Riptide Academy

The Hike

“Aw man! I wanted to get more sleep than that!” I whined.

The others paused their game and joined us.

at the table, “What did Hody say to you?” Charli asked.

“She told me about the Ancient History teachers from our high school- Em? Wanted to have an excursion to the alien rock. And..... she found out about my ancient history background; she asked me to meet her in her office at 10am. Which reminds me! If we want to hike the mountain and check out the space rock, we gota leave now!” I relayed.

Charli gave me a wavering look before Elijah across from stood up abruptly and rushed to his room. The others quickly followed and now we were hiking the hour long trail up to the summit and back. We couldn't stay to long at the site otherwise we would be found by the police or worse, the principal. Loose dirt tumbled down the steep path, clouds became white mist that we walked through leaving us peppered with droplets of chilly water or lined the sides of the mountain. eventually the air became thinner and harder to breathe but we reached the summit with the seven-thirty sun tanning our backs.

“Curse the Summer heat! My backs drenched! All I want is for it to be not so HOT!” Jaime shouted, gradually getting louder and slumped down onto a picnic table whilst listening to her voice echo HOT throughout the mountain.

“We can have a five min break here but otherwise we must quickly find the creator and we can't spend any more time down there then we do up here.” Charli said as she pulled out a container of food.

Inside were Vegemite sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies, to which we all attacked. With our little snack break finished I headed down the mountainside without my backpack as extra weight; at some points we had to play pinball bouncing from tree to tree. After gaining some nasty bruises we stumbled upon a clearing the size of Allianz stadium in Sydney and a creator the size of half a coach with a depth of about three meters.

“Holy Shit! Space rock is as a big as a giraffe and as wide as I am tall!” Elijah shouted before he sat down on the edge and slid in.

“WAIT! Wait! Wai- No! No! No!” we all shouted, our voices overlapping each other as we screamed out the words after one another.

“Ah! You idiot! Now people are going to know we’ve been here because we can't get rid of your ass slide!” I shouted to a confused Eli down below who just threw his hands up and shrugged, earning a finger in response.

The rock was surprisingly cool to the touch but also looked like a black piece of sea coral washed up on the beach. It had holes all around it that added to its spongey appearance and also one was big enough for us to walk inside with a bit of a tunnel going deeper into the rock, but we didn't go any further than barely inside the big whole due to the threat of cosmic radiation. We mostly left it alone glittering and sparkling from the sun's rays as we examined it from afar or the talented drawers drew it.

That was until something caught my attention. Birds squawked further out and animals fled from the area. The forest around us suddenly became eerily quiet and still. Then a roar sounded and something big enough to violently sway the eucalyptus, Acacia, Casuarina and Callitris trees in the Eucalyptus Forest wasn't something I wanted to get witness.

"Oh shit." I breathed.

What arrived at the top of the creator was half man and half bull, a giant the size of a giraffe.

"Don't go in front of it!" Shouted Jaime as she ran full tilt in the sand, knowing from her own experience.

"Elijah! To your right!" He dodged left diagonally and the sand flicked up as he dug his feet into the sandy ground to get more traction.

This monster couldn't see much but fuck, it could smell too good. I could see its nose twitch every now and then when it tried to locate one of us. We dodged power poles for arms; tripped in the sand; distracted it away from others and eventually backed ourselves up against the asteroid.

"Ooohhh fuck! Space rock, why do you have to be here?" Ember rhetorically questioned the alien rock.

The monster or whatever this thing was closed in on us with its arms out wide so we couldn't dart off to the side. Our deep breaths sucking air into our lungs like vacuums was the only thing we heard besides the horrible snarling sound from the monster.

"We can't let it touch the asteroid and we also need to get out of here!" I huffed.

The monster was practically ontop of us and I could smell its rotten breath when the asteroid started to heat up at a rapid pace. We stumbled away from it while the monster reared back and a blinding, searing light burst from the rock, knocking us all backwards.

"Ouch!" I hissed as I sat up in the black sand, in pain and took in what just happened.

Elijah and Ember were sitting up as well a few meters either side of me. Jaime was beside Eli with a few meters separating them and Charli was still laying in the sand a meter away from Em. Ember scrambled over and checked if she was breathing.

"Is she okay?" Jaime gasped after scrambling to get up and sprinting over to Charli, only to knee slid to her side.

Charli sat up with a gasp, “MOVE!!"

But it was too late, she had screamed when the monster was practically on top of us.

We rolled out of the way the quickest we could but the beast still managed to grab Jamie who had helped Charli out of the way. She was screaming at the top of her lungs for the thing to put her down.

Well, there goes our secrecy.