Discovery

In the silence of the jungle, the waves were crawling gently to the shore. Leo continuously walked along the bank of the river leaving his bloodied footsteps behind.

"Why wasn't I abducted when I had my shoes on? All that running in the jungle gave me a lot of splinters."

[Ouch]

Leo maintained a certain distance from the river in fear of the aquatic monster but also avoided going back into the jungle because it seemed like the other creatures living in the jungle feared it as well.

"This is the safest place for me to be. I'll just continue down this…[Ouch] path until I find some answers"

He kept walking for what felt like hours. His stamina reducing with every step he took.

[Uh! Ah! Ouch!]

Leo was in a constant state of pain and he was also getting tired, hungry and thirsty. The chilly night made him feel really cold. Day break finally came with two suns replacing the two moons. The Sunrise came as if it had missed the sky and wanted nothing more than to warm up those blues to a radiant gold. This sight was not only beautiful but also a source of joy to Leo.

"That was a long night. For a moment I thought that the sun would never rise. At least now I can see clearly."

The heat radiating from the 2 suns warmed up his body and put an end to one of his problems but also added another problem to the list.

"Oh come on!"

Leo had been walking for hours and yet there was no end to the river bank in sight. From where he stood, he could see as far as a few miles ahead of him. This made Leo really unhappy, but he had no choice but to continue. He stared up to the sky looking at the suns.

"Is it me or is it getting really hot fast?"

Leo continued down the bank in hopes of finding something or anyone that could help him. It wasn't long before Leo began sweating, his skin getting clammy and a serious increase in his dehydration level. The heat from the 2 sun was unbearable and Leo was taking it head on because there were no trees on the bank to shield him.

His breathing became heavy as he got more and more exhausted from the walking and the heat. After some time had passed and he could not bear to continue without having something to drink, he decided to drink from the river even though he knew that that was a bad idea.

He was aware that the other creatures kept their distance from the water because of the aquatic monster or maybe it was just because the water was toxic. The thoughts of what could happen to him by drinking the water or trying to drink it were clouded by his desire to satisfy his thirst. He cautiously came closer to the river and knelt down.

"This is such a bad idea. But I can't help it, it's either this or I die of thirst."

He placed his hands in the water and curving them, he scooped up some water. He could see a clear reflection of himself in the water, but as he removed his hands from the water, the drops that fell back created ripples that distorted the reflection. Leo watched the water in his hands in an attempt to confirm how clean the water was before he noticed that his reflection in the water that was now distorted looked weird. He focused his attention on the water trying to understand what he was looking at before his eyes widened and glowed. He immediately did 2 backflips at the exact same moment that the aquatic monster reached out with its jaws to grab him. He gave the monster some distance before the attack and was saved as a result. The monster slowly submerged itself after missing out on catching its prey.

Leo was still in his landing posture and watched as the monster disappeared from sight. He glared at the water and stood to his feet.

"I have been walking for hours away from the river and yet, it was still able to follow me. How is that even possible? It never surfaced after it killed the other monster and yet it could tell where I was."

It was then that he realized that this monster that just tried attacking him was smaller than the first one.

"There's more than one. Fuck!"

He moved in place flustered about what he just came to understand.

"If there is more than one of this monster, then there has got to be more than one of the other monster."

Leo now sure of his decision to steer clear of the jungle and the river, continued on his journey down the bank while thinking about how he avoided that attack just now.

"I didn't know that I could do a backflip. My body just keeps surprising me. First was the energy boost last night and now, I have fast reflexes. I wonder what else I can do."

Just then he realized that the pain he felt all over his body had subsided. This prompted him to raise his feet to check out his injuries.

"No way, I knew it! My body has definitely changed"

The injuries were almost completely healed which meant that he had the ability to heal fast. Leo saw the glow that appeared in his eyes before he performed the backflip, but just thought that it was the sun rays that were reflected from the water that gave him the glow. It was now obvious that Leo's body enhancement was connected to the glow he had from time to time.

"Does it mean that the change my body is going through has to do with this new world. This is definitely like superman or John Carter where a being with a different physiology than the inhabitants of a planet gains abilities due to that difference in physiology."

But he was definitely not as strong or as fast as either superman or John Carter, but he knew that he was definitely better than he was back on Earth.

His excitement soon faded away when he realized that he was even more thirsty now, since that monster didn't allow him to have a drink. This was actually a good thing, because had he drank the water, then he would have surely died.

Hours had passed and Leo finally made it to the end of the bank where river formed a water fall. He could not find a way down and he could clearly see that there was no river bank separating the jungle from the river. He stood atop the waterfall for a while examining the landscape of the entire jungle and concluded that this planet might not even have any civilization. This conclusion was drawn from the fact that he could see that the jungle stretched out for hundreds of miles in all directions and this delivered a huge blow to the already exhausted Leo. Although, he might have felt different if he knew how big the Amazon rainforest on Earth was.

"I guess I have no choice. I stuck to the river bank and survived this long, but I'm thirsty and hungry and I really need to get out of this heat. I have to go back into the jungle."

Leo changed his course and went back into the jungle. He pushed back the branches as he carefully walked in and did so while trying to be as quiet as possible so as to not attract trouble for himself. The leaves of the branches that Leo passed by and the grasses that he stepped on rustled gently. But little did he know that he was already being watched by a something or someone from the top of a tree. It had a humanoid figure and only a silhouette of its body could be seen.