Island Of The Cryptids

12

Hadden couldn't feel most of his body anymore. The rain had drenched him so much that his clothes clung to his skin. His lower legs were sliced and scraped from the plants of the jungle floor tearing at him as he walked. His boots were caked with mud, and his glasses were smothered with steam. The jungle radiated a harsh, tepid smoke whenever it rained, and it fogged up the underbrush with a watery haze.

Hadden decided that it would be best if he turned back now. He had wandered far enough, seen enough of nature. He was surprised that the dark vastness of the jungle's sprawl hadn't swallowed him up yet, and he was even more surprised that he hadn't lost his way, either. He had been following the slow decline of a gentle hill, walking in a diagonal slant towards the opposite direction of the plane's rear, if he were standing on the runway.

Here he found that the tree gaps had widened quite a bit, and the ground was now filled with jagged granite slabs that jutted out from the moist topsoil. The hill grew very steep here, and to avoid slipping on one of the rock ledges, he turned around and began heavily planting his feet one after the other for the climb back up.

Darkness surrounded him. It was everywhere. Every few minutes or so he had to take off his glasses then smear them into the fabric of his shirt to remove the mist. He mostly just smeared a blotchy patch of water on the lenses, but it provided a clearer vision than the grainy one of the fog.

After about ten minutes of traveling he arrived at what he presumed to be the top of the hill. He could tell this because of the cease of incline, and he now walked through thick vegetation. Leafy vines draped down from all of the trees, and they shimmered from the raindrops in the moonlight.

He heard a faint rustling noise in the distance to his right. He turned his head, but saw nothing but the treescape.

What if it was the thing he thought he saw from earlier? he thought to himself. Could the thing be following him? It had looked similar to what he had seen in his father's room that night. Its lumbering mass creeping through the dark. It couldn't be, though. What he saw wasn't real. He calmed himself down with some methodical breathing. He trudged through the muddy underbrush, maneuvering around the fallen logs and branches.

The rustling noise came again, this time, closer. It also sounded more from behind him. He stood there, staring at the location that he thought he had heard it from. Then it happened again, and he saw the leaves sway about six feet off the ground. He began to back up as the thing drew near. He found himself in a small clearing, where the soil was filled with human sized puddles that were rippling with rain and brackish colored. The rustling came to the edge of the circle that surrounded the clearing. Hadden stared towards it.

A monkey emerged from the canopy. Hadden sighed a relieved sigh. He got spooked by a monkey, how silly. The monkey's curious eyes looked at him, as its nimble hands grasped a tree trunk.

Snout shaped jaws about the size of human arms shot out of the treeline, and snapped shut around the monkey's body, crushing it under immense force.

Hadden started to run. He ran faster than he ever had before.