Has it really been four years? I've been mulling over this story for a while, and I've had the itch to get it finished. So far I have this and another chapter finished, and my plan is for 1-2 more after that to really conclude it. I've missed you guys, hope you enjoy!


Martin gave up sleeping after tossing and turning in his hammock for four hours. The little bit of sleep he did manage to get was plagued by nightmares, which only made him feel worse as he was reminded of what Chris could be going through. While awake, he worried constantly of what could have happened to his brother. His dreams filled in the rest, and each night they only got worse.

Sleeping was also time he could spend searching for Chris instead, so he grabbed his bag and ducked out of the Tortuga while avoiding the rest of the crew, not wanting to be stopped and questioned by them. While he knew they meant well, more than likely they would force him to eat and continue to rest.

Martin had packed a few snacks and a canteen of water from yesterday, but he doubted he would touch it. His stomach was too knotted with six days worth of worry, and the thought of food made him feel nauseous.

It was raining again, but he only spared a thought pertaining to himself. The only part that mattered was that Chris could be out in it, and Martin needed to find him.

Looking around through the dense trees surrounding him, he debated which direction to start this time. The police and the rangers had spread out through the eastern and western portions of the park for the past several days respectively, since that was where Chris originally went missing, so Martin went south. It was more dense, mountainous, and desolate than the rest of the park, so no one had searched it yet, which seemed like a good place to start to Martin (he pushed the thought that Chris might not even be in the park anymore out of his head again).

Reaching into his glove, he pulled out the creature power of choice, his favorite: the peregrine falcon; Aviva had programmed enhanced night vision into the disc the day before, which would help if the search led into the night (but he hoped, god he hoped he could find Chris before the week was over). He had used other creature powers before in his search, but the falcon eyesight was still the best for picking up movement and scouting out objects in the mostly green forest.

Spreading his wings, Martin took off in flight.


The sudden sound of yelling and banging startled Chris as his two captors burst through the door, fighting in their native language. Chris was barely able to lift his head to see what was going on, his vision too blurry to make out much other than two foggy shapes above him. His bones were stiff as tried to shift; he suppressed a hiss when sharp jolts of pain shot up his body.

What were they fighting about? Last Chris had heard, they had been celebrating after they had another successful sale of an animal to one of their buyers. Was it about him? He blinked several times to try and clear his vision. While he was unable to understand what they were saying, the heated tones were universal. They were pissed. Chris still hadn't given them whatever information they were torturing him for, and there was no doubt they had to be getting restless now.

His lungs burned as he coughed, causing blood to dribble down his chin. Chris attempted to wipe it off with his good hand, but it was shaky and he only managed to make it smear across his face. His illness was getting worse, he could feel himself growing weaker. His body was beginning to shut down.

They started to point and look over at him, their argument growing more heated. What looked like Tomas rested his hand on the gun in his belt. A deep rooted, instinctive feeling of dread boiled in the pit of his stomach, different than the fear he had known from before.

Even as they spoke in a different language, Chris knew very well what they planned to do to him.

That feeling of dread twisted at his stomach even more when they both approached him, causing him to close his eyes as his breathing quickened in panic. One of them grabbed him by the arm and started to yank him towards the door while the other one loaded the gun.


Martin had been out searching through the morning and most of the afternoon, and still so far hadn't had much luck. His creature pod was silent as well (other than the call when Koki chewed him out for taking off without telling them- his ears were still ringing), which meant no one else had any luck either.

He couldn't let that get to him, however. That only meant Chris was still out there somewhere. It had to mean he was still out there, and Martin had to find him.

His arms were starting to ache after spending so long flying without a proper rest, but Martin pushed through it. The days upon days and nights he had poured into searching for his brother were starting to catch up to him after almost a week, which were only broken up by a quick nap or caffeine break.

But he couldn't stop, not until his brother was found and home safe. Once they found Chris, then he could crash and sleep for the week to make up for what he had lost, but until then, he continued to push through.

