On the news there have been reports for the past month of local fishermen in Mauritius being viciously attacked by the fish in the Nazareth Bank. Earlier this week my team, which is a multi-science group of chemists, biologists, and zoologists were called by our sponsor to check out the situation over there. Now, I live in British Colombia, Canada and I’m not too excited about traveling to the other side of the world, when there are chemists with PhDs over there just like me. I guess being one of the top chemists in the nation has it’s up and down. I won’t complain, this job will be good pay, hopefully great. 

                Only five of the ten members of my team are coming. Dr. Jo-lin Holls and her husband Dr. Drake Cunning are biologists who graduated from Yale University together, which has the seventh top biological science program. Dr. Renal Martinez is the team’s other chemists, besides me, that graduated from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. The team’s only zoologist is a skinny middle aged man with a mind often in other places besides this world, Dr. Ceres. I would say his first name but I don’t know it, to me he belongs in an asylum, that’s how mentally unstable he is, but sad to say the man is a genius. Last but not least is me, Dr. Edward Finch. I’m a chemistry professor who helps workshop chemists for top schools in the world. I graduated from M.I.T and have recently been helping the U.S. military with more advanced chemical warfare, which I do not approve of, but it pays. They need a chemist down there to see if the fish attacks have anything to do with the chemicals in the water. 						 Now our sponsor is one of the richest men in the world who seizes any opportunity to make more money. I’m not surprised he would want to be the first to discover why these fish attacks have been increasing and spreading along the Indian Ocean into the Pacific. We are heading down to our gate at the airport now. Our sponsor provided us with a private jet that was to fly us from Canada to Madagascar and then from Madagascar to Mauritius. I work way too much. I stepped inside the plane, found sleep and took the longest ride of my life. After hours of flight time we landed in Mauritius. We ordered our rooms at the nearest hotel suite. Most of the locals spoke French. Being Canadian has its perks because I grew up speaking French. Although B.C. isn’t very French, my mother and father were from Quebec. So the next few days I went around asking the locals where the attacks were going on the most in the bank. 

