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The Jungle

Krissy ran from the small village, diving into the bordering jungle, desperate to outrun the angry shouts of the tribesmen who had held her prisoner for the last three days. Arrows thudded into trees around her and she bit down on a panicked yelp as one whistled past her ear on its downward arc towards the ground. Her lungs burned with exertion and her muscles twinged painfully as she moved, motivated to keep moving by raw fear. For three days, she had been laying in a dingy little mud hut, hogtied on the bare ground with nothing but the ocassional sip of water and nibble of stale bread to keep her going. It had been the worst three days of her life and her only hope of survival was the dense jungle which she stumbled through and her wits and survival skills.

The leopard ducked under a low hanging branch, heavy with vines and stumbled over tree roots as she crashed through the undergrowth, desperate to shake off her screaming pursuers. Eventually, lungs aflame, heart hammering in her ears, she collapsed in a clutch of thick ferns that stood as tall as she. She lay prone for a moment on the soft earth, the feathery fronds trembling softly around her, listening for any signs of her pursuers. There, beyond the roaring of blood in her ears, they could be heard, shouting to each other and hunting desperately for her. They almost sounded uncertain, but she couldn't understand their language, so isolated were they.

She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and braced to continue running but the ground gave way beneath her, sending her rolling down to a narrow stream below. It was as shallow as it was narrow and it wound sinuously through age carved rock at the bottom of a moss and vine matted gully. There was an overhang of rock a few yards away from her and she grit her teeth against her body's protests and scurried beneath it. She pressed through the curtain of thick moss and scrambled into a tight crevice at the back. She glanced around at the interior of the overhang and settled in for a long wait. It was dim and fusty, and the stream collected in a small pool at her feet. Tiny, silver scaled fish swam in the slow current, nibbling at the snakes of algae that clung to the bottom of the small pool. Colourful amphibians splashed about and squeaked to one another, but otherwise they paid her no mind.

She peered at the opposite side. It was the same as the side of the overhang she had crawled into; low rock, polished by the elements and hung with moss and velvet furred vines. She hoped it would keep her safe from prying eyes as she huddled in the rear of the rocky nook, waiting to see what would happen next. For the longest time, she heard nothing but the jungle around her. The voices of the tribesmen had faded into the distance, but that didn't mean she was safe. It just meant that they had most likely started up a search pattern of some sort. In the distance, a storm rumbled across the low peaks of the mountains, thick, black clouds tumbling down the side of the Mirram'sha Teeth, drenching the dense jungle and tiny settlements in its path. The rainy season was almost at an end and soon the weather would cool, bringing with it thick blankets of snow and hard frost. She cocked an ear, turning her attention away from the sounds of the approaching storm. She needed to get out of there, to find safety, find food and real shelter, and, most importantly, a damned phone so she could give Pritchard a real chewing out for withholding some important information about the local tribes and their cannibalistic tendancies.

And to ask if she could have accommodation arranged somewhere locally and fresh cothes and gear delivered to her - she had had to leave her pack behind in the village, to lighten her load when it came time to escape. A large, heavy backpack loaded with the survival essentials was, ironically, not conducive to her immediate survival at the time.

She continued to listen for some time, straining for any signs of her pursuers. The sun sank slowly below the horizon and the twin moons sat high in the sky, sharp crescents like a pair of scythes hanging over her head. She poked her head out of the curtain of moss at the other end of the overhang, her ears swivelling as she listened. Nighttime critters chirped and buzzed, glow worms burrowed through the topsoil and leaf mould and in the distance a deer barked. But there was no sound of the tribesmen. The jungle was dark and the storm grumbled overhead somewhere in the east, piling up in the foothills and getting ready to collapse across the jungle basin. She could already feel spots of rain on her whiskers and taste the damp soil on her tongue.

She squinted into the night. Without her gear, she needed to start foraging as soon as possible. There were a few bushes hanging over the edges of the gully, heavy with fruit. She carefully edged out of the shelter of the overhang and gently reached out to cup a bundle of the soft, pink berries in the palm of her hand to carefully study them. Even by the poor light of the moons, she could tell they were ilman berries, a sweet, nutritous fruit favoured by deer for the quick release of energy they provided. They were edible and grew in abundance all over the region, so she picked at them, gingerly clearing a spindly branch of all its ripe berries before she turned towards a low, squat bush and started weaving a couple of pouches from its broad, flexible leaves so she could carry more. The leaves were sturdy and held together nicely with strands of fibre pulled from the razor grass that grew in clumps around the bush's roots and soon she had two woven pouches hanging from her belt.

