Escape from Harrizel Read Online Free PDF Page A

move. I
don’t breathe . My heart is a bomb about to explode, just as
the first one slowly approaches. He lifts two growling slits in the
air, sniffing mere yards to the right. His partner jumps to the
gate, shaking his rod over his head again, signaling the other’s
return. The first one gives up, glowering at the shrubbery before
returning with a hissing snarl to the gate again.
    Once he reaches it, I spin to the jungle and
take off. Fast as I can, fast as my legs will take me.
    Keep moving, keep moving…
    The jungle’s laden with obstacles—giant
roots sit like boulders in the dirt, bubbling over uneven ground
and swinging branches reach across one another, slicing the air
like ready nooses. Vines try to trap me in seemingly endless walled
webs and I’m barely able to navigate the tiny gaps. But as soon as
I tear free from a nasty tangle and out into a clearing, my foot
gets caught on a hidden root and I fall, face first, into the
ground.
    I hit it with a violent smack but something
tiny and sharp slices my left cheek. I bring my fingers to the
bone. Red.
    A hissing blue flower with orange-coated
petals sneaks back into its bush of siblings. The group of thirty
all turn, pointing a sharp yellow stinger at me, vibrating before
retracting. I spring to my feet, wiping the wet cheekbone just in
time to dodge the yellow stingers shooting darts into the ground
that sizzle and evaporate into nothing.
    Racing, I push past a curtain of hanging
yellow leaves and come to a shield of vertical vines, hanging from
the canopy and dotted with crimson blossoms that dip to the ground.
Clusters of trees intermingled in a sea of the spitting blue and
orange flowers block the path on either side. A breeze floats
through the vines and they all sway to the left.
    I sweep a few to the right but the instant I
touch them, the crimson blossoms spit out red goo that burns my
fingers like acid. Only a few drops land on my fingers but the pain
is so intense, I snap them to my chest, nursing one throbbing
knuckle in my mouth. There’s a clearing just beyond the curtain of
vines but it’s about fifteen feet away. I pass another aching
knuckle to my mouth and clench my fists, locating the largest gaps
in the sea of hanging fire.
    I’ll have to run.
    But what if I can’t make it? What if they
snap awake and try to trap me and I burn alive? There’s no other
way. The blue and orange dusted flowers have their yellow stingers
aimed in my direction, arrows ready to fire.
    I wish I could remember someone. Anyone . A person I loved, one who could tell me it’d be
alright, no matter what happens. Someone to offer comfort. But
there’s no one. No one to remember. Just the fire and sooty faces,
the cold walks and fights. Just survival.
    Like this.
    I take a breath and focus on the clearing
ahead. I can make it. I just have to be fast. I count myself
down.
    Three…
    I’ll just have to move really quickly.
    Two…
    I’ll grit my teeth. It’ll only be a few
seconds.
    One…
    I take off and immediately, the pain is
unbearable. I’m zapped everywhere, every inch of exposed skin
bubbling with acid, eating away to the fat and muscle. Throwing my
arms in front of my face to shield it, I move as fast as possible,
sweeping through the hanging fire but all I can feel is the
pain—this erosion of my body. My head hangs low, my scalp screaming
with scorched flesh but I keep going, biting my lip which nearly
bleeds from the assault. I’m almost through, almost to the end but
there may not be much of me left. Am I burning alive? It feels like
it. Bits of me are being charred away, melting into this poisonous
place to be left behind as evidence. Evidence I didn’t survive.
    But I’m not quitting.
    My legs carry me further, wobbling as
patches of skin disappear. I’m just about through when I snatch the
last few vines to the side and fall into a giant puddle of a sticky
blue substance on the other side. The liquid starts to envelop me
but I keep my mouth and