Wild Love

Ch. 1: Parallel Losses

Opening Song: 

~~~~~ 3rd Person POV ~~~~~

On a small lifeboat, a woman sat with her baby. She looked up at her husband, who was lowering the lifeboat into the ocean. Everything around them was in flames, which caused the pulley system for the lifeboat to break. It fell on top of the man as the lifeboat quickly dropped into the water. The woman searched for her husband frantically until she saw him dive into the water. He swam to her, the woman helping to pull him inside the lifeboat. They embraced in relief, only separating to check on the baby boy. He giggled at his father, both parents smiling at their son. Then, a lightning bolt strikes across the sky, alerting them of the oncoming storm. They make their way towards the island as fast as they can for safety. On the island, a troop of gorillas sit in various nests in the trees. One of the nests has a brown gorilla that watches her mate and her son play.

After the storm clears, the people start exploring the island for a place to stay. The baby's wiggling brings the parent's attention to a tree that sticks out to the rest. The family smiles at each other, the father proudly rubbing his son's head. With the gorillas, the father gorilla from earlier is playing with his son again, chasing him until the baby runs to its mother.

The people start building their home on the tree they saw, carrying wood up until they could build a pulley system to carry more things up using their lifeboat. Together, the mother and father build up a tree house for them to live in. And in the distance, a jaguar watches them.

As the gorillas slept, the baby saw a frog croaking and hopping around. The baby crawled out of its parents arms to chase after it. However, nearby, a jaguar strode around, looking for a meal. It found the baby chimp and roared at it, causing the mother and father gorilla to come running to protect their baby. The baby tried running, but it was not fast enough to get away from the jaguar and the jaguar grabbed it and killed it. The parents sought comfort in each other as they listened to their baby's screams fade into silence.

The next day, as the gorilla troop travels through the jungle, the ex-mother lags behind, still mourning her son. She stops and looks around, however, when she hears crying, a baby crying. She runs towards the sound, eventually getting to the human's house. She goes inside the house, nervous but wanting to help the baby. All around the house are little signs that something was wrong: a broken window, a gun with bullet casings around it, even two unmoving bodies laying on the ground, red paw prints hinting at what happened to them. The gorilla freaks out, backing up until she hears broken glass. Looking down, she notices a picture frame holding a picture of the humans that built the house, the woman holding their baby.

Suddenly, the baby starts crying again. The gorilla approaches it and finds it struggling under a blanket. She stared at the wriggling mass curiously before cautiously grabbing the blanket and pulling it off. The baby stops crying and tiredly rubs his eyes before looking at the gorilla. The gorilla cockes her head to the side and makes a confused noise, the baby copying. Curious, the gorilla leans in closer and starts sniffing the baby until he sneezes on her. This scares her, causing her to back up and rub her face off. Once she is done, she looks at the baby again. The baby looks back for a moment before cooing, laughing and reaching for her. The gorilla looks around before reaching down and grabbing the baby by his leg and holding him upside down. He continues to coo at her as she lays him down in her other hand. She notices his diaper and sniffs it, but it has been used.

She turned the baby around so he faced her, the baby absentmindedly blowing bubbles with his mouth. She popped one and brought him closer to her face. The baby started examining her, eventually shoving his hands into her nose. This startled the gorilla, but she shook it off when she noticed his hands. She moved the baby into the cradle of her arm, causing the baby to yawn and drift off the sleep, him cuddling into her body. She cuddled the boy back until a tail twitched above them and the gorilla felt like she was being watched. She sniffed for danger, and in the rafters above was the jaguar, growling.

The jaguar lunged at the gorilla, making her frantically climb away from it. Eventually he broke through a wall that the gorilla was leaning on, sending all of them flying. They landed on a cloth roof, making it difficult for the gorilla to get away. Luckily, the jaguar's claws cut through the cloth, making them fall to the platform below. The jaguar and the gorilla continued to fight until the jaguar hit the gorilla in the face, causing the baby to get knocked out of the gorilla's grasp and to bounce to the safety netting underneath the platform. The jaguar went to lunge for the baby, but the gorilla tackled it, looking for the baby. The jaguar got out of the gorilla's grasp and followed the baby, walking carefully on the netting. The gorilla looked between the boards to see the baby rolling down the net to the center, the jaguar following slowly behind.

There was a hole by the center pole, so the gorilla could see the baby. She could also see the jaguar slowly making its way to him. The gorilla frantically reached for the baby, her hand just short to grab him. The jaguar, seeing the gorilla's hand, bursted forward to try and get the baby first. However, it landed right next to the baby, sending the baby up in the gorilla's hand. She had his diaper, but the hole was too small for her to pull the rest of the baby up. Trying to bring him up, his diaper slipped in between two boards, allowing her to move him. Underneath, the jaguar lunged for the baby but missed every time.

The gorilla pulled the baby to the end of the platform, allowing her to bring the baby into her arms. The jaguar burst through the boards trying to get to the gorilla and baby. Looking around, the gorilla saw the lifeboat pulley system and jumped into it. As the boat fell, some of the rope wrapped around one of the jaguar's legs, pulling it up and entangling it in ropes. The gorilla took this as her chance to run, pausing to growl at the jaguar at the bridge, and then continuing to run.