The Lost Panacea [ ✓ ]

Chapter Two: The Moon Phantoms

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Day 1 -·- 9:13PM (Nightfall)

Location: Isle of Eye

Mission: Operation Lost Panacea
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Mosquitoes and other pesky bugs, flying or crawling attacked me and my group constantly. The heat was next to unbearable in this damned tropical island. I had long since uncap my jungle hat yet I was sweating bullets.

Ms Tracy, Euro Chic Sightseer and now our official camerawoman was almost tiptoeing, wishing she could just levitate, terrified that another 'rare, parasitic plant' as the Prof had quoted was going to harm her.

This is no ordinary adventure. This is a great adventure that will change our lives and the life of any similar mind who reads this logbook, finds the Gate of Tulkuhorn and discovers what we are going to discover. Soon, you'll know.

But beware of the Shimmering Deathwisher and the Moon Phantom.

"S'pose I close my eyes and capture a beautiful scenery, what do you think I'd captured?" asked Tracy, who was expecting the answer to be a waterfall or a friendly, extinct dinosaur.

"Tracy's ass," I said good-naturedly.

A wave of amusement from everyone welcomed that except for Tracy at the back.  She wore a frown, a smeared, mascaraed face and a cloth that was an eye-narrow better than a bikini.

'Damn you, you son-of-a-motherless-goat," Tracy swore at me. Her reaction triggered more laughs which subsided after a while.

We then waded on in silence.

Before I forge ahead, you might have noticed everyone is endowed with an ability or skill except for Tracy whose goal is to be useless.

You might now be wondering, what can Alex — also known as Humorous Hallucinator — do? Yeah, that's me. Well, my ability is to chop bushes. Buhaha.

Just kidding.

I'm the Humorous. I keep my group alive with jokes, funny or not. I'm the Hallucinator. I see and sense things others can't perceive with their senses. Yeah, the power of clairvoyance. That might sound a bit odd, out of the ordinary, I know, but I was as confused as you when I found out.

I... Wait, just watch this.

"Everybody," I ceased slashing, rested my palms on my knees and called out, "I'm having a weak tug down my throat. Know what that means?"

The Prof who was just behind me jumped to my front, grabbed me by the collar of my sweat-drenched shirt, odour and all, his sweaty face just an inch away from mine. "What do you see?" His breath was raspy.

Ugh. A warm garlic smell drifted into my nostrils. And cinnamon too. Just a hint. The garlic odour was almost overpowering and it had been six hours since he consumed it.

"Did you had cinnamon rolls behind our back?" My eyes narrowed into thin slits.

"That was — " he paused as if summing up a cumbersome mental arithmetic, then with a wave of his clammy hand, dismissed it. "Just forget it. What did you see, Alex? Tell me, will you? Did you find the Gate of — " He looked into my electric blue eyes, searching for an answer. He saw none. He jerked me as if his life depended on me.

"I'm hungry," I yanked him off me and yawned. "And tired."

"What?"

"A weak tug down my throat," I repeated what I'd said and pointed into my open mouth. He looked like someone who wanted to throw a punch. At who, I have no idea.

Sighing, the Prof called out for camp and Finn made a large, circular clearing where we would rest for the night.

The sun was descending and the pale, milky outline of the moon was getting more solid every minute. It was going to be a full moon as Finn had predicted.

We ate in silence, watched the red disc set, the afterglow orange, the trees whisper, the birds call and the moon materialize.

An owl hooted ominously on a nearby tree. Tracy traced where the tuwhits and the tuwhoos were coming from with her eyes. It was from under a tree. Her own tree.

Two bulbous, yellowy eyes squinted at her on a low branch and her sharp shriek broke our silence spell.

"Can you stop being a Shrieking Shrek?" I never knew I could be irritated in a root chakra yogasana meant to induce serenity.

"Don't you see how large those eyes are? I've never even seen an owl this up close before and this owl looks like one foraging for an eye! And never you call me a Shrek! Again"

"That's the shriek owl. Otherwise known as the screech owl. It belongs to the order Strigiformes and they're nocturnal birds of prey." He munched his roll and gulped his flask, then continued.

Bored by SJ's rambling, I drifted off into a world where McDonalds and Jack Daniels were within driving distance. A world where the halo of a misty light pollution is a telltale sign of city liveliness. A place where the sound of gunshot is more alluring than the sound of - .

"He's here!" Prof jerked me awake. I know I've slept for about two hours or more but it felt as though I never closed my eyes a blink.

Thank you very much for destroying my dream, sir. You've been really great today with your owl speech. "What?" I rubbed my groggy eyes. "What's here?"

Before he could answer, a high-pitched screech pierced the curtain of stagnant air, tearing the silence into shreds. My eyes were still blurry but I could swear I saw shadowy movements.

"The screech owl has always been here." I muttered, unbothered as I was sleepy.

Fingers that had turned thousands of dog-eared pages whacked my face.

"Oww...owww, that's my face not 'A Guide Across The Bermuda,' Prof." I complained.

"The Moon Phantom's here!"

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