Quiet Earth — Prima Earth Chronicles: Part 1
I remember colors … one at time, coalescing in front of my vision like the moon’s many shades. First came orange and its radiant energy. Then green and the rush of life inherent in the living color, which in the moment perplexed my feeble mind. Red came next, thumping new blood through my veins. Blue razed my menial awareness and brought the touch of a beginning, one I still fall short of understanding to this day. Hundreds more came after, each with their own awakening, exhuming plebeian cognitions of this quiet earth … the one, in time, we called Prima. If all living things came to be the way I did, the way all our people did, then we are truly related, brothers and sisters of the stars above and the ground below. It is with great esteem, yet caution, that I say this, for one does not kill their brother or their sister, like we sacrifice the doe, to survive — yet they stave the drive to live and accept mortality earlier than expected. Perhaps, kin we once were, but now only exist to mutually survive each other.
The day my eyes opened to this great world, the commencement of our race, was not day at all, but a night with a silver moon and a prevailing wind from the south. All the colors which forced life upon me, giving me the imbedded and rudimentary tools to cope with existence, flashed for what some called a thousand lives, yet felt like a blink of the eye. Evermore did a voice say, “live … live … live until the dawn of the other has come … the day when you have reached your sum.” The words still echo faintly, in the deepest hole of my memory, lingering like the lone cloud that shields the sun.
The grass under my bare side was the first thing I felt. Its virgin blades frolicked against my skin, fueled by the warm gale. I trembled, though I was not cold. I cowered, though I knew nothing of fear. Others, few others, as bare as I, woke around me with no sound but that of the First Breath. The ground pulsed beneath, a turquoise hue, with no coherent origin, and housed us in the middle of a copse. The trees glowered like sentinels dutifully binding us to our spot. The stars uncovered our shame like prying eyes and the moon hovered over all like the god, we for so long, thought it to be.
In my dumbfounded state, I could only observe with less than a child’s understanding, the others appearing similarly. Something innate, deep within, told us we were the same, and that each other could be trusted, but this could not be said for beyond the pulsing ground beneath us. We sat and listened to the sound of the quiet earth for hours. The rustle of a bush, the breaking of a branch, and the silencing of prey fluttered by our perfect ears. All was meant to harm us. Why? We had no answers, we had only misguided instincts to distrust everything that was not us.
The first touch, from another that is, occurred that first night. The howls of wolves echoed along the mountain ridges and thrust through the trees like sharpened arrows. Our bodies clambered together as the sound was the most hideous yet. A carnal rage of insidious delight played in the yelps, the timbre of which I’ve yet to hear again. How helpless we were, bundled tight with eyes affright, waiting for whatever could possess such a shriek.
The great predators stalked from all fronts, their paws eluded every leaf and their pants muted, yet their intent so palpable, it strangled our hearts. As I looked into the dark of the woods around surrounding, yellow eyes focused their glare on the ones they had called for. A pitiable moan emanated from our group as they began to see what I had. The hunters broke through the and glimmered in the sliver moon’s light. The majesty of life’s beginning held no candle to the terror of its end. We knew not what life was or what it could become, but we feared its abduction and clung to it like a mountain to its roots. With each step, their hackles rose and teeth flared.
All of us intertwined in the middle of the glowing patch of ground, crying, shivering, and shedding the first of many tears. More than twenty wolves had encircled, waiting for the alpha’s order to attack. When he gave the sign, indiscernible to others, they rushed forward. I shut my eyes as we braced for whatever fate bade. Someone rustled out from the middle of the group and ran. I opened my eyes and watched as he eluded the first wolves and went for the forest. However, he did not make it. Two took him down and the others followed. The crunching of bone and slobbering over fresh meat caused the bile to rise, gaging the back of my throat. We remained bundled together, weeping and moaning, eventually falling asleep to the music of murder.
We awoke in darkness with the same silvery moon, the same stars, and the same glowing patch of ground encircling our coterie. The tears of others coated my arms and head, for they even wept in slumber. The gales returned as did the sounds of night. Our embrace tightened as the time passed and waited for our enemy to emerge. If we knew of prayer, we would have prayed, if we knew of hiding, we would have hid, if we knew of hunting, we would have hunted, alas, we were ignorant and so we waited like all fools do.
