Leo had no clue how much time had passed since he arrived to the island of children. The short rainy seasons came and went while he mostly cultivated and from time to time watched the three buds on the lightning tree slowly growing in size. His captors also kept to their regular routine and the life on the island seemed to be stale and boring.
It all changed one day when screams of pain and cries of agony disturbed Leo’s concentration. The children outside seemed to be in panic and besides the usual ‘Uma!’ screamed other stuff he couldn’t understand, but it mostly sounded like ‘Chaka!’.
Without a second thought Leo quickly paddled over the pond and rushed through the cave in one breath only to freeze at the horrific sight. Near the lake lie mutilated bodies of ten or maybe even twenty children and half a dozen two yard long lizards were feasting on them. Further near the straw huts another twenty odd reptiles had encircled the panicked crowd of kids with few bearded ones trying to keep them at bay, poking the beasts with the little pikes.
Leo had never been much of a thinker and this time as well the moment he saw the large group of kids helplessly trying to defend themselves his body acted on its own. He darted towards the attackers covering the hundred yard distance in a heartbeat and, before anyone could react, heavily stepped on the closest reptile just like once Lyam stepped on the crabs while defending ‘Auguste’ back in the day. The lizard didn’t turn into mush of gore like the crabs did under Lyam’s heavy foot, but a distinct cracking sound proved its spine got broken.
Without verifying the fate of his first victim, Leo kicked the second closest lizard and even though the kick propelled it several yards away, its spine was also cracked and it began to convulse in agony. The sight finally registered in the brains of both attackers and defenders and while lizards immediately charged at Leo all at the same time, the children cheered in joy and shouted ‘Uma! Uma!’ in one voice.
This time Leo didn’t have time to play around. He quickly disarmed two of the bearded kids, grabbing the small pikes from their hands and began to perform genocide on lizards. He stabbed, kicked and stabbed again, and when the pikes broke he grabbed new ones and continued to stab.
Lizards that were previously feasting on the dead children at the lake rushed to help their kin, but soon got kicked and stabbed to death as well. Leo didn’t know how long the fight lasted, in fact, he didn’t really know what he was doing until he chased the last two surviving reptiles in the ocean.
Only then he noticed he had deep bite- and claw marks all over his body and seeing himself covered in his own and the greenish lizard blood made the events feel surreal. In addition, it didn’t hurt yet, but he was certain that the moment his rapid heartbeat slowed down, he would scream in pain.
There was no medicine or bandages on the island and the best thing Leo could do was to wash up in the waters by the lightning tree in hopes it would disinfect his wounds and afterwards cultivate to heal up faster.
With these thoughts in mind he ran back to the cave, swam over to the island trying to ignore the excruciating pain that slowly overtook his whole body and passed out the moment he got ashore.
He didn’t know how long he was out, but when Leo woke up his wounds were scabbed over and it didn’t hurt as much anymore. He was incredibly thirsty though and after drinking to the fullest he sat back down and began to laugh.
He laughed at his own cowardliness that made him think that the children outside could pose any danger and he laughed at his own stupidity to never even try to actually go out and smack the one who stole his backpack back then. He laughed remembering how he massacred the lizards and sighed in regret his father didn’t witness his first real fight.
Of course, the many wounds on his four extremities showed the confrontation didn’t go that smooth, but he did come out as the winner in the end, didn’t he? And compared to the kids he basically came out unscathed.
Unfortunately at the last thought his mood instantly plummeted. The sight of the many mutilated child bodies was too unsettling and tragic, and after considering few pros and cons Leo got up and swam over towards the exit of his grotto.
It was a very early morning and his usual guards were not there yet. At this point Leo, of course, had finally understood the children who came over to the cave were not really guards, but had no idea how to actually call them or what they were doing.
This was the first time he came out so early since he began hiding in the cave hall, but it was a pleasant feeling though. Further away near the straw huts some early birds were already awake, but Leo used this time to silently observe the surroundings before anyone noticed him.
At the first glance nothing has changed and there were no signs of tragedy happening not so long ago. The corpses of kids and lizards were gone and the strange village of children had returned to it’s former tranquil atmosphere. The morning sun just began to slowly crawl out of the ocean dying its surface in myriad of colors, but despite the picturesque view for some reason Leo suddenly felt sad.
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It didn’t last long though. The sight of twenty odd huffing and puffing children pulling a log into the village similar to how they did it back when Leo arrived made him forcefully swallow an involuntary chuckle. This time the log was twice as big and even with their numbers the kids had hard time moving it. Behind them a dozen more carried branches that probably got broken off beforehand for the log to be ‘transported’ much easier.
The procession looked rather funny and Leo barely managed to hold back a burst of laughter, but unfortunately with the lively atmosphere outside he couldn’t stay hidden for long.
