AN: Here you guys go, not that anyone is reading this or is likely to ever read this. Jeeze this must really not be a very popular book! I had to create a whole new category on fanfiction just to post this. Anyways, I'll put up a new chapter each day until this is finished. Have fun, we wrote this one long:)

Chapter 2

"Hey, Ray! Ray! Wake up!" Someone shook my shoulder. I groaned really loudly, trying to get them to leave me the heck alone. But they kept persistently shaking my shoulder. I groaned, even louder this time. What time was it anyways? Slowly, feeling like my eyelashes were glued together, I opened my eyes. When they were fully opened I could see two things; that James's eager, impatient face was hovering by me, and that my big clunky wristwatch said that it was about one in the morning.

"What the heck James! I was sleeping! What is so darn important that you had to wake me up in the middle of the night!?" I whisper shouted. Even if I was awake, it didn't give me the right to full out shout at James and wake up the whole camp. That would be cruel.

"Hold you horses, Ray. You would have been even angrier if I had gone without you." He whispered in a calm voice. I hate it when he acts all mature. Grrr…

"Haru, the new recruit, woke me up and said that a herd of wild elephants are drinking from the lake in the middle of the island. I'm surprised nobody noticed them until now. The jungle may be very thick, but this isn't a large island. Anyways, they won't be there for much longer, so if you want to come you need to get up now."

I jumped off of the bed I was so excited, but of course I had to get stuck in the mosquito net. Five minutes later and a few hundred very inventive phrases and James had gotten me out. By then I was in a panic. What if we missed them! I didn't even bother to change out of my pajamas; I just shoved my feet into my hiking boots, grabbed my hiking backpack, and ran out of the tent with James.

We grabbed an impatient looking Haru-who had been waiting outside the tent-as we ran past. We weaved through the maze of tents, equipment, and fires until we made it to the edge of the forest. We stopped for a minute as James turned on his flashlight and I asked Haru how to get to the elephants.

"They over there, mile away," Haru said, jerking his head to the right as he tried to speak English. He wasn't very good at it though.

He only speaks a little English, but he probably assumed that since James only spoke English that I was the same. Fortunately, I speak English and Burmese fluently because they were the languages I grew up with. I took pity on him and switched to Burmese, much to the consternation of James.

"It's okay. You can talk to me in Burmese." We had begun to walk forward on a faint trail in the underbrush as I was talking to Haru. James had a what the heck?! Expression on his face. He'd been born and raised in America until he was about seven. Then his father up and moved him and his mother here, to Burma. He never had a gift with languages, so everything we said was lost on him.

Haru shook his head slowly. "I can speak to you in Burmese," he informed me. "But then he cannot understand us."

I smiled at Haru. It was very kind of him to continue speaking English for James, even though he had trouble with the language.

"Okay, English is fine too." I assented.

Feeling like an idiot, I focused on finding the elephants. I strained my ears, trying to catch the faintest noise of the elephants. I couldn't hear anything yet, but we were still about a mile away from the shore of the lake. My heart raced in anticipation. I loved elephants; I have ever since I was about two years old when my mother brought me to the zoo. I sighed. I missed my mother. She died when I was seven, so I don't remember much about her. But I can feel the hole that her passing left in our family. She was the loving, gentle light to me and my father, and I can tell that Father still loves and misses her, even after all of this time.

We walked for another half an hour through the dark jungle. Strange animal cries echoed through the damp night air and mosquitoes buzzed around and landed on my arms and legs. I tried to get them all off before they bit me, but I would defiantly have a few bites by morning. I couldn't put on any of the bug spray in my backpack because the elephants would be able to smell it. But a few bites are definitely worth the reward. Speaking of the reward, I could hear crashing and deep guttural rumbles up ahead. We were getting close. I motioned for the others to follow me off the trail and into the underbrush so we could find some cover. Talking now would alert the elephants to our presence. We crept the last hundred or so yards on our stomachs, drawing as little attention to ourselves as possible. We got to a log and stood up behind it. From there we could see the lake. It sparkled in the moonlight, its dark waters full of magical promise. Standing around the shore and in the shallows where almost ten elephants, their beautiful bodies swaying back and forth with their slow, majestic walk. Little ones frolicked in the water under the watchful eye of the herd's matriarch, and a big bull took a long drink from the lake.

I watched them in awe. They way they moved, the graceful march they walked, like they were almost one animal, like one cohesive unit…. I stood up slowly, unable to help myself. James hissed something at me, but I didn't truly hear him. "They're beautiful!" I breathed. I found myself walking silently forward before I crouched behind a tree to get a closer look.

I heard Haru suck in a sharp breath behind me. "Ray, look out!" This time I did turn around – in time to see a bull elephant rear up and stomp down in a warning. A warning for us to back off from the herd or it would make us back off. In a rather painful way – as in we'd be dead. I began walking backwards with James and Haru. Slowly, we kept walking backwards. The elephant kept stalking forward, herding us away from the herd.

Problem is, we hit a log. We couldn't move any farther back. We all exchanged alarmed glances. We were cornered, the log behind us and the water to our right, and another log to our left. The elephant's eyes seemed to glow with fury. This time when the bull reared up, it gave an elephant roar. I felt the ground shudder beneath me as the bull crashed back to the ground. My heart beat pounded in my ears as it charged us. It rushed at us faster and faster, leaving a trail of flattened vegetation in its wake. Birds screeched and flew up into the canopy as the bull continued its charge.

I heard Haru mutter a prayer behind me, and James grabbed onto my hand. It trembled. It came closer, and closer. My vision blacked out except for a small circle focusing around the bull's eyes. They were so angry. And I was so afraid. The bull crashed into a cluster of trees, and was stopped momentarily by their immense size and thickness. I thought for a second that we were safe, that the bull would not be able to get to us and would just give up. My hopes were dashed, though, when the crazed bull started ramming its head into the trees. They groaned in protest to every hit. Haru was chanting something soft under his breath. It sounded something like,

"Great lord of the forest, leave us in peace. We just wish to pass through without harm. Please mighty one, leave us be." I grasped his hand with my free one, giving as much comfort as I could while falling apart at the seams. One of the trees finally gave, and with sigh, the giant fell through the air as if in slow motion. When it hit the ground the crash of breaking limbs was quickly followed by the boom of an explosion. A wall of sound hit us and flung us into the air. All I had time to think was that the silly elephant had hit a mine before I smacked against the water and drifted into oblivion.