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Description
(Cavegirls Series, No. 6)
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The night sounds echoed all around as I stumbled through the forest. Screams, splashes, howls and wails... and underneath it all, that constant industrial "Ker-chunk-kerchunk-kerchunk" of the pumping wells and the metallic screeching of the earth-movers back at Fort Rex. The pounding of my heart echoed in that sound, the fevered throbbing in my brain copying the earth's screams back there. Day and night the digging and drilling went, stamping the bases modern authority over everything that walked and crawled here on the upper highlands of Caprona. The flames from the refinery shot high into the skies, announcing to all around that there was a new master here.
Another sound caught my ear, though. The low thrumming beat of helicopter blades slicing the muggy night air. The lone Bell 47 that the Station kept for patrols and emergencies had been sent up. They knew already?
Then that icy wash feeling hit my stomach. Karl. Only Karl would have noticed I was gone this early in the night... and he had called it in. My only friend had set the dogs on me.
A flash of light sweeping through the forest's canopy above me froze me in my tracks. Pressing up against the massive trunk of an impossibly huge fern, I hid from the slightest chance that the pilot would spot any movement. The icy blueish light swept past me and fixed itself instead on some point in the jungle downstream. A blast of orange flame and the ripping sound of a automatic tore the night. Karl. The distinct sound of his MP44 were followed by the tortured screams of some unfortunate night creature. Not only had he ratted me out, he now rode the gunner's seat to kill me.
I waited until the chopper flew on, continuing it's search. With the wide variety of night hunters on this lost continent they wouldn't chance sending search parties out for me until dawn... would they?
Then I remembered why I was out here instead of back at the Fort.
God alone knows what Colonel Smalls might order... Anyone that insane might order men knowingly into the mouths of those prehistoric nightmares, if he even suspected that I had found his journals. Better not chance it. That wasn't any rescue search for a lost comrade that just flew past. They were out to kill me on sight. Better put as much distance as I could between myself and the Station.
When I tried to stand away from the trunk of the fern-tree, though, my head reeled and I spun like a drunk. Stumbling among the ground vines, I quickly lost my balance. The drumming in my head was intense and my mouth was dry. My leg burned from the bite of that weird amphibian back at the stream crossing. The strange arrowhead shaped skull had burst with one shot from my sidearm, but apparently not before it had managed to chew something into my bloodstream. Oh God, after all this to be brought down by some frog-lizard-thing less than a yard long?
I lay there, trying not to scream. Better to die out here than wind up with my head as another decoration on Small's palisade gate, though. Then I heard the noise.

It moved fast. Even in my early delirium, it was fast. Cursing the swamp that had claimed my FN rifle in the amphibian's attack, I went for my revolver. Pathetic defense, but better than nothing. Incredibly, it snatched my hand and twisted it down, flicking the Smith and Wesson neatly away and then just stood there, holding me helpless.

"Hap-pa Nu Awana!" came the voice, and the sight of an impossibly beautiful woman towering over me drew my terrified gaze away from the glistening sharp teeth of the reptile.

I stared; glancing nervously at the saurian, who stayed motionless, gripping my hand in it's talons, then back to the stern face of the amazon, then to the sharp tip of the flint spear point aimed at me. "Hap-pa Nu AWANA!" she shouted again. Dear God she was beautiful...Was this delirium? Was I just laying here, caught in some hallucination? Had the poison of the frogzard spread that fast? I wondered which would find me first... Karl or the predators that ruled the night in this lost world?

Then a twist of my hand snapped me out of my stupor. It certainly FELT real...
I yelled out, as she repeated the gibberish in an even more menacing voice. This was real, I decided. This was happening.. but who was she? The Ape-like tribesmen our patrol had massacred yesterday had looked nothing like her. And this trained dinosaur? What had I stumbled into?

Then the creature leaned in closer to my face... I readied myself for the snap of it's jaws that would end the burning poison and the twisting pain...

"My lady wantssss to know if you ssssurrender..." it whispered.

