Surviving

Chapter 10

It happened without warning. Though you had been vaguely expecting something for the past week, Koba’s attack still managed to shock you. One moment you were happily playing with Blue Eyes in the sun and the next you tasted dirt, hitting the ground hard, the wind knocked out of you. You scrabbled on the ground, gasping for air. A shadow loomed over you.



“Koba?” you croaked “What the hell?” His face was twisted up into a snarl of rage, unrecognisable in his anger.



“She. Is. Soldier!” he screeched, holding up your brother’s dogtags. They glinted in the evening sunlight. Your heart dropped to your stomach. Koba’s screech had attracted a crowd. Looking around you could see most were still confused, not realising the severity of Koba’s claim. Caesar stepped up beside you and you glanced at him desperately before turning back to Koba, trying to snatch the dogtags.



“Give those back!” you yelled, grasping for them. He simply sneered at you, moving away from your grabby hands. Caesar frowned down at you.



“Is this true?” he asked. “Are you soldier?”



“No!” you said, desperate for him to believe you. Even as the words fell from your lips, you realised the futility of them. Caesar’s expression was torn, his gaze flitting from you to Koba and back again, his lips pressed in a harsh line. An expression he seemed to make when he was conflicted. With growing realisation you began to understand his hesitancy. Koba was a major part of the colony, a right hand of sorts to Caesar along with Maurice. Caesar couldn’t just disregard his accusation and take your side. It would create a rift in the colony and could possibly even turn Koba against him. Not to mention most of the apes had suffered at the hands of humans, to see their leader take the side of one against an influential member of the colony could have disastrous consequences.



“And all that was disregarding one large, glaring point” you thought, your heart sinking like a stone toward your stomach, “That Caesar himself may not believe me” Sure he had seemed to warm to you quickly and trusted you with the care and safety of his only son, but he still was somewhat wary of you, holding a certain aloofness around you especially when it came to matters of the apes escape from the city and the origins of the virus. You knew he was holding something back from you, you just weren’t sure why other than the fact he didn’t trust you.



With all this in mind, you lowered your eyes to the dirt, defeat weighing heavy on your chest. Distantly you were aware that Koba was still screeching and you braced yourself for what would come next.



“I’ll leave” you said, raising your voice to be heard over the ongoing argument. The screeching stopped as abruptly as it started. All eyes turned to you, questioning and shocked in varying degrees. Your eyes locked with Koba and his face twisted up into a snarl.



“Leave?” he growled, “Why let you leave? So you tell soldiers of ape home?” his voice was rising again. “No! We kill her! Protect ape home!” Your blood turned to ice at his words. This was an outcome you haven’t counted on. You had assumed they would just kick you out, back to the lonely life you had before you found them. Knowing Koba’s history of violence, you supposed you shouldn’t be so surprised. But surely Caesar wouldn’t let this happen. He seemed to abhor violence in the same way Koba thrived on it. Glancing at Caesar, you almost took back that thought. His teeth were bared in an expression of primal anger you had never seen on his face before, not even the first night you were here. He looked ready to rip Koba’s throat out. If Koba was aware of the danger he was in, he didn’t act it. His face was curled into a mocking sneer that you were very familiar with, as if provoking Caesar to give in to his anger. Looking between the two hulking apes, you realised this was not all about you. This was about authority. Koba was challenging Caesar.



What could’ve happened next, you would never know as the tension was broken by the large lumbering form of Maurice. The gentle giant was more agitated than you had ever seen him, his hands a flurry of movement as he stepped between the two apes, forcing them apart. He was making a clicking sound that was higher than his normal pitch, his usually unflappable demeanour shattered. Though you couldn’t catch his signs, you could tell he was chastising the two, his movements and actions jerky and pointed as he gestured towards yourself and Koba then out to the surrounding forest. A minute or two passed in this manner before he finally seemed to calm, signing decisively.



“No killing!” he crossed his arms after this statement, glaring to discourage any opposition. Caesar nodded in support and turned to Koba, daring him to disagree. Koba scoffed in disgust, waving his arms in a disgruntled display but you could tell he had accepted defeat. Even he knew that he couldn’t win against both apes. With a last screech of defiance, he sprung off the rock, battering his way through the crowd and disappeared. At his departure, you gave a jerky gasp, only just realising you had been breathing shallowly. You realised, in a curiously detached way, that you were shaking violently. Maurice turned to you, his eyes and expression soft but you couldn’t meet his gaze, your eyes filling with tears. Tears of relief or something else, you weren’t sure.



“..I’ll  go pack” you whispered, turning on your heel and fleeing the scene, ducking your head in a desperate attempt to hide the tears that were now rolling freely down your face. You touched a hand to your chest, knowing it would probably be a bruised mess from the hit it had taken from Koba, but it just felt numb. Your heart hurt far more.





