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Making a plan, not knowing if it’s the right one, I decide I'll just go to the entrance because someone's got to be there.
But as I begin walking, I notice that I'm walking in circles. I walk around the entire hill but there is no opening. No entrance. The hole I crawled through has disappeared.
Where am I?
If I was feeling panicky in the cave, that was nothing in comparison to how I feel now.
Tears fill my eyes and I blink them away, but it's impossible. I think maybe I'm hallucinating because the next thing I know, I see a giant saber-toothed tiger looking at me as if it’s ready to pounce.
That's when I really freak out. In fact, that's when I faint.
2
Rock
It’s a day like all the others. They bleed together. Hunt. Make fire. Collect water. Survive.
In my jungle oasis, the fire's going and I'm prepping the fish I filleted for an early dinner. I have a pretty good routine, albeit a repetitive one.
Five years in, I figure there's no use in complaining anymore about whatever the fuck happened to land me here.
One minute, I was on a Special Ops mission. The next thing I knew, a grenade exploded. Instead of being blasted to bits on the floor of that cave with the other guys I was working alongside, I managed to crawl out and exit into the lush green jungle.
Only thing was, it wasn't the 21st century anymore. I wound up going back in time and no matter what I did to find that exit in that cave, I couldn't crawl back.
There was no tunnel, no way in. It was a one-way portal and I had climbed through it willingly, not realizing what it meant.
It meant that I am now the only man on the goddamn earth. Living here in prehistoric times, far as I can gather. There are no dinosaurs, no pterodactyls or brontosauruses, no – I’m no good at history but they must've been here a million years ago.
I’m hunting alongside woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers and birds the size of men.
This place may not have dinosaurs, but there are predators in every damn direction, which is why when I hear a scream – a female-pitched scream – I drop my fish in the fire and I make a run for it.
I haven't heard the voice of another human being for six years. That's a long-ass time to be waiting. And she sounds like the woman of my dreams.
Moments before I wound up in the jungle, I'd been climbing through that dank cave, wishing for a woman – a wife, more specifically – and it's as if the Universe wanted to throw me a curve ball because instead of giving me what I wanted, it landed me here all by my lonesome.
Maybe it's karma for all the shit I did when I was younger, raising hell and giving my grandma a hard ass time. Never wanting to go to school, instead I was always the one ready to skip out if it meant an adventure.
Well, I found one all right, and I'm not waxing poetic about my Special Ops days. I'm talking about the adventure I’m having here in this jungle, in this wild ass wilderness, where I haven't seen another living person in all this time.
The sound, though, of the woman has me running.
I grab my knife, my gun, as I leave the cave. I haven't had to pull the trigger and fire my gun since I landed here, which, as far as I can tell, is saying something. Every time I've gotten close enough to think real trouble was brewing, I've managed to dodge the bite.
But this woman, whoever she is – wherever she's from – might not have the same training. I run.
The saber-toothed tiger is up on its haunches, ready to strike. Right away I know I need to pounce. He's hovering over a woman who's out cold, lying on the lush jungle floor, green leaves surrounding her.
She's in a wetsuit and little water shoes. Her hair is wet and she doesn't seem to have a clue that a beast is salivating over her. I'd fight this beast fair and square, but there isn't time. His gums are smacking and he's ready to feast.
I pull the gun from my holster and cock it at the wild cat. He turns his head, hearing me as I stalk toward him, and I don't hesitate.
Just as he's about to leap for me, I shoot.
Thankfully he's off her body and nowhere near mine. I put two bullets in his head and that does it. I look at his hundreds of pounds of flesh, thinking it'll feed me for a long ass time, which is good because I'm really fucking sick of fish.
The woman has been startled awake by the sound of the bullets ringing out. Blood pools around the tiger's body and I step over him, wanting to be sure there are no signs of life. There aren't. I shove the gun back in its holster. As I walk toward the woman, she scrambles up on her hands and knees.
