Chapter Three: Escape

I was stuck in freefall, a never-ending fall through a nonexistent void. Spinning down and down into the abyss.

What happened, I ask myself. I was shot with a dart and the horrible feeling of dread came over me, falling down with no help in sight.

I was unconscious from the dart. I needed to wake up from that, but questions rang throughout my mind. Was I even still alive? Was I still home with my colony of Vampire Bats?

I begged myself to wake up and I felt a tear fall from my face. Please let me know if I'm alive and home! I yelled to myself still.

Suddenly it felt like someone was answering my question, I was awaking and I knew I was alive. I just had to find out if I was home.

I woke up with tears in my eyes. I was on the ground in the Jungle Canopy, how was I alive. I got up from the ground.

I wiped the tear-off of my eyes and from the ground yelled out, "Hello! Is anyone out there?" But I heard back no response. I slowly opened up my wings as I began to look around me, up and down to make sure there were no predators hiding to kill me as soon as I began to fly up.

I could possibly be in Spectral Bat territory, and they would murder me if I were in their space. I landed on a tree branch slowly as I looked around the place, I noticed something on my arm, It was a pure black band on it.

"What the hell…" I muttered to myself as I shot a bit of sound at it, there were some weird engravings in it. I couldn't decipher them, and I didn't know why it was on me.

I thought to myself, would it be easier to fly in one direction and try to run into another bird or bat and ask them where I was and directions to my colony. So I unfurled my wings once more I flapped them as quietly as possible and headed in one direction.

I saw something in the difference, a wall. Why was there a wall in the Jungle? But that struck me, there isn't going to be a wall in the jungle. I wasn't home.

I was stressed a flew towards the wall and next to it I saw a section that was clear and something behind it. It was an observer, a human with long hair. They were incredibly tall, maybe they could walk through this section of the wall, it looked like I could fly past it anyways.

And so I charged at the opening in the wall and to my surprise and shock and crashed into it. God did that hurt, but I could take the pain. I cursed to myself, pissed. While I flapped towards the ground I heard the human chuckle.

I've only heard of them in stories, I always thought they were something. But I found out what the something was today, a monster. They laughed at me when I ran into a god damned human trickery thingy.

"What a worthless excuse of an animal," I muttered to myself as I flapped my wings hard to fly up higher in this place. It wasn't very large, it was about moderately sized but very tall. I guess it was to house the trees inside of it.

I noticed near a corner of the wall I saw half a dozen white mice run out of a small vent, it made me realize how hungry I was. I dove down into the ground and locked onto one of the mice. As I landed and crashed into it, it gave a loud squeak before I bit into its neck killing it almost instantly.

The other mice around it cried in horror and ran off into the jungle canopy. I drank the blood of the mouse in my grasp and almost gagged. The mouse was disgustingly bland, but it would fill me. The mouse had surprisingly little blood for me to take from it so I guess I had to go out searching for the other five that ran away.

I had flown slightly high in the Jungle Canopy as I looked around it for any of the plainly obvious white mice. They stuck out really obviously against the dark green canopy. I spotted one that thought it was hiding well but clearly wasn't.

I charged down at the mouse. "Got you!" I yelled at it, it looked back up in slight horror and it didn't have the time to react to me. I chomped down into this one's neck again after pinning it to the ground. Its movements slowly ceased as it died in my jaws.

I let go and began to drink its blood. I was a Medic right, and I murdered two mice. I did that because it was good practice and It would be harder to drink their blood while they were alive and aware.

I could sacrifice more of these mice to the gods later to earn their favor so they assist me to get out of here. I mean, this place wasn't my jungle. I was in some sort of place because humans don't observe bats in the wild.

Tomorrow I would search this place for a way out and then make it back to my colony and home. I fly up after I finished drinking from the mouse and made my up towards a tree branch slowly looking around still to make sure no one was there.

It was weird going to sleep in a tree and not in a cave, caves felt more secure. While these tree branches were less strong. But after wrapping myself in my wings and closing my eyes the feel of sleep consumed me.

The next night I woke up, I immediately unfurled my wings as I hopped off of the branch I was roosting on and began to fly over towards the walls. There had to be something around here that I could use to find a way out.

I flew down towards the ground near the walls. I noticed that there was heat rising from the floor, but there had to be a way fresh air was coming in, and it had to be here. If I found that I could get out of here.

I then flew back up and towards the walls, I looked at them up and down trying to find out if there was anything there I could use to escape from this place. I sighed to myself still flying around, was there truly no escaping this hell hole?

But a stroke of luck came over me, I spotted a grate on the wall, once I landed near it I felt the fresh air blow in onto me and it felt wonderful. This was my escape route, but it looked like it was going to take me several nights to get it open, and even then I'd have to plan out how to get it off or big enough for me to get through.

I flew up towards a tree branch near the wall and began to think to myself, how would I get that grate out? I had some options, I could try to bend the things with pure strength, which I didn't have that much, and if I did I would most likely hurt myself even more in the process.

Maybe I could try to break open the thing with sound, it would be good practice for me and most likely easier than trying to bend the thing with pure strength. If I couldn't break it with sound I could do many other things with it, bend it, loosen it, or stretch it out.

For now, I'd just go out and hunt and collect my strength before I tried either of those options. Maybe practice my skills with sound while hunting the four mice I knew were still in this place.

