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 One wall had been replaced by metal bars about 2 inches wide, and there was a classic lock mechanism and part of the bar wall would slide.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.

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.

"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.

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.