Seeonee 2 - Chapter 5
#5 of Seeonee 2
Chapter 5
- "Found what you came looking for?", an overly familiar voice starkly asked.
A beige and black wolf stood behind me, grimly staring at me. "Don't you think we would notice you coming back here? I could've stopped you before you entered our territory, but I wanted you to see this for yourself. Now you know there is nothing left here for you. Go to what was your den, take what is yours, and leave." I looked at the wolf in disbelief. "What? What has happened, Sura? Why do you want me to lea..." "You abandoned us!", he hissed. "You choose to go alone, and you disappeared." "Hey, I was captured when I got to the settlement! I had no chan..." "You should have had me come along with you.", he interrupted me again. "And what do you think what would have happened with you when they captured me? You'd have been killed on the spot. I said so!" "Then at least father would still have been here to lead the pack", Sura snarled. Father? Alexander? Gone? What on Earth has happened?", I asked in despair. Sura walked to me. "Bagheera and father went after you when you didn't return after two weeks. We never saw them again", he bitterly said. I balled my fists. "Shere-Khan", I whispered. The wolf curled his lips, exposing his canines. "I hold you responsible for what has happened. You could have chosen not to go. You, as no other, knew the risk of being captured there." "And disobey an order from a pack's alpha? And you wanted to see Mowgli as badly as father did." Sura growled. "I explained what happened. You know enough. I have no more patience for you. We no longer want you. Now go!" I shook my head. I couldn't even cry any more. "I'm going to make that tiger pay for what he has done." "Your death-wish won't change anything about what I just said", Sura coldly remarked as I walked by him. I stopped, and looked him in his eyes, "I don't think you give a damn anymore if I live or die now, do you?", I bitterly said before walking away.
A hard blow against my back made me loose balance and fall on the ground. With my hands, I tried to push myself back up from the ground, but the big beige-black wolf pushed me over on my back and pinned me to the ground with his front paws on my chest, His bright green eyes shooting fire. "How dare you say that! We cared about you. We thought you were dead! Fell pray to Shere-Khan. We mourned you! You were my brother! Akru's brother! We loved you like you were one of us. But apparently, you choose to return to the human world, in stead of us!", the wolf viciously snarled at me, his fangs getting uncomfortably close to my face and neck. Without thinking I reached down to my left thigh, unsheathed my bowie knife and pointed the tip at Sura's chest. "Please. Don't", I said. Something snapped in the wolf. With a powerful leap, he jumped off of me and turned around. With a low, deep, and threatening growl he said: "If our paths ever cross again, I will kill you." Sura gave me one last ominous stare before running off to a small group of wolves in the far distance. For a split second, I thought I recognized Akru and Lala. But the second Sura reached them, they all ran away.
A cold breeze woke me up later that day. Dazed and disorientated, I looked around and sat up-right. I felt broken and beaten. For the first time in my life, I truly felt homeless. I even felt worse than in that dirty cell back in Balaghat. I could not understand and comprehend Sura's hostile attitude towards me. But now it was too late. I came to the realization that I crossed a line by pulling my knife on him. Something I did not even do when Sandah attacked me, and Sandah wanted to kill me. Sura however, was my wolf brother. Fruitlessly, I tried to rationalize my actions. I had not been close to any large predators in years. And then the first contact was an attack. I panicked because his hostility took me by surprise? But I shook my head. I should have kept my cool. Would the other wolves of the pack share his opinion? I thought about Sura's stark threat. It would be better for me to leave. It had already been a few hours now. For the last time, I looked at the den. The place where I had shared so many happy moments with my brothers, Alexander, Luri... My hands went through the vegetation, and over the rocks blocking the entrance. 'If Alexander went after me with Bagheera and went missing... It must mean that...' I took a few steps back. 'Oh no', I gasped. I tried to remember the group of wolves Sura ran to this morning. I thought I saw Lala and Akru, but I could not recall even seeing a hint of the white wolf in the group. And Sura didn't say anything about her.