She set about foraging more of the berries and seeing what else was in her immediate vicinity that she could reach from the cover of the gully. It wasn't much, but it did amount to two hand-crafted pouches crammed full of nuts and berries and a sour tasting bark pulled from the thick trunks of the towering mol'lunn trees that jostled for space amongst all the others in the jungle. Her small haul was lightweight and packed with all the nutrients and protein her body needed to get her back to civilization. Now all she needed was fresh water - the ilman berries were 80% juiice, but they wouldn't be enough to sate her thirst during the cloying heat of the day. Another thing she desperately wanted was a clear patch of sky with a smattering of stars to orient herself with.

Her hand slid to the pendant that hung low between her small breasts on a leather strap that looped around her neck. It was a small penknife disguised as a hand-made locket and was now her only weapon. It was really only good for cutting through low-grade rope and cardboard, but her late father had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday and it had come in handy more than once during her archeological excursions into the wilderness. If she found a sturdy enough branch, she could whittle an end into a speartip, but the wood she had found thus far was water logged and next to useless. Regardless, she was immensely glad her captors hadn't discovered it tucked inside her tank top. She guessed it was mostly down to the strap on which it hung was the same honey brown that her fur was.

She cast one more look about herself, studying her new surroundings. She had been run far off her original path and she had no idea which direction to go, so she opted to follow the stream. It was bound to lead to somewhere and maybe she would dare to test it at some point to see if it was fresh water or not. Right now, though, she wasn't thirsty enough to test her luck. Finding what food she had was enough for her for now. She knew what her luck was like; she would get one lucky break and if she tested its boundaries, it would break and plunge her headfirst into the cold, turbid waters of misfortune. And her current predicament insisted that she take care and stay sensible.

She set off downstream, trying not to make a sound as she splashed through the water and mud. The rain increased, pouring down in a sheet of water, battering the foliage around her, dragging vines and branches out of the canopy to thicken the detritus of the jungle floor further. She huddled beneath a tree, waiting for it to pass. The sudden deluge had rendered visibility nil and fumbling around in the darkness didn't appeal to her. The leopard waited an indeterminate amound of time for it to pass and breathed a soft sigh of relief when it did. She listened to it drifting off deeper into the jungle as she continued to follow the stream, constantly listening for any signs of the tribe. With any luck, they would have given up and gone in search of an easier meal.

The gully flattened out and became even with the surrounding terrain for a time. Eventually the stream vanished into the base of a sheer cliff that reached up towards the night sky. The face of grey rock was slippery with water and offered no handholds. She crouched by the stream and listened to the faint sound of water plunging into unfathomable depths beneath the earth. She dipped her hand into the cool water and caught some of it up in her cupped palm. She tasted it and spat it out. It wasn't fresh water and it left a hideous salty-mud taste on her tongue. She looked around. A narrow animal trail, lined with ferns, fallen vines and razor grass wound its way through the trees, vanishing amoung the ferns, plunging into darkness. Seeing no other route besides the stream, she followed it cautiously. Her cargo pants snagged on branches and thorns as she moved and by the time she had entered the small, mossy clearing at the end of the trail, her clothes were riddled with small tears and the rain had returned in the form of a light drizzle.

The clearing was littered with moss coated boulders that were hung with more vines. The jungle canopy offered a narrow view of the sky and the smattering of stars that glittered between the clashing clouds would hopefully prove to be enough to figure out which direction she needed to go in next. She stepped into the clearing and fell forward, her foot becoming entangled on something she couldn't see. She swore, her words drowned out by a roll of thunder. She could hear the rain now, in the distance, a solid hissing underscoring the general nighttime cacophony of the jungle.

'I'm gonna kill Pritchard for this.' She muttered as she twisted around to try and see what she had been snarled up in. A thick vine had become tangled around her ankle and she reached down to pry it free. It was soft to the touch, warm and had a fine coat of light green velvet-fuzz. It was a strange plant and it tangled the entire jungle. She had no idea if it was poisonous or not. The books she had studied before she came here hadn't made mention of this particular species of vine. She studied it carefully as she untangled herself. It was wrapped loosely around her boots with no signs of how it had happened. She shrugged it off. She had a more pressing issue to deal with; her bladder ached and she realised the last time she had relieved herself was in a hole in the corner of her hut. And she had had help to do it, too. She never wanted to be tied up again. It had been a less than enjoyable experience and had left her pride bruised as well as her body.

