'This is Black Caiman. Calling to Nest, over' I sent the message through my watch.
'This is Nest. What is your status, Caiman?' the watch very shortly blinked and vibrated.
'We have reached the village.' I responded to the message. 'We can safely assume that this village was indeed attacked by the same aliens. Also, we found a survivor, one of the archeology team members who have arrived since yesterday.'
'Archeology team?' the next message showed, implying that the person who sat in front of the transmitter machine was confused.
'There was an archeological investigation about few possible sites of prehistoric relics and remains about three and half kilometers northwest of the village.' I explained through the watch. 'In fact, the footages earlier were recorded by her and one of her colleagues. So now, I want to request the permission to go to the sites after we have arrived at our next destination.'
'If that is the case, then yes, your permission is granted.' the responding message blinked and vibrated. 'But on one more condition Caiman. You are to ensure the archeologist's safety, and the task is yours and yours only.'
'Roger that, Nest. Proceeding to the next destination and the prehistoric sites, over and out.' I answered the incoming message, ending the transmission in the process.
Right after I had finished transmitting the messages, I began to assist Jessica in packing for food supplies as we would need them while we were on our journey to the next destination and the prehistoric sites, while Billy was still communicating with his Commander General. She also brought down her backpack as well as two of her colleagues'. Fortunately, it did not take Billy really long before his transmission also ended and could start to help us in the preparation.
"Fancy watch." Jessica said as she was zipping her backpack.
"This watch? Indeed, handmade." I responded to her while stuffing the other backpack with a couple of generic local pandan bread packs that she had brought down while I was still transmitting messages.
"No, I meant its function." She responded as she chuckled a little, "At first I thought it was just an ordinary old watch. Turns out it was in fact a spy-ish antique watch, huh?"
"Well, if that is how you want to call it, then go right ahead…" I said to her as I laughed a little while I zipped my backpack and carried it.
'Spy-ish watch', that was something that I had not heard for a long time. Nevertheless, since she was able to mention something completely fantasy like that, I assured myself that she had at least had some of her spirits back up again. It was kind of relieving to realize that she did not seemed to be really bothered and traumatized by what had just happened to her at the day before.
The three of us had then packed everything that we believed would be necessary for the journey. Since we would also be venturing out on late afternoon, Jessica had also stuffed a flashlight inside each of the backpack. Of course, both Billy and I already had our own flashlight right from the beginning. However, it also would not hurt at all to bring a couple of spares in case our own flashlight malfunctioned later on.
Billy then opened the door again, revealing the condition of the misty weather outside the mansion and bringing inside the cold gentle wind in the process. Even though it had been more than two hours, the mist had not subsided, yet if we were to wait any longer it would most likely be dark outside before we could manage to get back to the mansion. Therefore, we ultimately decided that we were to go right away.
"I just want to make sure." Jessica said as Billy had closed the door behind us. "So does this mean that we are also going to the site, as well?"
"Yes, yes we are." I responded to her as I noticed her concerned face and turned to Billy, who only nodded twice.
"I just hope that those aliens were not waiting for us there, then…" she replied to me, as she sighed hard and looked straight to my eyes.
At that moment, I feel like I could not answer to her worries. I noticed right away that somewhere deep inside, she only wanted to run away and hide until all of the horrors were over, yet she also fully realize that she had to go through all of it and to see it until everything was finished. I could only nod and looked down before slowly turning around and began to walk.
"Let us go…" I said with a low voice.
We began by stepping on the muddy soil grounds and slowly going deeper into the mountainous forest. The mist felt like they suddenly closed in on us as the view of the sky was slowly blocked by the tree branches and leaves. After some more while, I could no longer see the village behind us since all elements of the forest and the mist covered it. Before I turned back to see what was in front of me, I looked at both Billy and Jessica who were on the back and the middle of the line to see that they seemed to be still doing just fine.
Muddy grounds by muddy grounds, and trees by trees, it had been already around twenty minutes when I looked at my watch again when it showed 04.41 p.m. After that, I looked back again and saw that both Billy and Jessica seemed to still completely show no signs of fatigue. It might be normal for Billy, since he definitely had an intense training at Special Forces Command for having a rather good endurance. For Jessica's case however, I was amazed at how she was able to keep up with the two of us, especially since we had not slowed down or stopped for a bit since we began venturing earlier.
"What is it?" Jessica asked me, as she kept on hiking up the muddy grounds.
"Nothing. I was just amazed at how you are able to keep up with me and Billy." I responded to her, as I smiled.
"I just do not want to be a burden to the both of you." She replied to me, smiling back and sighed once.
Suddenly, a small landslide happened just at the ground where Jessica was stepping on, making some parts of the ground surface extremely slippery and forcing her to lose her balance and nearly fell to the slowly collapsing ground. Fortunately, I managed to grab her hand just before she fell and got carried away by the collapsing ground. Billy also managed to jump to his right side towards a tree with two large branches. As I helped her back on her feet again, Billy climbed the tree branch and walked slowly towards another nearby large tree branch before jumping towards the ground right beside me.
"I owe you one, Travis." Jessica said to me, as she looked me in the eyes and still holding my hand.
"Just barely…" I responded to her, somehow could not direct my eyes away from her eyes and holding her hand still.
Shortly after, I noticed right away that about one third of the whole path width was experiencing land slide as it was slowly collapsing towards the direction to the village. I asked if the village would be still fine with the landslide, to which Jessica said that it was a rather normal phenomenon for all of the areas of the mountain and that the village had experienced worse. The landslide that was happening was barely of any concern to the village since it moved very slowly and only a portion of the path.
