Chapter 7 – Lost
A/N: Hey everyone, I'm back with a new chapter. I'm sorry if these are taking some time to get out, but I have other stories to work on so I don't have time to focus on this one alone.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.
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"What do mean it's not working!" Dingodile growled. "Did you break it?"
"No, it's still functioning. I mean there are no portals showing on its map," Pinstripe snapped back as he fumbled with the device. "Something must have happened to the Time Twister,"
The other mutant blinked, unease creeping into his voice as he processed this. "Wait, then how are we supposed to…?"
"We can't,"
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Consciousness slowly came to her. Coco opened her eyes and looked up to see dim orange light streaming through thick branches. Once the fogginess left her mind, she was struck with a realization.
She wasn't lying on ground.
She was stuck and tangled in some vines between trees. Her mind immediately went racing and she thoughtlessly struggled to free herself in her panic. She succeeded in do so only to realize too late that there was nothing down there to catch her.
She screamed as she plummeted through the air and fell into a lake with water that had a brownish ting to it. Gasping for breath, she struggled her way to the edge and pulled herself up. "Eww…." She coughed and wiped her mouth in disgust, shuddering.
"Guys?" She called weakly, looking around at the massive jungle surrounding her. Where…am I?
Soon everything came rushing back to her and her breathing hitched. That's right. The Time Twister exploded. Coco stood up as she began hearing noises coming from everywhere. Some she could indentify as the wildlife, but others she couldn't. They were heavy and loud and left her quite uneasy. It wasn't until she stepped on some tar that she realized where she was.
This was the Jurassic area Crash had gone to before, but she didn't recognize this part of the jungle.
They must have been scattered through time after the machine blew up.
Where were Crash and Aku-Aku though? Were they harmed? She didn't want to think about that. She was especially worried about her brother. He had been badly hurt the last time she saw him.
Grimacing, she began trudging through the tar-filled swamp, swiping away at the insects flying close to her. "Aku-Aku?" she started calling again. "Crash!"
She couldn't believe it. How did this happen? They were so close to finding all the crystals, so close to beating Cortex and his minions, but everything had shattered in a moment and none of them saw it coming.
Just then, Coco was snapped out of her thoughts by a new sound. There were heavy footsteps echoing in the distance. Whatever it was coming her way, it was HUGE. Panicking, the girl scrambled into a hollow tree and hid inside it.
She waited there as the creature slowly walked near the tree and she wished it would carry on its way, but she immediately tensed up when it began sniffing the air and made low growls as it stepped closer to her tree. No, no, no!
Suddenly, the creature paused and began walking away. She assumed to it got distracted by something. Coco sighed in relief and came out of her hiding spot. That was too close.
She only managed to get a few feet away from the tree before she heard bustling in the bushes not far from her. "Not again," she muttered and backed away.
The thing finally jumped from behind the shrubs and dashed toward her, causing her to fall on her backside in fright. The girl then found herself facing a blue-eyed baby dinosaur. She was left speechless when it licked her face. "What-"
"Hey!"
Coco then noticed the person riding the dinosaur looking down at her and gasped. "Crash!"
She rushed to hug him the moment he hopped off, hearing him grunt in pain. "S-sorry! I forgot," she stammered and he gave her a reassuring nod, still wincing.
"I'm so glad you're okay. Wait, is Aku-Aku with you?" she asked, looking behind him hopefully, but Crash's ears drooped, confirming her fears. The three of them got separated. The mask must have ended up somewhere else.
"I see," she sighed dejectedly. The two flinched at the sound of growls in the distance and the dinosaur beside them tensed up. "We should get out of here,"
Crash climbed onto his friend's back and held his hand out for her. She hesitantly took it and let him help her up. "Whoa," she yelped as tried balancing herself on the creature and ending up grabbing onto her brother's back.
With that, the three headed out into jungle.
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Crash winced as they sprinted through the trees, feeling tension coursing through his body, but his grip remained tight on the dinosaur.
When he first woke up, he found himself lying on a patch of grass somewhere that wasn't the Time Twister or his home. He hadn't been able to move. His body was numb and his senses were buzzing. For a while he stayed there until he recovered enough to be able to stand and explore his new surroundings, which was a task in out of itself.
He immediately recognized the swamp and started searching for his sister and guardian in sheer panic only to be tackled later by the baby dinosaur who followed his scent. He wasn't displeased to see a friend again though.
Now with his sister with him again, they should be fine. She was the thinker of their duo after all. She will come up with a plan to get them out of this mess. He usually went with the flow of things and did whatever the situation demanded.
The three wandered further into the jungle, jumping over lava pools and steam coming out of the ground. They made sure to avoid running into any dinosaurs. The last thing they needed was to be hunted down, especially since he hadn't fully recovered.
"Crash? We should find a place to spend the night," his sister said from behind him. He stopped.
"Too early," he replied.
She gave him a confused look. "Early? What are you talking about? The sun has already set!"
Crash shook his head and pointed up only to be baffled when he saw the sky slowly changing to a shade of blue.
But…but how? It was daylight a moment ago….
