Author's Note

Alright so this is what i got what I got. First story to be posted here so please be gentle. Edited the best I could where I could but I am sure that I missed some things so I apologize for that. I hoped you enjoy what you read, not sure exactly where I plan to go with this if anyone takes interest then by all means alons’-y. If not, then well I tried no dust on my shoulders. Well uh leave a review if you could it all helps and I hope enjoyed have a good one my friends!

Chapter 1: The Start

Winter is a time of duality.

It is a time of life, as well as death.

Winter is natures balance, the true neutrally, something that is not so easily attained.

The hunter breathed out, a puff a steam rose from his balaclava covered face. The temperature was well below freezing; any right-minded individual would be huddled next to a warm fire and sipping a nice brew of coco. But there was elk to hunt, and this hunter was determined.

Three days he had been tracking his prey, a monstrous bull elk with a 6x6 rack atop his brow. A truly majestic creature, from the way of his walk and the scars on his shoulders the bull was fighter: the old man on the block who had his share wars under his belt. Seeing such a creature had caused a tear to form in the hunters eyes a put a goal in his heart.

He would hunt this majestic beast, kill him, and let nothing go to waste. He would eat the hooves if he had to, it deserved that much.

Three long days.

Mountain winter is not like regular winter.

In normal winter (basically everywhere that was west of Wyoming) it was only cold during the night time , when the sun came out the temperature warmed considerably. In the mountains the temperature never changes, if it’s five below zero then it stays that way 24/7.

The hunter shifted slightly his rifle scope trained on the bull as he leaned his noble head down using his snout to root through the snow. The hunter was at least a hundred and fifty yards away with the scope it was like he was three feet away. He breathed slowly finding his mark, the bull elk stopped moving big brown eyes solely focused on the patch of grass he had so luckily found.

The hunters gloved finger traced the rifles trigger.

He stopped breathing.

And fired.

Be it fate, or horrible divine intervention, a quail shot out of her nest as a fox uncovered her nest.

Just that, startled the bull enough for him to shift away from the hunter’s mark. The original target had been its heart, an instant kill shot, the bullet still hit but hit the lungs instead. The last place any hunter wanted to hit. The bull took off like an arrow from a recurve bow adrenaline the only thing keeping it alive.

The hunter cursed coming from his prone snow-covered position in a run. The snow was only a foot deep but it might as well have been quick sand as the hunter desperate followed the bull as it ran blindly through the pine trees. The snow gradually became shallow enough for the hunter to run, by then however the bull was almost lost into the trees. By the blood trail alone did the hunter have to follow his prey but that would soon vanish as the wound would freeze shut and already it was beginning to snow.

He was in a dead run not bothering to even attempt to dodge any of the low hanging pine branches. The hunter followed the trail for what seemed like hours, it’s trail winding up and down and around the mountain side. The sun once at its zenith was now almost behind the mountain threating to plunge the area in total darkness.

It was a miracle that he even spotted the bull again.

The once grand creature was limping slowly through the trees head swaying drunkenly and hung low. Its breathing was weak, likely one of its lungs had collapsed, a slow terrible way to die. The hunter kept running until he was twenty feet away from the creature.

As he came to a stop chest heaving and raising the rifle once more , the elk lifted its head slowly staring right into the hunters eyes.

The man stared back a saddens bleeding out from the creatures eyes made him nearly tear up.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

He was to close to miss.

The bull dropped to its side without another breathe.

The hunter lowered his rifle, letting his head fall back struggling to catch his breathe. He would mourn later over his failure to give the elk a quick death now he had to move fast before it froze to the –

Crunch!

He took a single step forward looking down somewhat confused his foot stepping into what felt like open air.

Then the ground gave way.

He didn’t even get a chance to scream as he fell into darkness.

--

Chapter 1.

Stranger in a very strange land.

He was hot, very hot, being roasted in an oven like a turkey dinner hot. The man let out a groan desperately trying to rid himself of clothing. His fingers finally found the catch on his back pack then on the zipper, the thick winter jacket and pack were thrown away along with the constricting face mask as the zipper was forced down. The hunter opened his eyes slowly corneas burning at the harsh sun. Gradually they adjusted, as that did what he saw confused him greatly. He was surrounded by dense jungle life, he guessed he was in a jungle just how by humid it was and if Discovery channel had taught him anything if a flower is as big as you are and not on a bush you’re in a jungle. Which he surmised from the giant ass flower sitting several feet away from him that was at least seven feet tall, and oddly he wanted to go an touch its bright red vibrant features but knew doing so was a very bad idea.

Panic. Reminded his brain as the hunter stood up, promptly entering stage 5 panic mode. Frantically he looked around for some idea of where exactly he was and how the he’d gotten here. After several minutes of deep breathing and nervous pacing he found solace in two things. The first being he likely was not dead, the second that he had found his rifle laying on a root of an giant tree not four feet from where he woken up. He’d practically shouted with joy upon finding the old Springfield laying there as if he’d placed it there purposefully. It was a little dinged up on the butt and scope that aside after checking the bolt action and finding it in working order.

He kept that momentum going when he checked his back pack. All of the contents were just as he’d left them: a map of the mountain and surrounding area (now useless), flint and steel, a compass, an old bayonet, a semi warm half full canteen, a few days work of jerky, spare pants and a long sleeve shirt, toiletries, a collapsible shovel, two more magazines for his rifle and of course his Glock .45 which he found to only have one of it’s three remaining. The second being in the gun the other must have been lost sometime during whatever happened to him getting to this jungle.

The hunter repacked everything but the pistol, compass, and the knife. He put the spare magazines in his pants pockets. Not sure what to do with his winter jacket he opted to roll it up like a sleeping bag and strap it to the top of his pack. That done he picked the pack up, holstered his pistol and knife, then grabbed his rifle.

