To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle. –Walt Whitman
The drenched children emerged from the dark cave through the waterfall. They were greeted by the brilliant rays of sunlight. Their astonishment was cast aside by the flood of terror that pursued them. Kyle released his grip from Whitney’s hand in his effort to flee the swarming bats that had stole him away from the trampoline. Whitney stumbled attempting to keep up with him. Kyle sprinted along the stream fed from the waterfall. Dashing from the snap of the whip of menace that pursued him, he was alert for a ravine where he could leap to in order to hide from the bats. His sense of duty to his cousins was abandoned him as a result of the terror that pursued him. He was a child fearing the worse and in such cases children run as fast as they can. In those fleeing moments however he battled to consider his companions’ well-being. His immediate peril flooded his awareness so instantly that it drowned out his intended command to his cousins, “Come on follow me!” Thus, his words were never spoken.
Whitney stumbled after Kyle released her hand. Her body landed away from the flowing stream at the mouth of the cave. The waterfall behind her occupied her sense of hearing, disorienting her further. She shook her long black hair of the water that weighed upon her. She raised her hands instinctively to prevent the battalion of bats from attacking the back of her head. Confused she consequently looked in a direction opposite to where Kyle was fleeing. Her vision was blurred from the water that fell upon her. She crawled first beyond the downpour of water and then rose from her hands and knees. She immediately galloped through an open meadow where a sentry of trees opened up to expose a footpath.
Nathan too slipped as he attempted to hold onto Whitney’s fleeing grip. He was the last child to appear from the bedlam in the cave. He frantically regained his feet while observing his cousins fleeing in two separate directions. The danger that the bats presented him escalated his sense of panic as well. In the expanding meadow ahead of him a fallen tree was visible offering the only protection for the terrified child. The fear that seized him left him too vulnerable for any other thought. He sprinted to the tree and dove behind it. He pressed up as close to the fallen tree as he could making himself as small as possible. He shut his eyes to blind him from the dreadful onslaught that he was certain would follow. He begged against hope that he could be invisible. He desperately attempted to convince himself that with his eyes shut he, at least, would not have to witness his fate. The image of his fleeing cousins provoked him to mutter with his last anticipated breath, “Why did you guys run in different directions? I wouldn’t be left behind this stupid fallen tree.” In this way he was divided.
He waited. Nothing happened. He slowed his breathing, deep anticipating breaths, and he waited longer. Nothing happened.
Led by the chaos and instinct the mad bats ignored their leader’s command. They emerged from the cave disoriented by the sunlight. They fluttered wildly near the waterfall like a pack of hounds who had chased a fox over a cliff. Zeborg appeared from the waterfall attempting to rally the colony of bats. His pendant glistened in the sun. At that moment the rising mountain where the water fell from roared like a colossus giant disturbed from its sleep. An avalanche of rocks was deposited over the screeching colony. The calamity of doomed bats bawled like tortured souls as a shower of stone descended upon them. Several boulders catapulted over the fallen tree propelling spectacularly into the air before they settled into the soft tall grass of the meadow. In an instance the falling rocks were settled. The dust created from the earthquake subsided as well. The bats along with their leader were buried in a tomb of fallen stone.