Daylight, Jungle, Lubang Minor
The backs of Ana’s eyelids grew hotter and brighter several hours later. She groaned and tried to roll onto her side, but she had been too used to the piece of root jabbing into the small of her back, so the sudden movement suddenly made her acutely aware of how uncomfortable her jungle bedding was. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, and, for a time, the world was blurry. She blinked several times and wiped her face, pulling free pieces of vegetation and mud from her eyes. Around them, the full life of the jungle was making itself audibly known; birds sang in the trees, critters scurried about, hunters howled in the distance, and the insects swarmed everything in search of a meal. The sun shone through the leaves in such a way that a ray of light beamed directly onto her face, much to her chagrin.
Her head pounded more than yesterday, and her clothes were thoroughly soaked, but she was alive. She laid still for a few minutes further and stared at the vegetative shelter above her, musing on the perilous and unfortunate events of the night prior, then suddenly remembered she wasn’t alone. With a grunt of pain, she rolled off of the root – which had left its mark in her skin after hours of pressure – and propped herself up on an elbow. She looked over at Zarine, her unfortunate partner in this trial, and quietly hoped she was still alive. The blood trickling from both of their heads had dried by now, leaving a grisly dark red streak down the side of their faces.
Ana pushed off her back and crawled on all fours to Zarine. When she got next to her, she pushed against her shoulder gently. ”Zarine,” she whispered, fearful of alerting any nearby predators, ”Zarine, get up. It’s morning.” She continued pushing and shaking the woman gently until she awoke, at which point she would wave her hand in front of her face to ensure she was still conscious. ”The rain’s stopped,” she said, casting a glance skyward, ”And I think we’re safe… for now.”
They were utterly screwed, though. Her ship had carved a mighty scar into the earth here and was in a state of terrible disrepair some ways away in a direction she couldn’t even remember. That, and she was certain those… creatures would still be lurking around it, if they weren’t solely nocturnal hunters. She desperately hoped they were; at least it’d give them some time to move on foot and recover before the hunt began again.
”We need to… figure something out,” she said vaguely, wondering just what they could do. As far as she knew, this planet wasn’t even populated, much less containing a starship repair facility. Things were looking absolutely dismal for the pair.
@Wit
