You guys have an irritating habit of forcing me to double-post. I'm just gonna shut up now.
Chapter 5
Splat
I smelt smoke. "Splat!"
"What’s going on Adey?" I was already fully alert, adrenaline wriggling into by body like oil into a river.
"The Elder’s hut is on fire. We need to get away from the buildings.
He grabbed my arm and we ran out into the night. There was a dull glow on the eastern horizon, foretelling the approaching dawn. That was barely noticeable, though, against the orange light flitting around the huts from the north. Adey was dragging me towards the source of the blaze. Already a large crowd was gathered outside the Elders hut. "What started it?"
"That’s what I want to know. Stay here Splat." And he left me, pushing into the throng.
I didn’t move from the spot where he’d left me. When danger was so close I knew better than to disobey. Even still, he was gone a long time and I stood still behind the crowd, watching flames shoot above the heads of the mudokons in front of me. As the sun crept up, the flames burnt down. It was a windless sunrise and so the fire was safely under control. It looked like the only damage would be to the one hut. Though with it being the Elder’s, it still meant a lot of problems brewing for us.
No one paid a young mudokon standing watching the slowly dying flames any attention and I didn’t want any. I wished I’d awoken Paras before leaving our hut. I wanted to go find him but I wasn’t about to disobey my older brother who still hadn’t come back.
The sun was just rising above the jungle surrounding our village casting a dull white light towards us and the flames had almost died out. I could only see the occasional flicker now, but I could still hear a dull crackling above the hushed chatter of the 200 mudokons between me and the pile of ashes that was once the centre point of the village. Adey still hadn’t returned.
BANG! Mudokons were suddenly screaming! Panicking. It didn’t take me long to work out what was going on. Several people were screaming it out already: raiders. We'd heard of them wiping out entire villages nearby, dragging off the survivors: never to be seen again. Adey had burst out of the panicked crowd and was running towards me! "Splat! Run!" I didn’t wait a second longer. Another round of shots fired. I heard more screaming behind me, heard blood splattering. BANG!!!
My head hit the roof of my tent. I could still hear the crackling of the burning hut! And… And… It wasn’t the hut; it was a small campfire. Someone was banging 2 stones together. "Splat, if you don’t get out here now you can cook your own breakfast!"
I sighed and crawled to the door of my tent, unclipping the ground sheet as I passed and dragged it out behind me.
Alf
You really don’t understand how much Abe suffers till you’re out there with him.
"Metal-head!"
"Dingbat!"
"Do they do this all the time Abe?"
Abe nodded sadly.
"Footstool!"
"4-legged freak!"
"1 legged freak!"
"Whoa, good comeback Splat! Uh… Finger-face!"
Splat’s face paramite tentacle thingies twitched, "Wide mouth!"
"That’s just weird Splat," I put in.
"Hey, yeah! Brain-dead!"
"Can head… Hah! Poetry, beat that Munch!"
"Uh… Can… body!"
"Can body? That’s pitiful man! That’s gotta be your worst to date! I mean, Mouse Mat was pretty lame but Can Body?"
"Mouse mat?" I questioned, confused.
"Long story," Abe told me, "You do not wanna get em started on that one again." He turned to the others, "Uh, Splat? Could you like, fly up there and scout around a bit, you know? Tell us what you can see?"
"Sure thing Abe." Then added loudly, staring at Munch, "I AM ALWAYS WILLING TO BE USEFUL ON MISSIONS!"
"Just… Go!"
Splat took off into the air and flew up towards the sun, making me loose sight of him pretty early. The three of us walked on in near silence, accept for Munch muttering something about under-appreciation and ungrateful mudokons."
Abe
By lunchtime Munch and Alf were complaining for a rest. I would have expected more from Alf but he wasn’t really used to this sort of thing. Munch was just being lazy and would start complaining about lazy mudokons if we did stop so I shot an apologetic glance at Alf and answered, "We’ll stop when Splat comes back."
We had a long wait. I reckon he landed at some point and walked after or ahead of us: he rarely flew for more than 2 hours at a time and he’d already been gone almost 4. He’d rest his wings by walking and then take off again and rest his legs for 2 hours. I glanced backwards occasionally to see if I could spot him but never did. I didn’t want Munch bothering me more so I didn’t call for him: he would turn up eventually.
Eventually was about an hour before dinner. Splat zoomed down towards us and at first I was pleased: even I was getting tired by now. Then I noticed the panicked look on his face!
"ABE!"
"Calm down Splat, what is it?"
"About a mile back…" He was panting. "Scrabs… Whole herd of em’… Heading this way!"
And that's it for 2004. I'll be back in January, Merry Christmas folks! I got some serious writing to do!
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