Scared

Jed's heart was pounding so hard against his chest. He was scared of whatever was out there, and the closeness of Seo Jin's warm body was not making things easier for him. The growling seemed to be getting closer. He gently removed Seo Jin's hands from his body and stood up before tiptoeing around, searching for his backpack.

The cave was pitch black so he had to feel around its floor for his backpack. Suddenly, white lasers shot from his eyes, making them ache slightly. Jed screamed, before he realised it had probably been set off by the chip in his head.

After the scream, the growling increased but Jed spotted his backpack near one of the corners.

David climbed the rock separating them from the rest of the cave and looked around. His eyes immediately found a monster that looked like a crocodile, but more menacing. It was crawling around the floor of the cave, sniffing the area. Its eyes were not so bright in the darkness. He glanced at the knife he'd removed from his backpack as the monster stopped moving around, as if sensing him.

Knowing he couldn't take it on his own, Jed slowly climbed down and crept towards Miles and Andres' chamber. For a workaholic, Andres slept quite soundly. Jed quickly shook them awake.

"What do you want?" Andres asked.

"There's a croc-like monster in the cave."

Before he had finished speaking, Andres was already up. He went and quickly dug in to his backpack, retrieving a dagger.

"Are you going alone?" Jed asked hopefully when Andres started moving out of the chamber.

"No, you're coming with me."

Jed followed Andres who led him to a higher rock. The monster was climbing over the rock wall Jed had first observed it from. Jed screamed, making the monster pause and turn its big head.

"What the hell!" Andres said angrily.

"We can't let him go there," Jed reasoned. "David can't fight, you know."

Suddenly Jed jumped off the rock onto the main floor of the large cave. He was followed by Andres whose eyes were now glowing as well. Suddenly, the monster quickly crawled down the rock. Jed's tightened his grip on the knife in his hand. His hands were shaking so much he thought it would fall.

He frowned when the monster started a fast crawl towards the entrance of the cave. Instead of feeling relieved, Andres started running after it and stabbed the tail. The monster swiftly turned his head and Andres ran back into the cave, abandoning the dagger stuck to the monster's tail. Surprisingly, it didn't attack Andres but continued leaving the cave.

Andres and Jed stood there, staring after it. None of them moved until miles spoke from the rock above. "You just wasted a good dagger."

Not wanting to be part of an argument, Jed left them and climbed up before heading to the compartment with David and Seo Jin.

"Thank you," Seo Jin said. "I was so scared."

"No problem," Jed said, before laying on his sleeping bag. He hadn't slept a wink and wanted to get a little sleep before morning. However, he got only got two hours of sleep. He tossed and turned most of the night, thinking about monsters and the unknown horrors that awaited them in Castia. No one knew how the Castians treated foreigners.

David was the first to wake up. By the time Jed woke up, David was seated by the wall, leaning against it while eating some of the red berries they'd saved from last night. David's stomach had drastically reduced overnight.

"How are you?" Jed asked him.

"I feel better," David said. "Less pain. I thought I'd die overnight. Those stupid berries could have killed me."

And yet here you are, eating berries. Jed wanted to say but kept his mouth shut. Had it been him who got food poisoning, he wouldn't be in the mood to eat anything.

"That's good. I think we'll have to cover more distance today. Please don't finish all the berries." Jed said, glancing at the remaining berries. Seo Jin had put them in two paper plates and David had nearly finished one. "That's all we have for our group."

"We're in groups now?" David asked excitedly.

"Not really," Jed told him.

"Can't you both see that someone is still sleeping?" Seo Jin raised her head. Her black hair was still bone straight, falling on the sides of her face. Any other person with that much hair would be having a bird's nest, but not Seo Jin, apparently.

"Get up, you lazy loafers." Andres said as he and miles made their way into the compartment. The two looked fresh and ready to get moving. He looked at David. "Can you walk?"

David nodded. "I think so, but I'll probably be slower than usual."

"If you eat anything poisonous again, we'll leave you to die." Miles said.

"I know you won't," David said. "We need the general system more than the individual ones."

Miles chuckled. "You think so? Don't underestimate us. If you die, we can just cut open your head and take out that chip. Get up and stop acting like you're a baby."

"Exactly," Seo Jin added. "We may have been nice to you yesterday, but that was because it was our first day here. Try any kind of stupidity again and you'll face the consequences alone. We have enough problems already. We didn't sign up to babysit you."

"Okay fine," David said, standing up. He wobbled, so he placed his hand against the wall. Then he laughed and walked to pick up his bag. Jed put together his sleeping bag and attached it to his backpack before following miles and Andres outside where they waited for the other two.

"Isn't that your dagger?" Miles asked Andres.

Jed followed his line of vision and saw a dagger stuck to one of the creepers by the cave wall. Andres ran and grabbed it then returned it a smile. "I thought I'd lost it. Let's go. They'll find us on the way."

"How will they know which route we've taken?" Jed asked, looking anxiously at the cave entrance.

"You wait for them," Andres said and started walking. Miles followed him.