.

Chapter 7: The Forest

---

Kate ran.

She spun, dashed away from the black beast, and dove through the gap under a fallen log and down the small hill beyond it. She heard the beast roar behind her and give chase. She turned her slide down the hill into a roll, caught a glimpse of the beast reaching a clawed arm under the log, rolled to her feet and poured on as much speed as she could.

The beast roared again, and Kate knew it was giving chase. She dodged through a narrow gap between two trees and into a dense thicket of bamboo-like plants, and heard the creature starting to tear through them even before she made it out the other side.

Kate willed herself to run faster. Through another cluster of trees. Over one log, under another. Through the elevated roots of another tree. Through another stand of bamboo. On and on. Every time the creature roared, it felt closer.

She dashed across a small clearing toward another tree with elevated roots, dropping at the last instant to slide through a narrow gap into the open space under its bole. The beast was there in an instant, tearing at the roots with claws and fangs, determined to reach her.

Kate scooted to the far side of her impromptu foxhole. She could feel her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

The creature moved around the tree, trying to find a way to reach her. It found a cluster of smaller roots and scrabbled, dug, and bit at them until they gave way.

Kate raised her gun and opened fire. The creature screeched and recoiled, withdrawing to the side of the opening it had created. Kate kept firing, aiming bursts of gunfire through gaps in the roots where she could see the creature's black hide.

Suddenly the beast's head darted through the opening torn in the roots, clamped its jaws over the gun's barrel, and ripped the weapon from her hands.

Clever bastard, Kate thought in the split second it took the creature to fling the weapon away into the woods, and then it was tearing at the roots again. She squirmed away, through the roots on the other side, and felt its teeth nearly catch one of her boots as she left the shelter of the tree and broke into a dead sprint once again.

She had made it maybe thirty yards and just ducked under another fallen log when the beast roared again—this time from above her—and an enormous weight landed on her backpack, driving her to the ground. She tried to scramble back to her feet, but she'd barely even gotten her arms under herself when she was yanked bodily into the air and shaken violently from side to side.

For an instant, she thought her fate was sealed, before she realized that the creature had bitten down on her backpack, and she was hanging from its straps. She quickly unclipped the waist strap and raised her arms to slip free of the shoulder straps, but the creature thrashed its head again as she fell. The left strap twisted and snagged her wrist, spinning her around and before she finally slipped free and slammed to the ground several yards away.

Kate wasn't sure how much longer she could keep going. She glanced back at the creature, which seemed focused on tearing the pack to shreds. She pushed herself back to her feet and staggered into another sprint, but even as she took the first step she heard the creature drop the pack and snarl.

Her legs burned as she dug into her last reserves of energy. She slapped aside fern fronds as she charged through the underbrush, and saw a gap in the foliage ahead.

A new sound pushed past the creature's roaring and her own pulse in her ears: rushing water.

She plowed through another stand of ferns and found herself at the top of a cliff beside a sheer waterfall.

Without hesitating, she jumped. As she did, the beast roared again, and she could feel its breath on her back. And then she was falling.

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and made her legs and back as straight as possible, took a deep breath, and hoped she'd judged the angle right.

The impact with the water was violent in an entirely different way than jumping into a pool or lake. The water in the basin slowed her down enough to avoid injury, but the churn from the waterfall carried her all the way to the bottom and spun her around until she was quite disoriented, and the murkiness of the water didn't help. She felt herself brush up against some rocks, and tried to grab onto them while she got her bearings, but the current was too strong.

She swept downstream, still tumbling, flailing her arms and legs in an attempt to stabilize herself. She felt one hand breach the surface, finally giving her some directional reference, and kicked in that direction.

Her face finally broke the surface and she gasped for air. She got a mix of air and water, coughed, spat, kicked harder, and gasped again. This time it was just air. She blinked the water from her eyes and scanned her surroundings. Cliff on one side, gradually becoming less steep as it went downstream; rocky, overgrown riverbank on the other side, with more forest beyond. She spotted a bare, tangled fallen tree reaching out from the bank just downstream and swam for it.

As she pulled herself up to its trunk, she heard the frustrated yowl of the black beast from behind her, and looked up. It was still at the top of the cliff she'd leapt from, pacing back and forth like it wasn't sure whether to give up or try to find a way around.

Kate hauled herself up onto the riverbank and sat down, watching the beast while she caught her breath. After bellowing its frustrations at her for another minute or so, it seemed to decide she wasn't worth the effort, turned away from the cliff and disappeared.

Yeah, she thought, fuck you too.

She reached up to her throat to radio the others, and realized her throat mic was missing. So was the earpiece. She wasn't sure when she'd lost them, but they were nowhere to be found. Without them, and without whatever supplies had been in the pack, it was highly unlikely anyone would be able to find her.

She was alone, in the Pandoran rainforest, with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Fuck.