His bones shivered under the creature's gaze. His mind says to run out of this place but his body does not obey. He could not move his body. Then the creature slowly walked out of the darkness. When it came to light he found out it was a hyena. It does not look like a normal hyena, it was huge, bigger, bigger than any hyena he knew. It locked its gaze on him.
After a few steps it stopped and showed its teeth, uneven, sharp and strong enough to turn bones to dust.
It moved silent for something so large, low to the ground, patient. It did not rush, and then there was the sound.
A low, broken laugh escapes its throat, not playful, not loud, but unsettling. A sound that says it has waited a very long time for its meal.
"Ho, God!" He whispered under his breath. The beast locked on to the boy and lunged. Instead of running away he ran towards the beast. As it was mid air he slided under the beast and escaped its attack.
He stood up, looked behind the beast and crashed into a glass which closed the early cavehuman model. The Beast then got out of the enclosure, glass piercing its face, one of the glass had stared at the beast's right eye.
It again gave its broken laugh and locked on to the boy with its one eye. The boy understands he will die if he makes the wrong decision.
He noticed a passage to his left, the blind spot of the hyena. He only had four seconds to think about calculating The hyena's move. He sounded in his head
'One…' The hyena got ready to do another leap towards the boy.
'Two…' The hyena leaped towards the boy, opening its jaws showing its 100 large teeth. It had two rows of teeth at the lower jaw and three rows at the upper jaw.
"Three!" And he moved to his left again, escaping from the beast. This time he ran fast without looking behind.
The sound of the beast following him can still be heard. He ran faster, so he felt his leg muscles tear, but he did not stop, to live he had to run, escape from The beast. Took many turns trying to lose the track of the beast. After a while the sound faded, he slowed down, looked behind it had disappeared.
"It looks like, I have finally lost its track." He walked a few more steps and turned one last corner. In front of him was a drinking water basin. He let out a big sigh and leaned on the basin for support, but the basin could not hold his weight and fell down and along with the basin the tap also broke and water poured out at high pressure. Water flowed out, clean, cold and pure. He placed his hand in front of the water and drank it. He caught his breath and kept his head before the folding water and washed his face. Now soaked and exhausted he sat down, leaning against the wall.
finally he could catch his thoughts.
'First what was that thing chasing me? Was it the new species mentioned in the Hologram? Was it revived like me?'
'Second What happened here? It does not look like that the Beast could have done it, if my guess is correct the beast must have come out of the ice an hour ago.'
'Third what happened here? The place is abandoned, like no humans had entered this place for decades.'
As he was thinking he heard the broken laugh again. 'Did it trick me and waited until I let my guard down. It is smart, too smart for an animal. I should have not let my guard down.'
The beast's footsteps could be heard. It was silent, still loud enough for him to hear. The footsteps got closer and closer every second. His Heart Beats faster, his breathing grows heavier. He kept his hand covering his mouth and controlled his breathing so the beast could not hear his breathing.
The footsteps came next to the corner and stopped. The water had flowed till the corner. It must have noticed the water. Then it poked its head around the corner. He sat still like a statue and stopped his breathing.
He could now see the beast's injured eye clearly. The glass sticking from its eye socket and small shards stabbing all over its face. Blood drips from its face, gets diluted and taken with the flowing water.
It sniffed the air, the boy got scared of the beast finding his location with his smell, then he noticed something. The beast's nose has some mucus. It seems that its nostrils were blocked when it got free, due to this, it probably cannot use its smelling sense.
As he got a sense of relief he noticed another thing, the hyena's ears were not normal. It was long, round and huge, not like a hyena's.
'It looked more like a cave bat's.'
Then it made the broken laugh again. As if Reacting to its own laugh, its ears twitched and turned in all directions. Then he realised it.
'Echo locator!'
It stood still for a moment before retrieving its head back. 'Wait! Was I wrong? Was that not an echo locater?'
As he heard the footsteps of the beast in water fade in the distance. He let out the breath he was holding. 'Thank god! '
'That beast is smart!'
'Too smart! It was smart enough to slow down and fool me into thinking I lost its track. But now it just went like that. Something does not feel right?'
As if answering to him a broken laugh was heard. He gulped and looked to his right where the hyena was standing fully in front of him glaring, showing its teeth to intimidate him and show his future death.
"You are too smart, Joker!"
It opened its mouth showing its hundreds of teeth. "Yuk! Disgusting it seems you have never brushed your teeth." saying that he closed his eyes accepting his fate.
Baam!
A noise, a gun shot! 'Wait! What was that sound! Did the beast eat me? It does not feel like I was eaten.' He slowly opened his eyes. He was alive. Still breathing, still feeling the pain his body was in.
'What is going on? Am I not dead?' Then he looked at the hyena. It was in pain, scratching its nose, unable to keep its balance up in the water, it glared and barked at something before him.
He turned to the direction it was glaring at. There was the silhouette of a human holding a gun.
'A human? No it's not human' it walked closer and he could see it clearly. It was a dusty and rusted old security robot. It probably is saving him from the beast. Every step to take the sound of its rusted metals clashing was heard. Its right arm was missing and it looked like its right leg was broken as its right leg was bent backwards. Its left arm instead of fingers there were gun nozzles.
It again shot the hyena.
The beast got scared of the robot and ran away. As the beast left he let out a sigh of relief. Then again looked towards the robot. The robot now looked A the boy and said
"Thermal sign deducted, Initiating scanning."
Then its eyes flashed a color of green for a minute and turned red.
"A person without ID had entered the employee only zone."
"Safty Protocols Initiated."
"Removal of the intruder."
As it said that it pointed Its hand At the boy. 'So, it was not saving me! It only came because I had intruded into a restricted zone!'
"At least I am not dying miserably"
Then Baam…