Silence gripped the still night. Everything seemed to be holding its breath hiding away. Suddenly, the spell was broken by the passage of a mad figure followed by another.

Ricardo was sprinting. Tearing blindly through the jungle he ran as fast as he ever had in his life. Fog billowed around him creating an exceptionally terrifying atmosphere. With no torch to light the way and only a muted sun to guide him he was in trouble. Excited hissing came from the shape in the fog behind him as it shadowed his every movement. He suddenly bounced off of a tree that didn’t break under his forward momentum.

--- 30 minutes before ---

He quickly forgot the thought as he stepped back into the forest. Something seemed different in the air. Ricardo couldn't quite place his finger on it, but something was different. *Ah.. thats it. The insects have stopped communicating.* A foreboding silence hung in the air even though everything seemed so safe with the sun high in the sky. "That tide, if there even is a tide may take the bird if I don't hurry up. Speaking of which how can there be waves with no moon?" Only the unnatural silence answered his questions. "Aren't tides created by the moon? I wonder if there are even any humans or intelligent species on this planet? And in the night how can there be no stars? Even if I was on another planet, which I could accept after seeing all these strange plants and exotic creatures, there would be stars at night right? ****, don't even get me started about the lightbulb in the sky!" Ricardo filled in for the waiting jungle.

Ricardo was starting to get on edge now. He felt something in his bones like the Sword of Damocles was hanging above his head. He hadn't felt this much tension even in the submersible with 7 hours left to get to land. At least he was in his domain, his submersible. Currently, Ricardo was following his earlier path through the jungle so he was able to go much faster. Going down in elevation also helped.

*Dap*

He kicked a small pebble and the world went dark. Night had came without any forewarning. Fog billowed out from seemingly nowhere and Ricardo felt a sudden urge to flee. The sun which had offered so much security before took that away as if it had never existed. Ricardo felt like he was in a horror movie.

*First rule of horror movies: Don't go alone* "Oh....shit...." He murmured. Ricardo needed to get back to Grace. The thought of being with Grace near the fire, even though she was still probably unconsciousness, was much more important then doing anything else like recovering dinner. Squinting his eyes in a poor attempt to see, Ricardo used the stick in his hand feel where the path was as he tried to continue following it. *SSSsssss* A small hiss came from somewhere behind him, stopping him dead in his tracks. Ricardo slowly crouched down and lay prone on the ground. He peered through the fog looking for the source of the noise. Something was moving in the gloom. Its silhouette looked around for a while and then hissed some more. The shape of it was vaguely resembled a human. *Of course it's coming closer...* Ricardo turned back around and began crawling as stealthily as possible. He had no idea where he was going and he knew the only way he'd get out of this forest would be through sheer luck or waiting it out until morning. However, getting away from some creature in the night was a priority.

Small crunching noises moved closer towards him from behind and he managed to hear the small sound of sniffing. *What is it a dog?* Ricardo knew he'd have to make a bolt for it. Wherever it was. He gave one last glimpse behind him and felt his blood run cold. The creature was about 4 meters away from him and looked down upon him. All he could see were two completely black eyes staring down in the general direction of where he was. They seemed to radiate evil out like a constant rushing tsunami. Involuntarily, he let out small gasp of horror. Ricardo sprinted for all he was worth as the creature tried to catch up to him.

The hissing increased in volume as he ran through the dense foliage. *I can't even outrun it!* The shadow seemed to be faster then the sprinting Ricardo. *Thunk!* He felt pain and then a sudden pressure in his head leaving a hazy feeling in his stomach.

The next thing he knew was waking up disoriented. He felt his feet were dangling above the ground. Ricardo heard an extremely loud constant noise in his his ears as five daggers of pain dug in his face. He reached up and tried to remove whatever was causing the agony in his face. He felt a hand. The creature had grasped onto his face with its claws and was currently holding him in midair. Adrenaline pushed Ricardo out of the haze of his concussion as he tried to pull away the claws that were digging deeper into to him. In a last ditch effort to free himself Ricardo gripped both his hands to pummel the thing. Through his right hand he felt as he grasped onto something. The remain of the iron bird stick! *Donk* The club hits the shadow in the face catching it off guard. With a sickening squelch the claws left his face and it fell on its back.

Ricardo felt his hands turn red hot and the smell of burning quickly entered the air as his survival instincts took over. He jumped on the thing and started beating its face into a bloody pulp. An indefinite amount of smashing later and Ricardo eventually stopped as he woke up from the haze that he had been in. The remains of the creatures head lay in pile of flat gore barely connected to the body of thing. It looked like a hairless stretched human with sharp claws on its hand and feet. It almost looked like it had had a large bucket of black paint recently dumped on it. Ricardo looked down at the ground to where the pieces of a club lay. They looked burnt and some were still on fire. While killing the creature he hadn't been aware of what was going on so he hadn’t noticed the random appearance of fire. *This has happened before hasn't it...the stick that lit on fire had originally combusted just like this...* Ricardo was connecting the dots to the strange circumstance before that he had forgotten about afterwards.

Ricardo felt an unknown compelling and has his eyes were drawn to a certain spot of remains of the creatures head. In the light of the burning stick pieces a small bloody bead rested slightly in the meat of the creature. It was slightly pale like a newborn and had very small black veins running throughout it like an eyeball.

Involuntary, Ricardo's hand moved towards it like it had mind of its own. *Gulp* Immediately, the strange lurching feeling he felt before appeared again in his head. A painful tingling sensation began to run throughout body and Ricardo fell to the ground. Eventually, the pain rose to a certain point and Ricardo lets out a muffled yelp. The painful sensation pooled at his fingertips. Through the torture he looked down at his fingers and noticed them glowing brighter and brighter. They looked like the tip of a metal rod that had been dipped in a blacksmiths forge.

Almost unnoticed a small unintelligible whispering sound crept into Ricardo's head. It rose in volume like it was being broadcasted from a television and the sound was being turned up. Before the whispering reached a certain volume, Ricardo manages to hear the sound of hissing around him. He pathetically rolled into the nearest bush and tried to cover his glowing fingers from the sniffers.

Author note: Sorry to break the tense moment but I'm starting starting school next week so updates may shrink down to one chapter every 4 days or so... I'm just happy I managed to get to this chapter up in so little time. Because... writing is seriously hard work!