"Nila!" an aggravated sounding, disembodied voice whispers behind her and Nila can feel a startled yell building up in her throat. She nearly jumps a meter off the ground and quickly clamps a hand over her mouth before the Rhino notices that she's here. Nila slowly turns around in her squat to see Friday who now has a hand placed on her shoulder. Meanwhile, Riley is delicately crawling towards them both, trying to dodge stray sticks and crunchy leaves on the ground.
"Shhh! It's just me...Have you found Kaitlyn?" Friday asks and Nila bites her lip.
Nila slowly nods and points toward the tree in the clearing. "You could say that."
Friday inches forward and quietly gasps.
"What the hell?!"
"Riley! Keep your voice down," Nila mutters and hits Riley in the arm.
"I was hoping we wouldn't have run into one of these..." Friday puts her head in her hands, everything just seems to go wrong for these kids. "Well, this tranquilliser won't do jack," she sighs and places the gun back in one of her many pockets.
"What do we do?" Nila asks as another scream echoes through the forest.
"Not much we can do apart from create a diversion and make a run for it. These tranquilliser darts are minuscule compared to that thing, they would just bounce right-"
"Okay, okay. We get it, how will we distract the Rhino?"
"Who's the fastest out of the two of you?" asks Friday and her eyes dart between them, waiting for an answer.
Nila sighs and points a finger at Riley.
"Okay, good. I've got a plan," Friday finally answers and a small grin starts to spread across her face.
------------------------
"This. Is. Absolutely. Ridiculous."
Riley stands in front of Nila and Friday with a rather grumpy look on his face. Mutated rabbit skins and fur hang loosely off of his body and his skin has been masked with a mixture of mud and rabbit blood. Leaves and pieces of grass have also been jabbed in his curly red hair and any other exposed patches of clothes. In his hands, he holds two large rocks.
"And disgusting. Remind me why I'm doing this..." Riley trails off with a miserable look on his face.
"To save Kaitlyn, of course," replies Nila who's standing besides Friday a few meters away. Not wanting to get a whiff of how disgusting he smells smothered in dead animals.
Friday slowly nods. "Plus, I've dealt with these Rhinos before. They love eating mutated rabbits and they love noise. They rely on noise to hunt." Friday pauses and bites the insides of her cheeks. "Make the noise again."
Riley groans and stares at the rocks before holding them up. He smashes them together three times. KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! Then holds his left hand up to his mouth and makes an Indian noise by smacking his hand against his mouth. And proceeds back to smashing the rocks together again, two more times. Riley drops the rocks and looks at his friends with an unimpressed look on his face.
"How come you're not doing this? You're the adult here," Riley questions Friday and crosses his arms.
"Do you think you're capable of carrying your own weight or possibly more down a tree, bridal style?" Friday asks and raises an eyebrow.
YOU ARE READING
After Earth's Fall | ✔ UNDERGOING CONSTRUCTION
Science Fiction"Humanity's pride and greed will be the death of us" In 2025 B.E.F that saying couldn't have been more than true. After a devastating nuclear explosion had scorched one side of the world, people were forced to leave their home planet to Mars. A few...
