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Last known words of Herbert Norwall, head ornithologist of the Rinnean Ducal Academy.
A dreamless sleep came quickly, the previous day's fatigue heavily pressing down on his battered body.
He woke up the next morning, a cacophony of pain and aches, bruises, and half-healed wounds protesting with each of his movements.
Forcing himself, he stood, reached for his weapons, and prepared for the new day.
His thoughts were crystal clear as he walked towards the newly built campfire, and the boy once again chastised himself.
“Assuming the treetops were safer than the ground level was a mistake, a dumb one, and lowering my guard was even dumber, especially because I know practically nothing about this godforsaken place“.
His darting eyes were again scanning every nook and cranny of the greenery, while he firmly held on his weapons, ready to answer any peril coming from the wood's shadows.
“I can fashion some tools from the beast bones, but learning what the fuck is going on around the island is another priority… food shouldn’t be a concern anymore, but I also need to find a better hideout”.
Mulling over a new plan of action, he reached his destination, dunked his head in the cold, rejuvenating stream, and dug out his bounty from its shallow burial place, noting how the earth around it wasn’t even touched.
“Mmh, no sign of scavengers either… what’s the deal with this weird ecosystem ?”
The fur, once a majestic tapestry of greens and browns, was marred with mud and blood, but it showed no sign of breakage, attesting to its strength and elasticity, and both bones and tendons were as he left them, wetly glimmering in the day’s light.
He gathered some dry kindling, lit his fire, and started the pelt-drying process, hoping it would be enough to preserve the hide, lacking the tools needed to cure and tan the panther's skin.
He wanted to fashion some useful utensils out of the bones, claws, and tendons of the beast, so, he grabbed his knife and started to carve up the sturdy materials.
The rest of his morning was spent this way, chipping away at the various tasks he set up for himself, stoking the fire when it needed tending, looking out for peril coming from the depth of the jungle, and cutting up the limbs of the panther that attempted to take his life.
Once the sun reached its peak in the sky, he approached the pelt, dried over the lazy flame of his campfire, remade his bundle, and brought everything back to his cave, now reasonably sure that the cleaned remains would no longer attract other predators.
Setting everything down in the recesses of his hideout, Omri’s next steps were clear, and he ventured to grab something to eat, his stride quick and purposeful as he reached the fig clearing.
The birds and the monkeys looked at his new climb with respect, his victory over the predator still fresh in their minds, even as his battered body fought him each step of his ascent.
Properly sated, he reached for the higher branches, trying to get a good vantage point from which to check out the nearby forest, but the tree’s canopy surrounding the clearing was too thick, and the boy grumbled his displeasure during his descent, annoyed from the waste of time.
The rest of the week blended in a monotonous haze as his routine solidified in a balance of cautious exploration, primitive crafting, hunting, and gathering.
In his travels, he found more resources, new species of unknown fruits, some of which smelled so foul he wondered how any being could possibly eat them, and, as he started to dive deeper into the jungle recesses, the signs of various animal’s skirmishes
On the seventh day, he pulled back on this kind of explorations, after finding a scratch mark the length of his body on one of the giant trees that dotted the forest floors.
He woke up the same night with a strangled scream, dreaming of a massive beast ravaging his body, a giant with no form, all teeth, fur, and claws.
The youngster spent a few days simply gathering more resources, finishing his bow and arrows, and stockpiling for food, which he hid in some caving deadwood near his home, reminding himself of the squirrels back home.
Hopefully, unlike them, he would remember the location of all his stashes.
With a new dawn ahead of him, and the various aches in his body having subsided suspiciously fast during the last week, Omri returned to his everyday grind.
He tested his bow with a few of the wood-tipped arrows, nodding satisfied as the bolts went straight, each one piercing through the body of one of those rotten fruits that dotted the vicinity of his safe house.
Donning his new attire, a cut-open poncho that left both arms free to move, the boy gathered his weapons and fastened them to various buckles he had made with the beast’s tendon.
One of the panther’s upper canines now adorned his spear tip, a grisly upgrade to his arsenal, while the other fangs ended up on the arrows held in his quiver.
Almost ready to begin his expedition, he wiggled the sturdy knife at his hips, strapped a satchel holding in a few tools to his belt, and nodded satisfied as both held strong at his waist.