Koba came past the treehouse as you were packing. You ignored him. For a while he watched you, glowering at you from the corner. You were simply too tired to care.



“You won” you said finally. “Congratulations, you get your bed back” You turned to him then, your mouth twisted into a snarky grin. He snarled at you but didn’t rise to the bait, staring at you with a kind of dispassionate hatred that you had come to despise. As if you weren’t worth the time and energy that it would take him to hate you properly. It made your blood boil.



“You will die out there” he growled finally, so suddenly you had no time to put up the emotional shields you had come to rely on when in his presence. His words shredded something deep inside you. Something his physical fangs couldn’t reach. “You will die out there alone. And it is what you deserve” He didn’t wait for your response, simply sending you one last hate-filled glare and leaving you to pack. You trembled as you stuffed your drawing pad into your backpack and straightened up. It was terrifying on a different level the way Koba could cut you to the heart with just a few well-placed words, leave you feeling empty in the worst way.



You went to see Caesar before you left. Blue eyes was excited to see you, cooing excitedly and running small, grabby hands through your hair as he loved to do. He didn’t understand what was happening, too young to fully grasp the seriousness of the situation, oblivious to the finality of it. It hurt worse than you were prepared for, the realisation that he was too young to recognise that this was goodbye, that he would be confused and maybe even hurt when you weren’t there to play with him tomorrow, that a part of him may always wonder why you left him. You wanted to rage at the unfairness of it. Rage at something. Koba maybe. His selfishness in not only ripping you from this tentative family, but also depriving Blue eyes of the closest thing he had to a mother figure. You wanted to scream, you wanted to cry, but for the his sake and the sake of his father, lurking somewhere in the corner, you simply smiled weakly down at him and stroked a hand over his tiny crown.



Finally you straightened up and Blue eyes, realising that playtime was over, wandered off somewhere towards the back of the hut. You sighed, picking up your backpack and heading towards the exit. You didn’t have the strength to look at Caesar.



You had only taken a step before a warm hand gripped your forearm, turning you to face the piercing green gaze of the ape king. He stared at you long enough for you to get nervous, not letting go of his hold on your arm. Eventually he spoke.


“Do not want you to leave” he said, his expression saying everything he couldn’t quite communicate. You couldn’t interpret it. You stared back at him.


“I understand” you said finally. He searched your expression for a moment.



“No. You don’t” he sighed. His expression had dropped to one of disappointment and slight anger but it didn’t seem to be directed at you. Once again you were painfully aware of your lack of knowledge in regard to the ape’s culture. He didn’t elaborate on his comment, dropping your arm and stepping back.



“You will be missed” he said. You nodded jerkily, unsure of how to respond to that and stepped out into the deepening twilight.



You passed Koba as you left. He was smirking at you as you walked by and you had an overwhelming urge to flip him the bird, but you managed to keep your immature impulses in check.



Leaving the village was one of the hardest things you had ever done, equal only to burying the bodies of your family, now so long ago. It hurt badly, opening all those wounds, the pain you felt in being alone, losing the things that had made up a home. You had, stupidly, begun to think of the village as a home. It wrenched something inside you to have it taken from you so suddenly, each step causing almost physical pain as you headed out past the gates and into the darkened forest.



You had no idea of the many pairs of eyes that watched your departure from all corners of the village. From where they were it was as if you had entered the shadows under the trees and disappeared, as if you had never been there at all. Just like a ghost.



Maurice turned from the now-empty forest, heading sadly back to his hut. He would miss you, he realised. Would miss your conversations, your quick mind and compassion. The way you were intrigued by the children, always excited when they would speak to you. The way your child-like delight would shine through in happy moments, dispelling the haunted look you often had on your face, those eyes that were too old and heart-rendingly wise to be seen on the face of one so young.



He was not the only one that would miss you, he realised, watching as Caesar turned back to retreat into his hut, his steps heavy, shoulders slumped. He had formed a bond with you and not simply because you had saved his son. He would probably have asked you to be his mate if you had stayed, Maurice mused. And he was not the only one with that idea. Koba was standing in the shadows of one of the huts, staring out at the empty forest. Despite his best efforts, his smirk was slipping into an expression dangerously resembling regret. Maurice huffed, smacking him on the back of the head as he brushed past. Koba immediately turned on him, snarling wildly. He deflated somewhat when he realised who it was but his snarl didn’t drop.



“Happy?” Maurice signed, mockingly. Clicking disapprovingly low in his throat, he didn’t wait for a reply, moving off to his hut. The village was full of emotionally constipated idiots, and there had been enough drama for one day. It could wait till tomorrow.