Raised From The Wild-Chapter 242: Strange Encounter 2
"Amaya, don’t" Marx’s anxious cry awakened Amaya but it was too late. She has already removed the dagger from the tiger’s mouth.
The tiger roared ferociously and was about to bite Amaya in the neck when two gunshots were heard. The tiger lay motionless in the ground.
Marx helped Amaya up. She actually fell when the tiger was about to bite her.
"What happened Aya. You seemed to be in a daze. Why would you do such a dangerous thing?" Marx sounded like he was scolding her but he was just worried. He almost had a heart attack when he saw Amaya reach into the tiger’s mouth.
"Can I remove the skin?" Vasquez asked Marx. He did not want to interrupt but the tiger skin was so precious.
"Just hurry up. Make sure that you wrap it properly so other animals will not smell its blood."
"Bring the head as well."
Marx and Vasquez looked at Amaya. Both were surprised when she heard her say that. Vasquez was only distracted momentarily. He attended to the tiger and worked skillfully to remove its skin.
"I remembered that when I looked into its eyes, I suddenly became muddle-headed. I thought it was Khalil. I was even heartbroken because I hurt him." Amaya recounted what happened earlier to Marx.
"No wonder you seemed to be in a daze."
"Something is wrong with the tiger. It seemed to have a hypnotic effect on me." Amaya said softly. She wasn’t talking to Marx but to herself. She grew up in the jungle. While she was protective of her pets, she was wary of the other tigers and wolves. She knew that she would be their prey if she was not careful.
"The animals in these mountains are all abnormal," Marx said with furrowed eyebrows. "I scanned some of the journals we got from the safehouse and what those people did was to fuse the DNA of humans and animals. We have already seen the result with bulls and wolves. Maybe this tiger is also one of the experiments."
Amaya frowned. "Why would they do that?"
"They want to make the animals more intelligent. I think they achieved that but their experiments turned against them." Marx replied calmly. He has not completed reading the journal but he has his instincts.
"Did they record in the journal the animals that they have experimented on?" Amaya continued to probe.
"I saw that they did that on a snake, the eagle, the lion," Marx replied.
"Any small animals?" Amaya asked.
"I am not sure. I haven’t finished reading." Marx answered her truthfully.
"What really baffled me is: that this seemed to be a very important experiment. Why did they not send reinforcements and retrieve these journals? Do you think that the Ra-Iyan government knows?" Amaya asked not minding that Vasquez was around.
"I am not sure. They might also be being used, similar to what happened on your island."
Marx had his doubts but it was not his character to assume things. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞
"These journals will be our death warrants. I’m taking photos of them and we have to return them when we come back later."
Marx was calm when he said those words. He was very calculative. He knew the pros and cons of his actions. After reading the initial pages of the journals, he knew that there would be a time bomb that would harm him and Amaya.
Like Amaya, he also wondered why there seemed to be no people who had entered that safehouse other than them. Was this mountain really dangerous? If it was, then whoever funded the experiment could just send many people.
"They have hired a lot of mercenaries and mountaineers to accompany a lot of military and scientists but for some reason, nobody can come out alive," Vasquez spoke. He has skillfully skinned the tiger cut its head and wrapped it in a tightly sealed plastic. He stuffed them in his backpack and it was already bulging. He would not be able to carry additional things anymore.
The trio continued their journey. They let Apollo lead the way. Marx and Amaya’s instincts told them that the reason why they did not encounter a lot of wild animals was because the white horses were leading them in a safer route. Their direction was toward the peak of the mountain.
...
At a secret facility west of the Janai Mountain Range, a tall man in a red robe and hood arrived in an inconspicuous off-road vehicle. Ten men in black welcomed him and led him into a tunnel where they took a twenty-seater railroad car. They traveled for another fifteen minutes before they stopped in front of a building the color of which blended with the background.
The surrounding trees were tall and lush which acted as a perfect cover to hide the building from satellite cameras.
The man in the red hood went straight to a huge conference room. There was a golden chair with intricate carvings on the elevated platform at the front. Ten wooden chairs with wooden tables were placed evenly in the conference room facing the throne.
The man in the red robe went straight to the throne and sat down without any reservations. The ten elders found their own chairs and waited for the man in the red hood to give the go signal for them to sit down.
"Take your seat. What is the update on the Mount Paraiso? Did our men successfully enter and retrieve those journals?" The man in the red hood spoke in a deep voice that commanded fear and obedience.
"Emperor, we sent out a group of fifty highly trained soldiers along with hired mercenaries and mountaineers last month but none of them came back. They were able to set up hidden cameras and transmitters at the foot of Mount Paraiso but when they proceeded to the second target location we lost all contact with them." The first elder reported.
"How can we lose signal when they have set up a transmitter at the foot of the mountain?" the emperor asked irritably.
"The chips embedded in their bodies are destroyed, Emperor. Before it was destroyed, we received this video clip from a camera that was set up in the second location which was just 10 kilometers from the first location."
The emperor watched the video closely. He himself was a cruel man but his eyes widened in horror with what he saw.
