The Girl and the Naga

Chapter 6

I hadn't seen the jungle outside of Alec's cave, only the jungle I had been running through before.

It wasn't what I expected. I had expected to be immediately surrounded by tall trees and lush foliage, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a meadow of soft grass outside the cave. To the left was a line of trees where the lush jungle began. To the right was more meadow, and a river, which flowed right into the dense jungle.

"This is beautiful!" I exclaimed in open-mouthed wonder.

"Prime real-estate. I had to fight off a lot of other creatures to get this place. But it was worth it," Alec said.

"Definitely," I agreed.

I looked up at Alec, but he was staring off into nothing, and he appeared to be concentrating. His nostrils moved slightly, so I assumed he smelled something.

"Alec, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Hmm," he said, looking down at me. "Oh, nothing. I have to go check something. Stay here, you'll be safe."

He slithered off into the jungle to the left, leaving me alone in the meadow.

I looked around, searching for something to do. I walked over to the river and saw colorful fish swimming in it that I had never seen before. I decided to follow them as they swam upstream. I figured I would be fine. If I got lost I could follow the river right back to Alec's cave.

I lost the little fish after a while, and decided to see where I had wondered off to.

I was in the middle of the jungle, and tall trees and plants surrounded me on all sides. It was one big wall of green.

But I could see, in the distance, a different color. Something was bright red, and it appeared to be a flower.

Without realizing it, I had walked over to the plant. It turned out to just be a large hibiscus flower. But, just past it, was a clearing in the trees.

I walked out into the middle of it and looked around.

I was surrounded on all sides by trees that were at least 50 feet tall; I couldn't even see the tops.

Randomly, near the edge of the tree line, was a small tree with blue fruit. I recognized it as the blue-passion fruit I had eaten that morning. I picked a ripe one from the tree and brought it to my mouth, already excited about tasting its sweet juice.

But before I could bring it to my lips, something wrapped around my wrist and yanked my arm away from my mouth.

I yelped in surprise and dropped the fruit.

I examined what was around my wrist, and was surprised to find it was a vine. I stared at it a moment longer before I tried to pry it off of me. Unfortunately, I only succeeded in attracting another vine, which wrapped around both my wrists.

"What's going on?" I exclaimed fearfully.

"YOU DARE TAKE FRUIT FROM ME WITHOUT ASKING?!" a booming voice howled, scattering birds from the nearby trees.

I turned around frantically, trying to find the person speaking.

"I'm sorry!" I cried out, my voice laced with fear, "I didn't know! I swear, I'll never do it again!" I pulled on the vines encircling my wrists, but they held fast.

There was no answer.

"Please, let me go," I pleaded.

"No, I like you. I think I'll keep you," the voice said.

"What!?" I exclaimed.

Suddenly, the vines pulled me up off the ground and screaming into the trees.