In Too DeepㅣJENLISA

Chapter 12

"Jesus!"

"P-please, tell me this is not what I think it is" Jennie shakily said.

"I think that's exactly what you are thinking"

They stood in place, unmoving, barely breathing, staring at a distance of about five meters ahead, where a giant female jaguar stood in a position of attack, watching them carefully with wild eyes, tail curled at the back, claws scratching deeply into the mud underneath. Jennie felt like she was about to pee herself.

With a size of a meter in height and about double in length, powerful muscles contracting under its coat of light tan colored fur, strong jaws that could crush anything, and a pair of five centimeters long killer teeth, the beasted animal's proportions were bigger than anything they had ever seen in their lives.

"What do we do now?" Jennie whispered, fighting the strong urge to cry and run.

"Stay as still as possible and don't look at it in the eyes. It could be seen as a provocation. Let me think for a moment"

Lisa whispered as they bored their eyes into the ground, observing the creature with peripheral vision. The lieutenant tried to isolate her mind from the rising panic and the thought of being potentially ripped apart by a wild animal, and rather focused on thinking about what she knew about escaping such dangerous situations.

"Lisa, it's moving!" the brunette whisper-yelled in panic.

She felt Jennie's hand grab her right biceps in fear. They watched as the jaguar took a very slow step closer, rising the panic they felt even more.

"Lift your hands up" Lisa shot her hand above her head, holding the wooden spear for additional height.

"What, why?"

"That way you look bigger and scarier to the animal. Most of the time they are even more scared than the humans. Now, lift your arms and walk back slowly until, hopefully, it leaves us alone or we exit its territory"

Jennie immediately copied Lisa's movements, lifting both her hands as high as she could above her head. They took slow steps backwards, careful not to make too much noise which could scare or disturb the animal and get them killed. Jennie fought back tears as she wondered if Lisa would be able to get them out of such a stalemate situation. One mistake and they were dead meat.

Unfortunately, that was when the unthinkable happened.

As they furthered a couple of meters back, everything going just as planned, Jennie's right foot suddenly caught on a peaking above-ground tree root hidden under the leaves and she came stumbling down with all her weight. She let out a scream, creating a loud rustling sound as she fell over the thick vegetation. It suddenly drowned in both their minds what had just happened and what that exactly meant. They slowly turned their widened eyes towards the animal, a look of terrifying fear written on their faces.

Lisa watched as the whole scene unfolded right in front of her watered from the realization eyes in the span of just mere seconds. The beasted animal bared its long sharp teeth, deafening growls coming out of its starved throat before burying its claws into the soil and sprinting toward fallen Jennie with its whole might, like a lighting bolt, running to catch his helpless prey, taking in the scent of her terror that flowed in the air.

It happened so fast, too fast, that Lisa couldn't even realize what was happening in the first place and when was the jaguar already just a couple of meters away from crushing Jennie's fragile skull between its powerful jaws. She didn't know what she was doing or what she was supposed to do at all, but she knew that she wanted - needed - to desperately help, do something - anything - to stop the death of another innocent soul.