Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
They’d been exploring different apartments—or “domiciles” as the guys called them. They were spaced at regular intervals along the corridor—some of their doors still open, as though the people who had left were in too much of a hurry to even shut the door behind them.
Hold was in one of the domiciles now but Celia had decided not to go in—it was too spooky for her. Fierce had stayed outside with her—it seemed they had decided that one of them always had to be with her to protect her. Which was silly, Celia thought. So far they’d seen nothing worse than shadows and dust.
But now she was seeing what she thought might be the moss!
“Look—over there!” She pointed and then hurried forward, jumping carefully over the channel in the middle of the corridor where the river ran.
“You think you see something?” Fierce asked, following her. “Wait a minute—be careful, lelka!”
Celia kept going. She was sure that the glow she saw must be the moss—it was a soft flickering light that changed from gold to green to scarlet and then back to gold again. That had to be it!
As she entered the narrow passageway, she registered a strange, musky odor that made her nose wrinkle. What was that? It smelled like the big cat enclosure at the zoo—a wild, overripe mixture of a big predator and the prey it had been eating.
But the next minute, she forgot about the unpleasant smell because there, twinkling on the walls and looking for all the world like Christmas lights, were huge patches of jewel moss!
“Oh, look—there it is! I knew it was in here!” Celia ran forward just as Fierce shouted,
“Celia, wait!”
“Why? This is it—can’t you tell?”
She half turned her head to look at him but she was still in motion. Not looking where she was going cost her and just before she got to the wall, she tripped over an enormous pile of laundry that someone had left and went sprawling on the floor.
“Oof!” she gasped as the wind was knocked out of her. Honestly, had the people who lived here been in such a hurry that they couldn’t even take their dirty laundry? That must be where the unpleasant smell was coming from! It really stunk.
Celia got to her knees but when she looked up, she saw the mound of dirty laundry stir and twitch—almost like there was something inside it trying to get out. Was there an animal burrowing inside it?
She looked closer—the mountain of laundry seemed to be covered by some kind of blanket or tarp—a dark turquoise one that was furry. What a strange blanket! It—
Suddenly two large, glowing eyes opened and the enormous pile of laundry stirred again…only, Celia finally realized, it wasn’t laundry. And the furry turquoise blanket covering it wasn’t a blanket.
The thing she had tripped over was a wild animal and it was huge!
“Celia, sweetheart—don’t move.” Fierce’s deep voice was hoarse with fear. “You don’t want to make yourself its target.”
“What…what is it?” she whispered in a quivering voice. She felt like she couldn’t look away from the glowing eyes and her legs were horribly weak. Inside her mittens, the palms of her hands were sweating.
“I think you’ve woken a sleeping V’ranna,” Fierce murmured. “It might go back to sleep if you just—”
At that point, the V’ranna opened a hideously large mouth filled with sharp white fangs and roared!
Celia had read once on some website about wild animals that a male lion’s roar can travel for miles over a savanna. She could well believe it now. The sound coming out of that horrible, fanged maw sounded like a mixture of a lion’s roar and a bull’s bellow with a note of alarm klaxon thrown in. It was deafening, even when she clamped her hands desperately over her ears.
When it at last died away, her ears were still ringing. And then the enormous creature began stalking towards her.
“No—no! Here—over here!” she heard Fierce shout. “Hey—over here, you big bastard!”
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement—it was the Dark Twin, waving his arms in the air and shouting to try and draw the V’ranna’s attention.
The tactic worked…but not in a good way. The enormous beast shook itself and suddenly rose from its crouch to tower over both of them.
It must be twelve feet tall! Celia thought, feeling sick. She felt like a tiny kitten next to the huge creature—a tiny, helpless kitten.
The V’ranna spread its shaggy arms wide, revealing paws bigger than Celia’s head, tipped with razor-sharp claws. Standing on its hind legs, it looked like a cross between a tiger and a grizzly bear, she thought faintly.
Oh God, I’m going to die, whispered a little voice in her head. This is it—it’s going to kill me and eat me—probably eat the guys too. We’re all going to be V’ranna chow, just like Fierce said!