CHAPTER 12: Shortcut
CHAPTER 12: Shortcut
"You got everything fellas?" Buck asked Nathan and Michael as they all stood back up after nearly 40 minutes of taking a break.
Nathan and Michael stood up and grabbed their bags, before swiftly throwing them over onto their backs and the bag straps underneath their arms.
"I needed that," Michael said, "my legs were proper aching before."
"We haven't got too far to go now. We just need to make a turn around this point because the Chasm of Death is gonna be up ahead. Don't swallow the toxic fumes if any of it happens to escape the chasm!"
Michael and Nathan were too familiar with the Chasm of Death, having seen it in the movie. Heavy laughter wasn't that dangerous, but when it's uncontrolled laughter to the point you end up struggling for air, it made sense as to where the Chasm of Death got its name from. Still, neither Michael or Nathan wanted to chance it. They've come this far and they weren't keen on putting themselves at risk.
"How long would you say we've got, if you had to put minutes onto it?" Michael asked.
"It's not too far now mate, we just need to scurry through the remainder of the jungle and we'll have gone past the Chasm of Death before you know it, and then a few more parts of the jungle await us before we hit the Plates of Woe."
"Ahh right, fair enough."
"Just for clarity, do you want to actually head all the way to Lava Falls, or do you just want to look at it from a distance...say, from the spot just before the Plates of Woe? from my memory, you can actually see Lava Falls from just before the Plates of Woe."
Michael looked at Nathan - the answer was pretty obvious for Michael but he naturally looked towards Nathan just to garner his opinion.
"I mean, I'm up for going all the way myself."
Nathan nodded. A couple hours ago he would've emphatically said no, but given his changed mood now, he felt safe enough to actually make the journey all the way to a close spot up to Lava Falls.
"Yeah, let's do it."
Hearing Nathan say that made Michael want to punch the air. He was finally back in the zone, and it made Michael excited, because now it meant they were going to make a guaranteed hike all the way up to Lava Falls with no disagreements anymore or any roadblocks. He was glad to see Nathan back to his normal self, and all it took was for him to see another dinosaur down here.
"Suit yourselves, that's the plan. I particularly feel obliged now to escort you fellas over there having learnt about you. Let's head on then!" Buck declared.
They marched on through the jungle, underneath the giant structure of boulders covered with moss that they were sat against.
The temperature in the air was a lot cooler than it was than when Michael and Nathan first came down here. Still tropical hot, but a lot cooler with a much more noticeable breeze. The vast open space surrounding Lava Falls and the Plates of Woe, in complete contrast to the entirety of the jungle, meant possibly that the breeze was a result of that. They weren't too far now.
Michael took his bag off and unzipped it, continuing to walk alongside Nathan and behind Buck as the weasel escorted them across the jungle to their destination. Buck heard the commotion with Michael rapidly moving his hand inside the contents of his water and food.
"What're you rummaging for in that?" Buck asked, continuing to walk ahead of the two men.
"Just gonna eat, I'm actually quite hungry now."
Michael pulled out a sausage roll. It was one of many snacks that he brought along with him originally when they were at the surface intending on going on just a normal hike. But he felt hungry now having seen Nathan eat his sandwich. He pulled out the packet and then zipped up the bag, gently returning the bag straps underneath his armpits and the bag firmly onto his back.
Unwrapping the sausage roll, Michael started taking bites. It felt good to be eating something so easy to enjoy and simple.
"Alright fellas, as you wanted a shortcut to skip the Chasm of Death, I'll carefully escort you down it, we ain't gonna be that far now."
"Down it?" Nathan asked, as Michael continued eating whilst walking.
"The thing is, the Chasm of Death is like a connector, you know? it connects this level to that lower level between the Jungle of Misery and the side that'll take us to Lava Falls. Just...make sure you keep your balance is all I'm saying, as it'll feel like we're going down a rather steep mountain. It's how we returned back to the entrance when we rescued that sloth."
Michael and Nathan shrugged. That didn't sound particularly bad. They just didn't want to chance anything with the Chasm of Death considering its deadly nature, and given that Buck's contraption he built with it had already suffered 'technical difficulties' as he put it, back when he was escorting the herd across this world, it felt smart to avoid the Chasm altogether.
