After their morning fight and a few hours of sulking, each alone in their corner, the two friends finally buried the hatchet. Tom had been the first one to take a step and knocked at the plane door. While reflecting over his dark thoughts from the morning events, he suddenly had an idea and wanted to go with his plan as soon as possible. However, his plan had a better chance of succeeding with Sybil's help and that's why he went to her.
They had been walking for quite some time under a heavy sun. The ascent of the hill was hard because the ground was covered with thin, dry and yet slipping earth, and the fact that a trail was non-existent.
"Come on, we have to be quicker," cheered Tom. "I would like to arrive at the top before the night."
While accelerating, Sybil slipped and found herself with her nose in the red earth. She rose up without a word but cursing mentally against herself for agreeing to follow Tom in this craziness.
They finally reached a plateau when a creaking sound ripped through the silence. The noise made them stop abruptly, Tom a few meters ahead of Sybil. He looked instinctively to the ground that was slightly trembling and saw, with dread, that it was literally splitting in several bits. Fissures appeared as fast as falling dominos but he didn't have time to panic.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
He turned around to Sybil's voice just in time to see her figure being swallowed in the earth entrails. And, as quickly as he saw her disappear, he felt himself sucked up in a gulf too.
They fell in the void before landing in a kind of neck. They tumbled down this unexpected slide for a few seconds without really realizing what was going on. At last, their fall was stopped by the ground slope that was coming to an end.
"Ahhh," moaned Sybil when her head hit the ground.
"Oh, shit," groaned Tom, understanding where they were.
"Well, I think it's enough. I've had my fun," said Sybil, her body still spread on the ground.
"Where's your adventurous spirit, Sybil?" asked Tom while rising up and offering his hand to help her.
"On holiday, precisely. I came here to have a change…"
Tom watched her for a while before shrugging and turning around to leave the cave where they had landed.
"I rather believe that dating a lawyer is softening you…."
Sybil opened her mouth to answer him harshly but he was already too far to hear her and she didn't want to stay alone in this dark and hostile place. Maybe he was right…she was softening…The sound of an unidentified beast echoed then on her left and stopped her thoughts right away. She shivered and hurried up to follow him.
After a few minutes of silently walking in the dark without knowing what was around, at last they saw some light and finally reached the outside. Tom gave her his hand to help her to step outside the cave, partially closed by several big rocks.
"Brrr, I hate this," moaned Sybil, shaking herself around once outside.
She was under the impression that a multitude of various creepy bugs were crawling on her.
"How awful!" she went on, still shaking herself.
During their blind walk, she couldn't stop herself to think back at the part of Indiana Jones where the famous archeologist and his fellow Korean friend were in the same situation, surrounded by bugs as hideous as they were scary. She shivered.
"Argh," she said, shaking her arms.
"Stop it!" ordered Tom.
"Stop what?"
"Stop!" yelled Tom, menacing her with one finger.
"What?" she asked again but suddenly froze when she saw him staring, not at her directly, but at a place on her head.
She then felt something move in her hair.
"What?" she begged while trying to hold her breath.
Tom reached his hand to her head and caught something before throwing it away.
"Ahhh," cried Sybil. "What was that?"
"Euh…nothing," he answered while starting to walk.
"Tom," she called, catching his arm to stop him. "What was that?"
"Nothing, really…just a scorpion," he answered simply.
"A scorpion!" yelled Sybil. "And you think it's nothing?"
She looked at him with wide eyes. Tom just shrugged with a little lopsided smile.
"It's nothing," he confirmed.
Sybil glared at him and crossed her arms on her chest.
"Come on, let's go," laughed Tom. "We need to find the beacon."
He walked by her as if nothing had happened even if he had been secretly terrified; he hated any kind of bug and, the smaller they were, the more he hated them. He looked a few seconds around him, as if he were disoriented, still feeling Sybil's black look on him.
"Well, that way," he said finally, pointing to a direction.
He took the way he indicated and Sybil followed, restraining herself from speaking what was on her mind…They walked for a while through dense vegetation before finding again the bare side of the hill where the sun rays were harshly lapping the rocks. At seeing the monster of rocks in front of them, Sybil wondered if they would ever reach the top. She sighed.
"This beacon better be over there."
"The storm pushed us south-west for 40 minutes. There is a good chance that we're in Tema Tangui."
