sky.
"Look at that!" I blurted. Asser Ben and Marek all gazed in wonder at the cylinder, before it disapeared through the trees.
"What was that?" Questioned Asser, as confused as I was.
"Follow it!" Demanded Marek.
"No, we should go up the mountain and get a good vantage point" I suggested. We all agreed and went to the mountain. As we approached it we thought it would slope like a normal mountain, but it was stepped. And each step was about 5 foot 5 high, and covered in bush.
"What the-"
"lets get up there quickly. Before it gets dark. We still haven't set up camp" I interrupted Marek. Climbing the steps was hard, very hard.
We were about 10 or 20 steps from the top of mountain, and we were all exasperated. We climbed one more final step and found a clearence in the ground large enough for us to set up our tent. We couldn't see the mysterious cylinder thing from where we were, nor could we see any signs of other human life.
We devoured some of the cold Moa we had, and there was still enough left to last us until breakfast.
hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm
"Do you hear that?" asked Marek. "Listen." There was a slight humming noise coming from the top of the mountain. We were all wondering what it was.
" I'm going to check it out" Marek scoffed the rest of his Moa and leapt up the stepped mountain. As he went out of sight I told Ben and Marek " This island is really...queer. Strange if you know what I mean. That flying cylinder, the weightlessness and mysterious weather on the plane, The stepped mountain. It's been grown over with bush, which means it's pretty old or someones gone out of their way to hide something" We exchanged our thoughts of the journey until dark fell, then Marek came running back down the step above us. "Guys you'll never beleive it - Haylee and stuff are in this square building thing in the top step of the mountain. It was Hi-tech as, I saw this forcefield thing, lots of screens and all this weird stuff! They kicked me out and locked their blast doors. Come check it out!" He was in a rush to get things out of his mouth.
"Why did they kick you out?" I asked Marek.
"I did kind of attack them"
"What were you thinking you fool! come on, lets go." Retorted Asser. As we were climbing up the steps Marek kept telling us things, like how it looked like a spaceship control room from a science fiction television show. We got to the top, and the last step was a large square with heavy blast doors. "When I was inside I could see stuff that was outside, it was like some sort of one way invisible wall" Marek walked up to the blast doors and banged on them with his fist. He tried miming that he wanted them to let us in. After a few minutes of banging and miming the blast doors slowly opened. Marek rushed in and Me, Ben and Asser, slowly followed him in.
I woke up with my head still outside the tent, and heard a few birds chirping. More birds joined in. Their calls were so unique, like something i had never heard before. More and more birds continued contributing their calls to the symphony, and it got louder and louder. Then the noise got too loud. It still climbed in volume, until it was deafening. I zipped the tent closed to filter out some of the sound, but it was still deafening. Asser and Ben woke up to the dawn chorus, and quickly clamped their ears with their hands. I saw Ben's mouth moving but couldn't hear him above the ruckus. I don't know how but Marek was still asleep.
Half an hour had passed since the dawn chorus had started, and now we could hear each other if we shouted. It continued to get quieter and quieter until there were just a few birds singing. I opened the tent and walked out with the survival blanket wrapped around me. It was a bit windy. Asser and Ben walked out of the tent, and I could see that Marek was just awaking.
"Mornin' my boys. Any food left?"
"No. We need to find a tree with fruit or catch something and eat it." Ben sat down thinking, probably about getting food and probably because he was very hungry.
"We could hunt something" Marek suggested. I've got a hunting knife in my bag" He opened his backpack and pulled out a sharp knife.
"What are you planning on hunting?" I retorted, "there's probably only birds on this island. "
"Look over there!" Asser pointed at the treeline, and we all saw a small Moa. It was about 5 foot tall. Marek leaped out of the tent and ran at the Moa with the knife. It was to nimble and quick for him, and it fled into the forest. "Great. now what!?" Marek threw his knife on the ground in frustration.
