Cassandra's POV

It froze when I froze, a glaze of light, a glitch in the matrix. Big bulky muscle mass that I could see just barely but never enough to understand.

Right in front of the plant I was drawing just a few feet away.

It clicked like some kind of animal and I began to panic.

Was it a bear?

Fuck no

I mean maybe

A big huge clicking and growling, not to fucking mention damn near invisible...

Bear..?

Maybe it was cross spliced with a chameleon.

Is this a government experiment?

Is it the military?

What is that thing?

It turned its head to look at me and I held my breath. The pencil stayed in my hand against the paper and I didn't look up.

god I prayed that it would keep on walking.

But it stood there, staring at me.

I could feel it's eyes on me.

There was another sound

Something in the distance and I looked up without even meaning to

It was looking right at me

It wasn't a bear

It wasn't some mutated gecko chameleon bear

It was a..

Rather... how could I even put this.

It was a man.

The ghost of a man, at least.

A bulky yet chiseled invisible individual. I had to squint slightly just to see it right, as well as make sure that I was not batshit insane.

But no, it definitely was an outline of a massive seven a half foot tall behemoth of a male figure.

The creature turned his head to look even more at Me and I felt my lungs freeze. Only to feel them flutter back into reality when the gesture of a person had became slightly visible. I could see him. There was only a brief time and while my artist subconscious tried to study his intriguing features as much as i could, he disappeared completely within that same moment, no outline, nothing but the ghost of his previous presence that finally gave a sharp shiver up my spine, the only thing that i could understand and what would possibly haunt me for the rest of my life. was his fiery, amber tinted brown eyes.

And They got swallowed into my subconscious.

Amber yellow blended into a chocolate brown.

They were beautiful

And at the same time

It was gone.

"What...what the...fuck?"

5 hours earlier….

10:45AM

Shana action-slid down the top bunk and punched Cassandra's shoulder lightly

"Damn that nap was good. Did you take one?"

Cassandra scratched a couple mosquito bites on her thigh in unison, her older smaller sketchbook in her lap. She was in the midst of drawing a big breasted anime warrior princess.

"Nuh-uh. Just had early lunch."

Shana nodded and took a seat beside her.

"Did you find any good drawing spots?"

Cass tossed her sketchbook on her luggage bag and stretched out across the bottom bunk, ignoring Shana's added mass of lap as if it was not there and flattering out across it.

"The river was boring, nothing but neighboring camp noise and mosquitos. Uphill should be better."

"Has captain douche and his posse been keeping quiet?"

"Not sure. I wasn't hired to spy on those crackheads, not that I want to either."

"Their not crackheads, but they are fucking high as balls."

Shana and Cass looked over to beautiful red headed Brigitte who was reading Fifty Shades Darker in the comfort of her top bunk diagonal from them the other girls either sleeping or missing from their gym mat like beds, now made up with their own sheets and blankets.

Cass, the holy semi-feminist cracked a smile.

"See? I told you."

Shana rolled her eyes. "You know you have coke stains all over your shirt right?"

Cass' smile dropped immediately as she was reminded of her ruined baby blue hoodie.

"Fuck off," she whined. "don't even remind me!"

Cass groaned and threw a bag of Doritos at Shana from her snack bag.

Shana chuckled and threw it back and missed and hit Bridget, who then opened her pack of strawberry twizzlers to throw back at the two girls and before the hour would pass an all out war was breaking out between the three girls and occasionally Angela who came in and out from talking with some of the boys. pencils and snacks were flying back and forth across the bunks for the most part, their tossing-stuff war was quiet enough to spare the lives of the few sleeping girls and the majority of the cabin floor.

Salvak must have been a grouchy individual since cubhood.

X'ol had come to believe quite a few things bothering the bulky behemoth from simple growls and groans and curses spewing across his com

X'ol was camouflaged tucked between two large trees 45 feet in the air when his mask zoomed in to watch two boys hike up the hill with their art bags.

"Those girls don't know what the fuck their missing." Eric spat at a tree in frustration. "Look at me Jordan and tell me that I'm not a sexual Tyrannosaurus." Jordan, rolled his eyes and suddenly changed his demeanor to dramatically act out his best Cassandra Quinn Faust impression. "Oh my word, how incredibly disgusting. Sexual Tyrannosaur? More like a Velociraptor's missing Viagra! Men like you have cooties and that's why I and every girl in camp would touch you with a ten foot pole if you paid us~~~oh-Hoi-Hoi-hoi." His voice cracked several times and said it in an almost British accent opposite to the real Cassandra's Slightly-New York-American accent. Eric took a moment to cringe "Dude honestly? Fuck you." Jordan took a bow followed by a quick Millie rock.

"to be honest I think that's just how all the girls feel about you Eric."