This area of the park had yet to be searched. Nestled in between several mountains miles away from the Tortuga, the small valley was densely packed with large trees and difficult to navigate by foot. Part of Martin worried he would be wasting precious time searching in an area that was so remote, but the other part couldn't skip looking somewhere if it had even the smallest chance of Chris being there.

Just as the sun was starting to sink below the treeline, a small clearing below him caught his attention unusual in the dense forest he had been flying through and was used to seeing. When he flew down to investigate, he saw what appeared to be some kind of cabin tucked away, miles away from anything else.

What was that doing way out here? The rangers had said this area of the park was one of the most remote, and this cabin wasn't on any of the park maps they had either. Martin's best guess was that it was possibly some kind of old shelter that used to be for the rangers. It looked like it had been long since abandoned. It had to have been decades old and was in bad disrepair; the structure was severely dilapidated, barely held together and looked like it could collapse at any moment. Several pieces of wood were mossy and falling apart, and the roof was about to cave in. The concrete base was cracked and crumbling in several places, barely keeping the structure together.

As soon after he landed, Martin felt a sense of intense foreboding as he got closer to the cabin. There was no one in the immediate area that he could see, and the cabin looked well and truly abandoned, but... Something was off about the building that he did not like, even though Martin wasn't able to put his finger on it. The animals seemed to be wary about it too and steered away; everywhere else in the forest was full of life, but this area was eerily silent.

Martin instinctively felt for the pocket knife he kept in his boot, just in case. The only creature power discs he had brought were for speed and endurance, not to fight back.

Still...

Martin debated if it was worth going in for a second, before cautiously approaching the door. It was most likely a waste of his time, but he was never one to ignore his creature sense. If it was the only kind of shelter in the area, and had even a minute chance that Chris could be there, Martin had to scout it out. Better to be safe than sorry, as his brother always said. Grabbing the rusty handle, he wrestled with the poorly fitted door before pulling it open.

The air felt stuffy and stale as Martin took the first cautious few steps into the cabin. The smell was off as well, immediately hitting his nose as he walked in; it was some kind of mixture of mold, rotting wood, and something visceral that made his stomach churn with apprehension and forced him to breathe through his mouth.

Something about this cabin felt wrong, all of his senses screaming at him to turn around and leave immediately.

The feeling only grew worse as he continued further inside. The cabin was dark and felt even colder inside, making him shiver (although Martin wasn't sure if it was entirely because of the temperature). The heavy air clung to his wet clothes and weighed him down even more, the chill wrapping around him like an icy blanket.

His sharp hearing suddenly caught a far off metallic banging sound from the other side of the cabin. Martin immediately froze. What on earth was that? As far as he could tell, he was the only one in the area. The sound definitely came from inside the cabin, somewhere behind the closed door in front of him, so what was making it?

Feeling again for his pocket knife in his boot, Martin took slow steps towards the door, his senses on high alert. He heard the sound again as he got closer, followed by some kind of scraping sound. His heart pounding fast in his chest, he kept one hand ready to grab the knife just in case as he reached towards the handle, wincing at the loud groan as he pulled it.

What the...

Martin's sigh of relief that no one was on the other side to attack him was quickly short lived when he caught sight of what was actually in the room. Stacks of cages lined the back of the wall, filled with not only the missing gorillas they had been looking for, but other similarly endangered animals.

"Fizz! And Fluff's mom! But... where's Fluff?"

Martin took two steps out of the door frame before immediately stopping once he noticed the rest of the room, his excitement of seeing the animals caged but unharmed extinguished. A few of the cages were empty, their doors wide open with uneaten scraps of food inside. So where'd they go? As his gaze trailed down further, his feeling of dread grew. Weapons hung on the walls, including guns, knives, and several animals traps not unlike the ones he had torn down days before. Large stacks of money, different currencies from around the world, were piled in the corner.