The howls came, echoing off the mountain ridges once again. We bundled together in our fear without a thought among us, the feeling driving all. The yellows eyes crept through the forest, more boldly than before. They surrounded our pathetic mass and encroached. Before they could get too close, one of ours, jostled out of our collection and made for the trees like other had. Like the other, they caught her within steps. The mangled sounds of screaming and feasting put us into another weeping slumber.
The night, always the night, greeted us again as I was the first to wake. One by one the others roused. We counted off the steps of the gloom without numbers as the sounds, the gales, and the dreadful yellow eyes arose in sequence.
We bundled even tighter than before as our enemy grew closer, salivating as if they could already taste us. They strode through the trees unconcerned with the clamor or lack of stealth, whatever respect they had for their prey vanished. The moans and tears of my kin commenced. With every step of the enemy, our group fidgeted as if all planned to run. I watched as the wolves stalked, coming closer and closer. The others unwound themselves from each other and prepared to flee. I remained seated, still bound to several. After a few more steps, they too, fidgeted away from our bond. One ripped his arm away from mine and my hand braced my fall. The glowing grass pulsed at my touch.
“Be still!” I commanded, the words coming from something beyond myself. I raised my hand and looked at the glowing ground beneath it. Could it be? Was it the earth who spoke through me? I replaced my hand and uttered the only words I could. “Be still!” And everyone went still.
The wolves remained unimpeded, although surprised that no one had fled, they still closed in. We interwove ourselves with each other and waited for our fate. I felt the tears of others drop onto my skin and I closed my eyes, staying the weeping spell. A cacophony of yelps screeched like a broken instrument. I opened my eyes to a shocking sight; not blood or death, but the wolves cowering on the edge of our glowing patch of ground. Every few seconds one would move closer and as soon as it grazed the rim of the turquoise light, it whimpered as if something injured it from the inside. All of us grew silent and the tears stalled as we watched in utter confusion.
Our enemy tried and tried to pass, to break the barrier that kept us from them, yet each time they cowered and stumbled away.
Hours passed and we remained unharmed, simply watching as our enemy grew tired and frazzled. They began to nip at each other as the hunger and frustration gnawed at their resolve. I locked eyes with the largest of the pack, the alpha. He stared at me, not like prey, but one who had been defeated. In that moment, I knew we’d survive the night. He turned to his pack and gave the sign to retreat and one by one they did, leaving us to the majesty of solitude.
We hung in a state of tempered euphoria, happy that our enemy retreated, questioning in our own minds if they would return.
Day never came, in the beginning, one night rolled into a darker one and so on and so forth. The wolves came for the next few days, testing for weaknesses, goading us to leave the safety of the glowing ground, none of it worked. They came fewer and fewer as the weeks went on, most of the time it was only a few stragglers or juveniles who failed to learn their lesson. We watched and studied their movements, their technique in stalking prey — that is when the first hunger panged.
The sensation was new and altogether frazzling to our simple minds, we only knew that we felt angst and needed something to quell it. It took several days for us to prompt into action. Ufas, Imbad, and Attur made the first move. They had watched families of squirrels make homes in the closest set of trees and this mere act of watching a defenseless creature seemed to entice their bodies to act. When the forest grew quietest, the three sprinted toward the unsuspecting victims. They dug out palm sized stones imbedded in the dirt and launched them at the prey, killing nine squirrels. Collecting their bounty, they rushed back to the safety of our glowing patch and began to divide the kills amongst the entire group. There were twenty of us originally, two killed, so it became eighteen, that meant one carcass per pair. Sharing came easy to the clan, far easier than it seems today. It was necessary in the beginning, we had to lean on each other for survival or the whole would fail. Attur brought the last squirrel and placed it beside my feet. He was the tallest of the group and his shoulders could have supported an ox’s yoke. He ripped the critter in half and we feasted for the very first time. Years later, I would call this man husband, and you would call him father.
A.P. Stayberg has been writing and creating characters since he was twelve years old. His favorite subjects to write and read are Fantasy and Literary fiction. His first book, The Earth Mover, a young adult high fantasy novel will be debuting this Fall. Check out his website at www.apstayberg.com and look for his book on Amazon, barnesandnoble.com/Nook Press, Kobo, and Smashwords.
