The sound of three continuous thunder rumblings greeted us as we just began our way to the third village. An indication of imminent rainfall, added by the fact that the clouds right above us seemed to get thicker and the sky slowly becoming darker made me somehow felt more relieved. Not because the rainfall would provide us more cover from the aliens, but rather that it would made me keep fresh and awake, especially since I somehow started to feel a little bit sleepy.
Thankfully the road ahead of us was not steep in the slightest, otherwise both Billy and Jessica would most likely pick up some sort of a hint that I began to have my eyes not fully opened anymore. I also still could see the pebbles and mud holes on the road that I would not make myself trip over them and fall to the ground.
I even thought about taking out my water bottle to splash my face with it, but then I also thought about the possibility that there could be no edible water source on the next village which would mean that I would not be able to refill it. Aside from that, I also had not seen any signs nor sounds of a rushing water from some sort of a river and therefore I cancelled my intention.
I looked at my watch again, and saw that the time was then 05.18 p.m. It made me realized that the dark gray sky right above us was actually a combination of both past after noon and heavy cloudy skies. If anything, the nice, gentle and windy breeze that flew past us once in a while did not help me in my struggle to keep my eyes open and wide awake at all. Instead, it only boosted my sleepiness.
In the end, I began to think that I might have to consider about the local weather in the first place before agreeing to be deployed into another operation next time. Then again, I supposed I could not say much if the matter was of global emergency condition. When I turned to Billy and Jessica, they did not seem to be feeling as fatigued and tired as I did. That was what it looked like at first, until when I noticed that Jessica had been walking with a little stagger.
"Hey, are you feeling okay?" I asked her as I approached her.
"Just… feeling a little exhausted, otherwise I am fine though…" she replied to me softly.
"Well, this windy breeze also does not help much in keeping our spirits up, does it?" I responded to her as I sighed.
"I was waiting on when will either the two of you are going to say it, you know…" she said as she chuckled. "It made me kind of sleepy too."
Apparently, it was not only me who felt like the current weather hindered our remaining spirits, not to mention that the distance we had covered were still less than one mile. Perhaps we had just barely covered one third of the total journey, and as far as we had gone there were nothing around us except from tall trees with many sharp edged branches and a knee-tall grassy grounds.
Shortly after, another couple of thunder rumblings were heard again, and it was almost immediately after them that the rain began to fall upon us. I was kind of worried that it would make the ground slippery at first, but as we kept on walking it turned out that it was not slippery at all, much to the least of my expectation but also gave me one thing less to concern about.
"Looks like we will not be sleepy anymore…" I said to Jessica.
She only smiled at me as she continued walking. I turned to Billy, who was wiping his face off the rainwater twice before he noticed that I was looking at his direction. He only nodded once to me when he was done before he seemed to be back at focusing on our surroundings. As I had expected, the rain became heavier shortly after it started, making us completely drenched in a very short time.
Suddenly, Billy stopped moving, as if he had just seen something that surprised him. Neither Jessica nor I could tell what that could be, and so I approached him to ask him about it. However, just as I was about to ask, he quickly raised his right hand and gestured me to keep quiet. He then slowly crouched and instructed us something that indicated a nearby threat was present.
"Get down and move slowly…" Billy said in a low voice as he quickly but silently drew out his firearm.
I followed his actions in a short time, and as I was just about to tell Jessica what we had to do, she already did the same. Apparently, she noticed what might be going on based on our movements since when I turned to her again she already had her shotgun ready on her arms.
Billy led both me and Jessica in continuing our way to the village. I could not notice anything wrong ahead of us at first, especially since the heavy rainfall reduced my effective sights on my surroundings. That was until I began to hear what seemed to be a faint grass rustling noise in the distance. In reflex, I aimed my submachine gun towards the direction of the noise, which was a bit to the northwest direction from where we currently were.
"Did you hear something?" Billy said, as he shortly also aimed his submachine gun towards the same direction.
"Yes, faintly…" I responded with a low voice.
We waited for a while, before we decided we had to move out again unless we wanted the sky to go completely dark before we reached the third village. Then, I heard another grass rustling noise, followed by the third, fourth and fifth witch each noises kept on getting louder, indicating that we were getting closer to the source of the noise. I tightened my grip on my firearm, as I eventually saw and realized what caused those noises.
