The Wilderness

The lush, cool landscape spread out before them as they stepped out of the shiny, sleek silver Grenadier 420 that Spunk was using as his interstellar traveler. It was like stepping back in time. Towering palms joined ancient pines in the canopy. The craft had roughly landed in a tree gap opening in the wilderness. They hadn't seen any evidence of civilization on the way down.

"Can we breathe here?" Harold asked and Spunk nodded.

"It's a little late to be asking that question, isn't it, buddy?" Spunk asked. Harold laughed.

"I guess so. Where to, boss?" He squinted towards the wilderness. "What did Amalyn find for us?"

"She gave us coordinates for five potential locations. Three of which are in this patch of wilderness. Two are on the other side of the planet."

"And how are we going to deal with Saffold here?" He hefted the bucket of goo in his left hand. "Are we going to have to carry him around like this?"

"I think so." Spunk said. "We can take turns, though."

"And do we have comms, medical, and food just in case?" Harold asked. His body was on this planet, but his brain was back home with his kids. He couldn't not come home. It would wreck his family.

"I've got them." Edie's shy and quiet voice piped up behind them. She looked distinctly uncomfortable in the army standard outfit that Spunk had handed to her before she left the ship, but her blouse and skirt were simply impractical for the harsh, jungle wilderness. And so it was combat boots and army fatigues for her. Her braids were wrapped up into a bun onto her head, and she wore a visor to boot. It was an impressive get up, one that made her appear more human and adult than she ever had before.

"Alright, let's go then. Time's a wastin'." Harold said, gesturing for Spunk to lead the way.

Spunk's feet sunk oddly into the alien turf as he walked, his backpack the lightest of the three. He had a machete in one hand and a GPS unit in the other. He was going to try and plot a straight path to the first point, but had a feeling that the hills they had seen from the sky were going to be an issue.

Leaves began slapping him in the face as they entered the foliage. Until they found a path made by megafauna, they -- Spunk, mostly -- would be chopping through vines and ducking under downed limbs every few feet. The jungle was weirdly silent and Spunk wondered how such a planet, seemingly devoid of animal life, had produced such an interesting species as the Neval.

"What do you think lives here?" Edie asked as she trailed behind the two. "Why aren't there any birds or bugs? Every planet I've visited so far has had some version of those creatures."

"It is very strange." Harold agreed. He shifted the goo bucket from his left to his right, shaking out his hand and rubbing his palm against his shirt. There was a red line where the handle had been digging into his flesh. "If anything, a planet without megafauna would mean that the birds, bees, whatever -- that they'd be less scared. Because they wouldn't know what to expect."

"This planet, like many, has been the unfortunate recipient of a massive disaster." Spunk said as he ducked under a fallen tree. "The major megafauna were the Neval. Most of the other inhabitants were wiped out."

"How long ago?" Harold asked. "You didn't mention that before."

"Long enough where radiation isn't a problem." Spunk said. "No worries. Your future children are safe. But apparently the megafauna haven't recovered yet. At least, not in this area."

"Was it civil war?" Edie asked as she followed behind. The pack across her shoulders was about twenty percent too large for her small frame.

"Technically." Spunk thought he saw the barest hint of a trail ahead. His body ached from the adventure already, and it had been less than an hour. "Unofficially, it was an act of genocide from a neighboring planet."

"But genocide has been eliminated according to the state, and so, it was civil war or intra-planet conflict, not a hostile takeover."

"Sentient beings can be so horrible to each other." Edie said, the weight of a thousand years of pain and suffering laced throughout her voice. "I cannot believe it sometimes."

Spunk half expected her to begin a conversation about the Lightbringer faith, but she said nothing further. He wondered if she really believed.

The trail wasn't much, but it was something. He was able to sheathe the machete for a small while as they walked along. The supposed fountain was only half a mile ahead, but it felt like they had been out there forever. The sun was behind clouds, but it didn't stop Spunk from sweating like he had never exercised a day in his life. Not that he had exercised lately, but still. A walk in the woods should not cause this much bodily fluid to excrete from his body.

"Good lord, are we almost there yet?" Harold complained as he shifted the bucket to his other hand for the tenth time. "You wouldn't think Saffold would be this heavy, but it's not exactly the perfect container."

"About a half mile." Spunk responded. "But we can take a break if you'd like. I'm hot, too."

"Do you mind?" Harold asked. "We can just sit on that trunk over there or something." He pointed to a tree just off the beaten path.

"Let's do it." Spunk said and he pulled his backpack off his shoulder as he crossed the path to the tree trunk. "Five minutes or so, and then we'll keep going."

