It would be my first time to actually be in the field without my glasses. It was not like I would literally look all my surroundings as a blur without my glasses, as I could still have no problem in seeing clearly about three feet away from where I was standing. I had to admit however, that it would still mean that my sight had been greatly reduced without my glasses.
"Can you keep going without your glasses?" Billy asked me.
"No worries, I can still clearly see if there is an ant crawling up my arms." I responded to him.
"I will take that as a yes, then…" Billy chuckled.
A very strong wind then blew hard towards us, rustling the tall grasses and splashing the rain water very hard against us. It was a good thing that I already had my glasses removed by then, or I would have to wipe them all over again since the splashing rain water really made my face drenched in them. Even though I could not see it very clearly, I could still tell the sky above us was very dark then like it was already 5 p.m. when it was actually 10.12 p.m.
Shortly after, I felt like I heard a brief grass rustling sound from our left direction. I wanted to dismiss it and assumed it was just caused by the constantly blowing wind, but somehow I felt like something else caused it. I ended up deciding to tell Billy about it by asking him first if he also heard the sound.
"Did you hear that just now?" I asked Billy.
"Maybe it is just the wind making the grasses move." Billy replied to me, apparently shrugging it off.
"You can tell us the next time you heard it again, Travis." Jessica said and patted me from behind.
Exactly like what had I had been hoping, that it was just caused by the wind. But then, I believe it was not until a minute later that I heard the very same sound for the second time. What made me more concerned was that the strong wind had not blown again yet at that time.
"I heard it again!" I told the two of them with a low voice.
In almost an instant, the two of them stopped moving and had their attention locked at our left direction. I also turned, and saw a blurry figure of what might seem to be a similar rock that we used to hide earlier, but a little bit taller. If something else other than the wind had indeed caused the grasses to rustle earlier, then there would be a good chance that the thing was hiding behind the rock.
"Bill, is that a rock over there?" I asked Billy.
"Yes. And a little bigger than the one that we used to hide just now." he said, and confirming the blurry figure that I saw.
"How far do you think it is from here?" I asked him again.
"I guess it is about ten meters." he replied to me. "You want us to go and check it out?"
"Let us try and go around it, but we have to make no sound and stay close to each other." I responded to him as I readied my submachine gun.
Immediately after that, all three of us proceeded to approach the other side of the tall rock by crouch walking as silent as possible. I had the feeling that perhaps the two of them had their doubts on what I had heard, but as soon as the sound was heard for the third time I knew full well that both of them also heard it since they reacted to it, at least for Billy's case he gave out his surprised reaction by shivering for a brief moment.
"Okay, something definitely is behind that rock…" Billy said with a low voice and aimed his submachine gun towards the rock.
I could feel my heartbeat slowly became faster with each step that we took as we got closer to the other side of the rock. Perhaps if it was not a downpour, I would have my back drenched with profuse sweat due to my anxiety in facing a threat without my glasses. If it turned out to be an alien, it would also be my first time in entering combat without any proper vision aids.
Shortly after, we had arrived just on one corner of the rock and the other side of it was just beyond one foot from where Billy was standing. He then gave us the signal to stand by, before finally giving us the green light to storm the other side of the rock.
I held my breath just as we made a swift move and pointed our firearms towards the other side of the rock. Both to my relief and confusion, there was absolutely nothing there, except for the same tall grasses dancing because of the strong wind blowing it.
"At least we do not get to face another alien here…" Billy said as he sighed and lowered his submachine gun.
Just then, I had a feeling that something was watching us from right on top of the rock. It was almost immediately followed by a sudden emergence of a large shadow on the tall grasses. As soon as I turned to that direction, I noticed that a rather blurry tall figure was there and was watching us seemingly with some sort of staff on its right hand.
"What the-?!" I said, spontaneously just as the figure suddenly jumped and activated a beam on one end of its staff.
I quickly rolled to my right direction just before a loud thudding sound was heard. I immediately got up only to see that Billy had just been knocked away by the blunt end of the staff, sending him flying several feet further away.
"Bil- URGH!!" I rattled just before it attempted to stab me in the head with its beam spear.
It was then when I finally knew for sure that the figure right in front of me was none other than the alien. I managed to hold off the spear from piercing through my skull by holding the front handle using both of my hands, but it would also seem like it was for naught, especially since I could not aim my submachine gun towards its head and fire out a bullet to it. The worst thing was, the beam spear was still slowly reaching my forehead, eager to pierce through it within a few more seconds.
'Urgh, so much for being sneaky…' I thought to myself once I realized full well that the alien clearly overpowered me and had me literally pressing against the rock on my back.
'BTOOM BTOOM'
A couple of loud gunshot suddenly was heard, and almost immediately followed by the collapse of the alien. I slid down the rock in relief and exhaustion as I realized that Jessica had opened fire from her shotgun and fired upon the alien, taking it down for good. Very shortly after, Billy approached us running and quickly lent me a hand and helped me to get back up on my feet while he held his upper right chest with his left hand.
"I owe you one." I quickly thanked Jessica for her help, to which she responded by a couple of nods.
"And now, we have another problem…" Billy sighed, as he seemed to be holding the pain on his upper right chest.
"I believe you are thinking that the gunshot just now will attract many of the other aliens to come here?" I asked Billy as I readied my submachine gun again.
"Exactly…" he responded quickly. "But given this kind of weather, we should not have that much of a difficulty in evading them…"
"I should have just used my pickaxe just now, should not I?" Jessica said, with a guilty tone.
"No, no. You did the right thing…" I quickly shrugged off her guilt. "Both Billy and I would not be alive right now had you switched to your pickaxe first…"
Immediately after that, I told the two of them that we should hide behind another tall rock before the other aliens arrived on the scene. Billy quickly led us towards yet another taller rock and hid behind it just before I heard countless grass rustling sounds in the distance.
Just as the both of us had predicted earlier, I saw at least ten tall figures, or rather aliens coming out from the jungle and rushing into the grassy meadow in the distance. With the downpour still coming down on us, the dark sky still enveloping the whole area, and the wind still blowing hard, I started to think if the nature was actually on our side to counter the extraterrestrial creatures...