"We can still get it" Ben rebutted. "We just need to think smarter. Look! there it is, behind those trees. Try sneaking up on it. Use stealth." Marek picked up his hunting knife, then crept a few metres along the tree line. He went behind the first tree, then slowly moved towards the Moa in a low stance. Me Asser and Ben watched him as he got a few feet away from the Moa. He then lunged at the thought-to-be extinct creature, but it was still to quick for him. It dodged his stab and fled deeper into the forest. Marek ccame out of the bush into the beach, shouting profanities at the air. "What if we tried attack it from long range, maybe with a spear?" Ben suggested.
Marek ran off and climbed up a tree, snapping off an elegantly straight branch, He ran back to the tent with the stick and hunting knife. Marek was fiddling around in the tent, then came out with a spear cheaply made spear put together from the branch, his hunting knife, and some nylon string to bound them together. He waited until he could see the Moa from the beach. He then launched his home made spear through the air. It flailed in the air, and hit the ground with its blunt end, missing the Moa completely.
"We've tried everything!" Marek complained. "We'll just starve to death. Stupid field trip"
"We haven't tried everything. What if we surrounded it so then it would have nowhere to run to." I suggested.
"One more try, then we call it quits and starve to death" Marek agreed.
We better catch it. I'm hungry as" Ben droned on. Asser didn't want to help kill it, so me, Marek and Ben took up positions surrounding the Moa in a triangle. We closed the gap around the Moa. It suddenly bolted, then Marek and Ben moved towards each other making a wall. The Moa halted and and tried to turn around, but I ran at it before it could and took out its legs. Ben helped me hold it down as it wriggled around like a fire hose. Marek stabbed it multiple times, even though it was long dead before he finished. I turned my heads toward the beach and saw Asser tending to a fire. "Help me carry this thing to the fire" Marek requested.
We were lucky enough to have Marek with us, because he had the skills to pluck the Moa, skin it, and gut it. It was quite gruesome, but food was food. He drove his spear through meat and spit roasted it through the fire. "I can't believe we caught a Moa" proclaimed Ben, with a proud look on his face. We all sat around the fire, and Asser came out of the tent with something in his hand. "We better get moving and find some of the others, if they're still alive. But first we need to find out where we are. Help me out here" Asser put a map down on the sand, and I examined it carefully with him like two archaeologists. Looking towards the treleine from the beach i could see a large mountain covered in forrest on the left hand side. On the map there were three mountains, two of them larger than the other. One of the larger ones was right next to the small mountan, and from our view, We could only see one. So we figured out that we were on one of the beaches on the side of mountain, but we weren't sure wich. One was a sort of a straight line, and the other one was like a bay. From where we were we had a lovely view, and the land curved in like a bay, so we fiured out we were on the bay by the lone mountain.
"Ok, we know where we are." Asser Remarked, "We should go to this beach on the other side of the mountain. There might be other people there."
"True. Should we go around the mountain or through the forrest?"I questioned Asser, they were both dangerous paths."
"Well the bush probably has no track to the beach and we cold get attacked by a Moa or giant bird. If we go around the mountain it could be rocky and narrow at some points, but we could find stuff that washed up on the cliffs. So we should go around the mountain."
"Alright. What you said." I was amazed by Asser's thinking, he wasn't usually like this in class. But this is something totally different to class.
After we gobbled down our Moa we packed up the tent and all the gear. Asser instructed what our plans were for the day.
On the way around the mountain, down a short rocky cliff, there were two bags. "Look!" I shouted.
"Sweet, some bags" Marek said. He carefully lifted them to ground level with his budget spear he had quickly reassembled.
"Oh my lord, it my bag!" While I was celebrating the discovery of my backpack, Ben was celebrating his afterMarek lifted up the second one. Luckily we had both wrapped all our gear in plastic so it was still dry, and there was some lunch. We also had some cooked Moa left over that Asser was carrying.
