Sylwanin was still there staring at me. By now the light slowly fades in the world of Pandora.
A few moments earlier when the armor complete disappeard into my skin, a pulse throbbed in my head. It wasn't a headache this time.
But more of a pull, a tug on an invisble fishing line hooked into the base of my skull. I turned my head sharply to the north-west.
'The crash site.' I thought.
It felt like I was being pulled there. Furthermore a ghostly text hovers in the upper left corner of my eye, translucent and jittey.
STATUS: CRITICAL.
HULL INTEGRITY: 12%.
ENERGY RESERVES: DEPLETED.
SOLAR RECHARGE: INITIATED.
CURRENT RATE: 0.001%.
HEALTH: STABLE.
"That was dramatic. A little warning next time would be nice. Maybe a user manual?" I whispered, confused as to what those texts meant.
It took me a moment to ignore the text.
I forced it at the back of my mind a more pressing matter nudged at me.
"Sylwanin," I said, "I might need to go towards the jungle."
"What?" she asked blinking.
"To the crash," I said, pointing deeper into the canopy of trees. "To where I fell. I can feel it. It's… pinging me. Like a lost puppy."
'Meaning it's probably not completely destroyed yet' I added mentaly.
Sylwanin's face hardened. She hasn't been to the jungle and beyond the Hometree's boundaries since the day of the incident. The fear of those loud guns and the sounds of machine still lingers.
She shook her head, her braid lashing behind her.
"No," she said firmly. "It is night. The forest is not safe for you. We don't even know where this ship you mentions is. You are clumsy. You do not know the way of the jungle."
"I'm a quick learner," I argued, stepping toward her. "And I'm durable, last I remember it was that it fell on a cliff, a huge cliff, I might regain my memory there."
"This cliff is in the high rocks," Sylwanin countered, crossing her arms. "It is the hunting ground of the Pululukan. The Dry Land bringer of fear. Even the great hunters do not go there alone. You would be meat before you reach the ridge."
(A/N: previously Thanator in the last chapter, realized humans are the only ones calling it such.)
"Pululukan. Scary name. I get it." I groaned, throwing my head back. "But I need this, Sylwanin."
"No," she repeated. "My father has forbidden it. You are under our protection. If you walk into the jaws of the Palulukan, we have failed Eywa. What more if you meet those sky people."
"You stay." She turned and began to clumb the root ramp back toward the main level of Hometree. "Come. It is time to sleep. The forest will still be there by morning."
I watched her go, frustration bubbling in my gut. I hate being told what to do, almost intinctual, deep and primal.
"Fine," I called after her. "I'll sleep. But if I dream about falling again, I'm blaming you."
I infact did not sleep.
I lay in the hammock, staring up at the shifting shadows of the canopy. The hometree settled into its nocturnal rhythm.
It was peaceful. It was beautiful. It was driving me insane.
The pull was relentless.
If I word it out it would probably screaming in my very bones saying.
Come fine me. Come remember
There is also texts in my vision that keeps flickering.
SOLAR RECHARGE: PAUSED. LOW LIGHT DETECTED.
I squeeze my fist, facing a small branch on top of me, expecting the surge of gravity I had felt at the schoolhouse. I imagined it twisting even just a small crack.
Nothing happened.
"Useless," I whispered.
I swung my legs over the side of the hammock. The woven fibers creaked, which sounded loud due to the silence.
I froze and waited a moment before I stood up, and climbed onto a branch. My feet barely gripping the wood.
I was eleven feet of violet shadow, moving with a surprising, predatory grace.
I didn't know how I knew hoe to move silently, but my body adjusted.
I shifted my weight to the ball of my feet, my breathing shallow and controlled.
I crept past the sleeping families, past the dying embers of the communal fires, and out onto the great limb that served as the entrance to the tree.
The night air hit me, cool humid and heavy with blooming flowery scent.
I looked towards the jungle. Neon leaves and biolominescent trees illuminated it making it look magical.
'I'm surprised there wasn't anyone patrolling.' I said to myself, while looking around.
"Don't trip," I muttered. "That would be an embarassing way to get caught."
I began walking towards the jungle.
It was magical, I can't even begin to describe it, it was a riot of neon.
I stepped off the a root and onto the mossy floor of the forest, and my breath hitch in my throat.
Every step I took lit up the ground in concentric rings of emerald light. The ferns brushed against my legs and glowed with bioluminescent veins of pink and electrical blue.
Above me, the canopy was a galaxy of glowing insects and dripping, lumunous nectar.
It was hallucinatorilly beautiful.
"I think that was the third time I said it, maybe the fourth?" I whispered, spinning slowly in a circle, my eyes wide.
It was chaotic, yet somehow perfectly ordered.
I reach out and touched a large, fan-like leaf. It shivered and retracted instantly, spiring down into the ground with a soft zip sound.
I chuckled. "Touchy."
The compass in my head tugged me forward. North-west. Up the slope.
I began to walk, pushing through the dense foliage. I was loud compared to the Na'vi or how they walk, I kept on snapping twigs and crushing ferns.
But I didn't care. The wonder of the world around me is intoxicating.
"I wonder who made this place, what if I made it?" I mused aloud, enjoying the sound of my own voice. "No, too messy. I'm a minimalist, I can tell. This is… exuberant."
I walked for an hour, the inclide growing steeper. My legs burned, a reminder of what my health status saying 'Stable.' Coming from a someone who recently fallen from orbit.
Finally the trees thinned. I broke through the canopy line and found myself on a rocky ridge.
I might have missed it when I first crashed but when I looked up there was some floating landmasses that hung in the sky like impossible islands.
The crash site isn't even a cliff but a ravine.
"How did I miss that? I must've hit my head pretty hard." I said half jokingly.
I walked down towards a ravine and there it was.
A scar in the earth shows signs of a crash site.
I don't see the ship but it must be there, or even down there, down in the ravine.
When I reached the edge of it and looked down, I saw smoke it was indeed there.
It hasn't fully fallen, it got caught on another ledge, just barely holding on again, balancing at the edge.
"Found you," I whispered, a sad snuke touching my lips. "You better have some answeres, you pile of junk."
I took a step forward ready to see if I have to jump down or what.
Snap.
The sound wasn't mine.
It came from behind me. It was the sound of a heavy branch breaking under immense weight.
I froze. The haird on the back of my neck stood up.
The jungle had gone silent. The insects had stopped chirping. The wind felt like it died.
Slowly, very slowly, I turned around.
The bioluminescence of the forest floor was being blocked out by a shadow. A massive, sleek shadow that seemed to absorb the light.
Six legs. Muscles that coiled like steel cables under armored, black skin. A head that was all bone plating and sensory quills.
It was the Palulukan or I assumed it was.
It stood twenty feet away, its yellow eyes locked onto me. It didn't growl. It didn't roar. It simply breath.
Its sesory quills fanned out, tasting the air, like its tasting me.
I looked at the beast. I looked at the impossible size od it, the teeth that were the size of my forearm.
I let out a long, slow breath. I raised my hands, palm open, trying to summon the arrogance that usually protected me.
"Nice kitty," I said, cold sweat slowly building up. "You wouldn't happen to know the way to the Hometree, would you?"
The Palulukan lowered its head, its muscles bunching.