Staring at his map, now updated after the last few days of exploration, he carefully planned his next moves.
“Going south past the otter’s grove is too risky, whatever makes that place his home is far worse than the panther”, he thought, mulling over the first night spent on the island, and the giant tracks he found on the trees coasting the beast’s territory.
“That leaves me with two equally unpleasant choices: miles of roving in the jungle up north or miles of trekking down the foothills to the east”.
Omri ended up choosing the latter.
“If I want to get a full view of this place my best bet is probably the peaks of those rocky formations… And I’m tired of jumping at every shadow hiding in the greenery”.
The resulting plan was rather simple: take the trail that reached the fig tree clearing, make a quick stop to pick some fruits for the trip, and then push deeper into the uncharted jungle, to hopefully find something useful, or at least not harmful.
A path through the verdant maze now clearly defined, Omri walked into the thick tangle, the weight of the panther’s tabard and his new weapons a reassuring sensation over his shoulders.
It made him bold.
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His steps faster and steadier than ever before, he made his way to the known gathering spot.
Quickly climbing his now favorite tree, he grabbed his meal, waving a hand to the forest wildlife as they looked at his now spiderlike climb, before moving to the next destination.
The past weeks spent carefully exploring the vicinity of his shelter had taught him a lot about the deeper woods.
Each sound had its place in the jungle symphony: the rustling of bushes, the meaning behind a seemingly casual pattern in the bird chants, their silence, and the forest silence itself, were all pieces of a puzzle he was starting to grasp.
The first few hours of travel were blessedly uneventful.
He rapidly approached the landmass center, where the vegetation had become sparser, grey cliffs and barren soil gradually taking over towering ancient trees and verdant ferns.
The underbrush, no longer a thick, suffocating tangle, offered a better view, and thanks to the improved line of sight, it was now possible to get a better idea of where he was moving.
Just before noon, Omri managed to reach his destination: a clearing he had already noticed scouting from the fig tree, its small area virtually devoid of trees.
From higher up, he thought it a natural meadow, but, getting closer, his interest spiked, realizing it was not.
Vegetation he thought to be absent had actually been cut, or more accurately, snapped, by what started to seem like the scene of a fight.
Approaching cautiously, more details became clear, and luckily, the broken terrain, now almost covered in new growth, told him that whatever had happened there happened years ago.
Offshoots wildly sprouting from the trees’ broken stumps had already begun to meld the clearing together with the encroaching forest.
“This could be one of the island's top predators' battlefields,” thought the boy dreamily, wondering about the titanic clash.
”Not a good spot for me to rest then”.
His thoughts made up, Omri looked at the sun, still high in the clear azure sky, and decided to keep cautiously exploring the surrounding cliffsides, when an auburn glint caught his eye.
Almost completely claimed by nature, a rusty sword lay on the ground, what was left of the blade stuck between the roots of two twisted stubs.
The weapon itself was nothing special, but the meaning behind it was impossible to miss: other people had been on the island.
Ogling the ruined piece of metal, he squashed down his rising hopes, and centered himself, not letting his mind ruminate too much on the chance of civilization being near enough to reach.
What followed was a brief investigation of the clearing, bringing to light more and more details, as spearheads, knives, arrows, and a multitude of rusted pieces of metal were dug up one after the other.
He adjusted his previous assumptions.
“A small group, well armed, probably killed by one of the apexes considering there is not a single bone left around here”.
Omri shuddered a bit, the idea of one of his nightmares coming to life and massacring a group of seasoned soldiers burned at the forefront of his mind.
As he was thinking about what could possibly bring a whole group of people to that godforsaken place a sudden realization struck him.
“Unless they were also castaways, somewhere around here must be their camp”.
A last look at his surroundings made him backtrack on the musings.
“Or at least, I should be able to find what’s left of it ”.
And, lo and behold, find it he did. The whole affair turned out easier than he had imagined, as he located the man-made base just a little further north, not too far from the waterway that cut his side of the island into two asymmetrical parts.
Whoever had chosen the place had no idea of what lurked in the jungle.
Omri lost track of time while analyzing the campsite ruins, his curiosity burning bright at the last discovery.
