Survival

The different sounds that were produced by the inhabitants of the jungle resounded in Leo's ears as he kept silent and motionless. The chirping of the crickets, the rustling of the trees, the birds screeching in the distance, and the gentle sounds of splashing. Leo remained still while recounting everything that happened to him before he appeared in the jungle, desperately trying to figure out where he was and more importantly, how he got there.

Thoughts of past hardships began flooding Leo's mind. His father's drinking problem and his death, his mother's burden and how she too eventually died, the suffering in his aunt's house, and every other thing that had happened up until this moment.

Leo's anger that seemed to have cooled down returned and he stood to his feet. He had a fierce look on his face, the look of an angry fighter.

"If the Universe is against me being happy, then I'll take on the entire Universe and make it as miserable as I am right now."

Leo spotted a pebble on the ground and decided to vent his frustration on it. He kicked it with the same force that a soccer player would use when giving a penalty. The stone was sent flying into the jungle.

[GROWL!!!]

As the stone that Leo kicked went into the bushes that were some distance from him, a loud growl was immediately heard. It sounded like a big cat in pain. Leo at this very moment had become the unluckiest being alive because he kicked the stone into the creature's face.

He instantly changed from being angry to being frightened.

"What…what was that?"

Leo looked in the direction that the pebble went but could not see well due to the darkness and the bushes that filled the area. He squinted his eyes and increased his focus. The moment Leo's sight fell upon the 2 yellow eyeballs that looked like they were focused on him, he lost his ability to move, his jaws slowly dropped down and cold sweat formed on the forehead of a completely terrified Leo.

'I should have known that something like this would happen. I should have known that there would be wild animals in a jungle. Why did I shout? my screams for Jax must have brought it here.'

Leo remained still, not because it was a survival technique, but because he was frozen with fear. He just stood staring at the creature. Leo's view of the creature's eyes enabled him to make out the size and shape of the creature's head and that was how he knew that this thing was dangerously huge.

Leo had visited the zoo a couple of times when his parents were still alive and he had seen the big cats of the zoo, the lion, the tiger, and even a jaguar, but known of their heads were as large as that of the creature in front of him.

'what do I do now?'

'Can I survive this?'

'I have to run!'

'Yes'

'that's all I can do now.'

'But what if it catches me?'

'Should I hide?'

'No, that's not possible, it's clearly watching me.'

'But wait'

'It has been watching me for some time now without moving'

'Could it be that it hasn't seen me'

'But I made quite a lot of noise, no way that it missed that'

Leo's mind was divided between hope and despair. He found reasons to be optimistic about his survival and also found reasons to doubt those reasons. He was no longer sure if what he was seeing was just his imagination or the real deal, after all, we all thought that the coat on the rack was a ghost.

[DU DU]

The sound of Leo's beating heart became audible.

[DU DU, DU DU, DU DU, DU DU, DU DU]

The rate of his heartbeat was already fast, but it spiked in an instant.

It seemed that the creature was aware of Leo's thoughts and decided to answer his question by rising from its crouched position and taking a step forward. Leo saw this and his mind deleted all thoughts of hope and settled on despair.

'It's real and worst still, it wasn't even standing before. It's huge'

As Leo confirmed the existence of the creature, he instinctively took a step backward in response to the creature's approach. Deep down, Leo felt that this humungous creature had been acting cautious towards him, but brushed off the thought and kept thinking of a way to survive this ordeal of his. But unfortunately for him, the moment he took a step backward, the creature got down as if about to pounce.

"No"

Leo had watched a lot of documentaries on animals and how they behave in the wild and that was how he knew that the creature was finally ready to attack him.

'Leo…run'

Leo turned around and took off running as the creature ran in pursuit of him, roaring as it did so. The bushes and tree branches rustled as Leo ran, injuring himself in the process.

"Don't stop Leo, just keep running"

Leo had been running for a while and was only able to do so because the creature could not maneuver through the jungle as quickly as Leo due to its large body. But that wouldn't last long because the creature stopped trying to catch up to Leo from the ground and decided to chase him by jumping on the tree branches almost similarly to monkeys, instead of going through them. It was slowly gaining on Leo as a result of this.

[Heavy breathing]

Leo's breathing got heavier and heavier hinting that he was running out of breath and would need to stop eventually. He could not afford to stop and check the distance between him and the creature, why would he? He could clearly hear the roars of the creature as it got closer and closer to him.

'If I keep running like this, I'm going to pass out and that would mean my death. I can't stop and hide, it's too close to me for that and it must have already picked up on my scent. What do I do?'

He found himself thinking about death and how at this point, it was inevitable. He had no way out and no one was there to save him. His exhaustion was now at its peak and his body felt numb. Leo's despair had taken over him and he was about to give in to it by collapsing.

"I love you, Leo"

Leo's eyes that looked tired and were slowly closing up, opened up a bit when he remembered Jax's voice and how much he loved him.

"Jax"

He realized that he might have been trapped on another planet with no way of going back to his brother, but there was still a glimmer of hope of finding a way back to Jax. But only if he survived this ordeal.

"I can't die here, I have to survive not for my sake, but for Jax"

His eyes widened up and shined with the golden glow and Leo instantly felt an energy boost in his body. He was surprised and didn't understand the source of this strength, but he didn't have the time to ponder on it. Leo was already within the creature's reach because he had slowed down due to the exhaustion, but before the creature could close down its open jaws on Leo's head, his speed increased and he moved away in the nick of time. The creature's eyeballs grew in shock at what it had just experienced but still continued to pursue Leo.

"Where I'm I getting all this energy from? With this, I might just survive"

But just then, Leo ran into an open field with no trees, just low grasses. This was the break the creature needed because the open field allowed it to express its true speed. Leo managed to glance at his back to look at the monster after realizing how bad things were going to get only to see that the monster that he had already given some distance was now closing it at an alarming rate.

With a look of terror on his face, Leo let out the words

"Fuck me"