It was the sight of the very same flying alien, completely not camouflaged sitting on top of what seemed to be a rock, and it looked completely unbothered at all by the heavy rainfall as it chewed down on several plants. When we moved for a closer look, it was finally revealed that it was chewing, or rather eating some sort of grass plants, with several similar features as that of sugarcanes.
It really was a complete shocking surprise for me, as I had never expected before, not even during the three years gap. I did not saw Jessica's facial expression, but I had a perfectly clear sight of Billy's reaction. It must have been a complete mind blowing revelation for him since he had both his eyes bugged out, unblinking and had his teeth gritted hard. I was also more surprised to see that it was not only one alien, but six instead, and all seemed to be fully attached to their meals as they ate the sugarcanes like they were barbeques on a stick.
Just then, I came upon a realization regarding their diet and a possible explanation on their viscous and sweet aroma blood. If I were to think that they had similar plants like sugarcane as their main source of food, then it would make a perfect sense that there would be a sweet smell coming out from their blood.
I did not know anything about how they processed the sugarcanes inside their bodies, but apparently the chemical contents of the plants were already enough to provide adequate energies for them. Aside from that, I also could not rule out the possibility if their bodies were far more efficient in turning food sources into energy, especially if plants like sugarcanes were the only food that they had to eat for the rest of each day. I quickly turned to Billy, who also looked like he might have arrived on the same hypothesis.
"Wild sugarcanes…" Billy said in a low voice. "Those sugarcanes were probably planted by the villagers long ago before they abandoned their homes."
"And somehow, the remaining sugarcanes that had yet to be harvested then kept on surviving and flourished on their own up until now…" I continued his words, resulting in his nod.
I then warned both Billy and Jessica to crawl from our current location and onwards, in order to not gain the attention of the feasting aliens. We actually had the advantage of moving more freely and quickly with the current heavy rainfall, otherwise they would most likely notice a strange movements from the grass grounds. Everything was going rather smoothly, and we were exactly just across of the feasting beasts when suddenly another unexpected shocking thing happened right before my eyes.
It was the sudden appearance of other four aliens directly from the directions of the earlier six, carrying a bundle of countless sugarcanes straws and sat down on the grass ground, creating a mild thudding sound and vibration, before one of them seemed to approach me.
In an instant, I suddenly felt like I could not move my body at all. Cold sweat instantly ran down my forehead, neck, and back, making me extremely difficult to not have my hands shaking. My mind went blank within a blink of my eyes, and I could no longer think straight as I was only imagining how my dead body would be found in the future.
Just then, the alien sat down and facing the earlier six after it had put down its staff before it proceeded to take approximately three straws of sugarcanes and ate it with the exact same manner. When it had done, it threw away the cane stalks like they were garbage towards my direction, landing only roughly a half feet away from my face.
I could not believe at all that it looked like it was ignoring my presence, or rather was not aware of my presence until it proceeded to throw away its third garbage to the front of my face that I began to convince myself that it was the case.
I closed my eyes almost instantly after that, and took countless deep breaths before I could finally calm myself down and decided on what we should do next. I first did not bother myself to look back and see how Billy and Jessica were doing since I was completely sure that they were still terrified at what they had just seen. I slowly gestured my right hand towards our right direction, signaling that we had to slowly crawl towards the direction until further signal before we would begin to move forward again.
The first move was taken, then the second, and third, fourth, until we were slowly getting further away from the feasting beasts, still without them noticing our presence. Perhaps we were already about six to seven feet away from them when I began to think that we should be able to move forward again after we were roughly twelve feet away, before another thing suddenly revealed to be an additional obstacle in us moving unnoticed.
It was when I felt that my right hand was touching some sort of a sticky and muddy surface that I instantly turned towards my right direction. I realized right away that we were on the swamp shore, and just by a short glance, it was indeed a rather large swamp with almost no trees, and only very few grasses scattered on its surface. Other than that, it was just a large black pool of water.
I then turned my attention towards the four aliens that was still feasting on the bundles of sugarcanes some distances away from the other six, and noticed that two of the four aliens were directly facing towards the right direction, with the other one still facing the group of six, and the last one facing opposite the first two. With our current condition, and the heavy rainfall that was still pouring on us, I realized that we had two options that must be taken as quickly as possible.
The first one was to continue crawl straight ahead along the grass grounds and taking the risk of getting noticed by the two facing towards the direction of the swamp, or the other option was to dip ourselves into the swamp until neck deep, and from then on move slowly towards the back of the swamp grass, creating as small water trails as possible.
