Chater 3

Zayrn's first task bright and early the next morning was to catalogue all of their equipment. It was a task worthy of an assistant, sure, but the brown haired man wished he hadn't been ordered to do it at the crack of dawn. He was yawning on every third word he said, tired beyond belief.

"Er, yeah, can you -" yawn, "- tell me how many vials are in that case?"

"Forty-eight," one of the men responsible for setting up all their things into the portable answered him.

Zayrn languidly inputted it into his tablet.

"Thank you. Now, for that - yeah, just set it over there."

The brown haired man directed one man on where to put the large microscope. As he continued taking inventory and slowly getting their station set up, Zayrn found himself falling into a familiar rhythm.

He was abruptly shocked out of said rhythm when four men carried in a very large device. Y/n was instantly on them, asking, "What is that?"

Only to see Dr. Nilsson come in behind them. "Morning, Y/n, I see you are making sufficient progress. Don't mind this," she patted a hand on the large metal contraption. It appeared to be reminiscent of a cage. "It's a containment device for any potential Ophidian narus specimen."

Zayrn eyed the giant metal cage (it looked to be well equipped with electronic locks) with a dubious expression, "Are you going to ask the naga's consent to put itself in there as well?"

"Of course," Nilsson gave him a sharp smile. "Consent is key."

"Uh-huh," Zayrn looked around. "And this is why you've hired so many guns... because you're going to ask consent."

Dr. Nilsson gave her assistant a friendly pat on the shoulder. "The less you know, the better you'll feel."

"I already feel like shit."

"Then I truly did pick my assistant out well," the woman remarked before instructing the men to put the cage down in the room's emptiest corner.

Once all the equipment was in place and the men ushered out, it left Dr. Nilsson and Zayrn in a room ready for operation.

Unafraid, Zayrn rested his forearms on a bit of empty counter-space and leveled his boss with a look. "I looked up Einar Yorivowsky last night before bed. Apparently, he poaches elephants. Sells their ivory. Tigers too. Loves to stuff them."

Dr. Nilsson smirked, "A man like Einar is, what you would call, an expert in tracking and hunting... exotic animals."

"I put that together, yeah," Zayrn muttered. "But what I'm asking is: did you just hire him or did you promise him free poaching once you've got your data and 'discovery of the millennium'?"

"Once we have what we need and a live specimen, we have no more business on this island, Zayrn. We're free to let nature take its course."

"Oh yeah, poaching sounds very natural."

"I meant nature as in human nature," Nilsson smiled before heading over to her microscope. She checked its function - searching for any damage before she leaned back, satisfied to see it remained unharmed.

"For a scientist, you don't really give a shit about the animals you study at all, do you?"

"What can I say?" she laughed. "I'm as coldblooded as the animals I study."

Zayrn just shook his head. He'd been harboring these concerns ever since Dr. Nilsson had announced the impromptu trip they were taking to the island. While his boss had never been overtly unkind nor cruel, she had always been coldblooded. Zayrn would give her that.

The fact that they had hired a man like Einar and subverted the government in the effort to be the first to make the discovery of the naga had not sat well with Zayrn. In fact, the brown haired man had been worried since the beginning. About the unethical nature of this project, about the fate of the naga if they turned out to be real, and all the dangers this unknown, relatively unmanned island possessed.

Zayrn wouldn't say he was a coward, but he also wasn't interested in sacrificing his life for a paycheck.

Too late. He was already here. Already in the midst of this. He couldn't say whether he had been initially motivated by the money or by curiosity. Both probably.

It didn't matter. Zayrn would just do the job, get it done, and put this all behind him.

---------------------------

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all dehydrated rations. The rations were bland, borderline inedible, and entirely unenjoyable just like every other facet of this excursion.

Zayrn didn't mind them. He sat with some of Einar's men around a campfire, chewing on rehydrated meats and vegetable crisps. Most of the men were quiet, liked to keep to themselves - unless, of course, they were telling some ridiculous story about hunting some poor nearly-extinct animal in some jungle out east. One man, who went by the name of Rat (charming really), had excitedly told Zayrn the story of how he had gotten all but maimed by a tiger and lived to actually tell the tale. There was evidence enough in the way the man's flesh had been deformed on one side of his head and neck. Large scars and warped skin creeping down his bulging biceps.

Zayrn simply nodded along while privately, he vowed to become an animal activist.

It was halfway into his meal some of the men came back from scouting the surrounding forest, hooting and hollering. They were dragging the body of an incredibly large wild boar behind them.

In the lead was Einar himself. He smirked upon seeing Zayrn.

"Fancy something other than those godawful rations?" the man gave a rough, barking laugh before he helped gut and skin the boar right there.

Zayrn coughed, inhaled the scent of copper and fresh meat, and promptly choked on it.

While the boar was set to roast over the fire, Einar found a seat beside Zayrn. The man was holding a knife in one hand and a

"Is that a pit viper?" Zayrn asked, incredulous, as he recognized the long, limp body swinging in the man's other hand.

The snake was clearly dead, its emerald green scales reflecting the campfire light beautifully. It was a venomous snake - but more importantly it was six feet long. Bamboo pit vipers didn't typically grow beyond three.

"Recognize it?" Einar said, gesturing the snake at the Brown haired man.

"Yeah," Zayrn said slowly. "Benefits of working with a herpetologist.

An anaconda supposedly the size of a bus and now a bamboo pit viper six feet long instead of three? Nearly twice its size?...Are all snakes on this island incredibly enlarged?. Zayrn kept his thoughts to himself as he watched the man skin and cook the snake.

Though venomous, a pit viper was still edible. No accounting for taste though.

When it was finished roasting, Einar offered it over. "You ever eat a snake like this before?"

Zayrn made a face at that, "No."

The man raised a brow, "Do you want to?"

Zayrn glanced down at his own bland, tasteless dinner before he shook his head, "No, not really."

"Your loss," Einar muttered before taking his first bite.

Zayrn didn't consider it much of a loss.

"I..." the brown haired man paused. For some reason the back of his neck was tingling. The small hairs were rising, too, as if sensing some horrible threat.

Nervously, Zayrn looked behind - and around, but there was nothing but the forest at his back and Einar's men hooting and hollering about the boar they caught at his front.

"What were you saying?" Einar asked, drawing Zayrn out from his thoughts.

"Er, nothing I guess. Wait - did you find anything in the forest today?"

"Not really," Einar muttered between bites. "We'll be taking you and Dr.Nilsson out tomorrow. You're the snake experts here, after all. You would be better at figuring out where they're all holed up. The naga, that is. We know where the other snakes are."

The man dangled the viper's corpse in front of Zayrn's face as evidence.

Zayrn watched the snake's scales dance and glimmer, feeling a pit form in the core of his gut.

The next morning found Zayrn dressed up in long, thick cargo pants, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. Dr. Nilsson met him right after breakfast, dressed too, for their first outing into the forest.

"Morning, Zayrn," she smiled. "I'll want you to take a few things with you today. I want to take some soil samples, as well as general information about the climate. Of course, I'll be taking rigorous notes today. If you would please go into the portable and collect some vials as well as the tubing core, that would be great."

With a nod, Zayrn headed over to the portable and packed his bag full of the aforementioned items. When he emerged, Dr. Nilsson was surrounded by Einar and his men.

Einar waved him over, "All set?"

"Have all the items we need?" Dr. Nilsson looked her assistant over with a critical eye.

__________________________

1550 words.

Next chapter will be updated the next day

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***