CHAPTER FIVE: ORNI ATTACKED!
Orni woke up the next day. The fire still burned in the distance, but it was seemed to be heading away from her, not toward her. She noticed a beetle crawling next to her. She tried to flick the beetle away from her, only for it to spray stinky stuff in her eyes. She ran forward blindly and fell into a nearby stream. She used the water to wash her eyes clean.
"What an awful creature!"
"A stain on dinosaur kind!"
"Filthy Egg Stealer!"
Orni turned to see a group of Swimmers glaring at her. "You're just jealous because you can't eat eggs!" she retorted.
"Hey ugly, go away!" a child Swimmer snapped at her.
"I'm not ugly! You just can't see beauty!" Orni snapped.
"Ugly, ugly, ugly!"
"Be glad you're not still an egg!"
"Do you steal the eggs of other Egg Stealers?" a Swimmer child asked her.
"I honestly don't know where my parents got the eggs from. " Orni admitted. "But they left me because they stink! I can handle myself!" she snapped. She shook the water off her body, splashing the nearby Swimmers, and stormed off.
Soon, it began to rain, and not just rain, but pour. Orni looked for shelter and soon found a cluster of trees which were close enough together that their canopy would keep her dry. She soon spotted an egg nearby, lying under the canopy. It was in a nest and nobody appeared to be around.
She quickly grabbed and devoured the egg. As she finished with it, however, she realized that she had been mistaken in her belief that nobody was nearby. The father of the egg, whose his mate had died in a Sharptooth attack two weeks prior and he had been left to care for the egg alone, had been one of the Swimmers she had encountered at the stream earlier, glared at her. "You-rotten-thief! You-took-our-only-egg!" he bellowed, barely able to contain his rage.
Orni immediately bolted. As she ran, it began to storm again. Lightning flashed in the sky.
Eventually, near a stream, the Swimmer caught up with her and knocked her over. He pummeled her, causing her bleed all over her face as he continued to strike her head. She shielded her face, trying to protect herself. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was food!" she sobbed.
"You'll never eat anything again!" he snarled. Lightning again flashed in the sky. A bolt struck somewhere nearby in the woods, but he paid no heed to it. Instead, he seized her and held her underwater. She began to panic, struggling against his grip, her head feeling light. Before she could suffer brain damage or pass out, she used all of her strength to pull herself out of the water and out of his grip.
She was, however, weak and drained and he was clearly going to win in the end; she knew it.
However, before he could grab ahold of her and try and drown her again, lightning struck the water, which he was standing in, and which Orni was thankfully clear of. The current quickly traveled through the water, shocking the Swimmer and knocking him out. He soon drowned, as his head had gone underwater. Orni fled the scene, very shaken and feeling lucky to be alive.