To this day I still don't know if I had what it took to just walk along, and resist those primal urges. Luckily for me, I didn't have to find out. Still, the thought of what I contemplated doing was haunting.

Veronica stopped walking. "What's wrong," said Marguerite, uncharacteristically concerned for her, "is your leg bothering you?"

"Shh," said Veronica, "I hear something." I heard it too, but I wasn't exactly in a position to talk about it much.

We all paused; straining our ears to try and assess what was going on, who was there this time. Then, it jumped out, and we could all gape at what we didn't like seeing. Not exactly a friendly face, I thought to myself.

An Apeman was standing there, looking as brutal as ever, but the worst part was, there was more of them, hiding in the shrubbery along the jungle trail – lots more. It's as if they were attacking together, as one organized unit – just like the Raptors from before! I have pieced that together since then, but at the time; I had other things on my mind.

Finally, I thought, time to get a little excitement in, a little hunting! The lust for blood I had would be satisfied as I began savagely attacking the Apemen. I dug into most of them myself. Meanwhile, Challenger and Malone had put down my body. Malone, Challenger, and Marguerite defended themselves with their weapons, and also gave me some cover while I wildly thrusted myself into the hoard of attacking beasts. Even Veronica managed to help out, by successfully throwing a knife into one of them that was approaching me from my blind side.

Looking back on it, I am able to notice more similarities between this attack and the attack with the Raptors that got me into this situation in the first place. The Apemen kept flooding onto the path, there were just too many of them for us to overpower. Even I was getting full and even rather tired of all of this running and jumping and attacking.

What happens next is definitely a parallel between the Apemen attack and the Raptor attack. One of the Apemen had jumped on me, and I was trying to shake it off of me. All the others were busy fighting off other attackers. I saw the face of another Apeman in a bush, or so I thought it was an Apeman. I had spun around trying to knock the clinging Apeman off my back, and noticed that my body was gone. I looked at the figure in the bush, and, despite the differences in the Raptor's vision, I saw a face that that I knew, it was my face. I realized that the Raptor controlling my body had woken up and wondered off, but it seemed to not realize the switch like I had. I believe it had every intention of attacking me, or someone else out there. Everybody was swarmed, the Apeman on my back was practically glued there, and my body was just starting to leap out and attack me. Suddenly, I saw a blinding flash of light. Again, very familiar.

I found myself in the bushes, the Apemen gone, and the Raptor somewhere else. I felt like I needed to sleep, relax. I knew that first I would have to alert my friends, tell them that the switch was reversed. I couldn't do it though, I couldn't stay on my feet, and I fell forward onto the trail.

Noticing, Marguerite came running towards me, "It's me," I told her, "back… back where I… belong."

That was the last thing I remember. I lost consciousness right there. My body ached all over, and it was as if every part of me was sore. I could assess some broken ribs, two or three, a concussion, and badly broken left wrist. My last thought as I faded away was only a name, Marguerite! I wanted to see Marguerite.

The next memory I have is of waking up. I was in the treehouse. My head felt better, my wrist was better too. I also noticed that my ribs had been bandaged. I was lying on my back and I looked up to see that someone was leaning over me, it was Marguerite.

I smiled, "So, when will I get that romantic…" I paused for a brief moment as my ribs surged with pain as I tried to readjust, "… dinner for two you promised?"

"Roxton," Marguerite said, very excited, "George," she called, "Roxton's awake."

Challenger was on his way, but I just looked back up at Marguerite, "Well?" I asked her.

She didn't say a word, and shortly, Challenger came in. He was pleased with my regaining consciousness, and became confident that I was going to pull through. Apparently, it had looked grim for awhile. I learned that my assessment of my injuries was correct, and I had been unconscious for nearly two and a half days.

"So," asked Challenger, "how do you feel?"

I looked up at Marguerite who was there too, "the dinner, you promised."

"I think Roxton is rapidly turning back to normal," she told him. Challenger walked out. "Dinner?" Marguerite said to me, "I don't remember any dinner. You must be delirious or something."

"Marguerite," I said, and she could see pain ripple across my face again. It was my ribs once more.

"They're your dreams, Roxton," Marguerite told me.

I didn't want to speak again. I just gave her a look – a look that said a lot. Looks and impulses have always characterized our relationship, more than words that we couldn't make work. But we both knew we had a relationship – a special one. And that fact seemed to be confirmed at that moment – for both of us.

"Oh, all right," Marguerite said, "we'll do it when you're up and about like normal, okay? You need to rest now."

I nodded to communicate acceptance.

Within a few days, both Veronica and I were feeling much better and moving about the treehouse.

I saw Malone writing in his journal, "Still telling the story of our last adventure?"

"I've been attending to Veronica a lot," Malone admitted, "but I don't know how to write this exactly. The strange attacks, first by the Raptors, then by the Apemen. How could any of this happen? There's no reasonable explanation!"

"Well," Challenger told Malone, "there are some things even science can't explain. These types of things occur in abundance on the plateau. I can't tell you why the attacks occurred in the way that they did, and I can't explain the flash of light, not it's origin or how it was responsible for interchanging the thoughts of the Raptor and Roxton."

This was a strange thing to hear Challenger say. It wasn't often that he simply stated that he didn't know something. I suppose there are things out there that are beyond our realm of understanding, and even a brilliant mind like Challenger's is unable to give us a reasonable explanation as to how and why certain things occur. Part of it, might be this plateau. There are many things about the plateau that we still need to learn, things that we just might need to know in order to leave – in order, to go home.

"Maybe," Veronica said, "some stories, some adventures, aren't meant to be told, only remembered."

"Maybe," Ned agreed, he closed his journal and that was that.

This was an even bigger surprise. Malone was obsessed with capturing every detail about this lost world. Yet, in this case, he looked for an answer, and he found only more questions. Questions he knew couldn't be answered. He was able to accept, somehow, that this is one mystery that may never be solved.