A Circuit of Time: Book Two of Spark (A MPHFPC Fanfiction)

Chapter Ten

It was standing in front of the stairs, blocking the only exit.

A second creature.

It looked just like the first one they encountered. Unlike the creature in the painting, it lack the feather coverage, instead had sparce hairs on its neck and back. Its head was blockier than the one in the painting. Two rows of ivory white teeth hidden behind lips reminiscent that of a monitor lizard. Its arms were long and muscular, each of the three fingers had a huge claw attached to it, and the one on the first finger was even bigger than the rest.

"Back." Olive quietly said.

Before they could move, something jumped out of the water behind them and closed its jaws around Sophie. She screamed as everyone hurried to help her, Olive slammed her rifle into the animal's head and Emma grabbed the camera hanging on Sophie's neck, the nylon lanyard the only thing keeping the predator from devouring her. Ethan pushed through Miss Bittern to help, but before he could reach her, the lanyard snapped. The creature dragged Sophie into the water below.

Under their flashlight, they could see something dark red spread across the water.

Then the creature leapt out again, its jaws snapped shut only centimeters away from Emma's head. Olive hurried everyone forward, but the creature at the stairs started moving in. At the same time, the one in the water pulled itself onto the bridge with its arms and let out a bone-chilling bellow, strips of Sophie's bloodied clothe still dangling from its jaws.

"Split up and get to the stairs!" Olive said, "Go!"

Olive and Miss Bittern ran at the creature in front of them. It bit down at them and caught Olive's weighted metal vambrace. It raised Olive to the air and started shaking her.

"Olive!" Miss Bittern shouted.

"Go! I can handle this." Olive said and Miss Bittern ran up the stairs. Olive pulled out a knife and started cutting the leather straps tying the vambrace together.

Emma and Ethan jumped into the water to avoid the creature's jaws. It dived in behind them and started biting at them. They swam as fast as they could, but eventually the animal caught up to them, its head slammed into Ethan's body, its jaws snapped shut centimeters away from his leg. Ethan kicked the animal away and launched himself at it. The animal opened its jaws, but Ethan slammed a fist into its snout. Blood spilled out. The creature cried out in agony, vision clouded by its own blood. Ethan and Emma made it to the land and saw Olive falling from the second creature's jaws, her vambrace stuck between its teeth.

Without saying a word, they all ran up the stairs as fast as fast could be.

*

John and Blanche hid themselves behind a sarcophagus. Multiple crocodiles were in the room now, their hissings so close John could hear them clearly.

They could also hear something rough scraping the very stone coffins John and Blanche were hiding.

"Stay here." John told Blanche. He loaded his rifle and crawled around the coffin.

Two crocodiles were approaching where Blanche was hiding. John slammed his rifle at the ground, making noises to distract the animals. They turned to him and John fired. He hit one of them at the back, and they both slowed down for a second, then started galloping at him. John ran, leading the crocodiles away from Blanche. But his path was soon block by three more crocodiles coming from different direction. John climbed into a coffin, pushing the body aside and fired at the crocodiles. But one of the predators clamped its jaws on his gun and pulled it away from him.

John pulled out his pistol and kept firing, but more crocodiles were coming, and the low caliber pistol bullets couldn't really do much against predators covered head to tail by osteoderm. His ammo soon ran out. He threw the pistol at the predators, but it hardly did anything either. One of the crocodiles leapt up and bit on his coat, almost dragging him out of the safety of the coffin.