                The only answer we were given was to head to Cargados Carajos Shoals. Our sponsor lent us a yacht to sail in. The shoals consist of only sixteen islands with a fifty kilometer reef within it. Only one of the islands is largely populated, Ile Raphael. We set off after a few days of gathering supplies to Cargados Carajos Shoals and ported in Ile Raphael. Continuously asking the villagers of Raphael where most of the fisherman were being attacked took at least two hours ‘till a fisherman finally came to us and decided to help. He warned us that he would catty us in his boat only half way, the other half we would have to go on our own. There was a massive storm coming so we had to be quick. Apparently the attacks have been near the island Mapare.  Before the ride I asked him in French why he thinks the sea creatures were attacking.
       He responded with a rough tone “dix-sept îles”, seventeen islands. An hour past and it was time for us to part ways, he gave us a satellite phone, and told us to call when we were ready to comeback since our boats coordinates were on the fritz.
                I know it’s stupid to even consider going when a storm is going to hit, but we have to get to Mapare soon. I looked up at the skies eight minutes later to see I made a huge mistake. The clouds were pitch grey and black. As if there was never a sun around in the first place, the wind grew stronger and made accelerating pointless but we kept trying. 
      Then that crazy bastard Ceres got up and stood in front out on the deck yelling at the top of his lungs, while the heavy rain hit our bodies like darts. As Ceres yelled at the heavens, the heavens yelled back with monstrous thunder. Martinez ran over and pulled Ceres back under into the cabin. The thunder was so loud it shook the waters. 
	The waves hit the sides of our yacht repeatedly and wouldn’t let up. Until we were flipped over into the water, the last image I saw was the massive tidal wave before blacking out. When I woke up, sand was settling in on my tongue and stinging the wounds in my body. I sat up to see that we were on an island. I then heard the cries and screams of Jo-lin Holls, Dr. Cunning had died. I walked over to see his body; a large portion of his abdomen was ripped by the coral reef that ran through the shoals. The more horrific thing was that inside his gut were little fish trying to swim out.
	Martinez could not stop puking, so I was forced to push the body back into the ocean. I seemed to be the only one who wasn’t fazed. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t care, he was a good friend and a great scientist who I had the honorable pleasure of meeting. I might just be in shock. I began to look around, where was Ceres? When I turned to look behind me the island was full of thick green trees with vines and roots that were as big as the tree trunks, lying on the floors of the entire island. The only sand on this island was the sand beneath our feet, which only covered a portion it. The rest were vines and roots. I knew that’s where Ceres would be heading into, now I have to look for him.  
	I told Martinez to look after Miss Holls, and to try and salvage anything from the ship that washed up as well. I began my journey into the island. I didn’t notice the thick heavy dark green liquid spilling from the roots until I was tying my shoes and a tiny tree frog tried to swallow my leg. The poor thing was covered in the liquid, and kept going crazy jumping around, until suddenly it just died. This liquid seemed to be something more. I took out a small container and put some of the liquid in it. I had to run the analysis after I found Ceres. Three and a half hours of searching, I almost considered myself lost but then out of nowhere Ceres leaped out from the trees and landed right in front of me, pushing his index finger on my lips. He told me to stay silent, it turns out Ceres discovered the inhabitants of this island, he pointed up with his finger. A whole village of baboons was sleeping on the tops of the trees. 
	Ceres whispered in my ear that not only are baboons highly dangerous to humans, these baboons aren’t even supposed to be here on this or any island. They are extremely adaptable though, and we are lucky to be in the time span where they sleep. I guess being a zoologist also has its perks. I knew we needed to get out of here and so did Ceres. On TV I see these creatures all the time, but they seem way smaller than the ones here. Thier physical appearance is close enough to be classified as a gorilla. 
      We quietly started making our way back to the patch of sand, but as fate would have it I tripped and fell hard on to the hollow root. Instantly the NFL football player sized baboons woke up, that’s when we decided to run for our lives because they looked pissed. The baboons quickly made their way down the trees running after us full speed. The roots were like obstacles almost impossible to overcome and the baboons were Olympic hurdlers, though they were slowing themselves down by trampling over each other, anxiously trying to kill us. When I looked back to see, I realized that their tongues were all green, and so was bits of their fur. 
      I was slowing down. I knew I wouldn’t last forever running, my body would soon force me to stop. I thought I was done for until all the baboons stopped running except for one. This one didn’t want to let us go like the rest because of territorial instinct. It didn’t have in its eyes hunger. What it did have was hate and anger.  It just wanted to see us dead. Still on our tails we reached the sand. I yelled for Martinez to run but the primate jumped over us. It speared Martinez to the ground, clawing and pounding at his chest. Ceres and I tried pulling the beast off, but its strength was too immense. Jo-lin was in shock. We kept hitting at the baboons head. All it did was shake us off.
      When hope seemed gone for Martinez who was yelling and crying, the beast’s movements were getting slower and slower until it just fell over dead. Martinez was excessively bleeding from his torso, that’s when Jo-lin snapped out from her shock and rushed to help him. I had no experience with bandages or nursing, but Dr. Holls did. The thing that was irritating me was why these baboons were here and why were they attacking us, just like the fish? Suddenly I pulled out the small container full of the green liquid. I gathered with Ceres and Jo-lin about what this substance might be. Analyzing all the events that had to with the slime we finally came to a conclusion. 
      It turns out this liquid could be a natural anabolic-androgenic. In other words its nature made steroids, and the inhabitants have been consuming it. Another question I had to answer was how were the fish getting it? That’s when I saw Dr. Ceres pointing in the distance to the edge of the other side of the island. The roots went all the way out into ocean and the liquid is just leaked into the water. I talked to Ceres about the situation. We determined that too much consumption of the liquid resulted in death. Taking a second to sit down and breathe, I started laughing. This was the seventeenth island. 
      

Chacma, 9-10, 1