In semi-obscurity, I was making love to a woman. After some foreplay, I inserted my member inside of her as I tenderly caressed her back with the palms of my hands. My movements were slow, almost like I was in the embrace of a loved one. Then, like I had found myself in a fit of anger, rammed furiously against that piece of flesh; first, in quick successions, then, slowing down the rhythm of my hip, I pushed my member against the hot piece of flesh for the last time before bringing it out for the climax. Two high-pitched moans echoed through the void: it was mine and it was hers. My semen dropped down from her back, dripping onto the rocky surface of the cave; there were four successive sounds: toc, toc, toc, toc. With my ragged cloth picked up from under my feet, I swept the forming beads of sweat on my forehead, and tied it around my waist. I gently pushed aside the sweaty and hot piece of flesh.

“Sorry…” I murmured to her.

In semi obscurity, the woman whose name, and face and life I ignored, walked on all fours, trying to gain the end of the cave. Without precaution, she walked through several other couples, muttering incomprehensible words to some of the women. She bumped her shoulder against a couple and got slapped against the face by my older brother. He made an angry growl then, like it had never happened, went back to his most sacred occupation: grinding his body against his most willing partner. The woman put her hands on her red cheek, but far from being angered or shocked, she did not refute nor did she protested. She just continued, on fours, until, reaching her destination, she laid her head against a woman’s belly and like a drop of water in an ocean, eerily became part of the living mountain of flesh until I could no longer distinguish her from the others.

“You finished?”

I recognized my oldest brother’s voice and answered coldly: “Yes”.

“Wait,” he said, “Bout to finish…”

He finished his sentence with a large moan and plucked out his member followed by a wet plop sound.

The woman he had grabbed tightly by the waist sighed softly, yet she did not make a single sound during the intercourse. It was almost as if all of the pleasures she could find in this experience was at the end, when, finally, her partner had finished satisfying his natural needs and done with his work, that, finally, she could give a sigh of relief. She stayed in her fetus position, her face buried in her knees.

“Other brothers’bout to finish!” He said satisfied.

I watched as he tied his cloth around his waist and compared it with mine, a ripped cloth exposing half of my bottom. He looked back at me, squinted his eyes and grinned.

“You older then good cloth!” He pointed out.

He continued, grabbing and swinging his penis underneath his cloth:

“You older, you bigger too!”

The rest of my brothers had finished and gathered around the oldest to laugh at me.

I could not care less about the size of his penis or mine but, feeling the need to vent out some of my frustrations, I quickly rushed out of the cave with heavy but quick steps.

At the entrance, I had to protect my eyes from the blinding light: I had stayed too long underground and needed to wait for them to slowly adapt to the new environment. I looked back to where I came from, squinting my eyes trying to pierce through the obscurity, when I started to notice a familiar stench: a mix of rotten egg, cat piss and human feces, all combined with the smell of a decomposing corpse. All the worst possible stenches in the world were contained in a single hole in the earth, and there it was: right behind me! I frightened myself when I realized that the stench did not bother me as much as before, and even more frighteningly, it did not bother me at all. Then again, perhaps it was a good thing: to adapt was to survive.

The stench reminded me of something, a memory, an event that triggered an explosive range of feelings inside my head and I tried hard to contain them, dissipating them in the deepest part of my brain and, perhaps, in the cave where all of my most primal and basic instincts were unchained, and where all of my most sinister and grotesque desires could be fulfilled. A tempting offer until you realized that something was out of place.

“Red eyes!” A voice called out for me from inside the cave, “We go hunting!”

Soon enough a group of five gray silhouettes slowly emerged from the darkness: five previously heated creatures crept out from the underground, their eyes, blindingly bright in the darkness. They were bald, small, green creatures with pointy ears, and naked from head to bottom with only a piece of rag to cover their privates. The first thing to appear in the light was their large mouths in which four short canines could be discovered – two on top, two at the bottom. A wave of sunlight hit their still unadapted eyes with full force – they simultaneously raised their hands to cover their face, displaying at the tip of their fingers a set of shiny dagger-like nails, and their arms, thin but tougher than anyone could believe, were trained muscles and did not give any place for unnecessary fat. Green and blue veins, like thick layers of armor above the skin, popped out from every corners of their body. These creatures called themselves shapas in their own language.

In the middle of the group stood one particular shapas, taller and bulkier than the rest of the group. He was the most well-equipped in the group – he donned an old leather armor that he found while scavenging the river, a belt around the waist where he put a long dagger and a small one. He was also the oldest and, consequently, my oldest brother. With the light partly blinding him, he did not recognize me at the entrance of the cave. While still hiding his eyes in the palms of his hands, he yelled out: “Red eyes! You?”