He barely got to take a step when a distinct sound pierced the jungle life chatter.

Bang! Bang!

Gunfire.

He was running towards it after the first shot.

--

Hardly the best idea to run towards gunfire, at this point he could hardly give a shit. He kept at a steady pace, the last shots had been some time ago, but he had guessed there general direction. The dense underbrush was causing him issues, most he could run through however some of the plant fauna either had thorns or sported what honestly looked like teeth. Either way having to avoid that was putting a hinderance on his progress.

Until he nearly fell off the cliff.

It was so sudden it was almost comical, one second he could barely see two feet in front of him the next he’s staring down at a mile drop. He came to a nerve ending stop, leaning all the way back until he fell onto his rear. The hunter clutched his rifle to his chest eyes bugged out and breathing deeply through his nose. Several moments passed before he finally picked up his balls and had the nerve to stand up.

To say the least the view was amazing.

He could see for miles, he could also see he was totally screwed. Nothing but dense jungle until the horizon, along with several other small mountains and cliffs like he was currently on.

Bang!

The retort was sudden, but his eyes were on it in instant. Adjacent to his cliff was another, a couple hundred feet at the most. He raised his rifle finding the top of the cliff trying to find the gunfire’s source.

It came in the form of a woman.

She burst through a large bush landing hard on her knees, then she was off again as if it’s never happened. The woman was tall and muscular, she had long black hair with piecing brown eyes, with olive green knee short, hiking boots and a khaki shirt. The woman looked every inch a jungle explorer even sporting a machete strapped to her back. He followed as she ran along the cliff edge the gun was in her right hand a revolver by the look of it. Movement caught his eye that wasn’t on the scope he panned away from the woman when it burst through the brush.

It whatever it was ,was perhaps the ugliest thing he’d ever seen in his life.

The creature was sickly blue and green, not bigger then a small child, it had five limbs and razor sharp filled underbite. The thing let out a piecing screech as several more like it tumbled out of the bush spotting the running woman instantly. He gave the things credit they sure as shit could move. The woman was in a hail Mary sprint along the cliff edge, she’d gotten a head start but was surely going to loss it with those creatures in hot pursuit.

Like hell that was going to happen.

The hunter calmed himself lining up a few inches ahead of the first creature that was currently leading the pack.

His finger traced down to the trigger.

Then fired.

--

There were shitty days and then there were colossal shitty days.

For Darin Domia otherwise known as “Daring Do.” By her fan base, it was shaping up to be one of the more colossal ones. Her day had started off relatively simple, she’d arrived in the jungle of Zobia by airboat landing early in the morning on her way back home at a small fishing village. There she’d met a fellow archeologist in a bit of a bind. Turned out he was searching for a lost totem thought to be in Zobia’s famous Ghost cliffs. He was vet vague as to what the purpose of the totem was but she was always eager for adventure and to help a fellow college in the field. So, naturally, she accepted his request to see if in fact the totem lay hidden in the cliffs.

Several hours later and jungle crawling later she found the totem he was looking for.

And a tribe of cannibal pygmies, who happened to worship said totem she now had in her posseion.

She was going to kill Bob if she survived this.

“If love?” she thought turning and dropping to one knee revolver firing a single shot as a pygmy dropped to the ground behind her.

“How about when.” She said confidently just as seven more came charging the trough the bush. Darin was already gone but not before they saw her, the little buggers were dam quick she gave them that. The archeologist burst through the dense greenery coming out to the cliff face she’d climbed to get into this mess. Darin almost sign in relief, remembering however that she was currently being chased by cannibals got her right back up and running again. The bastards tumbled into were she fell instantly they spotted her running and gave chase. She knew instantly she’d made as mistake leading them to an open stretch as the distance she’d made was closed in seconds.

“Oh shit!” She shouted as the lead pygmy bounded towards her and jumped maw open and ready to sink into her flesh.

Crack!

The pygmy was thrown into the jungle as if it’d been hit by a bus.

Not a second later the one following it met a similar fate, then the next one and the next one. The last pygmy was lucky only being grazed across it’s head. It had a single moment of conciseness as its exposed brain realized it was dead. Darin slowed down her eyes trying to find the shooter that had just saved her life. She saw him stand though couldn’t make out what he looked like, only knowing by the shape he was a male. In the jungle she heard the pygmies, across the gap the shooter was coming her way, not wasting anymore time Darin undid the small grappling hook on her waist undoing the long cord then twirling the metal grapple.

She let it loose.

It soared for what seemed an eternity before catching the other cliff side, the shooter seemed to get what she was doing and was running faster towards her. Darin took one last look behind her then jumped off the cliff.

By far not the most graceful thing she’d done, from where she’d been it was at least a forty foot gap. Which meant hitting the other side wouldn’t kill her, but it’d hurt like a bitch. Which it did as she slammed into the cliff face shoulder first, the pain alone nearly made her black out. Darin fought it off gritting her teeth and climbing up the taught cord. An open hand was waiting for her as she reached the top which she took gratefully allowing the shooter to pull her the rest the way.

To say she was surprised at what she saw was an understatement. The man was clearly out of his element, he wore reflective boots, thick Car-hart pants, a thermal jacket and a black watch cap. He was breathing hard and drenched in sweat as he pulled her up, they both collapsed next to one another from both pain and exhaustion. The pygmies on the other cliff screamed at them throwing rocks and making all sorts of disrupting noises. eventually they would go away, eventually. Darin was the first to speak as they both caught their breathe.

“Darin Domia archeologist, thanks for the save.” She said holding her hand out , the man panted for several moments then let out a short chuckle taking her hand and shaking it.

“Jack Huntsed. Your welcome.”