Hush~
With the faint whispers of wind in between the night, there had been no more events. And so the night passed. The day broke out. Reflected rays of light hit the little child's face. Slowly—slowly the child woke up. Lifting its two hands coming out of its shoulders, it rubbed its eyes and then again took in the forest it had laid its eyes upon the day before. Then he remembered—the scary events that had unfolded to him last night—and he again wanted to just cuddle into a ball and stay where he had been since the night. But this time, none of his senses warned him. No blood rush like yesterday. No warning calls. The child, puzzled about what had happened last night, couldn't understand it. And so it moved its head around, glancing at the forest.
Everything was new for the little child. The trees. The soil. The water. It was all too much to take in, and so he stayed there, glancing around, trying to absorb the forest. The child observed it for a long time. Then he got hungry. Since last night, he had not eaten anything. He didn't understand what to do. His stomach hurt. His energy—drained. The only feelings in him were hunger and confusion. He did not know what to do. He did not know how to eat. And so he cried, and cried, for a long time. But nothing happened. The cries dissolved into the vast hollowness of the forest. He was frustrated. He couldn't do anything. And so with all the movements he had done, he got tired and tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail.
Little by little, the child was losing all will in his limbs—they simply didn't want to work.
The child puzzled—he didn't know what to do. Just staying there, tears flowing from his eyes. But then—something happened. His instincts kicked in. He forcefully moved one of his hands out from behind him, grabbed a handful of dirt near him, and put it in his mouth. The soil was gritty, bitter, and foreign—yet something deep in his body believed there might be life hidden in it. He swallowed—not for flavor, but from instinct. A few nutrients reached the child's stomach—not enough to feed him, but just enough to keep him alive a bit longer.
But the child knew, even though not consciously, that it wasn't enough. Even after eating large handfuls of dirt from the forest floor, it had not been enough to rest. And so—he rolled himself slowly and carefully toward the bushes near him. Reaching them, the child grabbed at one of the leaves. Drawn by a hunger he couldn't name, he brought the soft green leaf to his mouth and sucked on it. He didn't chew—he couldn't—but the moisture and texture offered a strange, unfamiliar comfort. Some green pulp and faint traces of nutrients made their way into his stomach. It wasn't truly feeding, but his instincts calmed—just slightly.
With the sense of a vaguely filled belly, the child just laid there, four hands and two legs sprawled wide, taking in a tiny peek at the sky through the dense, towering trees. A few hours passed. Nothing happened. The child simply kept staring up at the branches and the faint patches of sky, quietly.
Then—the ground shuddered. A tremor. The earth shook.
Before he could understand what had happened, the tremor came again—shaking the ground, making it hard to roll. Again. And again.
Unable to understand this phenomenon, the child glanced around frantically, only to see bushes all around him. The first tremor had knocked him into them.
The child puzzled for some time, considering whether to look toward the source. Then, sensing the direction of the tremors, he looked beyond the bushes.
What he saw—was exhilarating.
Two giant beasts, laced with horns larger than the child's entire body, were going toe to toe. Their color—the same as the dark, loamy soil. Long, thin tails. The bloodlust thick in the air. The ground around them was dotted with shallow craters, just a few inches deep. Still, the two giants clashed.
Their hooves had carved pits around them with all the strong head-on blows they exchanged. And their battle didn't seem to be ending anytime soon.
In the midst of watching the fight, the child fell asleep. The tremors continued. The ground kept shaking. The event stretched on for several hours, no one gaining the upper hand. Then, slowly but surely, the sound of the clashes began to dampen. The blows grew weaker—each one quieter than the last.
Then suddenly—calm. The jungle quieted again. The sound of wind brushing the treetops. The soft rustle of leaves. And the hush of water touching the forest floor.
The boy, deep in sleep—woke up. The tremors—gone. The sounds—gone. It was already dusk, with just a tinge of redness in the surroundings.
Remembering the fight he had witnessed before drifting off, the boy pushed aside the bushes near him and gazed at the land where the two beasts had been. Peeking beyond the foliage, what he saw froze him.
There—the head of one of the beasts lay severed on the ground. Tongue lolling out. Bits of innards still attached. Insects already flocking. In the distance, the rest of the body was visible—stomach gouged open and flailed, intestines scattered across the floor. The jungle floor painted red wherever the insides had fallen. No movement in the limbs. No motion. The horns—shattered and scattered across the cratered ground.
A pool of blood lay beneath it—some soaked into the dirt, some resting in the pit carved during the clash.
Such scenes overstimulated the child. He stared for minutes, unmoving, unable to comprehend what this distress was inside him. Then—he turned away, gaze shifting back to the bushes. He couldn't bear to look anymore.
Distressed by what he had seen, the child couldn't eat, nor did he want to. He just lay there—wide-eyed, haunted by the memory. Moment by moment, little by little, he drifted off to sleep again. Eyes heavy. Mind confused. The world too large. Too violent.
And so, the jungle fell into silence again.