I did not reply and turned around to face the outside of the cave. With my eyes slowly adapting to the strong luminosity, the world around me unfolded with magnificence: first, the river made its appearance, flowing peacefully from the East to the West through the open plain that I called Home. It cut at a cross intersection where it would spread to the far North, unknown territories where no shapas dare to cross, and to the far South. I concentrated on my hearing to listen: the chirps, the wind, the leaves, the cracking sound of dead branches, the squeaks of small animals, the slow current brushing against the rocks, and other sounds that I could not recognize. Further ahead, at the borders of Home, was the Forest: a large mass of greenery that covered my central and peripheral vision, reaching the far horizon and, maybe, beyond. The edge of the world, the end of time, the zone of no return, the shapas have many expressions for the horizon which escaped their understanding. Even further ahead, unfolding through a thick fog, standing above the horizon, and whose peak touched the sky, was The Mountain.

“Red eyes! Listen I talk!” The voice came from behind.

I immediately received a punch to the face and fell on the ground. My brother stood on top of me and grinned dumbly. Dumbfounded, I hid my anger and looked at the ground.

“Up!” He ordered, “Forest for food!”

I stood up after staggering for a few moments; my legs felt weak and heavy but nonetheless I stood up, then, with resignation and with a weak sigh, followed the group into the Forest.

The Forest was relatively peaceful yet oddly disturbing that day. Perhaps I could not find myself in my usual state of peace because, disturbingly close to me, my oldest brother, a capricious and wild creature, slapped me on the back of the head any one time such a feeling suddenly arose. More frustratingly, when I looked back to make a reproach, he would just be staring blankly in the other direction and, as silent as an innocent lamb, did not make a sound while small laughters were indiscreetly muffled behind my back. The group was following behind, and just like always, I took the lead. The first time I asked why they putted me as their leader, they said they wanted to consolidate my skills as one, and perhaps with time as a hunter. Naive, I trusted them. After very few hunts, I realized I was simply bait. Who would want a scrawny looking leader? weak, frail, and without any other potential than reproducing. However, I did pride myself with my quick legs and, ignoring my status as bait, would go out to scout the area. I also prided myself with my keen hearing because, despite being treated as bait, the natural skill became essential to the group.

I looked to the two shapas walking on almost the same level as I was. They were the oldest of the group and, as such, were the most well-equipped for hunting. The second oldest wore a green long sleeved shirt with brown shorts, he carried on his back an old short bow that looked like it would break in half if the bowstring was to be pulled ever so slightly. The oldest had brown leather armor, green pants held up by a belt where he placed his two daggers: the short one on the back of the belt and the long, in front where he could easily pull out with his right hand. I thought that it was remarkable how we, the shapas, could find clothes and armor that would fit our small body; people could not have make armors for children, right? After all, the tallest one of us stood at one meter forty (four feet five). I would only learn much later how they were made.

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The rest of the group, three of them, like me, had only a rag for protection, and they did a very bad job at protecting our privates from the shameless breeze, and even worse at hiding them. We had no weapons, and consequently no means to protect ourselves but to rely on the oldest. On the other hand, we learned to improvise: anything that could be hold in our hand, we called it weapon, and it could be anything: a branch, a rock, anything the Forest provided us. These three shapas, walking further back and chatting incessantly about the Aulii, the woman of the Cave, carried in their hands two small horned rabbits they caught on the outskirts as we entered the Forest. But ever since entering the Forest, we found no games, and when we spotted one, we always ended up failing to catch it. Nothing was more annoying than failing to catch a game, and the oldest, feeling brash and excessively brave, finally decided to go deeper in the Forest searching for bigger preys.

We passed six or seven trees on which the ‘T’ marker was carved on the bark; a sign that the shapas used to signal danger. I once asked what ‘T’ really meant but the older shapas always shook their head like they were giving out a warning. Eventually, I learned ‘T’ was the initial of a name. Whose name was it? I could not ask any further: it was forbidden until I reached adulthood.

We continued through the Forest. My oldest brother had brought out his long dagger to cut down some obstacles in the way. I asked him for his small dagger to mark the trees along the way: we were going very deep in the Forest and could get lost if not careful. He hesitated at first but gave up, thinking that I could do him no harm. Every twenty steps, I would make a mark on a nearby tree: an eternal scar on the bark. “Sorry trees…”, I said every now and then.

The deeper we explored, the harder it was not to notice the tension there was between our relationship with the Forest. Wild grasses grew in abundance slowing our movements, the hills took more efforts to climb, the earth became wetter and the air humid; it was as if nature itself decided, on a whim, to make our lives harder and more susceptible to death. The darkness doubled because the trees multiplied, blocking the sunlight and our overall view, making it almost impossible to discern what was in front, what was on the right, on the left, behind – the three shapas in the back got almost left behind just a while ago. Luckily they did not move from their original position and, following the marks I carved on the trees, we retraced our path and found them, sitting down crying and whining about how they were dying. They, of course, received a beating from the oldest. After that event, there was no more chatting, no more rambling and crying, just silence and the occasional wind blowing against the leaves.

We just climbed a slope and descended, when I heard the crunching sound of dead leaves to the far right. I raised my left hand to halt the group’s advance and told them to stay low. We quietly advanced through thick bushes as my brother opened the path by cutting them with his long knife. Then, like he had spotted his target through the bushes, he stopped moving, and the rest followed suit, trusting their most experienced hunter. But my brother, like a possessed animal, screamed.

