Chapter 18.
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Chapter 18.

“W-w-w-what the hell do you mean we’re in luck! Are you crazy? We’re about to die! A tiger! A freaking tiger!”

“Darling, it’s not just a tiger. It’s a Bengal tiger. Hah. Hah. Hah. What do I do Darling? I’m so excited. I’ve never encountered one before, but I’ve always wanted to.”

I looked over to Adele and found her face was flushed red panting with excitement like a pervert 

“Darling, aren’t you curious what a Bengal tiger would taste like?”

“What kind of nonsense are you talking about right now? We need to escape!”

“GRRRRRRAAAARRRRRRR!”

Another loud roar was soon followed by the sound of heavy strides. I looked back up and it was headed directly for me. I rolled off the rock right as the tigers paw swiped clean through where my head was only moments before.

I noticed a shallow trail of claw marks carved through the rock I’d been on. My face paled when I recognized the sheer ferocity behind the tigers casual swipe.

When the tiger removed its paw from the rock, out of nowhere, it suddenly jumped backwards. Only fractions of a section later, a sharp stick landed right where the tiger’s paw was previously located.

“Tch. It dodged it.”

The sharp stick was thrown by none other than Adele. The tiger turned its sights towards her and sized her up carefully. Meanwhile, I skirted along the edge of the cliff to put some distance between us. That tiger was no joke. If I was a second slower I would have been deader than dead.

Could I just be hallucinating all this because of the heat?

Please tell me it's just another hallucination. A tiger was far from something I believed we could survive a head on confrontation with.

Adele, contrary to me, had a face filled with boundless confidence. From the bottom of my heart, I truly wished I knew where her unwavering confidence originated from. She had pointy sticks and a few knives to ward off a tiger. Did she really believe she had any chance here?

The two of them entered a deadlock.

Adele slowly reached out behind her while the two waited on each other to make the first move. The air was stifling. It was hard for me to breathe, but neither of them seemed to feel the same pressure I did. They both felt like natural animals born to fight.

It was almost as if they’d recognized each other as worthy adversaries.

After this short standoff, the first to make a move was the tiger. Adele immediately reacted by removing her bag and throwing it over to me.

“Darling lesson 4, think on your feet. React to the situation without hesitation. Do whatever you must to survive. Never back down in the face of an enemy when your life's on the line. Fight with the intent to kill and resolve yourself for death in return.”

Her bag landed in front of me along with the pointed sticks she’d attached to it. I had no time to pay any attention to the bag though. The conflict between tiger and woman had already escalated. 

The tiger swung down it’s right paw towards her head with claws fully extended. Adele reacted with her animalistic instincts in return. Her hands behind her, latched onto her knives on her rear.beneath her favorite black one piece. They were attached to the belt wrapped around her thin little waist. The blades were pointed up at her back while the hilt was angled down towards the ground, the two knives formed a dangerously seductive X when Adele’s one piece fluttered up behind her in the wind. I’d seen them quite a bit while we wandered through the forest today, so I was fully aware of the presence of those hidden knives she always kept on her person.

Her clothes fluttered up in the air when she lowered her body to avoid the tiger’s claws. The tiger’s claws ripped through a small portion at the bottom of her one piece like it was butter. It didn’t get stuck in her clothes and pull her along with it due to the delicate nature of the clothing. 

Adele’s eyes emitted a sharp gleam at the opportunity presented. She used the chance while the tiger was still off balance and pulled out the knife on her left side from its sheath. She slid under the tiger’s body, rotated her own body while extending her left arm out and slashed up in a reverse grip. The knife slit into the tiger’s front right leg joint from the underside.

“GRRRRRRAAAARRRRRRR!”