When she had finished she re-entered the tiny clearing and peered up through the canopy. The clouds had obscured most of the stars now and she cursed again. She caught a glimpse of a familiar constellation and made a note of its angle, using it to work out which way she should go before the main body of the storm rolled in overhead. The light drizzle continued for a few minutes and she stood there, face turned towards the sky, her mouth open. She licked her lips, relishing the cool mist that gradually turned into a light rain. The rain was almost sweet to the taste but she was too thirsty to pay it any mind. Around her, vines slipped from branches, beads of water glistening along their velvet length like polished diamonds.

One landed across her shoulder, flopping down in a heavy loop around her arm as she lapped at the rain, drinking her fill. She brushed it off her shoulder absently. To taste water - any water that didn't come directly from a river or one of the thousands of streams that webbed the jungle, was a blessing. Drinking water like this quenched her thirst, but only marginally. Without her flask, it would have to do however. She closed her mouth and looked around. Fallen branches, some with vines still wrapped around them like velvet snakes littered the ground. The rain turned into a torrential downpour and she edged closer to the trees that ringed the clearing, seeking some shelter. She huddled down as she was pelted and shivered between giant roots as she quietly went over the events that had lead her here.

She had disembarked a shuttle at one of the tiny local airfields thirty miles north-east of her current position - if her reading of the stars was correct - and visited the local shops to add to her provisions. She had spoken with the locals and asked about the Temple of Nidaya and where it was said to be, telling them that she was an archeologist looking to study the ancient religion that had had the goddess at its centre. She had garnered many odd looks, multiple warnings but had ultimately managed to discover its location. It was said to be in the depths of the jungle, hidden from prying eyes and looters. Pritchard being the looter, not me. she had thought at the time.

It was true. All Pritchard had hired her for was to plunder the temple's supposed cache of lost treasures, in particular, the fabled Queen's Collar. In the history books, the collar was depicted as being a broad necklace made of golden scale and inset with rubies and diamonds. It was stated that only Nidaya's High Priestess wore it and that is was coveted by many. Pritchard being one of the many. All he wanted it for was bragging rights and eventual sale in exchange for an enormous amount of money. And if Krissy found it and brough it back, she would get a cut of said money.

'Bullshit. You still owe me for the incident with the pyramid.' She had snapped at him. He had raised his hands in defense of his empty bank account and had managed to persuade her to go on another excursion for him with the promise of a cash-in-hand payment for both jobs, in full, plus a little bonus, too. 'I'll skin you alive if you go back on this deal. Hear me?'

She wrapped her fingers around her penknife again as she thought back to their last meeting. She found, that once on the shuttle and on her way, that she meant what she had said. If he didn't pay up, she would flay him. Assuming, that is, she survived. All she wanted to do was find the temple and study it. So little was known about it, that she could make a fortune of her own if she could write just one book on it and stake her claim as an expert on what had been called by the locals, the 'Blood Queen Religion'.

She allowed herself a groan of annoyance. She needed her pack and her equipment. She couldn't take notes if she had nothing to take notes with. And she couldn't take photos if she didn't have her camera. She cursed Pritchard fervently and decided to carry on. The longer she lingered in the jungle, the more chance of the tribe had of finding her again. If she could make her way to one of the settlements that clung to the edges of the jungle, she could re-orient herself properly and maybe see about doing some odd jobs in exchange for provisions and shelter.

She swore aloud again as her foot became tangled in another vine, making her stagger into a tree. She rubbed at her bruised shoulder and stood in silence for a few moments, seething. She felt a little light headed and her stomach felt like it was infested with butterflies, too. She wondered if she had caught something off the tribesmen or if it was just a side effect of exhaustion and lack of nourishment. She shook her foot free of the vine and another flopped down from the branches above, slapping her hard in the face. The rain storm was not giving up and everything was becoming increasingly waterlogged. Branches broke away from trees, leaves were pummeled by the rain and the vines were swelling as they soaked up the water, sagging and dropping out of the trees as they became fat and heavy with moisture.

