Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2015 20:25:11 GMT -5
JOEY▪ TAG ▪ NOTES
S
oft knocking bounced around the cave. A sharp clack of rock on rock repeating almost endlessly though not very loudly. The echo came from deep within the darkness of the cave where only the tiniest rays of light peaked through. It mattered very little to him at this point. The darkness hid him. From what? He didn't know. Whatever brought him here. The plane- right.. whatever took out the plane. That- that thing.. that was what he was hiding from. It was almost like it was some big imaginary monster in his mind at this point. Monkeys too were viscous little creatures if you got in the way of their food. Without people to fear the furred creatures had no reason to see him as a threat and had stood their ground when he went after their fruit. He came away with a bite mark and a dead monkey. He was used to killing things- he was a hunter after all. Still, there was something about this that made hunting far more... real. Killing for survival was different than killing for sport. It also wasn't like he had his big brother here to help him clean the meat and he had no way to cook it. The fact that food was sitting rotting so close and he could do nothing was maddening. The stone once again smacked against the rock, chipping away the softer stone to slowly make a point. After hours of doing this he had gotten into a bit of a trance, fueled by hunger and desperation to have something to eat. Hours spent on this stone barely bigger than his palm now flattened and sharpened. A hysterical giggle left him as he rose the stone to the corpse of the monkey, waving it in triumph to the thing as if it could relish in his accomplishment. But it couldn't... it was dead. It was dead... right?
He stayed crouched, going over to tap it with his foot. Yes, it was dead. It had been for days. He must have gotten used to the smell by now. He grabbed it by the decaying arm, dragging it out of the caves and tossing it down the hill. Maybe it would be a warning to the other monkeys to stay away from him and his caves. A distant howling from the others caused him to twitch and look around wildly. Could they hear his thoughts? No... probably not..? He felt stupid for thinking it- which just made him angry. He thought of his brother whose voice played in the back of his mind. The memory of his brother's face almost as clear as if he was really there, his arms crossed over his chest in disapproval.
"You wasted that," he imagined his brother saying to him, casting a glance down at the corpse.
"I can't eat it now! Its... its... rot. No... bad meat," he argued back, shaking his head as he pressed his palms firmly to his temples. "GO AWAY! You are dead. I'm not crazy... I'm not!" The crash had taken everything from him. His old life, his brother- everything was lost forever. Maybe he could have died too if he had stayed in his seat like he was supposed to. He'd gotten out of his to talk to someone in the front of the plane: a girl he'd talked to when they were still waiting to board. Some first class beauty about his age. When the plane went down he had to strap himself down next to some stranger instead of his brother. He hit his head hard enough to knock him unconscious and the girl had been... well... her window seat section had been removed from the plane. He was left almost hanging out. It had been a miracle that he had been left with only a few scrapes.
His brother also was no longer in his seat. He hadn't seen him when he left the plane either, just dead bodies. Dead bodies including the girl who he had just been talking to. So he ran. He ran and ran until he no longer could remember which way was which. The caves had become his refuge- leaving him to think on his mistake of leaving his seat. Leaving him with the guilt of surviving that crash when his brother- the one who could do everything better- was dead... and haunting him.
The image of his brother looked at him sternly, reading his thoughts and getting angry just as he knew Zach would do if he said he wanted to die. "I know... I know... I know! I know!" he was yelling the words angrily back, the face of his brother warping and twisting before the image vanished. It just left him with the feeling that he was being watched. That feeling he had tried to escape from by going with his brother embodied in the mindset that he couldn't do anything. That he wasn't allowed to die because he lived and his brother hadn't. He tore at his dark locks, curling down with his forehead pressed to the cave of the rocky floor.
Then, just like that, he got up, the tantrum over. He panted a bit, looking around with wild eyes with the rock clenched in his fist. He needed something- anything- to eat.