I flew down into the canopy and looked around for the obvious white mice that roamed the place. After I spotted one that was laying down I flapped down quietly near it trying to sneak up on it, once I was to the side of it I noticed it was slightly asleep.

I tried to remember what the Chief Priest said about conjuring things with sound, "Yes, While Sound can do many things, move leaves, create pictures, It can do much more. If you can focus you can possibly form it into Shields and Spears and other things. You just have to concentrate…"

Let's see if I could focus enough to try and create one. It would just be like spitting out sound at a creature to see how fast it was going, just more exhausting and more focusing related. I began to try to form my sound around, trying to focus on the shape of it. I closed my eyes so I could just focus on how I wanted it to work.

Once I believed I got it how I wanted it I opened my eyes. It looked like how I wanted it to work but, now I had to find out if I could get it to work. I began to try and focus on shooting the spear at the mouse. I only had one shot, (literally) to hit it because I didn't want it to wake up.

I tried to launch the spear forward at the mouse, apparently, it was a success but I missed it, it skimmed the rat's fur and landed into a side of a tree, the sound it made when it crashed wasn't very loud but it was loud enough to wake up that mouse.

It suddenly jumped up and hissed at me barring its teeth at me. I began to back up slightly, this was going to be annoying. I then jumped up into the air and hopped behind the mouse trying to get the jump at it but unfortunately, It saw me in time and slashed at my wing.

"Oh, god damn it!" I yelled as I charged at it and bit into its body, it squealed in pain trying to bite at me but I pinned it down onto the Jungle Canopy. I then bit into its neck hard and it yelled in pain as its movements slowed and it slumped dead. I then began to take a drink from it, after trying to form that spear this was a great refresher.

I then flew up to a tree branch and inspected my injury. It hit my wing good, it was bleeding. It hurt now that I realized it, when I was exploring this place I hadn't found any herbs. I knew that the observer was still here, I doubt they cared about my injury. They put me here in this place right?

But It seemed they did because I saw the observer that was once up there in here later. Must've been some secret way for them to enter but right now I had to focus on this injury. This place didn't have any herbs so I wouldn't be able to treat it myself.

A helpless bat was what I was right now, but in the future, I would be a free one with my family, Aidan, and Hudson. The human slowly approached the branch I was near and I acted as if I didn't notice as they pricked me with a needle and picked me up as I began to fall unconscious.

Slowly I awoke, I opened my eyes. I was in the human's arms, I tried to stay still and I looked to the side to see where we were going. We were in some sort of hallway and where we were going was a door leading somewhere else.

The human reached out part of their arm and grabbed the door handle and opened it. I noticed as they walked in there was an observatory. Inside of it, the terrain was different from mine, was there someone else here? Was there another vampire bat here that was also alone like me?

I hopped out of the human's arms and unfurled my wings and flew towards the observatory. I slammed into the wall, I yelled out at the glass that stood in my way trying to get a response from anyone that was inside.

"Hello!?" I screamed hoping for a response, I heard nothing but I spotted two large bats near one of the walls in the place, it seemed like they were messing with something, was it like the grate I saw in my cage?

One of the bats must've heard my helpless screaming because they turned at tapped the other bat on the back, I was so caught up in looking at them I didn't notice the fact that I was fluttering down like a leaf.

A human must've shot a dart at me while I was distracted at the two other larger bats. I began to fall unconscious and I thought as I fell, They kind of look like Spectral Bats…

After that encounter, I awoke in the jungle canopy of my cage. For now, I would spend my energy and try to get that grate open. In the upcoming weeks, I would practice trying to open it with sound but if that didn't work out well enough I would just try to bend it enough that I could squeeze out through force.

After a week of practicing with sound against the grate, I realized it just took me too much energy trying to do that. I was doing good at it but, it just wasn't practical enough for me. For the rest of the time I was in here, I just used my strength (as little as there was) to bend it.

While my progress was slightly slower it was easier on me. With making sound there was a chance of me missing my target if I didn't do it properly, and then there was the horrible dryness in my throat afterward. With bending the grate it was easier and resting took less time.

I don't wish to bore anyone with the repetitive details of bending the grate and then taking a break with nothing new happening. But on my final day, I finally got to squeeze through the bars of the grate.

I was filled with excitement after I made it through, I then flow upwards following the tunnel inside of this grate. I was glad that I would be gone then I ran into a fan, it blew cool air down and I looked at it.

Near the bottom right corner, there was enough room, from what I believed, for me to fly through it. I had to chance it, I didn't want to be in that place anymore. And so I charged through it and past the fan. It didn't chop me to bits so I was happy about that.

I then flew upwards and burst into what I hoped was the jungle but when I looked around all of It and everything looked unrecognizable to me, nothing like the jungle I lived in, I sighed. Maybe there were some bats that lived around here I'd have to explore for myself.

"I guess I'll have to set off and find a tour guide," I muttered to myself, "But where to go?" I looked around in the distance and spotted a large place of lights. "Maybe that's a good place to start it?" I unfurled my wings and began to flap my wings to go up higher.

"Well then, I guess I'll go off in that direction." I then began to move off starting my journey to find someone to guide me back home.

Authors note:

Oh my god, that took forever. The reason why is because the main computer I usually type on is getting repaired and is going to take forever so I'm restricted to this one computer I don't use very often so yeah.

Hopefully, my main computer gets fixed quickly and I can type more but for now, have a good day or night.