The first plan would work and supposedly the risk of getting noticed is not high, provided that the rainfall would not lighten, let alone stop all of a sudden. The second plan on the other hand, would depend on how fast and how long the aliens would take their time to finish their meals. From what I had seen, the four aliens nearest to where we currently were would most likely just have started their feast.
The earlier six, however might have their feast for quite some time already and that would mean they could finish at any given time. If only I could find out where the group of six had thrown away their garbage and where they put their bundles of sugarcanes, I might be able to at least have a rough estimation on how much they had eaten and when they would finish.
Several seconds had passed, and I still had yet to reach any decisions on which options to choose yet the skies were getting darker. Within a few seconds, I closed my eyes hard and opened them up as I reached upon my decision – to use the second option, despite the risk that one or some of the earlier six might finish their meals before we had gone quite far from them since they would be able to move freely by then.
My right hand felt very heavy when I was about to signal both Billy and Jessica that we had to proceed along the swamp, especially since I knew full well that Jessica could not swim. By the time I came back to my mind again, I had gestured both of them to get inside the swamp, and there was no taking it back anymore.
I tried my hardest to stay focus and calm as I turned to the ten aliens, with the attempt to find out how fast they ate on average. Very shortly after, I felt someone patted me on my right shoulder and when I turned to that direction, it was none other than Billy. I was actually rather surprised that they seemed to be agreeing with what I had signaled them, although I also had my doubt if they had any other alternative options.
Just before I moved towards the right direction, Billy told me that we would both have to lock our arms to both Jessica's since she would not be able to keep herself afloat. I gulped as I nodded, since I thought that I had just brought up another serious consequence of my decision. I noticed that Billy had locked his right arm against Jessica's left arm, and thus I proceeded to go towards Jessica's right side before I would lock my left arm against her right arm.
When I had positioned myself on her right side, I was shocked to see that she had closed her own eyes with a piece of a torn purple cloth. I immediately noticed that the cloth had the very same color as her t-shirt and it was at that moment that I realized she had torn about a third of her right sleeve and used it as a blindfold. I understood full well that it would not have to happen if it was not for my decision, and therefore I felt the necessity to tell her something at least to make her more at ease.
"Trust me, okay? When I pat you once, it means you have to take a deep breath as long as you can. When I pat twice, you can breathe again." I said to her very softly as I locked my left arm against her right arm slowly.
"I do…" She responded to me, with a smile and a nod but also with her lips shaking.
I glanced at Billy again, who also at looked at me and nodded at me once. I replied him with the same thing before I closed my eyes for about five seconds and opened it again, and finally began to embrace the cold black water right on my right direction as I crawled towards it.
The water quickly covered my whole body and before I knew it, the water already reached my lips. I quickly patted Jessica once on her shoulder right before the water reached my nose, and I closed my eyes as the water eventually reached my forehead and shortly after, my whole body. I closed my eyes for a short while until the water covered my whole body before I opened them again and continued to crawl deeper into the right direction.
With each seconds passed, I could also hear my heartbeat pounded faster little by little. Each seconds felt like one minute, and one minute felt like it was an hour. When it had been approximately two minutes had passed, I glanced to Billy who had been also completely covered completely in water. Thankfully, about four seconds after that he also looked at my direction and therefore I signaled him to resurface.
Billy nodded and I quickly tapped my foot to the swamp floor, boosting me a little faster in resurfacing. I slowly stuck out my head out from the surface, until the water touch just below my chin and was instantly greeted again by the heavy rainfall from the sky before I gave Jessica a couple of pat, signaling her the green light to take a breath again.
I slowly pointed the nearest floating grass with my right hand sticking out from the water surface, fixing our first checkpoint for the moment. The idea was to let him know that the grass would be a safer spot for us to stick our heads out before moving out to another one.
The floating grass was perhaps about twenty feet away from our current location, and Billy immediately nodded once I had finished pointing towards the direction. I then gave Jessica another pat, and counted ten seconds before we began to submerge ourselves underwater again.
First of all, we did not have the convenience of swimming right away to the spot where the grass was floating as it could make unnecessary waves on the shore that could give a slight hint to the aliens that there was something inside the swamp. Instead, we had to walk underwater for six feet straight towards our first checkpoint. I initially thought that it would take us about two and a half minutes to get there, but surprisingly we managed to reach it with just a bit more than two minutes.
