Finally alive (Book 1)

III

After breakfast, we roll towards the pods' room. Norm was already there, chatting up a storm with Grace. Without much delay, we all go to our respective pods, me being incredibly excited about this. If I could, I would probably visibly radiate excitement.

In our avatar forms, we walk to the airfield, where Trudy and another human waited for us. As we four made ourselves comfortable with all the gear, we are finally airborne.

'Somebody's happy.' Grace comments.

'Yep. I don't remember last time I have been this close to trees. Or nature.' I explain, leaning out slightly through the open helicopter door. I gazed at the dense forest below us, with some clearing here and there. I breathed in and almost squealed at how the fresh air was. I know I'm acting like a child, but you try living in a nearly dead world, where greenhouse gasses sometimes replace oxygen.  

After about thirty minutes, we land. I hop out looking around. Grace asks Trudy to cut the engines, for we will be here a while.

Following that, Grace takes lead, not after scolding Jake for being too jumpy. I tease the marine, as we follow the doc deeper into the jungle.

'I wonder if the Na'vi know we're here.' I question out loud.

'Oh, they do know. I'm pretty sure they are watching us this very second.' Grace responds, making us three look around more vigilantly. Although I would love to meet a native, I also don't.

Finally, Grace directs Norm to get his gear out as they squat down by a giant root. Jakes wanders off, and I follow him, more interested in exploring the jungle than seeing the electromagnetic transfusion between the trees and collecting samples.

I step over another big root and discover Jake playing around with sort of red brownish swirly mushrooms. I chuckle at his antics.

'Are you sure this is safe?' before he answers I get my answer in a different way. All the mushroom things disappeared into the ground, revealing a humongous creature. He was similar to a rhino, but this thing wasn't a rhino.

'Jake.' I whisper as I stood behind him, itching to get out of there.

'Just stay behind me, Sena.' he demands, raising his gun.

Then Grace's voice reaches us. 'Jake, don't shoot. You'll piss it off.'

'It's already pissed off.' Jake growls towards her, relaxing his gun. I on the other hand, besides feeling my heart drum in my chest, I couldn't help but admire the creature.

'That armor is too thick, trust me.' Grace counters quietly. The animal trashes around more, taking a few more trees down. 'It's a territorial threat display, don't move or it will charge.'

'So what do I do, dance with it?' Jake spits out sarcastically, but this situation was anything but funny. My throat was dry as if I haven't drunk anything for days, and my face felt slightly cold.

'Just hold your ground.' Grace offers, her voice betraying worry.  The animal shook his head and lowered the distance between us, making my breath hitch. Jake did the same, yelling on top of his lungs and waving his arms around. For a second I thought he's dead meat.

I took a step forward as if I could stop him. 'Yeah, come on, whatcha got, huh?' Jake shouted as the animal got scared. The marine continued shouting at it when I heard a crunch behind me. I whip around and see a black panther-like creature, making my limbs go numb for a second. The rhino animal wailed and backed off just as the new creature jumped over us. Let me guess, this is about to get worse.

Jake stared at the creature wide-eyed as it roared. 'What about this one? Run don't run?' Jake demands, aiming at it.

'Run! Definitely run!' she yells and both of us take off without a seconds delay. I dodged trees and their branches, Jake right next to me. The creature roars and jumps, tackling Jake, his gun flying away. I stare in horror as the creature lifted him by his backpack. 

'Sena, run!' he yells fiddling with his backpack straps. As soon as he drops on to the ground he rushes me away. A few dozen meters and we are at a cliff. Knowing we only have a second we jump off almost immediately.

With air rushing through my ears, I pray to the skies that we won't die.

I hit water painfully, unable to move for a few seconds. Then I kick up and breach the surface again. Gasping for air I try to keep afloat. I move to where I saw trees and land. I fall limp as soon as I feel solid ground. I feel hands roll me over and Jake's worried face appears.

'Sena, are you okay?'

'Just peachy.' I grumble, accepting his hand. I look up when a roar reaches my ears. I frown worriedly as I look back to the marine, silently questioning him.

'We need to keep moving.' he mumbles, running a hand through his face. 'Uh, there is something in your hair.' he reaches towards my head and takes something squirming from it. It looked like it was some sort of little critter. Why did my hair had to be long? 

Somehow, nightfall came quicker than anticipated. Jake stopped us, as he was trying to craft himself a torch. I looked around nervously, hearing sounds that did very little to reassure me.

This is not how I imagined my first day out here.