She took two steps backwards, scared at what she had not seen upon her first entrance into the river's entrance.  Directly across from the young child, a young girl could be seen in the middle of the river, moving frantically through the water towards the child.  She had almost reach him, to the side that she, and the young child occupied.

        Vision had almost made it to the other side when she, and the grizzly made eye contact.  The bear looked terrifying in the darkness with the height of the trees standing behind; the branches of leaves, monstrous.  Dark, and evil.  And in the middle the white grizzly stood.  Zulu could no longer hear the steps of the grizzly, but what he heard in its place made him uneasy; hard breathing, and strong splashes through the water.  Someone was running through the river.  

        He could feel the sudden thoughts of fear overtake his movements.  The different noises were just happening so fast.He didn't know how to respond, reaching out to grab for his wooden staff.  In the commotion of the sudden splash, he had become disoriented with his position, tripping over his feet, and the crab bucket.  His face struck hard against the dirt.  At least he hadn't fallen in the mud, he thought to himself, picking himself up off the ground quickly, his hands blindly searching for his staff.  The frantic run of the water splashing becoming louder.  The noise of the splash was headed directly to him.  Vision didn't know if she would reach him in time, before the grizzly decided to charge.  She was almost there.  Almost there.  Almost.  The bear was charging.  

        The grizzly took one more step back before the ferociousness of natural instinct devoured her fear.  The first two steps forward were the quickest in her attack.  She would eat because she was hungry.  Zulu could see the waves of blackness of race across the front of his darkness.  They appeared as two points in position, approaching.  The splashes grew louder to him.  But from the corner of his mind, he could feel something else coming.  Something scary approaching; a visible force.  He took one step back.  He wanted to run.  Should he run?  Maybe he would run into something, knocking himself unconscious, and when he woke up, it would be all over.  

        He took another step back.  The splashes from the river so loud now he could feel the drops of water pluck against his clothes.  He could feel the vibrations in his feet as the water splattered his boots.  Zulu braced himself for some sort of impact as he took another step backwards.  This one a slow step.  He hoped it wouldn't hurt.  

        The grizzly would eat the boy first, and then attack the girl who splashed across in the water.  A few more steps, and she would be on him, focusing in her charge to see where to bite first.  The speed from the grizzly's charge created a wind that brushed the animal's fur back.  The trees darted by the female's face as her nose led first through the night air that gave way easy to a easy kill.  The white bear noticed that the young child made not attempts to escape.  Nor did he appear to be frightened or even aware that she was approaching.  It was if he didn't see her coming.  It would be his mistake as the splashes of water echoed in the silent path of the grizzly.  The female opened her mouth wide in anticipation of her first bite down.  There would be blood.  And there would be bones.  And flesh.  She was about to make a mess.  And she was going love every minute of it.  

        Vision was at least two more strides from the embankment where the young boy stood, when she could begin to see the bear approaching, mouth wide open, prepared to bite down, and kill.  The run across the river had been exhausting.  Her naked figure interposed in the darkness through deep water had taken its toll, the river's rocky bottom cutting up through her feet.  Deep, down behind the panic, she was tired.  But she no longer had one life to save.  She had got caught too close to the grizzly now.  She,too, was bait for the kill.

        Her toes sunk into mud that began to form just underneath the edges of the river.  She looked deep into the blind child's face.  It was a cry help.  She had made the initial move to save him.  How could he just die or how could she just let him die?  So close yet so far away, Vision needed help.  She could hear the motions of the grizzly approaching.  It sounded like a lot of destruction, looking further into the young child's face.  Everything moved quick, but there was nothing.  He was blind, showing only that of confusion.  Vision was on him.  

        She reached out with both hands in a tackling position.  The last thing she remembered before diving for the young child was the terror she felt when the light from the moon reflected the absence of life in his pale eyes.  Seeing his eyes made her feel like she was watching death.  She was going to fight, but she knew she was going to die.  The grizzly widened her eyes as her mouth drew down on the young boy's face.  She snapped her jaws shut for the kill, but there was nothing.