The trunk felt cool on his sweaty bum as he sat down and put his pack between his legs. The machete pushed uncomfortably against his stomach. Harold sat down next to him, placing Saffold's body just off on the edge, where no one could accidentally knock it over. Edie tried to sit as far as she politely could from the men, but the fallen tree was short and it was a cozy fit. Spunk felt a tad guilty for making her uncomfortable.

The sound of trees whistling with wind above them was broken only by their steady, heavy breathing. Spunk wondered if Saffold would come out and see his homeland, even if he hadn't grown up on this condemned planet. He didn't want to press, and he wasn't sure if something would be changed ifhe materialized on his maternal planet. Maybe the urge to mate would be stronger? Maybe he would be overcome with emotion and accidentally kill them? No need to poke the bear.

"Do you hear that?" Edie asked in the silence and they all paused their breathing. Spunk noticed a faint rustle from off in the distance, a steady thump thump through the dirt and leaves.

"Yes." Spunk whispered. "I don't know what it is, but given how quiet it's been, I'm not sure that we need any visitors."

"What, you don't want a mutated mega reptile eating you for lunch?" Harold asked, full of sarcasm. But his voice was quiet and his fists were clenched. The thump thump noise was drawing closer.

Spunk scanned the environment for a place to safely stash three adults, gear, and a bucket of goo. He didn't see much. He stood up.

"Edie, take Saffold's bucket and climb up this tree as far as you can. Be careful." The tree extended well into the canopy, and Spunk hoped that it might provide enough cover to keep her safe, if nothing else. "Harold and I will find another spot to hide."

Edie nodded and waited for the men to stand. Harold bent over to grab the bucket of goo and handed it to Edie. Her face was calm, but her hands were shaking.

"If it's sentient, we can maybe try to reason with it." Harold said, his eyes intent on the direction that the noise was coming from. "We can try under the log..."

Spunk didn't see much in the way of shelter, either. "We can either go under, or try to follow Edie. Your choice."

"Let's go up." Harold said. "I have a feeling that this thing, whatever it is... is large. Large enough where your machete might serve as its dinner tableware."

"Great image." Spunk muttered as he shouldered his pack and motioned for Harold to go first. Harold, after all, had children. Spunk was expendable.

Harold crawled up the tree slowly and awkwardly on his hands and knees. Neither he nor Spunk were as limber as Edie, and they wouldn't climb up on two feet like she had. Not without handholds, which were few and far between.

"Hurry!" Edie hiss whispered at them as they ascended the limb, which stretched across the path. "I think I see it. It's not human."

The men clambered up the rest of the way, across the tree and into the upper limbs of the pine tree that it had fallen into. Edie was resting comfortable on a large limb about thirty feet from the ground. They settled on lower, thicker limbs.

The lumbering beast strolled into sight, and man, what a sight to behold. Spunk had never seen anything like it in all of his years of alien exploration with the military. It was gleaming white, built like a dinosaur, stretching over fifty feet long with a huge, bashing tail that swung effortlessly from side to side. The skin seemed to be scaly, and its face was like a giant orb with two hanging smaller orbs from its chin. Like a gullet on a turkey, but made of drooping white symmetrical orbs and crusted with thick dark hairs.

Its face though, was the most peculiar. Its eyes were black slits on the sides, its nose curved up towards the sky. And right between the eyes, smack dab in the middle of the forehead, was something that Spunk could only describe as a penis. It was a light gray, darker than the rest of the body, pointed upwards at a forty five degree angle, with a bulbous head on the end and a deep hole in the center. He wondered what on earth it was used for.

The creature drew closer to them, but it didn't seem to notice or mind their presence at all. It nuzzled under the fallen tree, barely fitting its mass. It was like a stomach bursting at the seams from a large holiday feast. The tree shook as its body slid under the tree and past them. The tree shook again as its tail struck the tree.

In hindsight, Spunk wasn't sure how such a large beast could fit on such a small trail, but it was doing wonderfully. He spotted no large footprints or extra downed trees as it ambled off into the brush ahead. It was clear that this was a path well traveled by the beast.

"Follow it!" Spunk heard a ghostly hiss. "That is a crankitun. Follow it!" He looked up to see Saffold's ghostly face tight with urgency. He nodded.

"Let's go, then." Spunk said, motioning for the other two to follow him out of the safety of the tree. He clambered down into the dirt of the path below.

"It knows the way to the fountain." Saffold said as they began following the crunching noises of the beast's feet. "It is our destiny."

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