Signs of combat also dotted the main encampment, everything not already claimed by nature lying in pieces scattered over the growing vegetation and on the shallow ferns on the ground.
After carefully analyzing the site, the only option that came to his mind was an exploratory expedition.
“A small group, maybe 20 or so people, too small to think about starting a colony, with a sizable group of combatants to defend the rest of the staff.”
What he thought would be a small detour turned out to be a time-consuming effort, and the boy, wanderlust finally sated, took a long look at the slowly falling sun, a sense of dread setting in.
He was too far from home.
Getting back in the dark would be suicide, and finding a new hideout for the night was a coin toss between life and death.
Looking around, he briefly wondered about spending the night perched on the trees, but he quickly denied that option, as a fight in the dark with something like the panther would also be a sure way to die.
His mind made up, he started jogging toward the island's reliefs, bobbing and weaving between the sparse vegetation, hoping that the rocky formations, surely hiding some caves, would provide him the shelter he so desperately needed.
He found what he was looking for along the smooth slopes of one of the looming spires, a deep cave, its gaping mouth resembling a large wound on the cliff's jagged sides.
The cavern’s size was not a good omen, but the sun was almost fully hiding beneath the horizon, and, considering he had no other alternative, the boy gathered some firewood and made his way into the dark rocky maws.
“No strange smells, and I don't see any carcass remains around here. The entrance is too big for my tastes, but sleeping in the jungle is just too stupid to consider ” he thought.
Setting up the campfire, he grabbed his knife and made some shavings, before grabbing a large flint from the satchel at his hip.
Quickly, bright embers shone a light on his surroundings, and the cavern’s view cleared up, second by second.
The cave sloped slightly downward, and the young warrior was startled as a gentle breeze blew from its depths, a cooling sensation spreading through his body.
He suddenly felt it again, that same tug calling for him from deep inside his chest.
It was a feeble thing, nothing compared to the almost raging arm that pulled him when he was drowning in the merciless embrace of the sea.
It was coming from the cavern’s dark depths, down in the earth's bowels, a long way below ground.
He could not help it. Something inside him wanted to know.
He took a couple of careful steps toward the wind source, and, as a second playful wave reached out for the boy, the compulsion hit him like a tide.
Lifting a torch taken from his campfire he made his way deeper into the cave.
The walls narrowed quickly, the floor getting steeper and steeper, but Omri paid no mind to his surroundings, rapidly pushing toward the pull’s source.
It kept getting stronger, and when the tunnel in front of him started to shine with a faint azure light, Omri briefly questioned his sanity, wondering if he touched some weird mushroom on his way through the forest.
He squeezed through a last crevice, and his mind ground down to a screeching halt, as he found himself locked in place, the mesmerizing sight laid in front of his eyes alien and wonderful.
That narrow tunnel he followed gave way to a massive cave, covered in bioluminescent moss that weaved together in a complex pattern of multicolored hues, deep blues, faint cyans, and comforting ceruleans.
The youngster slowly walked into the blending spectacle of lights, transfixed by the beautiful landscape surrounding him.
He slowly shook himself out of his stupor, and, as he reached the gigantic dome’s center, something tugged at his perception, the cave’s air suddenly stilling.
Below the lights, below the breeze, the faint stench of rotten meat made its way through his nostrils, and he started to scan his surroundings, deeply aware that something was off.
Bringing the torch closer to the floor, blood-chilling fear started to seep in, as he revealed an uncountable number of bone shards littering the grounds.
He tried to silence the omnipresent hum in his body, focusing more on the environment that now pressed on him, heavy and wet with the promise of blood, and finally, a low grumble managed to cut through Omri's senses.
His eyes widened like saucers as he localized its source.
A bear the size of a medium-sized cabin was shallowly sleeping at the edge of the grotto, edged between two stalagmite clusters, the 50 feet of distance separating them so seemingly small.
All of his attention was locked on the grumbling beast, on the twitching nose that was greedily taking in the smell of his fear.
The boy slowly backtracked his steps, painfully aware of the low creaking sound the broken bones made beneath his feet, and when the beast started to rise, blearily looking around, their gazes met.
Omri turned, sprinting into a dead run, as the bear let out an earth-shattering roar, enraged at the impudent intruder violating his domain.