Eric gave him a glare and gave him a shove "okay lady killer, I don't see any girls trying to be in your bologna ((baloney) aka the fucking sandwich meat)

Jordan flipped his collar of his hooded jacket with a smile. "The only Ladies I need right now is the ones that makes me dinner every night." Eric shot him a glance. "And who are those ladies?" He grumbled. Jordan grinned widely. "My Mommies."

Eric shoved him slightly and kept on ahead. "Good cause that's all you'll ever get!"

X'ol listened in to the Oomans as the passed and made a mental note to catalog the brown haired Caucasian male of the two known as Eric as possible footstool material. Mainly because he was one of ten out of the thirty-four Ooman pack to be armed, even still though, he wondered if an Ooman so pathetic would even considered worthy prey armed or not.

Salvak grunted over the com once more.

X'ol stood on his tall branch quietly.

What's the matter now?

Picking up traces of escaped hatchling near one of the Ooman camps.

X'ol perked up, Pauk, that could be bad.

Their leader growled through the coms.

Those Pauk-de idiots are going to doom this entire planet.

From his position he was not too far from the Camp the pack of young Oomans had went to. He growled lowly and began to turn around and put a hold on tracking the other bad bloods..

X'ol track south, Salvak, continue hunting and tracking down the bad blood, I'll sneak into the camp and search for the hatchling. He growled to the through the comms

Yes brother. Salvak grunted

Bio masks on at all times. He instructed.

Yes Brother. The two growled back, moving much faster than before.

The nameless Yautja growled in frustration. That last thing he needed was a swarm of hard meat spreading like wildfire and sending the entire Ooman race as well as the Yautja all around the planet currently participating in hunts and studies and research would be in a frenzy.

He changed directions and began to scan for traces of the loose facehugger.

2:00 pm

Bridgette slapped a twizzler across Cassandra's sleeping face quietly.

"Hey...psst...hey..."

Cass woke up and groaned.

"Yo?" She stared up at her groggily before sitting up on her side. "Common there putting us up in hike teams for the day."

Cassandra blinked away her grogginess and looked around, Shana and the rest of the girls beside her and Bridget were gone.

She threw her hoodie back on and grabbed some snacks and threw them in her art bag. She followed Bridget out to where most of the students lined up to be partnered up. All 32 students waited patiently as the two professors explained how we were going to be assigned different hiking buddies for the duration or the trip and each hike day we would have two produce 2 sketches, one contour drawing and one detailed shaded drawing of different plant like that we find during the hike. Mr. Aldirez goes on to explain that each group are not to stray too far from the trails and to all meet back at 8 for dinner. Any team that finished their drawings for the day were allowed to come back early or walk the nature trails if they wished.

He passed around a bucket of slips of paper each had a number on it that would have one duplicate. Those with matching numbers would be on teams for the day.

Shana came over to meet Cassandra after picking her number.

"I got seven, I hope I get somebody I can work with. Do you think we'll end up as partners?"

Cass was passed the bucket and grabbed sheet. She hoped she would only ever be on Shana's team. She hastily opened the folded paper only to heave a sigh and grumble.

"I got ten..."

Shana frowned only to smile again watch as the sight of Christian Buyers passed by asking everyone what number they had to find his match. He looked at Shana and smiled.

"Do you have 15?"

Shana looked at her paper.

"Yeah! Oh erm, nope sorry. I got seven."

Christian nodded and moved past her to Bridget. In the distance she nodded and began to walk off and Shana was back to being depressed.

"I just hope somebody decent has seven."

Patrick Evans from cabin two stopped in his tracks and flipped over his sandy brown hair. "Does anyone have ten?"

Cassandra wondered if she could get away with ripping the piece of paper up and running away. Shana patted Cassandra's back. "Cass don't you have ten?"

Wait to Go Shana the Shark. Cass bit her lip.

She pretended to forget and rechecked her paper.

"Oh yeah I do."

He smiled and began walking, not really giving her much time to catch up.

"Alright come on then, we're going uphill towards the big waterfall."

Cassandra huffed as she stumbled across the gravel in her Slides behind the tall brown haired boy quietly with her big art bag over her shoulder.

She looked back at Shana, who was also bummed out. She was still waiting to find her partner. Shana huffed and waved Cassandra good bye.

This day was already going to suck before it even started.

Shana watched as Cassandra and Patrick vanished up one of the trails.

As if she thought her day couldn't be any worse, she watched as Angela walked over to her with a frown and asked her what number she had. They ended up being a match and silently trekked up one of the southern trails.

to be continued...

A/N

well, well well, guess who isnt dead after all? i havent forgotten about the gang as promised. author chan is having a pretty good and comfortable schedule between work and school for once. hoping to post more chapters soon. im currently sick with preddy fever...