        Vision's dive struck Zulu in the chest, knocking him sideways across the wooden staff in the muddy grass of the river's side.  The female grizzly had missed the young child completely, yet unable to suddenly stop because of her weight, stumbled through her charge, flipping forward over her shoulders, slamming on her back.  She had something tangled around one of her paws, her foot caught in some sort of enclosure.  The crab from the bucket scattered from around the paw of the grizzly, scrapping out the top.  Back on the muddy grounds, the crustacean began to make its way back into the protection of the waters.  The female flipped over onto her feet.  With the bucket still attached to one foot, she went to grab at the crab, her feet again entangling one another over the bucket.  The bear roared, shaking her paws.  Vision landed on to of Zulu, her breast cushioning the final fall.  At first, Zulu could only breathe, concentrating on the noises he heard.  The pain from his chest, shoulder reminding him that something was wrong.  He could feel naked flesh against his face, and legs, but there were no words, only heavy breathing.  Vision rolled quickly, eyeing the grizzly that still only laid a couple of yards away.  The animal had been caught in the young child's crab bucket, preventing the beast from moving correctly.

        She stood completely to her feet, her nakedness a forgotten thought.  The mud, and grass sliding down her skin, dropping to the ground.  Mud covered her entire body.  Her chest.  Her face.  Her hair.  Her legs.  Her belly.  Her bottom.  All covered in mud.  She grabbed Zulu's hand, snatching him to his feet.  As his body extended up into the air, both heard what sounded like the continued breaking of wood.  The staff was broken.  He needed an explanation, but there was not time.  They would live or they would die.  And she would fight.  No time to think.  She just reacted.

        "A bear," was all she said to the young child in her calmest voice, pulling him back into the entrance of the river.  The water from the river splashed into the openings of Zulu's boots, the surface of the water cutting up under his shorts against the heat of his legs.  His blood was racing.  He could feel his skin crawl over top his veins, over the top of his bones.  Yet his heart beat at a constant pace of relaxation, and with everything happening so fast, Zulu felt as if he was out of the bottom half of his body.  A stillness that extended behind the shades of darkness of his eyes with the rapid running movements of his legs splashing deep through the water.  He could feel each knee bend as his legs pulled from the grasp of the waters that gave way only at the surface.  He felt the warm touch of a hand that led his way.  Only the heat from the touch remained at a constant pace with the beat of his chest.  But Zulu could see, and feel beyond the heat, and he knew that the source of the heat was terror.

        Action.  Self-preservation.  The quick sprint through the water gradually turned into a fight through deep thought.  His running stride no longer a run, but rather continued into a fast walk.  Each step plodded deeper.  Pull and step, and pull and step.  The hand that led began to extend, and float away as Zulu slowed to the mercy of the river.  The constant pace that harmonized as together in splashes now appeared as an echo of the other.  Vision only held on to the young child by the strength of her fingertips, but she had a pull about her whole figure that captured Zulu, pulling him in her run.  She could let go, and he would still follow close behind, on top of her heels, in the current of air, and water that she created.  Their hands separated.

\        "Don't leave me," we all he could say.  A spontaneous thought that was appropriate.

        "Bear," was all Vision utter again as she snatched Zulu's hand behind her in a pulling motion in stride of the run.  She had not lost a step.  "Almost to the other side," she thought.  She could begin to see herself climbing onto the other side of the embankment that created a path that quickly disappeared into the trees.  Or she could run alongside the river until .  .  .  .  "Until what?" she thought.  The sides of the river only led to a cliff, and the drop of the waterfall.  To run into the woods amongst the environment of the forest would hinder their movement.  There had to be a path or trail that gave way to freedom.  Further down the river's side there could be one.  She knew there was one, and she would find it.  

