Jungle Escape

Note: Image associated is from Ironage.media, specifically their prompt, 'The Safari'

Jenny woke in a heap, her elder sister shaking her shoulder as the afternoon sun shone into the crevice they'd fallen into. Neither of the young girls had reckoned that the earth would give way when they had wandered from their parent's dig site on the island. Now that it had, Jenny was twitching in fear at every strange sound in the tunnel they had discovered. The slow drip of water falling from the stone roof of the cold stones had her eyes darting all over the darkness as Annabeth checked her over for scrapes and bruises.

"Where are we?" she choked out past the lump in her throat, trying not to cry. She had just turned 8, and her sister seemed increasingly annoyed with her at the best of times. Now seemed a poor time to risk her annoyance, even as her voice nearly failed her against the impending flood of tears.

"Someone's home. Mom or Dad would know." Annabeth answered as she finished confirming Jenny was okay before hugging her sister close, the same fear infecting her as it did Jenny. Her mind was racing, trying to decide if they should stay put or follow the tunnel, hoping to find a way back to their parents. Climbing was out of the question; the soft dirt they'd fallen through had no chance of supporting even their minor weights. Even if it could, Jenny had never played lead, nor could she safely belay for Anna. Their father had always taught them to stay put if they were ever lost: Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. That was what you do when you're lost, right?

"I'm scared." Her sister's quavering voice interrupted her train of thought.

"It'll be okay, we just need to get Mom and Dad's attention. Our walkies, remember?" Annabeth pulled hers and Jenny's little black radios from their daypacks. Jenny's had not survived the fall, their combined weight crushing it in her bag. "Mine still works," she said, pressing two bursts of static from the call button, "So we just stick together."

As Annabeth started to send a message over her working walkie-talkie, she heard perhaps the last sound she ever wanted to in any situation: the low hiss of an angry lizard. Staying put and waiting for her parents was no longer an option. Jenny's eyes were wide as saucers as the two locked gazes, coming to the same decision of leaving as quickly and quietly as they could.

Staying low, Jenny followed Annabeth, holding her hand as they carefully fled their position. In their haste, however, Annabeth's walkie-talkie was discarded, fleeing deep into the tunnel. Minutes passed in the gloam, the hiss intermittently present behind them but closer every time it met their ears. The girls quickened their pace, struggling to stay quiet, before breaking into a run as a sliver of light came into view far ahead. The hiss became a guttural call, as though a bird of impossible size were responsible, and the ground vibrated as whatever lived in the tunnel began chasing the pair in earnest.

As they broke from the gloom, back into the fleeting light of day, the shudder within the ground slowed, the creature seeming to hesitate somewhere still out of sight. The reason why became apparent as Annabeth looked around, her blue eyes alighting on another lizard, a dinosaur, in fact, but with kind eyes, almost like Grandpa's Border Collie. It even moved rather like Buster did; its scaly chest was low, and yellow eyes never left Annabeth's. It stalked over to the girls, sniffing the air about them, before pushing its snout against Annabeth and Jenny in turn. The predatory stare of the creature lingering in the tunnel could still be felt by each girl until their unexpected friend moved in between the tunnel's foreboding maw and themselves, a defeated snort emanating as the ground told of its departure.

Thanking their lucky stars, the girls began to search for their way back to their parents, collecting and lighting a torch to see in the waning hours of the day. Their outlandish companion kept close, scaring the very forest into leaving the girls be as it had with whatever had lurked in the tunnel's gloom. The moon had just risen low in the sky when the girls heard their Mom and Dad calling their names and rushed forward to their parent's arms, yelling all the while. During their commotion, without anyone's notice, their protector disappeared into the jungle's depths, leaving only a tall tale from two children to tell of its existence.