We resurfaced slowly and carefully, as to not create a large water trail around us. I patted Jessica twice before she began to breath slowly again. Still locking our arms to both Jessica's, we carefully looked out for another nearest floating grass, and it did not take Billy long before he pointed another grass, which was about thirty feet away from our current location.
I gave us thirty seconds time on surface, before we then began to proceed to the second floating grass. I patted Jessica once, as we went submerged again ten seconds after and walked on to the second checkpoint.
At first, the swamp floor was plain, and had no rough surfaces whatsoever, until perhaps we were already covered about a half of the distance that I noticed there were many tree trunks on the swamp floor. I had my worries when I took my first step on the slippery trunks, but I managed to quickly adjust with the condition and made the rest of the needed distance with no more obstacles.
It took us a little longer than our time for the first checkpoint, and when we resurfaced again I noticed that the floating grass was a bit taller than the previous one. Billy decided to look for our third checkpoint, while I kept my eyes on the aliens. It was also at that point when I realized that we had actually gained ourselves some distances away from the aliens if we were to decide that we would go back to the land.
However, I somehow had the feeling that we should not go back yet as it was still too risky to take even though I estimated that we would be perhaps about twenty five feet away from the nearest alien if we were to go back. Billy then pointed our third checkpoint, which was yet another floating grass about twenty feet away from the second one. We proceeded to the same thing before we went underwater again, and continued our way to the third checkpoint.
Things just seem to obstruct our ways no matter how careful we were. If we were presented with immovable slippery trunks covering the swamp floor on our way to the second checkpoint, than in the case of our way to the third checkpoint we were presented with a movable thing.
It was the sight of a thin, but a considerably medium sized snake swimming pretty swiftly towards our direction, although indirectly. It was not its size that immediately fell to my concern, but instead it was whether or not it was a venomous snake, and to determine it, we had to move carefully and slowly towards its direction.
I was extremely shocked to the point that I nearly let out some air bubbles out of my mouth when the snake suddenly changed its direction, however shortly after I was relieved to see that it head a round-shaped head, a distinguish feature for non-venomous snakes.
I did not mention anything or even signal anything about the snake to Billy when we resurfaced again, deciding for myself that it would only waste our time for that moment if we did. We switched roles on determining the next checkpoint and to keep on a lookout at the aliens.
Almost a minute had passed, and I still had yet to find any feasible checkpoint. However, Billy did confirm that if we were to go back to the land again, it would supposedly be safe although he pointed the spot where there were more trees that could provide us more cover from the sights of the aliens.
Our distance from the floating grass to the land with trees was perhaps about thirty to thirty five feet away. If I was to estimate how long it would take us to get there based on our previous checkpoints, I would say it would be around three minutes or a bit more, a duration that I somehow concerned for Jessica's part. Nevertheless, I agreed upon Billy's suggestion and unlike the previous ones, I let them to prepare their breath for thirty seconds before submerging ourselves again.
When the first minute had passed, I could begin to feel that the depth of the swamp was getting shallower, however we still had our heads submerged underwater until we would have to crawl ourselves out from the water. Then, just when the second minute kicked in, I felt like something had swum through my back and attached itself there. It did not take long for me to guess that it was none other than a leech, sticking itself and sucking my blood when I least expected it.
However, I forced myself to let my mind off of that matter for the time being, since I would not want to be the one impeding our way back to the land again. Shortly after, Jessica suddenly groaned twice that I had to stop walking and closed her mouth to prevent her from letting out any air bubbles. Realizing that either she also had a leech attached to her body, or that she was almost out of breath, I quickened up the pace, and crawl perhaps twice faster than I did earlier when we were approaching the first floating grass.
When we finally had our heads stuck out to the surface again, with some parts of our body not submerged we all took a deep breath but still as quiet as possible. Jessica also proceeded to quickly unbind her blindfold before she told me that earlier she felt like there was something crawling on her body.
"Itu lintah…" Billy said, stating that it was most likely a leech that attached itself to her body.
"Hah?!" Jessica responded, did not seem to believe, or expect what she heard.
I then urged both of them to rush into the deeper side of the trees, which seemed to be another forest, especially since the sky had gotten nearly completely dark then. With the aliens behind us could no longer be seen in the slightest anymore, I followed the two of them who had gone ahead of me a few seconds earlier. The rainfall still continued and I could no longer guess when it would stop, I only gave myself a little hope of finding our third haven without any other obstacles ahead of us…