She felt something warm slither around her bicep and she pushed away from the tree, startled, suddenly worried about the venomous snakes that lurked high above her head. Another warm coil looped around her other arm and she moved hurridly away from the tree. Vines crashed down around her and she became confused in the chaos, trying to move out of the way but the rain and cloying darkness were making it incredibly difficult to see. She lost her footing in the mud and leaf mould and fell flat on her face. Vines and leaves pattered down around her. Blood trickled from her left nostril. One vine, thick as her thigh, landed heavily across her back, winding her. She pushed herself up but its weight kept her struggling. Fatigue washed over her and her head swam, but her sudden flash of anger kept her moving.

She crawled across the jungle floor, seeking out a tree or a moss coated boulder to hang on to as she fought to get up on her feet again, but her questing hands found nothing but vines, their swollen, warm furred coils ensaring her in a firm grip. She panicked and snatched at her penknife, tugging it free and flicking the blade out. She slashed at the nearest vine and it tightened around her. Her breathing came short as one wrapped around her torso, tightening, holding her still. She opened her mouth to curse but something warm and velvety plunged into her mouth, slithering into her throat. She gagged, trying to spit it out, then froze in horror as something slithered into her waistband. She realized what it was and she bucked, trying to make it stop, trying to force it our of her pants. Her mind spun blindly as she was assailed and she squirmed, trying to break free of the ever tightening grip of the jungle.

She snapped her knees together but a quartet of vines looped around her legs and pulled them open. Panic froze her. She was unable to think in a straight line, her thoughts panicked, her mind a whirl of fear as more vines dropped from the canopy and slithered towards her like hungry snakes. A flash of lightning illuminated the scene briefly and her eyes went wide when she saw the ground had become a thick carpet of writhing vines, with her at the center. The questing vine in her panties slipped gently across her clitoris, parting her labia and carefully, slowly slid inside her. Her frozen muscles unlocked and she started slashing at the vines as the one inside her went deeper, its tip tickling her cervix. Her hips twitched in reflex and panic and horror welled up inside her, mixing into a rush of adrenaline. She thrashed hard, trying desperately to shake them off. The vines didn't budge. More dropped out of the canopy, snaring her flailing arms and pinned them to her sides.

She found herself held fast, from head to toe, as more slim vines slithered past her waistband and followed the first inside. She whimpered around the one in her mouth as she felt the entwined bundle writhing inside her. She quivered, feeling herself become wet with the motions and she tried to squeeze her legs together to get them to stop, to force them out. But the vines were persistent and far stronger than they looked and her body reacted accordingly to their soft wriggling. Maybe this was why the tribesmen didn't chase her too far. They didn't want to become a play thing for the local plant life. She moaned as a small tremor raced through her on a bloom of tingling warmth. The vines were still squirming inside her and each flex, each flick they made inside her pushed her a little closer to the edges of an orgasm.

She squeezed her eyes shut, panting hard around the vine in her mouth that was stopping her from shaking her head. They just wouldn't give up. They continued their assault on her and her mind still continued to swim, her stomach still continued to flutter. Something in the far reaches of her mind wondered if the reason for the sweetness of the rain was because the vines grew in abundance in the trees and the one in her mouth had a honey-esque flavour to it. Maybe it was an aphrodisiac of some sort. It wouldn't be the first naturally produced one. Nature was full of them. And I'm full of nature. Her mind whispered mockingly as the writhing inside her became more intense. She opened her eyes again and in her peripheral vision, she saw a small animal drop to the ground and bound away in the thick undergrowth, trailing writhing vines behind it.

She moaned again and panted, a pleasant warm, tingling radiating out across her body from her stomach. Another moan and she went rigid. The vines inside her flexed and throbbed and something warm and sticky flooded her as each vine that squirmed inside her disgorged itself of its seed. For long, blissful minutes, the vines throbbed and writhed, twitching as they released themselves into Krissy, taking turns with pressing against her cervix. Then they pulled away, leaving her alone to curl up in the leaf mould, panting and shaking, exhausted and feeling violated.

** ~~~~~~ **

To her estimate, it had been four days since the vines had attacked her. She had spent her time in a state of numbness, slowly coming back out of her shell with each passing day. And with each passing day, her stomach had become increasingly swollen, weighing her down and slowing her movements. She had had to push her denial of what had happened aside and reflect on what the vines had done to her with a critical, cold approach, something she had learned to do as a child. It didn't take her long to come to the conclusion that she had fallen pregnant and that this time her child wasn't conceived with a man. As a result, she had spent her time between foraging and meandering through the jungle to whittle a weapon a little more dangerous and effective than her tiny blade out of a piece of wood with her penknife, creating a small dagger out of a sturdy branch she had dried out in the heat of the sun. Fresh water was still difficult to find and she had to rely mostly on the weather to supply her with drinking water, regardless of what had happened the first time round she had drank it.

