You, Me, And The Jungle

Day Two- Part One

Liam's P.O.V.

I yelp and jolt up. Those damn nightmares, they were haunting me again. My eyes scan the area. The fire had gone out during the night, as expected, but for some reason, Ethan was far off in the distance. I could see in his hand was another one of his cigarettes. He was taking a smoke break. After all the mud and rain we've been through, I wonder how his precious cigarettes were still intact and flammable. I'm actually rather happy that he can still use them to smoke. I wouldn't want to be stuck out in a tiger infested jungle with cigarette addict who's lost his mind because he hadn't smoked in a while.

I get up to and stretch out my muscles. Sleeping on the hard cold floor wasn't comfortable. My shirt was still a bit soggy and torn. I sneeze and wipe my nose with my sleeve. There was a cut on the back of my hand. It was tiny, but big enough to turn into something serious, like an infection.

I stroll over to Ethan, and put my hands into my pocket. "Mornin' sleepy head." He says, grinning a bit. I rub my eye. "You're up early, what for?" I ask, my speech was slurred from yawning. "I was collecting fire wood at different times of the night. When the fire went out, I figured that I just wake up for the day and ..." He tells me. I nod. "By the way, you were out like a candle. Mumbling 'bout some stuff..." He looked off into the distance. I nod my head again, still tired.

My stomach started to growl. I hold it. "You ok?" I hear Ethan's voice. I nod my head. "You sure?" He sounded a bit concerned, considering the situation that we were in. "Humans can last up to a month without food Ethan, I'm sure I'll be fine." I reply. My stomach growled again, except this time, it hurts! It felt like I had a tangled knot that was being pulled back and forth. I was starving! I hadn't eaten since breakfast before the first day we got lost. If I hadn't run after Ethan, I would've been with the others.

"Let's just keep moving on..." I suggest. He follows me as we keep going.

The sun always rises in the east. When we ran off, we had run west. All we had to do was follow the sun back east and we'd be on our way to the campsite.

Nearly an hour into the journey, I hear Ethan shout, "Berries!" My head whips around to find him stuffing his face with berries from an unknown bush. "Ethan!" I shout, but it was too late. He already had eaten a bunch. I shake my head and face palm myself. "Do you know what you've done!?" I say, pulling him back from the berry bush. He stares at me, completely, yet again, unaware of the dangers. "You may have poisoned yourself!" I say. "Oooooohhh..." He nods his head slowly.

I groan. "Come on. We'll just have to wait and see if you drop dead within the next half hour." I start to walk forward.

Blurred vision...

Rashes around the neck...

Stomach problems...

And lots of puking....

Those were his symptoms. I spent the next two sickening hours of my life trying to relieve Ethan of his symptoms. He couldn't see anything, so I had to tend to him like a toddler, spoon feeding him every insect that I could find. He nearly threw up on me.

"I can't wait to get back to the campsite. I'm so over this trip..." I mutter under my breath, grumbling every step of the way with sick Ethan. He'd stumble a few times, so I had to let him lean on me for support. "Y'know..." He started. He sounded like he was drunk, that one word alone sounded so slurred, I could barely even make out what he had just said. Whatever was in those berries must've taken a huge toll on him. He went on, babbling on about something. My attention was focused on getting us out of here.

We must be a least a couple of miles away from the camp, if not, so help me, I'm going to die out here with this guy. We kept walking. The dried and wizened leaves, underneath our shoes, crunched when we stepped on them. The forest was full of noisy birds, chirping, leaves shaking. All of these sounds were fine to me, except for when I heard a low growling sound. I turn to Ethan. He was already looking at the source of the sound. I lean over a bit to see two tigers sitting down. They seemed as if they were just resting, but one of them was staring at us.