“BOAR! KILL!”

At that point, I did not know if it was the impatience and the frustration of not catching any games ever since entering or just pure stupidity. I was the only one to stay behind, the others had stood up and charged, following their new leader.

On the small empty field was a small boar, it seemed lost and confused, and had not yet to notice the group charging at its direction despite the obnoxious screams in the open. When it finally realized that it had been surrounded, it squealed miserably. In its voice, that slowly disappeared in the walls of flesh, showed that it understood its fate, from the eyes of its future assassins and, more evidently, from the bright glimmer of a dagger slowly raising up towards the sky.

I pitied the animal when, on the other side of the field, hidden in the shadows, two red lights was floating above the ground. From those same shadows stepped out a giant beast, a brown furred monster whose two giant tusks, sticking out from both corners of its hideous pig nose, were covered in fresh blood. Its towering size casted a menacing shadow over the five shapas, now cowering in fear.

A drop of blood fell from its right tusk and onto the my oldest brother’s face. The latter, who was usually fearless and revered by his younger brothers, respectively ran the opposite direction before any one could budge a muscle and would be the first to be abandoned when the escape failed. On his way to escape, he unfortunately stepped on his own legs and fell pitifully, face-first to the ground. The others ran pass him and did not even glance back despite his constant wailing and the yelling.

I should have just left. Without looking back, I should have left and leave him to die because I could not have care less about his well-being or life. “That violent animal deserves to die by the hand of an even more violent animal”, I thought and believed it religiously. “It is natural selection at its best”, “It is Karma”, and my inaction will be justified, and yet, instinctively, I took action and ran to his side. His eyes were blank, his previous confident self was completely pale and he looked at me like he had seen a ghost. I softly laughed at his reaction. Suddenly, like it was the end of the world, the earth started to shake violently. My eyes turned to the right, what I saw shook me to the core: the giant beast, with white bubbly foams forming at the corners of its mouth, was closing the distance between it and us at unimaginable speed. I put my brother’s arms around my shoulder in a desperate attempt to get him to stand up, but to no avail: he was too heavy. I grabbed my brother’s shirt and pulled him away towards me with all my strength. We barely dodged the monster’s charge and my brother’s foot was crushed under the weight of its left hoove. He screamed in pain, loud enough for his voice to echoed throughout the Forest.

It did not last long before I was also injured: the second charge was less of a mindless attack and more of a meticulous plan; the monster slowed down its charge and, merely several meters from us, stopped and swung violently its right horn into our bodies. It could have pierced us through with its horns but like enjoying our suffering, it decided to torment our bodies instead, before giving the final strike. Despite having put my arms up diminish the shock from the attack, it broke two of my ribs. The pain would have been enough to extinguish my consciousness but the adrenaline kept me awake. I tried to take the long dagger from my brother’s belt but was unable to: my arms were broken. At first, I was shocked then, like a madman, I could not help but giggling at my own miserable state. My legs were fine nonetheless. I looked at my brother: he was even in an even more pitiful state than me: he had pissed himself; a large puddle formed underneath. I suddenly had a crazy idea. As the beast was preparing for a third attack, I screamed, at the top of my lungs, mustering all the forces left in my bones: “GET UP!!! GET UP NOW!!!”

My brother, like an automaton, got up like he had no control over his body and only followed mindlessly my orders.

I continued:

“NOW RUN!!! RUN THE OTHER DIRECTION NOW!!!”

Again, he did what I said and, with a dumb expression on his face, ran the opposite direction with cadence. Immediately, I followed him and quickly caught up. The earth started to shake again by the horrifying noises of hooves hitting the earth at a rising rhythm. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five seconds. I counted each passing seconds, hoping that my stupid idea would work. At seven seconds, a large shock shook the earth to its core; it was so overwhelming and powerful that I lost my balance while running and fell horribly on the face. Disregarding the pain on my face and the dirt that entered my eyes, I turned back and, like a bubble of happiness had popped inside my head, laughed, clapping my hands at the same time. The beast had tripped on my brother’s urine and fell unconscious after receiving the full force of its charge on its own head. “That’s why we don’t run on a rainy day!” I told myself, reflecting. I looked to my brother’s direction but he was gone: it seemed that he did not stop running. I got up and tried to brush off the dirt on my body but impossible to move my fingers, much less my arms. I ran back to the bushes and retraced the path that the group and I took.

The Forest was calm, or perhaps it was just me imagining it. All that happened thirty minutes ago was like it had never existed: I ran for my life, thinking that it might be the end of this one, but here I was, in a place that had undoubtedly forgotten my existence or never took any interest in it from the beginning. For how long did I walk, I did not know. My head was turning, my sense dulled: my arms were numb, my legs heavy. I leaned my body against a tree and rested my head on the rough bark. My eyes managed to catch some of the rays of light penetrating through the leaves and bathed in their warmth. The scent of the pines was beyond any sweetness in the world. It filled my head with various emotions, memories that I had once rejected and thrown into the deepest pit of my brain. I tried to suppress them, but they, once in a while, surged out of my body like water surging out of a broken dam. I closed my eyes.