Free Final Quest by B. C. Harris Page A

flicker. He coughs. His arms and legs jerk involuntarily.
    “Jamie, I’m here. You can do it.”
    Jamie sucks a huge breath of air as though he’s a baby taking his first breath.
    His eyes open.
    I feel his arms tighten around me.
    I know he’s going to be okay.
    “Thank you, thank you,” Jamie utters, his breaths coming in huge gulps.
    “Don’t thank me,” I say. “It was that furry creature over there that saved you.”
    “Where?” Jamie asks.
    The creature that saved Jamie has vanished.

- 16 -
    THE WATERFALL
     
    After Jamie’s incident with the bush that was more like a Venus fly trap, we are fearful of taking another step.
    I find myself wondering why the strange creature saved Jamie and then disappeared.
    “Was that thing a Drapesian?” I ask Capurni.
    “Never saw anything like it before. Everything around us is completely different than any of our history books about Drapesia. It’s as though some strange new world has enveloped this island that was once barren.”
    Constant shrieks and cries fill the air. There’s even a voice that appears to be singing.
    “Listen for the water again,” Capurni suggests.
    I strain to hear the running water.
    There are so many other loud noises around us that it’s difficult to hear the water. I feel like we’re in a room with a thousand birds chirping, singing, crying, and sometimes making other noises that are beyond description.
    “I think I hear the water,” Jamie says as he takes a step towards the thick jungle.
    “Jamie…” I say, not even finishing my sentence. The last time he took a few steps towards the jungle, he was almost strangled by a bush that acted like an anaconda. I’m terrified that another creature might attack him.
    “I hear it too. It’s coming from over there,” Capurni says as he takes a tentative step to the right of Jamie.
    I jump in behind my two friends, not wanting to be left alone.
    The jungle is so thick and tangled that it’s difficult to see in any direction.
    Jamie takes another step in the same direction as Capurni.
    I shudder. At any moment, I expect that we are all going to be pounced on by a terrible creature.
    Soon we’re absorbed by the twisted growth around us. It’s as though we have become part of the jungle, although I’m pretty sure that I hear the sound of running water. Perhaps it’s a river, or maybe even a waterfall.
    Jamie is leading us with Capurni and me close behind him. I wonder how Jamie suddenly got to be so brave, but perhaps he was always like this and I missed it because I tended to pay more attention in the past to Drew’s heroics.
    As a branch touches my arm I panic, expecting it to twist around my body. My imagination is running rampant.
    “Look,” Jamie says in a loud whisper.
    My eyes follow his outstretched arm. At first I don’t see anything, but then I realize that on the massive red and green leaves of a plant in front of us are hundreds of eyes.
    Is it possible that a plant can have eyes?
    As I look closer, I notice that the eyes are in groups. Each group of eyes is about the size of a dinner plate. I wonder if each mass of eyes forms one large eye. If so, are the eyes part of the plant, or do they belong to another creepy creature that we can’t see yet?
    Jamie raises his arm for us to halt as though he’s a trail guide.
    At the moment he raises his arm, I notice that the hundreds of eyes on the broad leaves of the plant all change color at the same instant. They become green and red in the same pattern as the coloring on the leaves. If I hadn’t already seen the eyes, I would never know that they were there.
    Still holding his hand above him to tell Capurni and me not to move, Jamie waves his other hand in the direction of the plant with the eyes. As he does this, hundreds of eyes on the leaves move in unison with his hand.
    An extra loud shriek from some unseen creature startles me.
    I want to tell Jamie to stop waving his hand. What if the plant or whatever creature the