The tiger, enraged from the pain, reflexively flailed backwards while raising it’s left paw to swipe sideways below its body to flick Adele away. Unfortunately, the tiger had met its match; Adele was way ahead of him and she’d long anticipated its next move. She’d already pushed off the ground with her right arm and kicked out with both her legs on the tigers back left leg in the direction away from the tiger, just in time to narrowly dodge the tiger’s left paw by the breadth of a hair. The tiger only barely left behind another set of claw marks on the bottom edge of Adele’s one piece, still freely fluttering about in the wind. A few small black triangular pieces were cut off and blown away in the wind.

I held my breath in nervousness as the adrenaline rushed through my veins. If I felt like this from just watching, what sort of rush was Adele experiencing while fighting this beast of a tiger in close quarters, hand to hand combat like this?

Even with a gun, I’d be wary to confront a tiger of this size. This tiger was by no means a pushover nor was it by any means considered small. The weight behind a single swipe would certainly split bones in half without much effort.

I was well aware that the first initial clash was enough for me to die several times over if I were the one in Adele’s position.

The tiger who’d lost its balance from swiping, only to meet air, fell on its side. Adele didn’t even think. While she rolled away she reached for her other sheathed knife from behind and tossed it directly at the neck of the floored tiger. When the knife entered the tiger’s neck, it tossed about on its back. It quickly rolled back onto its hind legs into a pouncing position with crimson bloodshot eyes. It had been fully incensed now and was ready for a fight to the death. It would hold nothing back were what it’s ferocious eyes told me.

“GRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

The loudest roar yet. My eardrums rumbled from the magnitude of it’s war cry. 

Adele rotated her body by digging her elbow into the ground before she entered a roll and landed back on her feet in a crouched position. The tiger didn’t wait for her to be ready. With a lightning fast burst of acceleration, it pounced at her with no concern for its life.

The tiger, utterly enraged, had thrown caution to the wind. It jumped up into the air with it’s mouth wide open aimed directly at Adele’s head. Adele watched it carefully like a hawk anticipating its every move down to the finest detail. Right when the tiger was only inches away from her face, she twisted her body faster than I could register with my eyes sideways. Her body fit perfectly through the gap between the tiger’s legs. The tigers paws that would have pinned down her shoulders and minced her flesh into pieces with its claws once again missed its target.

This time, a much more devastating blow was dished out. Adele abruptly rotated the knife in her hand into a forward grip edge pointed directly up. With a bloodthirsty look on her face, like she could no longer be bothered with her own safety, she thrusted the knife directly up cleanly through the tiger’s jaw forcing it shut. A second blow was immediately followed up as her left leg raised up only a slight beat off timing with respect to her arm. Her upper thigh hit against the edge of the hilt and it plunged even deeper into the tiger’s jaw until it penetrated it’s brain.

The tiger’s body continued on its path forward and landed on top of Adele’s body. From the angle I was at, I couldn’t determine what Adele’s condition was; be it alive, or dead, I had no way to tell. Everything had happened far too quickly. It wasn’t a battlefield a normal civilian like me could step into casually and say I wanted to help. I knew that.

Seeing the lack of movement, my heart sped up further. Fear creeped up and invaded my mind. That was a heavyweight tiger, even the force of it colliding with someone at top speed was probably enough to be a lethal blow. If I were to make a comparison, it would probably be equivalent of being hit by a truck. 

“Adele!”

“Hah. Hah. Hah. Hah. Hah.”

I started to hyperventilate as I unsteadily approached the tiger. I couldn’t control my breathing at all. My heart was beating too fast just from the adrenaline alone. Adele’s death was equivalent to my own out here.

“Adele! Answer me!”

When I arrived by the tiger’s side, I found Adele with her eyes closed. Her face was stained by blood.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Bleeding. Hah. Hah. HAH. HAH. HAH! HAH!”

I knelt down beside her and called out to her light headed, “Wake up! Adele! Shit. Shit. There’s so much blood. Damn it! Why? You can’t really go and die out of nowhere like that. This can’t be real. It’s just another nightmare. A nightmare. Just a nightmare.”

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