The vines were thin on the ground now, the thick, velvety ropes being replaced by the far more common, mercifuly benign creepers with bright flowers and curling fronds. She ran her hands across the hard swell of her stomach, cursing the vines to hell and back. She had no idea what to expect, but she had been cramping up for the last three hours now and whatever was gestating inside her was shifting around, preparing to break free. She pressed on through the jungle, growing more and more desperate for somewhere devoid of thorny bushes and tangled creepers to rest. Another cramp gripped her and she doubled over with a moan. The contractions were becoming more and more frequent and she could feel the warm trickle of a thick liquid oozing down her inner thighs. It was strange, she thought in a moment of pain free clarity as she walked on, that her water hadn't broken. Instead, there was just the determined trickle of mucus sliding lethargically down her legs and into her boots.

A stroke of luck revealed a small clearing with a shallow pool of fresh water in its center. The ground was mossy with strands of grass stretching towards the jungle canopy overhead and a pile of large boulders sat off to one side. She shuffled up to the water and dropped heavily to her knees at the edge of the pond. She tentatively tested it. It tasted fresh. She had stumbled upon a spring and she lapped it out of her cupped hands, testing it again. She decided that if it was tainted in some way, it couldn't be much worse than being impregnated by weeds and drank her fill and ate some of the berries she had picked. She then discarded her clothes and sat naked at the edge of the spring, mulling over her choices. She felt the contractions slowly rolling into one long wave of pain. She shuffled away fromt he water's edge, towards the border of the clearing and pulled up some of the moss.

With her hands, she dug a small hole in the loose soil and knelt over it, muddy hands braced on the tops of her thighs waiting for the inevitable with a mixture of mounting horror and curiosity warring inside her as she thought about what was to come next. She had no idea what the offspring of a leopard and a plant would look like, if it would be sentient or if it would be a screaming, writhing mass of malformed flesh and fur. She felt sick with the thought of birthing an infant that was nothing more than a malformed, screaming head attached to a mass of writhing tentacles. She groaned, a flash of pain arcing through her pelvis, her nails digging into her flesh. The pain dulled to a constant ache and she felt something warm and sticky slide down her vaginal canal, spreading her labia wide. She grit her teeth and let her body lead the way.

Something slopped into the dirt beneath her and she peered down into the hole with morbid curiosity. The thing she had birthed was the size of a tennis ball and was gelatinous. It was an egg. It was a honey gold colour, the same hue as her fur and was covered with a thick, viscous, cream coloured mucus. She felt another emerging, pushing past her cervix and being forced downwards by her flexing muscles. It dropped with a soft splat onto the first. The slime trickled slowly down her inner thighs and she rocked forward, panting, eyes wide, unsure of how she felt about the event.

'Oh shit-' Another gelatinous egg slid out of her with a spurt of nourishing mucus, 'Oh fuck!' Two more, one after the other was forced into the hole in rapid succession, leaving a trail of pain in their wake.

Krissy groaned in misery and pain. It was a unique pain, not quite up there with when she gave birth to her daughter, but it came a close second purely for the fact that what she was giving birth to now wasn't a small ball of mewling fluff. She put her hands to her stomach. She could still feel the eggs moving around, shifting positions as they prepared to leave their warmth and comfort behind. Three more eggs left her panting for breath and a dozen more left her wondering when it would end. She was dizzy with exertion as she knelt over the hole that was now full to the brim with the vines' offspring.

'Please no more...' She whimpered in a small voice as she doubled over onto her hands, tail raised high above her as another egg slid from her.

She grunted and pushed the final eggs out with all her strength. They tumbled down the pile and rolled across the ground and a final, hard contraction sent an arc of the thick, pale mucus spattering across the ground behind her as her body expelled the last of the egg-fluid. She held her position for what felt like an eternity and then rolled to one side, gasping, staring blankly at the pile of eggs she had just laid. She needed a wash, she needed to eat and drink, but mostly, she just wanted to go to sleep and wake up to find out it had all been a nightmare.