Island Of The Cryptids

40

Jake climbed out of the lagoon, his hands trembling and his entire body soaking wet. He was scared. He knew what had happened.

The contagion was waterborne. He had just been in water. He felt it fill his windpipe, his lungs, his stomach. He felt his throat go dry and his muscles lock up, a terrible quesiness overcoming him.

He was infected.

His body was trembling from the drop. He barely had enough strength left to paddle his way to shore. He stood up, shaking himself off. He was so scared now.

He saw Kaeli had disappeared up the ravine, and she was now climbing to the top of the cliff. He was going to follow her. He could barely feel his legs now. He was so weak.

He crossed the river, feeling his body shiver in the cold flow of the stream. He climbed onto the rocks on the shore, then jogged as fast as he could past the explorer and the dens of the cryptids. He came to the dry patch that was the climb up to the top. It was a tight fit, and as he squirmed into the crevasse he felt the rock skim his nose.

It smelled of a wet limestone, the smell of graded moist rock. He maneuvered his hands around the rough edges of the rocks against his back. His stomach felt confined to the small walls, and he could almost feel something moving inside of him.

He wanted to vomit. He wanted to puke up all of his guts until all the worms were out of him. He had read what they did to your body. They sucked at your organs until your body shut down. It was a terrible, man-engineered biological weapon. A weapon of mass destruction that could kill a lot of people.

Why him though? Why did he have to be put in this situation of anybody else? Why did he have to take this god-awful flight that had to land here on this deadly island? He had no explanation. He began to weep as he came to terms with the fact that that was just how things were.

He crept in between the dry walls of the ravine, slightly climbing upwards on a winding slope. As he came closer to the end and the space widened and began to fill with snaking vines, he realized he would have to climb a small wall.

Into one of the caves.

He gulped as he gripped a vine, small fibers dug into his hands, stabbing his pores, filling him with atrocious pain. He hoisted himself up, his muscles straining with all of their might, quivering as he used all of his strength to pull.

He found a foothold, and rested a moment. He had a few more feet to go, so he threw himself upwards, catching onto the ledge of the cave. He used the last of his strength to pull himself up, and when he did, he lay on his back, wheezing in atrophy as he stared up at the stalactites that dripped chilling water from their pointed cones.

The cave wasn't too big itself, but the ceiling arched very high. It came down towards the pathway that lead to the surface, looking like an inwards cornucopia.

He stood up, breathing heavily. his head whirled, and he saw shadows dance in his vision. Green spots cluttered his eyes and he leaned against the wall, dizzy and confused. He walked deeper into the cave, breathing in the fermented stench of mulch as his footsteps echoed boundlessly against the walls and out into the valley.

The walls closed in on him as he walked. He passed so many bizarre funguses and plants, small ponds of water that were clear as day. He basked in the cool air of the cave, seeking the light at the end of the tunnel.

He noticed at one point that he may be in danger because of the change in smell. He wafted the scent of decay and death from a branching path of the cave. He stomached the smell and kept walking, following where Kaeli may have gone.

He heard the steady advance of claws against the rock ground, and he stopped dead in his tracks. He listened as they grew closer, then terrifiedly wheeled around to see a cryptid emerge from behind him.

It was very small, shorter than he was. It looked about the size of the thing that had taken Misty, what seemed like an eternity ago. It approached him snarling. Jake feared that this was the end.

But then the creature stopped. It looked up at him, then brought its snout close to his face and sniffed.

It licked him. Its tongue was rubbery and grainy, and felt like sandpaper against his cheek. He blew chunks into his mouth, his cheeks inflating and turning red. He couldn't really tell, but in the dim light of the cave he noticed how pale his skin was turning as the creature backed away.

He felt squirming on his face. He picked at the saliva cryptid left, and found a small, writhing worm.

The things were infected, too.

Jake didn't want to think about anything, he just wanted to get out of the cave now. Get off the island. Get anywhere but what he was now.

He saw a light from in front of him, not too high above him. It was a straight incline to the hole where the early light of the morning shone like a star. He started to run again.

"Help me..." a choked voice mumbled from the ground next to him. Jake jumped and looked down. He gasped at what he saw.

Misty lay with her back propped up against the wall, her face bloodied and scarred with black streaks of congealed blood. Her eyes bulged out like buttons, and her hair was slicked with grease and messy. Her torso, which had been cut open earlier now hosted a writhing nest of thousands of the worms, each of them squirming around, acting like a bandage for her wound.

Her ankles had been bit off, and the jagged cuts where her feet used to be were cauterized by a sickening bile. On her lap were trembling eggs. Eggs of cryptids.

Jake frowned. Then he began to cry. Misty looked at him with pleading, hopeful eyes.

"There is no help for us now," Jake said, and he kept walking.