Seeing the confusion on his face, Coco said. "Crash, I think you're still disoriented from the shock. Maybe we should get you somewhere to rest,"
Shaking the uneasiness away, Crash nodded and began searching for a safe place for them. It was hard considering the kind of environment they were stranded in. He pulled to a different direction when he saw skeleton bones lying ahead of them. He didn't want to find out what left those there.
Eventually, he stopped beneath a large old tree with big roots.
"I'll make the fire," she said. Aku-Aku had taught them once when they spent the night on the beach a month ago.
The thought of the mask only made Crash miss him more. Their caretaker had become almost like family to them, having been always there wherever they went ever since the castle fell. His absence was hard to ignore.
Crash shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking like that. Now was not the time. They will find him as soon as they get out of this dilemma. The mutant was confident of that.
Not knowing what else to do for the mean time, the bandicoot went to look for food. When he came back to his sister, who already had the fire ready, he brought a weird-looking fish he caught and some spiky fruit. It was the best he could find.
Grinning, he placed the fruit over a large leaf and headed over to show his sister his catch. She merely looked at it disinterestedly. "That's nice, Crash,"
Blinking, Crash ran back and brought one of the fruits for her, but she dismissed it. "I'm not hungry," she said, sounding tired.
Shrugging, Crash bit into the fruit and his eyes widened. He tried to hide his gag reflex from his sister. The fruit was so sour. He barely managed to swallow it.
He walked back and sat on the ground, glancing over to see the baby dinosaur sleeping a bit back from the fire. He took another reluctant bite from the fruit and turned to his sister who was deep in thought, only to nearly choke on it.
His sister looked…older.
She looked several years older than she was before and was taller than him now, but she didn't seem to notice any of these changes, lost in her own thoughts.
Crash absently tried slapping his cheek to make sure he was actually seeing this. This couldn't be real. That shock from the portal must have messed with his brain far more than he previously thought.
"Crash?" she called, startling him as now he saw her as her normal age. "You've been staring at funny for a whole minute,"
Crash blinked and mumbled an apology.
"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked, almost warily. He nodded frantically to reassure her. She eyed him for a moment and then sighed. "I still don't get it. What happened to the machine? It was perfectly functional after you defeated N. Tropy, so why did it-"
Coco then slapped her forehead in realization. "Of course! The fight!"
Crash cocked his head to the side in puzzlement. She elaborated.
"When we were fighting over the crystal, I kicked you and sent you flying into the keyboard. Something must have broken in the computer and caused the machine to malfunction," she groaned and buried her face in her hands.
Crash's ears fell. So…this was his fault? If he hadn't gone crazy back there then would they have safely continued on with their quest? The realization made his stomach churn and left him feeling really guilty.
"We can't return to our time now," Coco murmured dejectedly.
"We can," Crash insisted, optimistically.
"How?!" Coco huffed. "The Time Twister was how we managed to travel through time in first place. Without it, we're stranded here millions of years from our own time!"
Her expression then crumbled as if she was realizing the implications behind her words. "And just when we finally had a home we're actually safe in, with someone who doesn't think of us as disposable pawns," the girl buried her head in her knees and finally let herself sob.
Crash stared at his sister in panic, unsure of what do or say. It wasn't supposed to be like this. His sister was supposed to have a plan for them. They were supposed to leave this place and go back to their caretaker, but he instead watched his sister cry while feeling completely lost.
They couldn't be truly stuck here. They just couldn't.
Eventually, his sister went to sleep after placing more leaves on the ground while Crash remained awake to keep watch, occasionally throwing dry branches into the fire. He saw her shift in discomfort and felt another stab of guilt for being the reason for their predicament, for why they were sleeping in the middle of nowhere where anything could jump out of the shadows and attack them.
Shivering a little, the bandicoot looked up at the dark sky and sighed, thoughts of living here forever haunting his mind.
And that's when he noticed it, something bright flashed faintly in the air above him. Crash blinked and squinted. It looked almost like….a transparent thread? He didn't know if it had been there earlier or not.
He followed the thread with his gaze to see it leading to somewhere in the dark. Crash found himself standing up and walking away from the firelight and his sister after it.
Once it got low enough, Crash tried grabbing the blue thread with his hand, but it phased right through it. As he continued following it, he noticed more threads like it coming out of the jungle and passing through the trees.
Soon enough, he found all the threads intercepting and intertwining with each other in a single point, looking like a spider web glinting in the sunlight despite how dark it was. The sight was so captivating.
Eyes wide in awe, Crash curiously stepped forward and reached for it, feeling a pulse of something pass through him. The web instantly exploded into blue light, startling any creatures sleeping nearby and causing them to flee. Crash gasped as he stumbled back, clutching his hand that was throbbing with heat. He looked up and stiffened.
"Wha- What's going on? Crash?" Coco shot up awake while the baby dinosaur let out distressed noises. She felt the light that was passing over them and looked back, losing her breath immediately.
There was the dark silhouette of her brother not far from them standing in front of a glowing portal.
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A/N: Thanks for reading. In case you guys are wondering, no. The story is not close to being over. There are still a few more chapters before we get there.