"Oh ! Tema Tangui, so everything is clear!" mocked Sybil.
"There's a beacon at the top of Tema Tangui. We find it, we damage it, they come to fix it and we're saved!"
"They took two years to come and fix the street lamp in front of my home," breathed Sybil.
Tom turned around and laughed.
"We're not in London here, Sybil. There's no need to do a lot of paperwork to fix something."
"Well, my mind is at rest, then," she answered, wrinkling her nose.
At the top of the hill…After one more hour of walking, they reached the top at last.
"Phew," said Sybil, bending in two, her hands resting on her knees. "I think I'm out of shape."
Tom put the rucksack on the ground and turned to her with a mocking smile.
"It seems so, yes."
She stuck her tongue out and Tom chuckled before starting to look for the beacon. They walked to the edge of the cliff.
"Oh, this is beautiful!" exclaimed Sybil looking at the sea spread in front of them.
Tom, for his part, stayed silent and reached for the map in the sack, looking worried.
"So, where's the beacon?" asked Sybil looking at him, her fists on her hips. "Eh?"
"Well…"
"Tom?"
She walked to him and bent over the map he was looking at.
"Let me see. Is this one Tema Tangui? The one with the strange shaped peninsula to the north?"
"Yes," Tom answered simply.
"North is there, right?" she asked pointing at a direction.
"Well, yes."
She walked again to the edge of the cliff and Tom waited for her to understand. She looked silently at the landscape for a while.
"There's no peninsula," she stated finally. "Who stole the peninsula?" she asked with a tone she kept light, turning to him.
Seeing the piqued face of Tom, she stopped smiling and gulped.
"It's not Tema Tangui, is it?"
It was more an observation than a question.
"Well…"
"So, there's no beacon that we can break…they won't come to repair and save us."
"Well…maybe we are…" Tom hesitated. "Maybe we are more to the south. It may be Matanauwi."
"Matanauwi ? And could I know what is on…Matanauwi?" asked Sybil who was starting to get angry.
How could she have let him put her in this position? Right now, she was cursing at Carson for calling her, Larry for not begging her to stay with him, Tom for having crashed them and herself for asking him to fly her back. Tom just looked at her in silence, not knowing what to say: there was nothing on Matanauwi apart from wildlife and flora. Frustrated, he gave her the map and walked away.
"What? What do you want me to do with that?"
Tom didn't answer and just kept walking away.
"Where are you going?"
He raised his hand to ask her to shut up and entered a grove of tropical flowers. Sybil took a few steps before stopping abruptly at seeing the vegetation moving.
"Fuck, shit, shitty mess," groaned Tom, who apparently was using the small bushes as punching bags! "Stupid fool!"
Sybil watched silently and, a few minutes later, swear words and movement stopped and Tom walked out, rubbing his hands.
"Well please, be nice. Don't ever do that again," said Sybil softly to him.
"I would like for just one single…one single, little thing to work out," he said between gritted teeth, walking by her.
"Oh, Tom, I know but come on. Since we're here, you've always been so sure of yourself," pampered Sybil thinking that a little bit of flattery couldn't hurt his manly ego right now. "You always found solutions for everything."
"Of course I have, I'm a man, that's my job," replied Tom, putting the rucksack on his back. "What would I look like if I were to raise my arms up to the sky and cry: 'Oh shit, we're going to die!' It wouldn't be really reassuring, right?" he finished, leaving her right where she stood.
"No! No, not reassuring at all," confirmed Sybil, stopping him with her hand on his chest.
When she saw she had all his attention, she put one hand on each of his arms and went on:
"I want a man sure of himself. I would be in a very hard situation if you lose your self-control, right?"
She squeezed his arms to make him nod and he did it without looking at her. She was too close to him for him to think clearly. Despite the hours of walking, the heat and the dust, her intoxicating smell made his head feel light and his body was starting to react. He needed to find a way to walk away…and quickly. Quickly, before doing something he might regret later.
"All right," he heard himself say.
"Ok."
"Ok," he breathed looking at her at last but taking a few steps back. "I'm fine now."
"Good."
They looked at each other a few more seconds before Tom looked at the sky.
"We, well…we should start to go back down if we want to reach the beach before the night."
"You're right," answered Sybil.
Tom nodded and started to walk. Without a word, but none the less overwhelmed by the scene that just took place, Sybil followed him.
To be continued…