12 A Dubious Power Ethan fought the urge to run as the hippopotamus stood eyeing him on the bottom of the pool. It was barely two meters away. Its massive grey head scythed slowly from side to side almost level with his. The skin around its eyes and the sides of its face was an unexpected salmon pink and single spiky whiskers stuck out of crater-like pores all over its broad muzzle. One lone bubble escaped in slow motion from its closed nostrils, and drifted to the surface. He wasn’t sure if it could open its mouth underwater without drowning, but he knew it had enormous tusk-like incisors inside that could cut a human in half. The rest of its giant barrel-shaped body was hairless, and looked nearly as big as a rhinoceros. He’d read in his survival manual that hippopotami were extremely aggressive and were responsible for more human fatalities than elephant, rhino and buffalo combined. Any sudden noise or movement may be all that would be needed to trigger an attack. Barrelling into the water at speed had not helped his cause.
