Trials

Chapter 4

             Noah's gaze gives way to terror as it fastens on the spotted monster.

            "Everyone scatter!" Liam yells out.

            Noah finds himself barreling deeper into the humid undergrowth. He looks up to see Jay and Grayson following quickly alongside him.

          Noah yells out Zach's name above the canopy, in hopes that the boy will come rushing out and they can get out of this nightmare. Jay grabs his hands and tugs him close.

        "What're you doing!" She whispers anxiously. "Stop yelling so we can actually have a decent chance to make it out alive!"

         "Jay's right." Grayson agrees. "We will find Zach... and if he is alive then he'll be counting on us to keep him that way. Okay?"

       Noah nods and clings onto that little hope Grayson created. Noah hadn't seen much of Grayson at all, but he certainly seemed like a worthy ally to have.

      "Look out!" Someone screams from behind.

      Noah barely has time to look at the beast before the large swinging paw trips Grayson from behind as they start running. Jay runs back to help him up and he holds a feeble thumbs up as they limp together furiously.

       "In the trees! We have to get in the trees!" Jay points furiously at one of the trees while she begins trying to slice vines with her nails and throw some to Grayson.

       "Are you crazy!" Noah snaps. "A jaguar's natural habitat is literally the treetops. "

      "Maybe," Jay replies while she begins climbing the tree and helping Grayson up by tugging on the twisted vines. "But actually Noah, if you've done your studying, then you'd know that jaguars can't go all the way up to the canopy. We can climb up there. Unless you have a death wish."

      Something about her calm and teasing tone bothers him, it pricks at his mind with uncomfortable doubt. Then Noah feels a shiver of fear. Where had the jaguar gone?

      As if she had read his mind Jay chuckled, "So the beast had enough pickings of us. Probably went for Mya Liam and Ari."

      "Liam'll take good care of them. Y'know he slayed a jaguar before." Grayson grunts as he heaves himself up onto a higher branch.

       "Really?"

      "Oh sure. He was a big old male too. Paraded the trophy around right after he killed it around the Trial camp."

       "Pretty cool."

      Noah was amazed at the random small talk in such a dire situation. Then all of a sudden his ears start to ring. They burned so bad that he had to cup his palms around them to deaden the pain.

      "What's wrong?" Jay asks, but Noah was already lunging for the branches. Jay helps Grayson and they both climbed higher and quicker with no words. Then the ringing in his ears turns to an unbearable pounding. But it was then he knew immediately.

       "Grayson look out!" Noah screams. 

       Grayson looks back up at Noah, and as soon as he does, a blur of black and gold fur throw him off the tree and the vine and knock him several feet down to the ground. Jay screams as the other half of the vine is ripped from beneath her and she swings helplessly in the treetops. Noah stands frozen in terror. He swings over and grabs Jay by the arm to shakily help her up. Jay and Noah stand helplessly on a sturdy branch, not daring to ever look down. Then Noah heard the yelling and sees Liam drive a handmade spear at the jaguar. It catches the creature on its left leg and the jaguar yowls in pain. It doesn't take much for Liam to bring it down together and drive the spear through its throat. Liam looks up and waves for Jay and Noah to come down. Noah cautiously helps Jay out of the tree. She climbs down shakily and Noah even noticed a limp. Jay buries her head into his shoulder to keep from seeing the b****y mass of what was left of Grayson. Liam just sat unflinching next to the dead jaguar. Noah couldn't tell if he was grieving or obsessing over his victory. It was then when Mya and Ari burst out of the woods from behind Liam.

       "Grayson!" Ari calls out.

       She rushes to his bloodied side.

       "He's dead," Liam says plainly. Ari shakes her head in denial. It would be even harder now that she's lost her boyfriend.

       "No... no..." She sobs. Ari lowers her head in her hands to tune out the world and rocks slowly back and forth.

       "The jaguar's dead," Liam announces. "Noah, Mya, and Jay should go look for Zach. I'll... stay here and comfort Ari."

      Noah nods and Mya and Jay walk silently behind him. Then Mya looks like a wretched mess all of the sudden and darts in a different direction.

       "Mya!" Noah calls out.

        It's no use. Noah finds himself tearing out into the still, murky jungle. Mya looks desperately as if she's searching for something. Then she stops abruptly beside a hollow tree. Jay hurries and catches her breath beside them.

       "It can't be..." Mya whispers.

       "Mya..."

         She stood there in awe as Noah peers down at a tiny crumpled ball of yellow fur with burrs and moss sticking out at all angles. When Mya reaches to pick it up, Noah holds out a hand to caution her.

       "You don't know what it could..."