But the worst part of the room was the middle. A lone chair sat facing to the right of where he was standing, ropes still partially tied to the arms with more rope laying underneath. And the blood. It covered the chair, the ropes, and was splatted across the floor several yards away. Most of it had long since dried up, but a large spot several feet away was fresh.

And if Martin still had any lingering doubts about it being Chris', or clung onto any last shred of optimism, the green jacket, just like his own, thrown in the corner crushed them all.

Closing his eyes, Martin took several deep breaths as he tried to push down his quickly rising panic. His head was swimming. What the hell had they done? It was a scene out of one of his nightmares, one he had tried to repeatedly push out of his mind as the week went on by telling himself it didn't actually happen.

Fumbling with shaky fingers as he pulled out his creature pod, Martin sent an SOS signal with his coordinates to the Tortuga, hoping someone from the crew or a ranger could get here on time. Then he pulled out the falcon feather to reactivate his creature power suit, dialed out his creature pod, and took off in flight as soon as he got outside, praying he still had time.

"Blue backpack to Tortuga. I found something big. Gotta go!"


Chris' body was on fire as his captors dragged him through the woods. Twigs and branches cut up his shirt and scraped against his skin, and the smaller pieces tangled up in his hair as they pulled on it. Every few steps they pulled hard on his arm, causing pain to shoot up his chest and momentarily cut off his breathing. And as soon as he managed to catch his breath, they did it again.

Chris wasn't sure where they were taking him. The sun had since set a while ago leaving his surroundings too dark to see, and his eye sight was too blurry to see much of what was around him other than the faint outline of tall trees in the moonlight.

Wherever he was, it was the last thing he was worried about. His mind could not stop going back to the gun, overwhelmed and in near panic. The weapon was loaded, one single bullet in the chamber.

His captors were speaking quietly above him, still in their native language, but Chris hardly paid attention. He already knew what they were planning, and he would rather he didn't understand what they were saying.

It felt like hours had passed when suddenly he was carelessly dropped the rest of the way to the ground. Blinking up at them, Chris locked eyes with Hector, who wore an emotionless expression on his face as he pulled out the small pistol. It was just another job to him, but to Chris, this was his own life, and he was terrified. Mentally he begged that this was only another attempt at psychological torture like before, because if it was, it was sure the hell working.

His stomach churned with nausea when he felt his world flip and was suddenly met with a face full of dirt and rotten leaves, swallowing several times to keep it from rebelling. Chris struggled to get up, but a heavy boot stepped on his back and kept him pushed down.

"I hope whoever you were working with now knows not to sniff around where their business does not belong," Hector said, digging in his boot into Chris' back. "May your corpse be a warning. If they find you."

Click.

The sound of the safety being clicked off caused Chris to shudder as a sob tore through his body. He wished he had a chance at the very least to say goodbye to his friends, his family, to Martin.

Chris tried for one last desperate effort to save himself. "I did not-" he choked out with a hoarse voice, unable to stop the tears as another sob escaped. He was terrified, and had lost any last shred of pride and dignity ages ago to care that he was on the ground begging for his life. "Please!"

"Shut up you little fucker!" Tomas gave him a kick to the ribs, but Chris hardly felt it, too numb with terror to pay attention to anything other than death pointed straight at him from two feet away. "This little weasel almost killed our business. Snuff the weasel! He had it coming! Kill him, Novak!"

Chris was shaking, blood pounding in his ears as he squeezed his eyes shut. Feebly he tried to shift his arms to cover his head out of pathetic instinct, as if that would protect him from the force of a bullet that would go straight through his arms to his brain anyway. He only hoped Martin would be able to find him afterwards. As horrific the thought was, he would rather his brother know what happened instead of spending the rest of his life on edge and wondering what if. He knew Martin would never stop looking for him.

The selfish part of Chris was glad he wouldn't have to see Martin's reaction.

I'm gonna die I'm gonna die oh God I'm gonna-

"-Hey! Get away from him!"