When we got to the beach, we were hungry again. Asser grabbed his flint and whipped up another fire. He got a metal bucket from one of the bags, and filled it up with salt water from the ocean and started boiling it so that when it was cool we would be able to drink it. We had some Moa and and some of the food from Me and Ben's lunch boxes that hadn't gone rotten. After our late lunch we still had enough Moa left to last us one or two meals. After seeing the weird light this morning, I was staring up at the sky looking for something suspicious. Then i saw a cylinder about two feet high and 7 feet across, descend from the sky into the centre of the sky.
"Look at that!" I blurted. Asser Ben and Marek all gazed in wonder at the cylinder, before it disapeared through the trees.
"What was that?" Questioned Asser, as confused as I was.
"Follow it!" Demanded Marek.
"No, we should go up the mountain and get a good vantage point" I suggested. We all agreed and went to the mountain. As we approached it we thought it would slope like a normal mountain, but it was stepped. And each step was about 5 foot 5 high, and covered in bush.
"What the-"
"lets get up there quickly. Before it gets dark. We still haven't set up camp" I interrupted Marek. Climbing the steps was hard, very hard.
We were about 10 or 20 steps from the top of mountain, and we were all exasperated. We climbed one more final step and found a clearence in the ground large enough for us to set up our tent. We couldn't see the mysterious cylinder thing from where we were, nor could we see any signs of other human life.
We devoured some of the cold Moa we had, and there was still enough left to last us until breakfast.
hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm
"Do you hear that?" asked Marek. "Listen." There was a slight humming noise coming from the top of the mountain. We were all wondering what it was.
" I'm going to check it out" Marek scoffed the rest of his Moa and leapt up the stepped mountain. As he went out of sight I told Ben and Marek " This island is really...queer. Strange if you know what I mean. That flying cylinder, the weightlessness and mysterious weather on the plane, The stepped mountain. It's been grown over with bush, which means it's pretty old or someones gone out of their way to hide something" We exchanged our thoughts of the journey until dark fell, then Marek came running back down the step above us. "Guys you'll never beleive it - Haylee and stuff are in this square building thing in the top step of the mountain. It was Hi-tech as, I saw this forcefield thing, lots of screens and all this weird stuff! They kicked me out and locked their blast doors. Come check it out!" He was in a rush to get things out of his mouth.
"Why did they kick you out?" I asked Marek.
"I did kind of attack them"
"What were you thinking you fool! come on, lets go." Retorted Asser. As we were climbing up the steps Marek kept telling us things, like how it looked like a spaceship control room from a science fiction television show. We got to the top, and the last step was a large square with heavy blast doors. "When I was inside I could see stuff that was outside, it was like some sort of one way invisible wall" Marek walked up to the blast doors and banged on them with his fist. He tried miming that he wanted them to let us in. After a few minutes of banging and miming the blast doors slowly opened. Marek rushed in and Me, Ben and Asser, slowly followed him in.
We were astonished at the sight. Marek was right, it was very high - tech. I doubt that any human could have built this. There were buttons on a dashboard with strange markings on them. "Ok, Here are the rules you guys. You are in our shelter and you owe us full respect for giving you a place to stay" Hayley informed us. "And no, we do not know anything about this room or what it does, so don't bother asking." Sure, i thought to myself.
"If you're all up here why didn't you bother looking for anyone else!? They could be on the verge of death for crying out loud. You up high on this mountain, it's a great lookout point" I was unnecessarily speaking with the tone I was, but i thought I did make a clear point.
"Well we are more worried about ourselfs more than anyone else. We are-"
"Hey what do you think you're doing! get your mits of our stuff!" Marek outbursted, and ran at Maddi and co who were trying to steal our bags. He startd brawling with them. Maddi managed to escape Marek's grasp as he gaurded the bags. "Maddi, what was that for?" Haylee inquisited. I could tell she was lieing. They plotted to do this.
