Bizarre Rhapsody Part 1 : Welcome to the Wild

Chapter 6 : The River

The smoke over the horizon was in front of their eyes and it was in straight ahead of position away from them going over a mountain and the endless jungle , "How long do you think we'll need to get to there, Victor ?" asked Jonathan while looking at Victor, "Since its in a straight line I would say about five days but there is also some kind of mountain in the way so it's gonna add about 2 days" responded Victor. Jonathan quickly climbed back down and the others soon followed. "Should we get something to eat first or should we immediately walk towards the smoke?" asked Emilie who was visibly malnourished. "We can find food on the way, and I don't think there is anything edible for us near this tree since the Navicortitans have already grazed here.", responded Jonathan. "We shouldn't waste time by talking while standing still.", Jonathan started walking towards the direction of the smoke. "Why are you two just standing there? Don't you want to find help? " asked Jonathan the two who were just awkwardly standing there, "Of course not, we were just processing what you had just said." Victor responded, Emilie nodded and they both followed Jonathan on his path. The Jungle swallowed the group slowly but surely and they found themselves without orientation, the only thing they knew was that they needed to walk forward. "Those berries look edible, don't you think ?" asked Emilie looking at a bunch of crimson coloured berries. "Take a bunch with you, but don't eat them whole. Just eat a little bit and if it's poisonous you wont die." Jonathan recommended, Emilie hastily took as many berries as her pockets could hold. After about an hour the group's hunger became almost unbearable. "Do you still have the berries you gathered?" asked Jonathan with an empty stomach. Emilie quickly grabbed a handful of berries out of her pockets and gave them to Jonathan. Jonathan quickly gobbled up the berries, "Didn't you say that we shouldn't eat them all at the same time ?" Emilie asked with a confused stare. Jonathan quickly ate up the rest of the berries and replied : "Since they are soft enough so that I can chew through them , it means that mammals should eat the berry which means it isn't poisonous for us.", answered Jonathan, "but I do get kind of thirsty, maybe we could get some fluid along the way?". The others shook their heads in frustration.

The sound of the rushing river could be heard coming towards them. The group finally reached a huge river and Jonathan was already making a hole to drink water from. He gobbled up the water like a dog and let out a moan of refreshment. He got up and got ready to swim through the river, "Do you see that ?!" shouted Jonathan pointing at the river. "Huh what is i- " asked Victor with a confused face but as he just said that, Victor saw the giant shadow in the water. The shadow was swimming along the river seemingly without a care in the world. "Get back here !" Emilie shouted at Jonathan who was standing still in fear. Victor quickly dragged Jonathan by his arm towards them, "Do you know what that is ?!" asked Victor in a stressed manor. "I can't identify it if it's just a long and big silhouette it could be a giant snake, crocodile, marine reptile or fish for Christ's sake !"

 Jonathan shouted with a terrified expression on his face. "We could try to avoid it by walking around the river, but by the looks of things, we wont reach the end of the river today", Emilie said while looking at the opposite side of the river, "We have no choice but to cross the river.". The shadow slowly went upstream away from the group and submerged even deeper into the water. "We need to swim as fast as possible, no breaks or pauses.", Victor said while warming himself up. "This might be the only time this thing is distracted away from us".

"We could maybe throw some rocks to distract it away from us." Jonathan said with a stressed expression. "But its already distracted, we shouldn't waste time with potential plans for something we already have!", responded Emilie while looking at him confused at what he is saying. "I just said something without thinking, sorry." apologized Jonathan. "You two shouldn't chit-chat in this situation, you know?", shouted Victor at them both, being clearly annoyed. "Sorry" responded Jonathan with an expression of shame.

While he was stretching himself so that he wouldn't get an unexpected cramp, he noticed a peculiar place on the other side of the river with a bunch of stones on it. Jonathan wiped the sweat off his forehead, preparing himself for the swim. Victor ran and jumped into the water and started swimming immediately . Jonathan soon followed and Emilie came last, the current wasn't very strong but Jonathan felt something swim under him. His body was pumped with adrenaline as to get out of the water as fast as possible. He felt a vibration on his left. Emilie was swimming behind Jonathan and noticed that he started to swim faster out of nowhere. she was a bit confused about why he accelerated so quickly. While she was trying to understand the sudden acceleration from Jonathan, She saw a big head that looked like a crocodile, "Watch out !", she screamed, stopping her swimming as to not swim into the jaws of the animal, but the animal caught her fingertips and bit them right off. The Crocodile look-a like went back into the water jaw-first. Emilie swam as fast as she could to shore, knowing that the beast would come back. She looked to the right to only see the jaws of the animal line up for the finishing blow. Emilie closed her eyes and swam as fast as she could, but the animal already predicted her movement and almost chomped down on her.

When she opened her eyes for a split second, expecting to see the jaws of the animal wrapped around her, she saw another animal wrapping its jaws around her follower. As Emilie arrived on shore the others were already watching the battle. "What are they?!", asked Emilie while her left hand was holding her right hand as to not let the bleeding become to strong ."The one that attacked you seems to have the head of a spinosaurid, a semi aquatic group of carnivores that look like Crocodile and the other one looks like a cross between a theropod dinosaur and a catfish." Jonathan responded with fascination in his eyes. "Or in other words : Dinocroc and Dinofish.". "I am not that stupid" remarked Emilie with an angry expression, Jonathan got splashed by the battle of the two water predators. It stopped for a moment, one of the shadows swam to the other shore and got onto the shore. It was the spinosaurid walking on all fours. It accelerated quickly so that it couldn't be ambushed from the water, "Do you see the things on its tail ?!", asked Jonathan with a focused expression on his face. "Aren't these black spikes ?!" responded Emilie, "It's the animal that produces the spikes!" she said with an amazed expression, the other creature was slowly approaching the shore and was soon fully visible, the creatures footsteps shook the earth. The Spinosaur stood its ground against the fish, the fish's legs appeared to be long and lanky. "Why the hell does that fish have legs ?!" asked Victor with a confused face. "Maybe it was getting outcompeted by the semi-aquatic Spinosaur and had to become semi-aquatic so that itself didn't become extinct.", Jonathan explained while looking at the creatures as closely as he could.

The Fish tried to bite into the spinosaur's neck but got thwacked by the spinosaurids tail-spikes. "Quadrulespicu and Currepisci, the 4 legged spike and the walking fish." Said Jonathan with a grin on its face, "How do you come up with Latin names so fast ?", Emilie asked in confusion. "I learned a bit at school, not the best one at it though", explained Jonathan while not giving much attention to Emilie. The spikes have quickly grown back and resembled a newly bought kitchen knife only bigger, "So the Quadrulespicu uses the stone beds to get rid of overgrown spikes, like a rodent's teeth!" said Jonathan with newfound enthusiasm. The Fish went on the attack again, only this time it used its tail to stun the Dinosaur it now went for the neck with its jaws and was now holding the Dinosaur by its neck slowly twisting it. The Dinosaur was not going down without a fight so it used its massive forelimbs to grab the Fish by its head and throw it over, the Fish was now at the mercy of the Dinosaur and in nature there are only losers or winners. After the fish had gone down, the Quadrulespicu tore off the flesh and stored it in its Gular skin. "God, I can't see this, can we please leave.", Said Emilie while holding her tears back. "I can't see all that blood, sorry". Emilie ran into the jungle followed by Victor who dragged a reluctant Jonathan with him.