I glanced over my shoulder and saw a monstrosity that was big, blue and had more teeth than I could count.

  It sprinted forward and roared, looking for its next meal.

  The tribespeople around me scattered in all directions as I tried to cut a clear path to freedom, as bodies bounced off me while I tried to remain on my feet.

  “Hey, guys, I think we have a problem.”

  “What is it now?” said Willis.

  “There’s something after me…”

  “Something like what?”

  “Sorry for not stopping to take a picture of a creature that looks like it could swallow me whole—”

  “That’s what she said,” Tuari said.

  “Tuari, that makes no sense! And Willis, I don’t know, all I know is it’s big and blue and toothy.”

  “Well, unless you give us a proper description then we can’t really help you,” Willis said in a bored tone.

  I looked over my shoulder and stopped. The thing was shaped like a big cat, only twice as big, with feathers that formed a crown above its head.

  “It looks like a big blue cat with feathers.”

  Silence on the other line while I waited for a response.

  “Sorry, haven’t got a clue what it could be,” Willis said in the same bored tone.

  “Thanks for the help, Sherlock!”

  I skidded to a halt as the creature was making its way towards a small boy standing in front of a smaller little girl who could only be his sister. I looked around to see if someone would do something but all the tribespeople had either disappeared or were hiding.

  “Fuck me!” I screamed as I weighed my axe in my hand and ran towards it. I screamed at the top of my lungs in the hope I would be seen as a big enough threat that the creature would take off, but it snorted my way and turned its attention towards me. I slowed down as I realised my one and only plan had failed and I was running towards a predator with nothing in my hand but an axe made of bone.

  I missed my shotgun.

  The beast clawed the ground as I slowed down to a skidding stop. It looked at me. I looked at it. Then I turned and ran.

  “What are you doing now?” Willis asked.

  “Running!”

  “Oh, well, don’t forget the idol otherwise it’s your ass.”

  “Fuck the—”

  I saw the idol lying in front of me and scooped it up as I ran past. Leaping over a log I could hear the creature’s footsteps behind me; it snorted loudly while it took in my scent.

  “There’s no way you’re gonna outrun that thing, you know,” Tuari said in my ear. “I mean it literally has to run and hunt for a living.”

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  “I don’t care what the happens to him as long as we get the piece,” Willis said. “I’ve had my eye on a gold-edged Bible that I—”

  “Will you two shut up!” I yelled as I looked over my shoulder and didn’t like what I saw. The beast was closer to me than I thought and was gaining on me by the second.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

  I looked over my shoulder one final time and saw a blue blur leaping towards me. Jumping sideways I felt hot breath sail past my face before the creature smashed into a bush ahead of me. I didn’t stop as I heard its angry roar behind me while it tried to extricate itself from the brushes it was tangled in.

  “Get the fucking ship ready, I’m coming in hot.”

  “Hold up, boyo, I’m afraid we may have a problem. We’ve been spotted by some locals and we’ve had to change location; I’m sending you the new coordinates now. It’s not much further from the original contact point.”

  A message binged on the computer on my wrist and I tapped it open and a hologram of a map with my location on it appeared in front of me. A little red dot of the current location of the ship blinked somewhere ahead of me.

  “I thought you said it wasn’t much further! You’ve added another half a mile to my destination!”

  “The faster you run the quicker you’ll get here,” Tuari teased.

  “You guys are cunts!”

  I heard crashing behind me. It appeared my pursuer had freed itself. Chest burning with every lungful of breath I took in, I thought of how I was going to lose whatever was behind me.

  Climb a tree?

  No, the thing had all the makings of a big cat, which meant it could climb up trees just as easily as it could run.

  Stand and fight? I patted my pockets to see if I had anything I could use as a weapon but came up short.

  I was running out of time and stamina.

  Something caught my attention on the map and I zoomed in. There was a cliff just to the left of me that had a small river at its base. The cliff wasn’t very high but if I could get the animal to chase me and somehow get it to leap over the edge, it would give me an out. Altering my course and taking a sharp left, I ducked through the undergrowth and swung the axe at whatever got in my way.

  The crashing behind me wasn’t getting any quieter. I wanted to look behind me but didn’t dare.

  Sunlight peeked through the leaves ahead of me. My heart skipped a beat as I pushed aside the last remaining branches and leaves in front of me and erupted into a clearing that gave me a spectacular view.

  Two setting suns created a beautiful pink hue across the sky, while flocks of multi-coloured birds danced in the air above me. If it weren’t for the animal behind me that wanted to eat me for dinner, it would have been a beautiful spot to stop and catch my breath. I heard a crash behind me and I kept on moving forward until I was a few feet away from the edge. The drop was higher than I had expected, but that mattered little—as I turned to look back my pursuer sprinted from the bushes and came to a stop in front of me.

  I took a step backwards and bit my bottom lip as we locked eyes.

  If I was being honest with myself this wasn’t what I had in mind when José offered me a position on his crew. I thought there would be battles in space, collecting and delivering parcels to important and famous individuals, and living life to the fullest—not facing a wild predator with an axe made of bone as if I had gone back in time to the days when my ancestors wore nothing but a loincloth.

  The beast paced back and forth, eyes never leaving mine while I redoubled my grip on my axe. Its tail swished back and forth while it growled deeply.

  It wasn’t coming towards me.

  “Come on, you bastard! Come on!” I bent down and threw a rock in its direction. “Come onnn!”

  With a roar that made me take a tumble backwards it ran my way, low to the ground, muscles rippling along its back. I wanted to move. To escape. To flee this monster my ancestors had fought just to survive. But I held my nerve despite every cell in my body telling me to move, and waited. Waited till it was close enough. Waited till all I could see were its eyes.

  It roared once more, saliva running down its jaws, and leapt towards me at the same time as I hit the deck, chest slamming against the ground. I felt the wind of it sail over me and I turned my head to see it try and twist its body in midair to come back my way but it was already too late. With a whine, it plunged out of sight.

  I got slowly up to my feet only then realising how close I was to the edge and thanked the heavens above at how lucky my escape was. Stretching my arms over my head I let out a small whoop and was walking forward when I felt the ground shift under my feet.

  “What the fuc—”

  That was all I got out before the earth underneath me gave away and I slid down the cliff to the river below.