"What was that for! we aint done nothing, and try to take everything we have! you selfish..." I had a word to describe them, but it wasn't worth it. "We'll just stay here for the night, and sort things out in the morning."
"Fine then." Ben and Asser went back down the stepped mountain to retrieve some gear for us to sleep on while I stayed inside the control room with Marek incase he lashed out on Dilshen, Maddi, Kim, Haylee or Kieran. The moments were tense until Ben and Asser returned with survival blankets and what not.
"I'm just going to sleep in the tent. Someone has to look after it anyway." Marek said. As he approached the blast doors, Kieran pushed a blue square button and they slowly opened again.
"Now we're safe" Kieran sighed. Not another word was spoken and we slept in two different areas of the room.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Return to Matainui - Day 1
The engines started to grumble, the Grumman Albatross started to move, and my class had just started our journey to Matainui island. The hefty sea plane began circling around in the water. "this is your pilot speaking, secure your belongings and buckle your seatbelts, we are now departing for Matainui island" The voice that just rang over the plane's speaker phone sounded familiar. And young. I paused and pondered, then turned to Asser in the seat next to me. "Why is Sam our pilot? He's only 11!" I blurted.
"I know aye. this boat with wings won't even make it out of the water with him behind the wheel." Asser didn't sound too worried, and I don't even think he had realised that the Grumman Albatross had just gone airborne. We were flying at least, so Sam must have been trained somewhere by someone.
After about 20 minutesI pressed my head against the window next to me, and could make out the shore of the island. Then I turned my head right, and saw some grey storm clouds beginning to gather. The weather forecast didn't say anything about any storm clouds. In fact I recalled the forecast predicting a clear blue sky all day. As the time passed, the clouds got thicker and thicker, darker and darker. Before long the plane was completely engulfed in dark clouds. Suddenly, something strange happened. It was as if the gravity had bee turned off. Weight didn't exist any more. Some people in front of me and Asser took of their seatbelts and tried flying in the weightlessness. BANG! the loud sound of thunder reached our ears, followed by strikes of lightning. Rain started pounding down on the plane. The weather doesn't just change like that. It can't. I felt something weird happen to my body, and realised the gravity had switched itself back on. Marek had been thrown to the isle floor after his so called flight, and he got snagged on someone else's chair. The loud bangs continued, as did the forked flashes. Our trip had already turned into a disaster, and I was beginning to worry. There was another really loud bang. I looked out my window, and saw that the wing was on fire. One of the turbines exploded, deafening me and everyone around me. A small fraction of the wing blew off in the explosion, then it started to tear only a few feet from the plane body. A loud boom, and the wing was gone. the plane engines started to whine. This just emulated my panic. The plane swiftly began a dive on a 45 degree angle. The speed of the switch from regular flight to dive threw me against the roof of the cabin. I fell to the isle floor, rubbing my back to ease the pain. My ears tuned in to the screaming of all my classmates. I tried to stand up but stumbled backwards and began sliding down the isle. Asser tried to halt me by grabbing my foot. Gravity was against us and Asser fell out of his chair as he leaned to his left. Everything had happened so suddenly, it felt unrealistic. The plane's hatch was ripped off its hinges, and I was sliding staight for it. Before I knew it I was free falling, pointlessly yelling for help only to quickly find myself with a mouthful of water. I broke to the surface, and air appeared scarce to intake. There was nothing but strong water currents and dark skies to accompany me. I couldn't see a thing. There was no land insight, and I let the current carry me.