"My deathwish", I repeated softly. I had no place here any more. Without the financial means or a desire to return to the Netherlands to once again pick up my life there, I decided that I would go do what I said to Sura. Beyond any doubt, I would not survive a confrontation with Shere-Khan, but with my bowie knife in one hand, and the machete, which more resembled a small sword, in the other, I could at least inflict serious, or perhaps even lethal injuries. If I would not be too late, that was. With the terror he unleashed in Balaghat, it would only be a matter of time before he'd be tracked down, shot, and killed by hunters. With an aching heart, I grabbed my backpack, and swung it around my back. I walked back up to the den's entrance and touched one of the rocks with my left hand. In my mind, I bade Luri farewell and walked away without looking back.
The four hour long walk back to the campsite went by in a haze. I started a fire with some gathered logs and twigs to warm upf some canned soup as a starter, before eating another MRE. The food did me good and at least lifted my spirit for a little bit. While chewing, the monotone sounds of the forest and the rush of the turbulent water of the river close by almost hypnotized me. The rays of sunlight penetrating the forest canopy turned more yellow as the end of the day approached, producing the most beautiful colours and shapes. It made the forest look old and ripe. Bitter-sweet. Like the last warm and sunny Sunday afternoon of the Summer vacation before the new school year starts. It only added to my melancholic mood. I collected a heap of leafs, springy branches and plants. During the next half hour or so, I fabricated a two by one metre screen of woven twigs, branches, and leafs. With a foldable shovel, I dug out a ditch long, wide and deep enough for me to sprawl in, and be below ground level, covered the soil with leafs, and lay the screen that I made over it. And not a moment too soon. My body was exhausted after these last two days, not in the least because of the severe mental blow of this morning. I took off my clothes and crawled into my sleeping bag. My first night sleeping in the forest again. But I was alone. Oh how I longed for my wolf family. Eventually, I fell asleep.
The loud, dry snap of a breaking dead branch woke me up. I literally jumped straight up out of my sleeping bag and through the vegetation screen that I had put up as a roof and camouflage, with the machete in my left hand, and the bowie knife the right, ready to violently lash out at whatever it was that woke me. Sura, Akru and Lala sat a small distance away from me. A few rays of moonlight penetrating through the forest canopy bathing them in an eerie hue, giving them a ghost like appearance. They were silent, their icy cold stare penetrating my soul. I desperately tried to look away, but couldn't. Then their gaze shifted and seemed to converge in a point somewhere in the middle between me and them. A gust of wind, and the shapes of two wolves appeared in that spot. The forest went silent. Alexander and Luri sat right there next to each other. Silently, they stared at me with looks of pain, sorrow, worry and despair. Then their eyes glazed over. Their stare hollowed out. Bald patches appeared on their cheeks, their heads, their chests. First small, but growing in size, and meeting up. A sudden, strong gust of wind blew their fur away until all that was left was their pale, wrinkly skin. That gradually started to turn darker, first light brown, then dark brown, black, leathery. The overwhelmingly penetrating, pungent, sickening stench of rotting flesh filled the air. Their glazed eyes disappeared, leaving only eye sockets eerily staring at me. Another gust of wind flaked their skin away. I was paralyzed, unable to escape from seeing this gruesome, horrible hell. Their skulls appeared. Spines, ribcages, femurs, tibia's, and finally, no tissue was left. All that remained were their bones. Their eye sockets kept on staring at me, their jawbones slightly apart, as if they tried to say something, until a final gust of wind turned their bones to dust.
My own violent scream woke me up, and like in my nightmare, I instantly jumped up out of the ditch, my machete in my left hand. The contrast to my nightmare could not have been bigger. It was morning. The forest was fragrant, appeared friendly, accommodating, hospitable. The temperature was pleasant. My head spun. I collapsed back in the ditch, into a sobbing heap. I lay there for another hour or so. My eyes burning and sticky from tears, shocked by the nightmare my brain had composed. Even if it was all a dream, it felt and looked so real, so vivid, so detailed. After composing myself a bit, I got out of the ditch and put my clothing on, ate some more soup and cleaned up the area. Dug a hole, dumped the used MRE package and soup cans in it and covered it up with earth. I strapped the bowie knife to my right thigh, and the machete to my left and started the long hike back to Balaghat, and Shere-Khan's territory.