        "There."  Vision's first foot sunk deep into the mud, up around the ankles, just on the edge of the river.  Her second step was so full of stride that she was already on the moist of the grass, making her run parallel to the movement of the river.  Zulu's run still had him captured just on the inside edge of the water before the embankment.  Only their hands keep them connected.  One boot after another sunk into the mud.  And one foot after another coming up out of each boot with just socks covering over them.  

        "Wait, my boots."  There was a sort of frustration in his voice.  He was still confused.  He had been tackled and led, then pulled into a state of darkness.  And the only thing he had heard was  .  .  .  .  

        "Bear," Vision said again.  This time turning her head quickly into the face of the young child he could hear her.  The scene began to unfold in his mind.  There was a bear.  A real live bear.  He had heard of bears.  Grizzlies.  That they are as big as cars.  Way bigger than a dog or ten dogs.  That they weighed as much as his tree house, if not more, and could kill easily with their sharp teeth, powerful jaws, and jagged claws.  And finally, when in the hunt of giving chase, bears were extremely fast.  The lost of his boots quickly faded from his mind as he picked up in the pace of the run.  They had made it several yards away from where they had exited from the river.  

        "A bear," Zulu said out loud in the direction of the front of his face, his voice striking the back of Vision.  She felt it, and turned quickly over her shoulder, twisting slightly in the stride of her run.  

        "Yeah," was all she could breathe to say.  Out of the corner of her eyes as her head turned, she could see a large white figure enter into the river rapidly.  There state of emergency had just increased.  The bear was going to give chase.  

        "In the river," was what she said next as she pushed her legs to move faster.  The female grizzly could see her kill escaping her as she continued to shake the bucket from her paw.  The crab bucket dislodged from her clutches, flopping lazily to the edge of the river.  The grizzly charged, eyeing the two bodies that cut through the water, stopping immediately just at the river's edge where the bucket lay.  Water.  She had water.  Water was associated with being wet, and she hated wet.  Took too long after being wet to be dry.  She even hated to drink water because of how the wet made the fur around noise feel, and that was necessity.  

        In her silence, she could hear the splashes of Vision, and Zulu.  They had almost made it to the other side.  If she didn't give chase now, she would not catch them.  And they were something that she didn't want to hunt.  The grizzly looked at the water again.  A necessity as she led charge only to tangle in the crab bucket that lay in her path.  Another head over behind flip, and roll, her rear end landing in the water creating a splash, her head sliding into the catch of the mud.  Flipping back over on all fours, her face wore the mud as a mask to hide the white of her fur, and the anger of her intent.  She began her finally charge, letting out a loud roar.  Vision, and Zulu heard it.

        "A real, live bear," Zulu thought quietly.  

        "In the water," Vision said again, explaining the fact that the grizzly was giving chase.  Just a little further downstream Harlem woke out of her pain, and despair to attention.  

        Something wicked this way come.

        Sister could see her freedom begin to create itself around her as the drift of her dead brother lay lost, and forgotten as the place she was leaving.  And a different type of darkness began to cloud her mind, and preoccupy her eyes.  There was darkness, and dark colors that cringed her brain.  She felt free, and stuck at the same time.  The force that had begun to pull at her top was now pushing at her bottom.  Everything was so different yet she felt the same.  Only there existed a type of tension that generated itself in the area where she had first felt the pulling force.  Sister, in her quietness, in her birth, heard a loud noise.  She heard a scream.  And Harlem screamed as the push became unbearable.  Mentally, she was no longer in control.  She just wanted it to stop.  So much pain, and blood.  She saw the head of the first child, that they would name Sister, exit from the opening of herself.  Her body pushed again.  And she screamed.  The scream almost made Zulu stop, slamming into the back of Vision.  Vision had stopped, both breathing heavy.  There was another scream.  The heavy breathing continued.

