Raven Academy for the Extraordinary

Chapter 12-

Chapter 12-

The jungle is how I would have imagined the rainforest to be. As soon as we step through the dense trees, everything else fades. The sound of laughter, screaming, and talking. Everything fades until you can just hear croaks, chirps, and buzzes from creatures in the jungle. The regular light fades until the only light filters through the trees, so everything's tinted green. If it's possible, it get's hotter.

Ellie had joined us and she now tries to fly up to the top, but the trees are so think they almost overlap each other. She can barely make it up. She shrugs.

"Looks like I'm going on foot."

Josh treks ahead, waving his hand over the plants. They shrink away from his hand which now seems to radiate darkness. He kind of shows off, smirking as he walks through the path he's just made. But the plants must be magical too because as soon as he walks by, the plants start to grown back over Ellie and I. We run, tripping and stumbling after Josh.

"Slow the heck down!" I grumble.

Josh smiles at me and walks ahead. "We're almost there."

"How do you even know where to go in here?" I ask. "Have you been in here before?"

"Yeah, I've been in here a few times. It's really cool at night. You should come sometimes." He has this glint in his eyes when he says this. Ellie looks at him but doesn't say anything about the curfew.

"And you actually survived this?" I shout so my voice can reach him so far away. "Ah!" I make some weird noise as I trip for the thousandth time. Ellie holds out her hand to me to help me up. Josh sighs and stops so we can catch up with him.

"No, I died." He says sarcastically as we catch up. I stick my tongue out at him AGAIN.

"Just shut-" He cuts me off by holding his arm out and I run into it, toppling back into Ellie who falls along with me.

I curse under my breath and feel the spot where my forehead hit something sharp. A thin trail of blood trickles down my face. Great. I look like I just went into battle rather than walking through a jungle. I stand up, wiping the blood and dirt off me. Seeing the blood makes me dizzy because there's so much. But I know head injuries usually look a lot worse than they are so I try to breath.

"Josh," I say with as much fury in my voice as I can manage without it shaking. "Tell us where the heck we're going before I murder you!"

"Shhhh!" He tells me frantically. His eyes widen a bit upon seeing my bloody head but he still motions for me to be silent. He looks back through the bushes and I follow his gaze. A... Thing... Stands there at a watering hole. It faces away from us so it hasn't spotted us yet. This Thing looks like it has the body of a goat. But when it turns a little, I can see it has the head of a lion. It's mane is caked with the blood of a recent- hopefully not human- meal. My eyes follow it's tail as it slithers along the ground. A serpent. A word pops into my mind but I can't believe it. It can't be a-

"Chimera," Josh breathes out the word, trying not to draw the beast's attention. It's ears twitch but it goes on drinking the water from the hole. I try to control my panicked breathing. A chimera stands before us. A chimera. This isn't possible.

"Just back away from it very slowly." Josh says and we start tiptoeing back.

Okay, this is the point in the story where you expect the main character (me) to step on a stick and the monster spots us. I wish my luck was that good.

Apparently Ellie was too close to me as I frantically tried to tiptoe back. So my foot steps on hers and I again take her down with me in a noisy fashion. I hear the beast growl as we scramble up. Josh takes my hand and pulls both me and Ellie up at the same time. As I start to run, everything goes in slow motion for a second. I can see the red eyes of the beast almost smiling at me evilly. It's lips seem to turn up in a smile too. I growls again as it starts the chase.

And I discover I can, actually, understand all animals. Because the next thing the Chimera does is open up it's mouth and say, "Dinner time".

Then it breathes white hot fire, turning the world to flames as we race away.

***

Samantha's over to the side. P.S. The more you comment, the more you're in the story!;)