In theory, the shortcut was going to be the ground besides the Chasm of Death, but it sounded like it dropped down quite a bit. The Chasm of Death was quite a steep cavern with all of those toxic green fumes, so it'd make sense. But realistically, if a dinosaur like Rudy or Momma Dino could return to near the entrance of this world from Lava Falls, then it'd be a walk in the park for anyone else to do the same. Dinosaurs after all would find it impossible to go through the Chasm of Death, so the shortcut had to be viable. There couldn't be any other possibility.
Ten minutes or so had passed and they arrived at what felt like a closed off corner of the dinosaur world. A giant rocky wall which extended all the way up to the skies, as if it was the edge of the world, surrounded their left whilst the environment ahead curved right down like the ground was folded upon itself. The jungle at the bottom felt like a whole new atmosphere just from looking at it from here.
Not too far from their right was another giant rocky boulder, but this was in the shape of a giant asteroid - inside it rested precisely the Chasm of Death, where those toxic green fumes roamed the abyss beneath it like the grim reaper. From the looks of it, the shortcut they were at was easily noticeable to anyone with good eyesight, yet Buck still insisted on taking the herd at the time through the chasm.
"Is this all it is?" said Michael.
"Aye it is my friend, aye it is. As I say, it's easy to slip and fall, so watch your balance. This is how our Rudy gets back and forth between Lava Falls and all the way back that way to the entrance, he never has to use the Chasm of Death!" Buck pointed, using his Rudy tooth to point to the direction behind Michael and Nathan.
Michael followed the tooth's direction - looking behind him was nothing more than a vast swathe of jungle trees with green shiny textures and the scent of burning - looking behind himself made him realize just how deep into the dinosaur world they were at this point.
"Christ, we're so far in now, that's crazy."
"After we carefully scoot down here we'll be one step closer to Lava Falls," said Buck, "come on then, let's slip and slide - sorry, I mean gently walk on down."
There were no trees or any ferns on this bit of rock which curved on itself into a downwards angle. The distance between here and the jungle on the other side was quite far too, it was about 5 minutes or so. Aside from a few collections of damp moss, this bit of ground they were about to walk upon was like an open plain. It was surreal, and had the appearance of the edge of a mountain. It looked bumpy, but the bumpy rocks would be helpful in keeping their balance.
Buck led the way. He had the advantage of being rather weightless because of the small animal he was. Michael and Nathan weren't incredibly overweight thankfully but it just meant they'd have to be extremely careful. Buck simply used his Rudy tooth to keep himself in a stable position as he gently hopped over the bumpy rocky terrain as it descended downwards to the next level of the dinosaur world.
Michael followed next. He double checked to make sure his phone was in his pocket, which it was. He didn't want to damage his trainers from the sharp rocky terrain, so he intended on moving as carefully and as slowly as possible down. Nathan then followed afterwards, and he adopted a technique of simply ducking down and using his hands to balance his way down.
It was easy to avoid falling down, but the distance and the vast open space of this rocky terrain as it descended meant they'd have to take a bit of caution, hence Nathan's unusual technique in getting down. His bare hands touched the warm solid rock, where it felt similar to concrete. Michael continued walking down, stopping his shoes onto every bump in order to keep stability.
"Do you think Manny and all that lot would've been able to make it down here?" Michael asked.
"They managed to make their way back up all that time ago on the way back, so I'd imagine so!" Buck replied, already nearing the bottom given how light he was.
Michael and Nathan made steady progress downwards. As they neared the middle of the descending terrain of rock, they started seeing small collections of shiny green moss scattered on some of the rocks and the bumpy ones. Michael didn't really think much of them since they were a small size. He continued walking downwards, placing one of his shoes onto the moss.
And as he did so, he suddenly felt his balance slip. Out of instinct, as he fell, he pushed his arms out and directed himself to facing the other way upwards, his whole body. He slipped and managed to catch a grip of one of the sharp bumps, completely avoiding a full on collision with the ground. The moss was a lot slippier than he'd anticipated and the sudden unexpected slip was the first full fright he'd received in the dinosaur world.
Because he caught his two palms directly onto the edges of a sharp bumpy rock on the downwards terrain, he ended up scraping the middle of his palms, feeling the scratches as they oozed sharp pain.