        "Is she dying?" Zulu asked in between breaths.  The question went unanswered as Vision stepped forward slowly in her nakedness.  She had not seen it before because of the edge of the cliff, and waterfall that overshadowed everything, but just before the eyesight dives off the edge of the forest into the space of the sky, there appeared a woman propped up against a tree. Harlem screamed. 

        "A woman," Vision spurted out quickly, turning her head to eye the grizzly escaping the drape of water, emerging onto dry land.  There lay only a straight line between them, and the animal.  "The bear," she blurted out this time over the thought of any type escape or rest.  Nothing was over.  Everything had just begun again.  She jerked at Zulu's arm, making head way toward the woman first, and freedom second.

        "The bear." Zulu said out loud, "It's chasing us?"  He voice had changed. 

        "Yeah," Vision uttered sharply, realizing that the young child had finally understood the death their situation.  He could barley speak his next words, the pace of their run gurgling his mouth.

        "Are we going to die?"  The question was that of a ten year old child.  He had become a child again.  Vision eyed the charged of the grizzly in stride as she gained quickly on the position of the woman who sat propped up against a tree, her knees in the air.  

        "No," she finally said.  The 'no' was reassuring as he breathed out.  

        But silently he asked himself again, "Am I?"

        As the grizzly exited the path of the river up into the mud grass, she never broke stride.  She had found a rhythm in her run through the river which only increased in speed, and acceleration without the hindrance of the water.  The grizzly locked her eyesight on what she was to attack.  They lay directly ahead, and as she picked up speed, she smelled blood.  What followed next was the sound of another scream.  

        Harlem opened her eyes to see a baby girl lying in the cushion of dirt, mud, and grass.  The umbilical cord lay connected from the baby to inside the womb.  The child was so overwhelming that Harlem, at first, paid no attention to the blood, and naked girl, and blind child that approached fer from just a couple of trees away.  She paid no attention to the blur in the backdrop of the two children running.  She only concluded, finally, that they had come to help, they pain was over, and she had been saved.  

        By the fourth scream, Vision was on top the woman who sat propped against a tree with her knees up.  As she moved closer, there was just too much to handle, just too much.

        Zulu moved in closer to the feel of Vision.  Harlem looked up at the two children, smiling a crazy, exhausted smile.   

        "Her name is Sister," she stated. It was cool, but she was sweating a pool of sweat.  Another awful scream again as the second child began to present itself to the world.  They would name him Isaiah.  And through the pain, Harlem realized she was having twins.  Vision could see the head of the child begin to push itself against the flesh opening.  

        "She's having twins," she thought, "turning to eye the grizzly charging.  It would be on top of them in just a matter of seconds.  Thinking again, they were going to die.  

        The young girl grabbed the baby girl from the stomach of Harlem, placing the child directly behind, and under the tree, and shrubbery of bushes that lay at the base of the roots.  Both would provide cover for the infant child.

        Vision swung back around to see the shoulders of the twin exiting the womb.  She noticed that the infant had what appeared to be some type of tube tangled around his neck.  But there was so much blood, she turned back around to eye the grizzly.  There was nowhere she could go as she jumped into Zulu, knocking him out of the path of the charging beast.

        The female continued her run, biting into the face of Harlem, snapping down at the part of the neck that connected to the shoulder.  Harlem's eyes opened wide, the blood from the neck squirting down the side of the grizzly's white fur.  The bear shook the body at the neck as a rag doll.  Her front paw mashing down on the body of the infant child that had only half entered into the world.  It appeared as if the grizzly wanted to separate the head of the woman from the rest of her body, shaking the neck loose while holding the bottom half with her claws.  When Vision, and Zulu stopped in their tumble, they were only a couple of feet from where the dam of rocks began to form in step pattern across the nape of the waterfall.  In the confusion, Zulu on all fours began to feel around for a sense of balance, and direction.  His hands smoothed across the wet rock that appeared as a platform for him tomove.  There was another rock followed by another.  He continued to crawl into the roar that he heard seeming to exist only on one side .  .  .  . page continue