       But Mya already had picked it up. It was a cub. A jaguar cub. Jay looks at it in horror, Noah glares in disgust, but as he looked up at Mya's face as she dusted the dirty little thing off, he saw nothing but affection and warmth.

         "It's waiting for its mother." She says sadly. "The one we just killed."

        Jay shakes her head with annoyance and impatience. "It'll grow bigger! Once a menace always a menace. The kindest thing we could do would be to kill it now. I mean it's that or have the thing brutally slaughtered by Liam." Jay sighs.

        Mya looks as if Jay had suggested to kill her instead.

       "You would kill this defenseless creature? Who's probably never even seen the light of day. Its mother is dead!"

       Jay rolls her eyes again.

       "Yes, its mother is dead, so it won't survive long without it anyway." Noah adds.

       "Then I'll care for it!"

         Jay sneers. "Animals in the rainforest are meant for meat, supplies, or work. They're not pets, their mutants, and Liam will probably kill you both the second he sees you with that thing."

       "Stop calling it a thing; Liam will have to get through me first." Mya grins.

       "Not if I kill it first." Jay growls.

       The two stare at each other for a long, hostile moment before Noah steps in to intervene.

        "Let's get back to finding Zach. We can worry about the cub later." Noah mutters. Impatience stinging his head.

        "Ok, but I'll hang on to the cub. We can't just leave it here! Besides, little Zeus will be lonely without us." Mya tickles his fuzzy belly and he purrs in affection.

       "YOU'VE NAMED IT!! All right that's it we have to get rid of the thing!" Jay yells.

       "Is there a problem?" Mya clutches Zeus tighter to her chest. "I think Zeus suits him, doesn't it? I read about a powerful god in mythology in one of the texts. I'm going to call him Zu for short."

       Jay could hardly hide her frustration towards Mya. "If you give it a name you'll start to love it! If you start to love it you'll trust it, and if you trust it then someday when it's older it will murder you in your sleep!"

       "Let her hold onto it for now." Noah sighs. "We need to focus on finding Zach. Now quit bickering, put the cub away, and let's do what we came out here to do."

        Both Mya and Jay muttered their apologies. Mya set Zu, who was no larger than her forearm, upon her shoulder. They all then went on and continued to call out for Zach, or search for his body. They didn't say more about Zu or Zeus or whatever his name was except for Jay who just muttered,

        "I swear if Liam doesn't kill the monster, I will,"

        Which earned another harsh glare from Mya.

       So then they set off again, crunching through the humid and damp forest as if a kid wasn't just brutally murdered in front of them all. Occasionally, someone would yell for Zach or someone would volunteer and check behind the mighty trees or wander to a cave to look for his body. Noah could tell all three of them were starting to give up hope. Sometimes they said things like,

       "I bet he'd go back here." Or, "The jaguar must've chased him back there."

       But as Noah caught glimpses of the darkening sky through the trees, he could tell the only things on their minds were, "Where would the cat store a body?" Eventually they all nodded at each other and silently agreed that the Trial was ending soon, and they needed to go back. When they returned Liam stood up anxiously from beside Ari.

       "Did you find him? Please tell me you found him!"

        They shook their heads, and Liam started rambling on how this grief would best be dealt with after rest. Suddenly a shriek sounded in the distance. Even Ari lifted her teary face to the jungle.

       "He's out there!" Jay breathes.

       "Zu!" Mya called as the cub stumbles onto the forest floor.

        Liam gave a look of disgust and disdain, but Noah knew that not even he could argue with Mya about the cub at a time like this. Noah suddenly felt a surge of hope. Maybe he shouldn't have for Zach, but he felt he needed to find him, now. So he was the first one who volunteered.

        "I'm staying to look for Zach!" He announces to the group.

         Everyone stares for a moment, surprised. Then everyone started yelling out the flaws in his pointless plans.

        "It's way too dangerous!"

        "You heard the shrieks, I think he's dead!"

        "No one's ever stayed in their Trial"

        "The Silent will make you pay!

        "There could still be more jaguars!"

         "You'll die for sure!"

        Noah shook out his head. "Doesn't matter. I'll keep looking for him until the Silent drag me away!"

       Liam let out a "pfft". "Standing up to me is a lot different than standing up to a ton of armed men in masks who probably fight better than you ever will."

       Noah just glares back at him.

       "I'm going, I don't know why I should find him, but I need to."

       "Then I'm coming." Jay declares.

        Mya positions Zu back on the top of her shoulder and smiles. "Me too!"

        Liam sighs and turns to Ari. "You shouldn't be out here after all that's happened." He says. "Go back, you can tell everyone where we're going, and if we don't return, perhaps you can tell our story."

