The roars of two terrible beasts boom through the forest with spine-tingling fierceness.

This is not a moment where my life flashes before my eyes and I have a profound realization about the sanctity of life or the frailness of my mortality. In this flight through the forest, nothing is enchanted and nothing is sacred. Everything is chaos and everything is a blur. I don't look at Eve and she doesn't glare at me. My thoughts aren't about what we're doing. I'm not second guessing myself or her. There's only adrenaline, blood pumping through our veins, and pure and utter fright at the ferocity of whatever beasts are chasing us. Eve and I run like our lives depend on it, because they do. We don't glance back. We don't look down, but we channel our focus straight ahead on the path that leads to staying alive.

Our arms and legs pump up and down, toes stabbing at the earth, heels planting, springing us forward. Twigs snap under our boots as we zigzag between trees, limbs full of needles gouging at our eyes. We duck below a branch and our feet swoop out from beneath us, plunging us down a steep muddy slope in a full-on, screaming slide at breath-stealing speed. The moment our backsides smack the incline, another savage roar rumbles through the air and catches up to us as we careen toward the base of another tree line and much flatter terrain.

Eve skids past me, her hips angling out, her upper body leaning in my direction as we both continue our slide. Our gazes finally meet for a horrifying second, and then we're on our own again, hoping we don't smash into a tree and die. Or worse, hit a tree and find ourselves immobilized and an easy dinner for the predators behind us.

Instead, we vault out of our slides, and momentum takes over. Eve hits the bottom of the hillside first and breaks into a spin through the underbrush. My torso comes out of the slide stretched back, my legs forward, slightly raised. When I strike the level ground, my rear-end bounces and propels me into a head over heels tumble.

I come out of my bone-jarring roll and my head lands in Eve's lap.

We haven't glimpsed the creatures yet, but they sound like grizzly bears on steroids.

"Up, up, up." Eve springs to her feet and so do I, and before I know it, I'm pulling her along.

We crash through the forest, weaving and stumbling, the habitat a distant memory in my mind. Our biggest concern is running as fast as we can, our strides covering as much ground as possible, like gazelles fleeing a hunting party of lions.

The creatures bellow from the top of the mudslide, the sound waves rippling through the air and rumbling my ears with a bass pitch that resonates deep in my bones.

The beasts don't give up pursuit, but thunder down the hill after us, paws pounding the mud, quaking the earth like elephants.

My toe hits a rock and I fall, but Eve catches my hand and yanks me upright.

As we sprint, loud cracks shake the tree trunks behind us, bark splintering and flying. The creature's violent collisions with the trees reverberate across the countryside, sparking chills and goosebumps up the back of my neck.

Another roar rips through the forest, this one coming from our left, with the other creature still bustling after us from straight behind us—two beasts racing after us—both wanting to reach us first.

I don't know what they are, but I know what we are, the prey.

Predator and prey. Food. Another fleshly meal.

Up ahead, the spruces thin out and sunlight lances through the tiny needles clinging to each branch. To the east and north, the roars echo after us, the creatures in hot pursuit. To the west and south, water rushes between the banks of a river, likely the same one the habitat straddles.

I burst out of the tree line first, followed by Eve. My arm shoots out to stop her in her tracks—before she runs off the edge of a cliff that juts out over the river. The whitewash sweeps to the south, curling back to the east. If it's the same river, it must loop around the forest, running from north to south, while making a large circle west to east like an enormous serpent twisting through Yellowstone.

Paws pound into the ground with earth-rattling mass, walloping on their way to get us, to eat us.

As my eyes scan the surrounding area—the high cliff and the washing river below—I come to one conclusion.

"We have to jump." Eve's heavy panting rasps from her lungs as she catches my eye.

Though we've yet to glimpse them, the creatures race toward our location, converging on us, leaving their marks on the tree trunks daring to stand in their way.

"Yes, jump," I say between gasps. "That's what we have to do. I knew that."

"On three." She nods.

"Okay. One..."

The paws beat the ground like thunderclaps.

"Two..."

Almost upon us.

"Three!" I snatch her hand and we scream as we leap from the cliff seconds before jaws with teeth like meat skewers bite down on nothing but air.

As we begin our plummet, our bodies whip and turn and I catch sight of the ravenous maw that craves to tear us to shreds.

After a fifty-foot fall, Eve and I strike the water hard and sink like iron weights. In seconds, the swift movement of the river forces us toward the current. When my head emerges, I get an even clearer view of the creatures chasing us.

Just one of them, length and height and girth, stands twice as large as a grizzly bear, but in the same basic shape. Dark gray fur bristles over its hulking body as it roars ferociously, revealing a deep frustration at not catching its prey. When it rises on its hind legs, and crashes back to the earth, it shakes the cliff-side, rocks and debris breaking free and tumbling to the river below. Its head resembles a bear, but it possesses the three-foot-long horn of a rhinoceros. It has the smaller horn of a rhino, too.

As the river sweeps us away, I have a stunning realization... we barely escaped from the jaws of a mutated monster.

With the river carrying Eve and me with the swift current, the creatures disappear from view. Sometime later, in a slower moving stretch of water, we wash up on the bank, beaten to the point of exhaustion.

I think to check on Eve. "Are you alright?"

She bends over and puts her hands on her knees. Spits out water and shakes it from her ears.

"What was that?" Her mouth flies open.

"The reseeding of the Earth, I think."

She grips my shoulder and glares at me. The whites of her eyes expand around her irises, splintered with scraggly red lines. "That could not have been natural. Those things looked like... like... like... I don't know what they were."

"Rhino-bears."

"Rhino-what?!"

"You heard me."

As I help her stand, she wobbles on unsteady feet, her cargo pants and white tank-top soaking wet, clinging to the shape of her body.

My T-shirt sticks to me like shrink-wrapped plastic sucked tight to my stomach. Water drops from our chins and Eve's scarlet hair is a shade darker and twisted into wild strands clasping to her neck and shoulders.

"Rhino-bears?" Eve gains her balance. "I can't believe Abraham would reseed the Earth with mutated bloodthirsty things like that. There had to be a mistake. Those things could not have been his intention."

"That's why he didn't want us to leave the habitat," I say. "Why he wanted us to recreate the Garden of Eden indoors. Why he wanted us to fill the Animal Barn with normal animals. Because something went horribly wrong with the reseeding."

Eve scrunches her nose and narrows her eyes. "That's why Abraham declared the North American mainland a restricted zone, off limits to us."

"Or to anyone else."

"That's why he intended for us to land on Merritt Island off the Florida coast."

"A sanctuary," I say. "Someplace safe."

"That's what we need to find, Noah." Eve takes my wrist and tugs me deeper into the forest. "We need to find somewhere to hide."

"Maybe we just entered their territory?" I allow her to pull me along. "If we keep heading south, maybe they won't follow us? Maybe we can find somewhere to hide and somewhere to live?"

"That's a thought." Eve's gaze scans the perimeter for more signs of danger. "But what if there are more animals like the rhino-bears?"

In the thick grove of spruce trees, with the roars fading behind us, our hands bumping occasionally as we walk, pinky to pinky, I say, "We'll stick together, and do whatever it takes to survive."