Jaguar
We huddled in the cave worshiping stalactites, listening to songs of the prehistoric bat. We had no language. Memories dissolved away like crystals of snow fallen into the rushing river. The approaching night sent herds of shadows roaming across our stone walls. I was a lumbering ape, a black mountain of fur covered in sheets of frost, watching the orb of light sink into the earth. I remembered one night.
I was hunched crushing berries with my fists and coloring the walls. The cat appeared noiselessly at the mouth of the cave, its silhouette outlined against the red dusk like an enemy flag. Its eyes sharpened into glowing slits. A noiseless predator, come to take one of our young while the tribe slept. It descended into the cavern, its spine catching the last sliver of muted light.
My brute hands found a massive boulder in the darkness and lifted it over my head. Breathlessly I trundled at the invader. Flank it and crush its side. Now. I sent the boulder down, wanting to break the beast in half. Its ears flickered and the cat leaped into the blackness. The boulder smashed against rock, thunderous.
Alert the tribe. I pulled in frozen air and roared. The echo washed into the depths of the cave, over their heaving hibernating mounds, evicting a cloud of bats, but the sleepers did not stir. They slept an impenetrable sleep, they slept like stones.
Her furious growl circled me. Her movements refined and focused. A sleek killer, hunting a hunkering homunculus. Erupting out of the darkness. Her claws raced up my back. I swung my hands behind me and clasped her jaws and held them moments away from my skull. Her breath boiled my ear. She clung to me, wanting to sink her teeth into my head and eat my mind.
We were like that for some time. The black beast on my back dug her claws through my fur, snarling, opening me. I held her jaws, twisting off her head. I felt a claw in my side and wet warmth escaping. No more ideas. I began a lumbering run toward the mouth of the cave. The ice wind smashed into us as we emerged. Her vicious breath warmed me.
“What are you doing?”
“Throwing us in the river.”
“Go ahead. I’d love a good swim.”
I leaped over a rock ledge and launched us off of the cliff. Down through frozen branches of trees, through a world of tangled vines and sharp spikes, through glowing spiderwebs and comatose insects. I lost my grip on the cat’s jaws, but she did not sink her teeth into me. The murmuring below grew into a cacophony and then I was eye to eye with a baffled fish. I looked for her through the murk as I was carried downstream. My hands clasped a thick root and dragged me up to the surface. I crawled out into the mud of the riverbank, stood at the edge of the churning river, and roared. Somewhere upstream the cat roared back. Since then I have not slept.
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