       Ari stares at him blankly and opens her mouth to protest, but instead wipes her eyes and runs back to camp with one last glance at Grayson's body.

        "Let's go." Liam says.

          They didn't run. Liam suggested it would attract unwanted animals. They didn't walk either. If it wasn't for Liam's warning not to run, they would be sprinting.

        Whispering. That's the only thing to do. The Trial had ended. He could hear it in the speakers of the artificial sky. His parents would be contacting the Silent at his disappearance any second. Noah guesses there were probably cameras in here somewhere; he's always found a few in his past Trials, so they avoided all the possible locations for ones, and took the most treacherous route to the direction of the shrieks. 

         There was only one problem: the shrieks had stopped. Liam started a small fire and gently sprinkled a few embers onto a branch to make a dim-lit torch. Surprisingly, the sky darkened anyway besides the fact that the Trial had ended. Maybe the always-cloudy rainforest sky really was real. It made his head spin. Could all those heroes he'd read about in the texts be sitting under the same sky? Were there people outside the Trials or were the texts too old? All those questions and more coursed through his brain and more, but the same one he kept coming back to was: Why the Trials? Why would someone ever create the Trials? Who out there has to watch them all die, sitting there sometimes bored out of their minds? It made him shudder at the thought that someone was cold-hearted enough to sit there, watching children and adults of all ages get slaughtered, and just sit there and do nothing about it. He's always had dreams of running into whoever monitored the cams, or the Silent, or even the person who thought of the Trials, and tell them all the pain he's suffered, talk about his sister, or even explain having a break of fun once from boredom and trauma. He'd imagined it many times and never told anyone. He'd probably be in trouble. But Noah Rainforest always imagined the day he would say, "How does it feel?"

        Noah and Mya were the first to get to the site where they assumed Zach was. Blood that Noah was guessing was Zach's was painted all over the once forest green plants. Mya looked as if she was about to vomit.

         "Let's follow the blood trail." Jay whispers.

         Then Zu pokes his head up from beneath Myas shirt. Liam grunts in disgust once more.

        "I think Zu can help us track Zach!" Mya exclaims.

        Jay nods, a bit doubtful. "You may be right... set him on the ground, near the blood." She orders.

       Mya smiles. "I knew you'd come around to enjoying him.

        Jay glares at her. "He's just helping us find Zach."

        "Sure."

        Sure enough, Zu lowers his nose to the blood and it starts to twitch. Mya leans down to pet and encourage him, and he starts to take slow steps through the underbrush.

       Liam waves a hand for them to stay behind him, and they creep forward slowly after him. Jay monitors the trees to search for cams as they advanced through the bushes.

       Noah wasn't sure what he expected. The shrieks had stopped. If he was there, then what they'd expect was him unconscious or dead. No, Noah hadn't expected anything. Perhaps it was just a dead end, some animal blood that Zu had taken interest in. No matter what Noah expected, it never would've been close to what they saw.

        Zu retreated back to Mya and starts mewling. He sat down, and everyone frowned when he looks somewhat disappointed.

       "What do you think he saw?" Liam asks.

        "I guess we're about to find out." Noah shivers.

        When Noah came out of the brush, the first thing he saw was the end of the blood trail. It stopped there. It didn't end in a meshed pile of torn Zach, it didn't even fade out, or soak into the ground. It just stopped. Then he heard Jay's breathing seize and Mya gasp. Noah looks up. A great gnarled jungle oak stood before them, but it wasn't the tree that baffled them all. It was a needle. Like the shots his mother gives him when he's had a fever. There was a small canister of purple liquid on the end of it that was only half full. It was buried deep within the tree bark. A small dart fixed into the tree; it kept something held firmly against the tree in place. It was a folded piece of paper. The dart skewered through it and was stuck firmly into the tree. Liam freed the dart and Noah unfolded the paper. Before Noah could read what it said, Liam read the single word on the dart aloud.

         "It says COSA." Liam whispers.

         Noah froze. "COSA?"

        Liam shrugs. "Just printed in black right here." He pauses. "Does the paper say anything?"

        Noah unfolded the paper. It had a few dark drops of dried blood, and even though Noah had never seen Zach's handwriting, Noah could infer from the stains and the shaky, desperate writing that it was most certainly Zach's.

       He decided to read the small note aloud. Noah's breath got heavier after each word.

       "They're lying to us all! Get away if you want to live."

       For a second Noah closes his eyes. Everyone immediately started shouting. Except for Noah. Somehow he knew Zach was gone for good. Just like Natalie. He knew that he was supposed to let this go. His parents would want him to drop it. Liam would want him to drop it. But he had the foreboding feeling that everything was all but okay. And how could he ever have known that this was the beginning of the end?