Jungle Tales

Deep in the unforgiving amazonian jungles our young hero stumbles his way through miles of infested territory in search of the infamous lost anthropologist from oxford and australia. Emerging into a rare clearing he is startled to see a tall, even gangly, blond bearded man, entirely unlike the local indians, sitting in sublime repose within a shaft of warm sunshine. Our young hero approaches the figure cautiously.
"Dr Walker i presume?"

The figure is entirely bathed in the all to unseen sunshine and appears to almost glow in its warmth. It slowly turns its head and lays upon the adventurer an intense, deep, empty stare as if focusing on a point infinitely beyond the adventurer's head or deep within his very mind. Our adventurer is lost in that gaze. It holds him enthralled in silence, waiting, wanting. Fearing what labours may have been spent in vain. Now thoroughly appearing like an apparition the bearded figure utters a long, rumbling reply.
"Yes."

The ensuing pause did not seem silent. The adventurer could not speak, but had by no means become familiar enough with the jungle to put aside its wild cacophony of inhuman communication. Yet this sunlit clearing appeared to hold a different nature all to itself, and from within the sunlight the figure's very shape was dancing in place, increasingly difficult to focus upon.
"Yes, Walker is here... you wish him?"

Our adventurous hero finds it difficult to answer. His eyes water from the sun and thirst burns holes in his thought. He looks away from the sunshine, away from the figure and its strange dark eyes, hoping to shake off the numbing effects of heat, exhaustion and the repressive humidity which slowly drowns his mind.
"Is it you Walker?" He asks again numbly.

He draws his gaze back to the area of sunlight only to find it empty and suddenly a strange new timbre fills the jungle. A hole. A quietness appears which to the untrained mind may seem unnatural. Yet the purer silence speaks quickly to those able to listen. The adventurer stops breathing, peers into the light, into the shadows and unconsiously takes a backward step. He does not hear the new presence before his whole being is filled with a terrifyingly low, hollow but crisp growling. Skin tightens over the adventurer's entire body and stumbling back against a fallen tree he instantly tastes his heart in his throat. Shadows outside the sunlit area waver and the terrible, soft growling drops an octave to be barely heard except through one's chest. Suddenly the shadows to his left leap towards him, a furious blur erupts from the darkness to be upon him before the man even turns to see. Feeling breath on his cheek, an incredible force lands on our hero's chest and he is thrown to his back, staring into the dark eyes and deadly fangs of an untimely death.

The jaguar stands on our adventurer's chest, claws dug fast into his flesh, staring quietly down unto its prey. The soft growling has ceased but the only sound our hero hears is the deafening pounding of his heart. A heart mercilessly controlled by every prehistoric instinct in the adventurer's body which now screams pain and death. In panic he struggles but the huge animal shifts its weight forward pinning the man down, his arms of little use against the jaws which bear the terrifying snarl of the hunter's surest weapon. Yet the jaguar is still. Ever so slowly it pads the adventurers chest, gently rocking its shoulders side to side. Our young hero nearly faints as the huge black head slowly lowers towards his own. The jaguar's whiskers brush against human flesh. It sniffs deeply and hesitates. Lowering further, its jaws remain paused barely an inch from the jugular and the adventurer's eyes close in anticipation of death.

All he hears however is a quiet, deep, hissing.
"You found him."
And the jaguar is gone.
Moments later, the man opens his eyes. He rubs the bleeding claw marks in his chest, sits up, huddles, quietly staring into the clearing which nearly marked his sudden and violent death.