Soon one of the children noticed him and within the span of few breaths the whole village was gathered at the entrance. As soon as they arrived, they dropped on their knees and began to do that weird bowing exercise again making Leo feel uncomfortable thus he decided to ignore them and take a better look around.
He went to the huts and checked out the primitive handwork once again realizing the parents were never going to come back – with how bad the houses were built it was clearly done by the children themselves and that proved that the chance someone would come after the fruits was much more likely.
The lake to the left of the cave turned out to be a natural bay that was separated from the ocean by an inconspicuous reef. There were six small, approximately five foot long and barely a foot wide wooden boats lying in the sand nearby. They seemed to be crudely carved out from a piece of wood and probably the log children just pilled in the village was going to become such a boat, maybe even their biggest one yet.
While Leo was looking around, the crowd of kids dropped the weird exercise and began to curiously follow him. Besides the doll sized ones that were carried by others, the rest barely made a sound and didn’t even dare to whisper between themselves.
Leo decided to ignore them and for the first time take a walk around the island. He had done this back on the ape island, not on purpose, of course, but it did give him a feel how large the place actually was. He also found the brook that provided him with the freshwater for the duration of the stay and there was no telling if he could find something useful here as well.
Thus a weird procession took place on the island of children. A young boy slowly walked along the beach while over hundred and fifty smaller statures followed him. The sun had already risen and the weather was pleasant and Leo was slightly kicking himself inwardly for not having such walks earlier.
Unfortunately on the island there was nothing to see. After leaving the village, the only thing that caught the eye was the grass covered hill he was once brought to. There was not a single tree or a brook around here. This obviously explained the obsession of the children about the tree logs that were washed ashore, but raised a question of what they were actually drinking.
While there was nothing on the island, the view at the ocean turned out to be much more interesting. Leo counted a total of eight other islands including one with the tall mountains that towered in the clouds. That particular island seemed to be so far he couldn’t see it per se and only vague outlines of those mountains proved it actually existed.
Leo didn’t have to be a genius master of alchemy science to figure out it was the island with the teleportation platform he came from. And if he could see it, there was a chance to get back to it!
In a good mood he returned to the village, but of course everything in life couldn’t be so peachy, especially the disgusting smell of rotten flesh that assaulted his senses. Earlier Leo wondered where children buried their friends and now he found out the answer.
Either no one had taught them how to bury others or this was the first time someone died here, but kids didn’t even think of throwing the dead bodies in the ocean, to not speak about digging a hole and let their friends to rest there.
‘This is going to be ugly.’ Leo thought with a sigh and guided by the smell went into the tall grass looking for bodies.
To his great surprise it wasn’t actually so bad. Obviously the sight of the pile of small rotting bodies was tragic and revolting, but there were no flies or worms eating them. Only now Leo realized that since his arrival to this mortal world he hadn’t seen not only a single bird, but a fly or a mosquito as well.
Still, the work Leo was about to do was not the most pleasant one. He took a pike from one of the bearded kids, and began to cut the tall grass not far from the corpse pile. Afterwards he spent a half day digging a hole as big and deep as he could.
All this time the children watched his actions in confusion, but at some point one of them dropped on his knees and began to chant the ‘Uma!’ mantra and the rest quickly followed the suit. Obviously Leo had long got used to the chants and wasn’t bothered, but he found the rhythm to actually be helpful and continued to dig while chanting ‘Uma!’ to himself as well.
When the hole was big enough, Leo carefully took one little corpse after another and carefully lie them inside. Afterwards he covered them with the sand and went to wash up in the bay.
He was stopped half way with one of the bearded kids, probably the smartest one around here, excitedly shouting ‘Chaka! Chaka!’ and pointing at another spot somewhere in the grass and after walking around twenty yards in that direction Leo found the corpses of the lizards he killed.
“Chaka!” The bearded kid angrily shouted and kicked the rotting corpse of the lizard.
“Ok, you call these things ‘chaka’, I understand.” Leo said, “But what exactly is ‘uma’?”
Unfortunately the moment children heard him say ‘that’ word, they dropped on their knees and began to exercise their backs and chant again.
Seeing there was no use to bother with them, Leo began to dig another hole. At some point though, he felt he was thirsty, but the water bottle was left in the grotto.
Realizing he broke one of the most important rule, the rule number two – ‘always carry something to drink’, he angrily swore, “F*ck!” and the crowd of children immediately picked up on that and instead of ‘Uma!’ began to chant ‘F*ck!’ in the same tone and rhythm.
While teaching children swear words was not the best thing he could do, Leo found it to be actually funny and soon he was digging the hole accompanied by children choir chanting ‘F*ck! Sh*t! Damn you, Brandon!’.
The kids picked up on the first two words quite easily, but the last part took some time for them to learn. Fortunately they were not completely dumb and when the corpse of the last lizard was thrown in the hole, they already could chant the sentence relatively fluently.