“Help!” she let out a yelp before getting up, turning around and running. She didn’t make it far as she tripped on some overgrown roots. She lifted her head and saw a large, hardened leaf. It was red with purple spirals. Katie picked herself up, and with a brutal memory of Cyrus’s advice, she found herself face to face with one of the large flowers Cyrus had warned her about. There were four more nesting giant wasps in there.
Katie held her breath. None of the wasps had noticed her yet, and she desperately wanted to keep it that way. But no sooner than she turned her heel one of them looked up at her. It started to brandish its tail. Katie noticed the yellow sap oozing out of the pointed end of the tail.
“Aahhh!” she screamed and fell back. The creature’s long skinny tail just missed her. Then she felt arms lift her and found herself roughly pulled back behind a tree. She turned around and saw Tyson, who had a look of terror on his face. He too was fully changed into Narque clothes.
The wasp-creature soon found Katie again and was buzzing midair in front of her, just ten feet away. Tyson stepped in front of Katie. The bug whipped its tail around, then slammed into a tree towards the side and fell onto the ground dead.
Katie and Tyson looked up. Cyrus was standing there with a small tube made of dark brown bamboo.
“Those are called Stagners. They are like overgrown wasps with long and slender stinging tails and they nest in those large purple and red flowers. Other than stinging intensely, the poison is harmless except in very large quantities,” Cyrus explained.
“What do you consider to be a large quantity?” Katie asked, terrified of the answer. She was leaning against Tyson’s chest.
“Usually five or more stings,” Cyrus answered, casually shooting the rest of the Stagners dead. “Three or four usually cause excessive swelling and extreme hallucinations. Anything less than that is fairly mild or feels like a long-lasting sting. That is, as long as you aren’t allergic.”
Katie rubbed her cheek and arms in the places that had been stung. She was stung three times and dreaded the possibility of having hallucinations.
“I have an antidote here,” Cyrus said. He pulled from his pocket a small vial of thick, blue liquid and handed it to Katie. “Just dab a bit, very little, on the stings and soon the burning will subside which means that there isn’t any venom left in your blood.”
“Thanks,” she breathed. Katie sat down against a tree and dabbed just a bit more than a grain of sand on each sting. “How will we know if I’m allergic?” she looked up at Cyrus.
“I’m not as worried about you as I am for Tyson,” Cyrus said. “You’re native to Narque so there’s a good chance you aren’t allergic, even if you didn’t grow up here. Tyson is the one who should be careful. One sting could painfully kill him within an hour if he is allergic.”
Tyson swallowed and cleared his throat. “I will be careful, then.”
“Good,” Cyrus said. Let’s get moving. We still have a ways to go. Staying here won’t do anything except attract more Stagners.”
Katie got to her feet and they all started walking further into the jungle. The heat of the sun blazed down and, even with the frequent shading from the trees, Katie and Tyson could feel the rays of the sun slowly burn into their necks. But the clothes they wore were light, comfortable and cool.
For a few hours, they trudged over the rough, uneven ground and thick, overgrown roots that battled each other for dominance of the jungle floor. Katie was on high alert for Stagners, glancing around constantly with an almost wild look in her eyes, mainly for Tyson’s sake.
Tyson was silent the entire time. His face was set yet his eyes also darted around for any sign of something that didn’t exist on Earth. Cyrus and Katie talked occasionally, which Tyson half-listened to until Katie said that talking made her feel tired.
Now and then they would stop for a small water break, but otherwise continued at a steady pace.
Soon enough, the bright afternoon sun melted away into a brilliant pink and orange sunset. They couldn’t see much of it but in the rare spots where the branches and leaves left a clearing above them, they could see the beautiful sky, like a painting one would stare at for hours in a museum.
But before they knew it, the sunset disappeared and left them in darkness, and their only light were the stars and two moons above.
“There are two moons in Narque?” Katie asked.
“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Well, there are three moons, but we can only see one of them at certain, yet unpredictable times, and only in the northern lands of Narque. You could never see it here. We’re too close to the equator.”
“Do they have names?” Tyson asked. Katie jumped slightly at the sound of his voice. Even though she knew he was there with them, she didn’t feel like he was there because he had been so silent.
“The closest one to us is Dormita,” Cyrus explained. “The second closest is Taliah. Those are the two you see now. And the third, which always shines a royal blue color, is Ayza. That is also my daughter’s name.”
“You have a daughter?” Katie asked.
“Yup,” he said. “And a son. We named him after the exclusive comet, Koran.”
“Koran?” Tyson asked.
“Yeah. It is also the name of a river that runs through the Forest of Verdina. Its spring is in Viscar Mountains. They say the water has powerful properties because of the comet’s influence over it.”
Katie looked at