"Ahhhh god!" Michael somewhat whispered, moving his position as he leaned his ribs onto the ground.
"Are you okay?!" Buck yelled, already at the bottom.
"Woah, are you alright Michael?" Nathan asked.
Michael sat up and found a spot where he could keep himself positioned safely upon a couple of rocks. He lifted his hands up and looked at the scraped marks on his palms from the edge of the small bumps. Luckily, only a small unnoticeable collection of blood was drawn from the scrapes, but still, it hurt a lot more than he'd expected.
"Lesson learnt I guess," said Michael.
"As long as you're okay lad, you can keep making your way down! that happened in the flash of the moment from where I was stood!" yelled Buck, his voice echoing through the air.
"It's just the edge of those small bumps, they scraped across my hands as I grabbed them. Bloody hell, that hurts."
"It's a good thing though you didn't actually fall all the way down at least," said Nathan.
Michael nodded. As much as his palms hurt from the scrape marks given to him from the hard grasp of those small rocks just now to stop his fall, he nonetheless carried on. And he adapted Nathan's technique of staying in a ducked position, back facing downwards, as if to 'crawl' their way down.
Finally, they were both at the very bottom, joining Buck.
"Let me take a look at your hands lad," said Buck, the weasel grabbing Michael's arms to look at his palms.
Blood was barely showing among the scrapes. They were relatively minor traumas thankfully but Buck figured that must have hurt. He was willing to go to any unorthodox measure to try to heal someone's injuries. The weasel stuck his tongue out and looked at Michael's hands.
"Wait what are you doing?" Michael laughed, quickly rejecting his arms from Buck noticing his tongue.
"I was about to give you the healing lick, you know how like there's a kiss of life?"
Michael most certainly didn't want Buck licking his hands, they were just small scrapes that'd heal in a few hours after being exposed to fresh gusts of wind.
"Nah I'll be alright, they don't hurt that much now, but I appreciate it though ahahaha."
"Suit yourselves. Just don't drop them into the lava because lava ain't gonna cool the pain, it'll burn you to a crisp let alone heal those scrapes!" Buck said, continuing on.
After a few minutes, Buck stopped and turned directly to face Michael and Nathan, as the two of them took the opportunity to reach into their respective bags to pull out a new bottle of fresh water as they were surrounded by the vast cyacad jungles and the screeching dinosaur roars from the flying ones above.
"Okay fellas, this is it. That whole dropping bit of land you've just climbed down...all of that would've been the Chasm of Death and its toxic fume chamber had we gone through it. Consider yourselves lucky I discovered this shortcut when I first got down here because without it, none of this would've been possible."
The two of them nodded as they both took heavy gulps of water, hydrating themselves and cooling off from the fresh temperatures of the drinks.
"If all goes to plan, we'll be shortly arriving to the Plates of Woe after another stint through this here jungle, and then Lava Falls it'll be. All in all, we've had a very good run so far haven't we fellas?"
"I'd say so, yeah, it's gone a lot better than I thought," said Michael.
"If I'd have known it'd go this smoothly earlier I wouldn't of been hesitant I guess," Nathan said.
"We haven't even really seen anything dangerous have we? we've seen those dinosaurs, we haven't seen anything big like erm...god I cringe when I say this name but...Momma Dino, and we haven't seen Rudy yet either. I reckon we'll be able to make it to Lava Falls and back without any encounter."
Buck seemed to concur with Michael's statement. The weasel was sure they'd come across Rudy, not least because he was much more enraged and merciless having survived the fall after being pushed off the edge by Momma Dino after the herd had been saved, with Rudy being vindictive and vengeful as a result. But even to his own surprise, nothing had happened.
"It's the luck of Buck. When I'm your pal, you don't get into any danger. With that being said, let us carry on as we make the home run to your destination boys!" Buck yelled, twirling Rudy's tooth in his small hands as a celebratory gesture.
Michael and Nathan nodded - they felt good in themselves. The dinosaur world felt a lot more calmer and peaceful than portrayed in the movie, especially because they hadn't come across Momma Dino or Rudy. They felt incredibly confident about making it to Lava Falls now.