Half an hour after floating in the ocean's current, I saw signs of other life. Potentially dangerous life. Three, black dorsal fins, only 10 metres from my where abouts. Taking no risks I froze, and tilted my head to a beautiful sight. Land. Sweet land. A small sandy beach to be precise. The current was no longer with me, so I slowly directed my body towards land, avoiding the three fins. My feet were in the wet sand in the shallow sea, and I walked towards the shore. I collapsed myself on the beach, gasping for breath. After a few minutes, I yelled out. "Is anybody here!? Hello? its me! Jordan!" I lifted my head, and saw the beached turned straight to bush. And in that bush, there was something, 8 feet tall, moving about. I froze again, and kept my distance from the thick bush. I started to back away, and felt something against the back of my foot. Before I knew it I was on my back. I thought I had tripped over something, then lifted my head and saw two backpacks. Joy started to flow through my blood, I had never been so happy to see a backpack before. Examining the rather stuffed bags, I found out they belonged to Asser and Marek. Instantly my thoughts flashed back to when Asser had tried to save me but himself ended up on the verge of death. "Hello! Who are you!" I quickly turned around and saw Marek and Asser swimming towards shore. "Your alive!"I cried
"So are you" The sound of another human voice never sounded sweeter. You never really appreciate something until you don't have it anymore.
"Look! I found your backpacks" I Informed Asser and Marek.
"Sweet as, we could build some shelter" came the reply.
"Whos there!?" another new voice approached our ears.
"Ben! come join the party" said Marek as he ran towards shore in his dripping wet clothes to help him to his feet.
"Ben! come join the party" said Marek as he ran towards shore in his dripping wet clothes to help him to his feet.
"Where is everyone else?" Ben gasped, shocked.
" No idea. It's just us four for now" I said in a tone that I hope would imply I was in control.
"Well then, what do we now?"
"I have a tent in my backpack, we should set it up and use it as shelter" Asser interrupted.
"great, but we can't do it in that bush because there's probably no clearance on the ground, and plus I saw something about 8 feet tall moving through there. I think it could be Moa, but I'm not entirely sure." Me and Asser began discussing ideas about setting up the tent.
" Why don't we set the tent up on the beach?"
" The pegs won't stay in the sand, its too fine." I replied.
" What if we hold them in the sand with something heavy?"
" Good thinking, Me Marek and Ben will go and find some heavy rocks or logs." Asser started to set up the tent while the rest of us gathered heavy stuff to hold down the pegs. After our temporary home was built, eating popped into our heads. Asser and Marek grabbed their lunch boxes and rationed their food with me and Ben.
"We'll stay here for the night, then tomorrow we'll have to find some food. After we've eaten we'll pack up the tent and look for the others" I stated.
I was looking out to sea and saw A huge, dark cloud. It looked as if it was encircling the entire of Matainui island. It was about a kilometre out. Then the clouds got closer. And closer. They kept advancing towards land until they were only 100 odd metres from the shore. Mysterious, I thought. A lot of mysterious things have happened so far. Weightlessness, sudden weather changes... how mysterious.
After the blackness of the night had taken over the sky, we hopped in the tent, and whipped out some survival blankets from Asser's backpack.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Return to Matainui - Preparation
After the discover of the 4 Matai islands, and the land claims by 4 classrooms, one of these class' decide to go back to their island, Matainui. My class. The island has never before been touched by human life, and is expected to have dense forest and plenty of bird life. There are 3 known mountains, a large lake, multiple rivers, beaches, and mixed vegetation. Due to transport methods to Matainui island, our luggage is limited to the clothes on our back and the contents of our backpacks, which in my case, is a rough 10 items. I have strategically chosen these items in accordance to my group, which consists of me, Josiah, Grayson, Samuel, and Leon. So, lets have a peek at what i am bringing to Matainui...
1. A 2 litre drink bottle, filled with water.
2. A swan dry
3. A 25 square foot tarpaulin
4. A roll of nylon string
5. A Hatchet (small axe)
6. 10 black rubbish bags/black sacks, in a roll.
7. A survival blanket
8. Another survival blanket
9. A metal, 3 litre bucket.
10. Swiss army knife.
Everyone is excited about their trip, yet at the same time a a bit nervous. We will be traveling in a Grumman sea plane, 1 week from now.
until then....
-Winged Hussar
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