"Do not worry. The village had endured landslides much worse than this one." Jessica said, as she looked at the moving grounds.
"If you say so…" I responded to her, as I turned back to the direction in front of me.
Suddenly, Billy crouched and prepared his submachine gun while he had his eyes completely focused on the direction in front of us. Since I still had no idea what he could had seen, I proceeded to do the same and suggested Jessica to crouch between the two of us. She agreed immediately, and the three of us had our alert positions before I asked him what he had seen.
"What is it?" I asked Billy, as I also aimed my submachine gun towards my front.
"I think I have just seen some kind of a silhouette…" Billy responded to me, with a very low voice.
"Terbang, Bill?" Jessica asked him, making sure if the silhouette seemed to be flying in the air.
"Iya… melayang…" Billy confirmed her.
At first, I could barely see anything in front of me except for the mist that completely covered our surroundings and greatly reduced our range of sights. However, shortly after I could notice that something was indeed somewhere in the distance in front of us. It could only barely see it, but somehow I was quite sure that it was floating in the air. The thing that surprised me was not the sudden sight of the thing, it was rather the fact that they seemed to be more than one, possibly three or even four since they looked like they were blocking the path in front of us.
"Strange…" I said with a low voice and a confused mind, "If they were the same aliens as before, why are they grouped up instead of splitting up like the earlier?"
"Can they have noticed that some of their friends are already dead back at the village? Is that why they raised their guards?" Jessica asked me about her opinion, also with a low voice.
"No, almost impossible." I responded to her as I turned to her. "The distance between this spot and the village is quite far. Besides, we attacked those aliens earlier with suppressed firearms except for the last two with your shotgun."
"There is one more possibility…" Billy said to us, as we turned to him. "They may be grouping up due to their lack of vision under this mist as well…"
Billy explained to us that basically it is only natural for living things, particularly that of intelligent ones to go back to their senses and utilized their survival instincts by gathering to their own kinds whenever they felt like a threat might be imminent. Since we knew for sure that the aliens were highly intelligent as well, he was pretty much sure that they felt like they could be in a less favorable position for the time being possibly due to their inability to see through the mist.
He added that the gunshot noise from Jessica's shotgun had them definitely alerted about the presence of something else that could kill them since the noise must have echoed quite far deeper into the forest. All of that happened when they were all scattered from each other.
Since it had been some time after the noise, and in addition to the formed mist, the aliens would most probably refer to going out in groups, as opposed to scattered individually from then on. Besides, should they had no problem seeing through the mist, they would have already noticed our presence from the beginning as well.
Jessica then made sure if another step forward along the path was definitely inadvisable, to which Billy immediately nodded, while the option to go back was also impossible at that point since the ground right behind us was currently still too volatile to hold any more weights. At that point, there was only one more option occurred to my mind, which was to force our way slowly inside the forest right besides us, and took a detour while we also distanced ourselves from the aliens. It was also then when Billy advised the same thing, apparently for once we were thinking exactly alike.
"We need to get inside this forest beside us." Billy said as he slowly began to crouch-walk. "We have no other choice…"
I let Jessica to follow him first, while I was still watching at the floating aliens in front of us, which strangely seemed to be just floating there. It did not take until 30 seconds before I turned and began to follow the two of them inside the forest. Of course, I had to crawl under several obstructing large roots first before I could stand up again and followed them by crouch-walking. When I was back on my feet again, I was already several feet behind the two of them.
It made me quite relieved that the forest was not as dense as it looked from the path outside, although I still had trouble moving swiftly inside. I completely realized that it just made sense then on why the aliens could not move fast without making branch cracking noises and wind whooshing sounds earlier. After that we crouch-walked again without saying any word and preventing ourselves from making any noises, not even a single leaf-cracking sound.
At least around fifteen minutes had passed before we decided to stop for a little moment again and looked back just to be sure that the aliens did not secretly following us from behind. When we could be sure that absolutely nothing was following us, we began to proceed again to the path outside the forest. As we were going out to the path again, Jessica asked the two of us about any possible explanations on why we were able to see the aliens, albeit in a blur when our surroundings are covered in mist, as opposed to when it was clear.
"Why do you think we are able to see those aliens only when it is misty or raining?" Jessica asked us.
"Travis may have an explanation as to why we are able to see them underwater." Billy said to me. "As to this mist, well… I would like to hear your explanation first…"
"Yes… I have few thoughts about it…" I said to them. "I will tell you both later on after we have arrived at the destination and the site."
Shortly after we finished talking, we had arrived at the destination point that Billy and I originally had to come to. There was nothing there, except for the fact that the path had been forked into three paths. Billy told us that the whole dispatched Special Forces Command team was to originally rendezvous at that point after we were to split up. However, with what had happened to us earlier, the point only then functioned as a reference on where we had to go next from there.
Fortunately, since it was exactly on the similar way to the site, which was the decided next destination we had no problem in going there at all. Jessica told us that we were to go to the left path, the one that the archeology team had gone to during their first day. She led both Billy and I along the way to the site, and despite the mist that seemed would not subside any sooner, she walked along as if the path ahead of her was clear as daylight.
Eventually, we arrived at what seemed to be a rather large dry basin, with a lot of excavation tools scattered all over the place, as well as several light stands, still emitting their lights. Jessica then approached one of the spots at the basin, while Billy sat at the nearest soft rock, perhaps to rest his feet for a while. I looked at my watch, to see that the time was then 05.28 p.m. The sky had then begun to get dark, yet we had just arrived at the first site. I also began to wonder if coming to the site was a wise decision to make at all…