Return To Primordial Island by Rick Poldark (namjoon book recommendations TXT) 📗

Chapter 5

Peter regained consciousness to the sound of gurgling water on the river bank, his body strewn across the mud, thankfully facing up. He turned his head and saw the river running past him. He realized he must’ve lost consciousness, as his head thundered with pain. He tried to move, but he felt strange. His limbs wouldn’t respond to his brain’s orders. As his eyes darted around, he caught glimpses of a pant leg and an arm, only they were in places they shouldn’t have been…at angles that shouldn’t have even been possible.

He tried to crane his neck to look at his body, but he couldn’t do it. It didn’t even feel as if his body was even there. Was he dead? Had he been decapitated, and these were the last moments of sentience? Had the Spinosaurus bitten his body off and feasted on it, leaving his head behind? He blinked his eyes and crinkled his nose. At least his head worked.

As his brain began to register the data his eyes sent, he realized that he was folded over on himself, contorted in a back-breaking position. Peter fought down panic, trying to analyze the situation. Then he remembered his powers.

He closed his eyes, reached deep within himself, and sought out his own life force. It was there, and it was fading. He sensed it in his mind’s eye through the power of the orbs embedded within his chest. He must’ve sustained a spinal injury and become paralyzed from the neck down. He was thankful to even be alive, even as a human pretzel, and he knew he had to heal himself.

He looked around, scouting out for carnivorous dinosaurs lurking about, but with his limited range of sight, the coast appeared to be clear. Satisfied he was alone, Peter closed his eyes and reached into his essence, tapping the power of the life orb. He felt the orb glow inside of his mind as he focused on healing his damaged spinal nerve.

His eyes opened to splashing in front of him, breaking his concentration. He tried to crane his neck to spy what caused the disturbance, but to no avail. It, however, slithered into his view. A massive snake had slipped out of the river and was eyeing him for a nice meal.

“Shoo! Git!” he shouted at it. He wanted to swat at it with his arm and kick at it with his leg, but those weren’t options.

It slinked through the mud, bringing more of its body into view. Its head was massive, like that of a cow, a black tongue slipping in and out of its mouth, tasting the air…tasting Peter. Its scales were deep brown, its body two feet thick. However, as it revealed more of itself, it appeared to be three feet thick towards its middle.

Peter forced his eyes closed and did his best to re-establish his link with the life orb. He really wanted to use the death orb to kill this monster, but he had no idea how. Desperate, he fired up his inner power, creating a neural handshake with the cells of his spinal cord. He injected his warmth into them as his body rattled. The massive boa, likely a Titanoboa, had just latched onto his feet. As he felt life and healing trickle through his nervous system, he had the faint sensation of teeth piercing his ankles and lips massaging their way up his calves. He didn’t feel it as much as he knew it, as if he watched it happen to someone else.

His eyes opened to a much louder splash. What now?

A beautiful woman stood waist-deep in the river, watching him. Peter thought he was hallucinating, but as he fixed his eyes on the woman in the water, he could’ve sworn it looked like…

“Tracey?” He asked it out loud knowing full well it wasn’t Tracey.

‘I assumed this form as it would be pleasing to you. We haven’t much time.’ Peter felt its voice inside his mind, wordless as the intelligent lizard man, only this thing wasn’t using an orb to communicate. He knew, however, what is was.

“What do you want?”

‘There is quite a large snake consuming you, feet first. It has already worked its way up to your thighs.’ Its voice was thin and hollow, like a hissing whisper in his mind.

Peter felt himself being turned around and sensed the peristaltic movements of the boa’s throat muscles, guiding him into its esophagus. However, at the moment what stood before him in the river was much worse. It was pure evil. “I know what you are.”

‘You know nothing of what I am. I am as powerful as I am old, and I walked these lands well before the thunder lizards.’

“You corrupted Mike Deluca. Turned him into a monster.”

‘I offered him power over death. What he chose to do with it was his responsibility.’

“Leave me alone.”

‘The snake is now at your waist. You cannot feel it, but it’s pulling you in, further and further, until you will be digested slowly, in agony every second of the remainder of your life.’

Peter wanted to heal himself, but he knew he didn’t have enough time. “Leave me alone.”

‘I can help you.’

“I don’t want your help.”

‘I can teach you how to use the death orb.’

This caught Peter’s attention, and it must’ve sensed it, because an eerie smile crept across its face, flashing rotten teeth. The sight jarred him out of whatever enchantment it had cast upon him. “No. I don’t want it.”

‘The snake is now working its way up your torso.’

Peter strained to look and saw the top of its massive head on top of his chest, its curved teeth digging into his flesh, yet he felt nothing. He thought about Tracey. He felt how much he still cared for her, and the orbs glowed