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8.5 x 11" Pen, coloured pencil and chalk pastel

From stocks [link] [link]

By ~mjranum-stock and ~Della-stock

Description
(Cavegirls Series, No. 6)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The night sounds echoed all around as I stumbled through the forest. Screams, splashes, howls and wails... and underneath it all, that constant industrial "Ker-chunk-kerchunk-kerchunk" of the pumping wells and the metallic screeching of the earth-movers back at Fort Rex. The pounding of my heart echoed in that sound, the fevered throbbing in my brain copying the earth's screams back there. Day and night the digging and drilling went, stamping the bases modern authority over everything that walked and crawled here on the upper highlands of Caprona. The flames from the refinery shot high into the skies, announcing to all around that there was a new master here.
Another sound caught my ear, though. The low thrumming beat of helicopter blades slicing the muggy night air. The lone Bell 47 that the Station kept for patrols and emergencies had been sent up. They knew already?
Then that icy wash feeling hit my stomach. Karl. Only Karl would have noticed I was gone this early in the night... and he had called it in. My only friend had set the dogs on me.
A flash of light sweeping through the forest's canopy above me froze me in my tracks. Pressing up against the massive trunk of an impossibly huge fern, I hid from the slightest chance that the pilot would spot any movement. The icy blueish light swept past me and fixed itself instead on some point in the jungle downstream. A blast of orange flame and the ripping sound of a automatic tore the night. Karl. The distinct sound of his MP44 were followed by the tortured screams of some unfortunate night creature. Not only had he ratted me out, he now rode the gunner's seat to kill me.
I waited until the chopper flew on, continuing it's search. With the wide variety of night hunters on this lost continent they wouldn't chance sending search parties out for me until dawn... would they?
Then I remembered why I was out here instead of back at the Fort.
God alone knows what Colonel Smalls might order... Anyone that insane might order men knowingly into the mouths of those prehistoric nightmares, if he even suspected that I had found his journals. Better not chance it. That wasn't any rescue search for a lost comrade that just flew past. They were out to kill me on sight. Better put as much distance as I could between myself and the Station.
When I tried to stand away from the trunk of the fern-tree, though, my head reeled and I spun like a drunk. Stumbling among the ground vines, I quickly lost my balance. The drumming in my head was intense and my mouth was dry. My leg burned from the bite of that weird amphibian back at the stream crossing. The strange arrowhead shaped skull had burst with one shot from my sidearm, but apparently not before it had managed to chew something into my bloodstream. Oh God, after all this to be brought down by some frog-lizard-thing less than a yard long?
I lay there, trying not to scream. Better to die out here than wind up with my head as another decoration on Small's palisade gate, though. Then I heard the noise.

It moved fast. Even in my early delirium, it was fast. Cursing the swamp that had claimed my FN rifle in the amphibian's attack, I went for my revolver. Pathetic defense, but better than nothing. Incredibly, it snatched my hand and twisted it down, flicking the Smith and Wesson neatly away and then just stood there, holding me helpless.

"Hap-pa Nu Awana!" came the voice, and the sight of an impossibly beautiful woman towering over me drew my terrified gaze away from the glistening sharp teeth of the reptile.

I stared; glancing nervously at the saurian, who stayed motionless, gripping my hand in it's talons, then back to the stern face of the amazon, then to the sharp tip of the flint spear point aimed at me. "Hap-pa Nu AWANA!" she shouted again. Dear God she was beautiful...Was this delirium? Was I just laying here, caught in some hallucination? Had the poison of the frogzard spread that fast? I wondered which would find me first... Karl or the predators that ruled the night in this lost world?

Then a twist of my hand snapped me out of my stupor. It certainly FELT real...
I yelled out, as she repeated the gibberish in an even more menacing voice. This was real, I decided. This was happening.. but who was she? The Ape-like tribesmen our patrol had massacred yesterday had looked nothing like her. And this trained dinosaur? What had I stumbled into?

Then the creature leaned in closer to my face... I readied myself for the snap of it's jaws that would end the burning poison and the twisting pain...

"My lady wantssss to know if you ssssurrender..." it whispered.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5 x 11" Pen, coloured pencil and chalk pastel

From stocks [link] [link]

By ~mjranum-stock and ~Della-stock