not there

Your eyes refocus and you no longer see the freighting sight. You can feel your heart pounding out of your chest and you relax. The rest of the team is staring at you with eyes wide open. Did they not see the same thing you did? Could they not hear it either?

"Are you okay, sir?" Eva asked.

"Did you see that?" You ask still lying on your back.

The team shook their heads.

"It was like being in a shark cage with a shark charging the divers. It..."

"What did you see?" Jacob interrupted.

"A giant eel, I think."

They look at each other quizzically and Jacob scans the view without the binoculars.

"We didn't see anything." Eva finally says.

"Is that it, sir?" Jacob says with his arm and finger outstretched pointing out at the view.

You look out in hopes of confirming that you aren't crazy, but Jacob is pointing to nothing. Everyone was also trying to find what Jacob was pointing at to no success.

"Is this a joke, ensign?" You say angrily. Even though you were the same rank, your position demanded more respect than this sort of prank.

He turned to you, "I can see it's right..." His words trailed off as he looked back, "It was right there. It was huge eel just like you said. It even had three vertical eyes and fins."

He crawled back from the view of the village. He seemed genuinely scared. What was more frightening is that he probably saw the same thing you did. You didn't mention the eyes or the fins. There's something definitely wrong going on here.

You didn't get much time to think about it before a streak of light entered your view and shot Jacob. He let out a scream of pain and went limp. Phaser fire.

You turned to see the two Kelltians you knocked out earlier, they were armed with the phasers no doubt confiscated from the archaeologists. How they found you was of no concern at the moment since they got off two more shots at your team before they could draw their phasers. You manage to stun one with your phaser since it was already in your hand, but you couldn't hit the other. You were hit by the remaining one and a sharp pain shot up your spine.

'At least they had it set to stun' was your last thought before losing consciousness.