eyes of the forest - a kingdom of the planet of the apes story

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚅𝙸

Even though you were able to steal a scarf, it isn't doing much now that it's soaking wet. Rain had started again tonight, forcing your primate companions to set camp. They started a fire, but you weren't close enough to feel it's warmth, only see it's flickering light.

Shivering against the other side of the pillar, you listen to them talk, struggling to stay awake as the cold rain seeps into your skin and chills your bones, making your whole body feel drowsy.

You nod off for a second, your head rolling to the side before your body jolts back awake, rustling the damp leaves around you and making the apes go quiet. "What was that?" The deep voice of the orangutan asks. "It's her. She's here somewhere, she always is." The ape answers, annoyance more than evident in his tone.

The two are quiet for a moment until you hear some rummaging in a bag and suddenly the rolling of an apple lands right beside you, next to the pillar. You keep your eyes on it, debating whether or not grabbing it would be a good idea. You finally give in, feeling the empty ache in your stomach.

Slowly reaching out cautious fingers, you grab the apple, quickly bringing it to your chest as you bite into it. You hear one of apes gasp, and another apple comes your way, this time a bit further from you. After quickly finishing the first one, you reach around the pillar, grabbing the second one and locking eyes with the two apes who are watching you intently.

You bring the second apple close to you as you bite into it and hug your knees, trying to conserve what little body heat you have. The apes watch you, one with disdain and the other with awe. The orangutan reaches behind him into a bag and pulls out a blue blanket when the other ape quickly stops him.

"No!" He whispers angrily. "This is, important." He looks up at his orange furred friend with sad eyes. "They get, cold." The orangutan replies, shrugging his arms into his chest for emphasis. "Show mercy..." He adds to the smaller ape, both of them looking at your shivering form.

The blanket gets tossed by your legs, a couple feet away from you. You hesitantly crawl forward and snatch it before bringing it around your chest, finding some relief against the stinging cold.

"This one is, smarter than most." The orangutan says, looking at you thoughtfully. The younger ape brings his hand up to his head and makes a gesture, essentially calling you dumb. You frown at him. "Raka." The orangutan points to himself. "Noa." He gestures to the ape next to him. 'Noa' looks at him strangely.

~

Rustling sounds bring you out of your peaceful slumber, the symphony of crickets and cicadas filling your ears. Looking up at the sky and seeing only darkness filled with stars, you realize it's still night time. Footsteps among the wet grass catch your attention, and you realize one of the apes walking away is what woke you up.

You look to the orangutan, who you now know as Raka, to see he's still asleep by the dying fire. You see the figure of the ape, Noa, walking into the woods. You sit up, curious and questioning if you should follow.

You ultimately decide stretching your legs and seeing what he's up to couldn't hurt, so you sneak out of the makeshift bed you were laying on and follow him as quietly as possible.

You trail him up to a large structure that resembles a crumbling building. Stone carvings line the walls as well as hanging vines and various plants growing in the cracks of the once pristine structure. You find Noa hanging by one arm off a large tube shaped contraption in the middle of the floor.

Suddenly he drops to the ground, his heavy frame landing with a loud thud that echoes in the dome shaped room. He looks at you intently and you study his figure silhouetted in the moonlight. His muscular shoulders and large biceps that could easily break your bones, to his broad, heaving chest that takes steady breaths.

The intensity and predatory nature of his stare sends a chill up your spine. Trying to ignore it, you distract yourself with the structure that he was hanging from. You remember this from one of your mother's teachings, this place looked like...an observatory! Yes, that's right. And the humans used to look into these tubes to see the stars.

Walking up to it you find a part that's glowing softly, you put your eye up to it and a myriad of colors and bright specks dance in your vision. Your eyes widen and your brows furrow as you try to process what it is you're seeing. You recognize them to be stars, but you never knew stars could have so many colors in and around them.

You feel eyes on you and pull away from the tube you were looking into, only to see Noa looking at you intently, having moved closer to you. You had never been this close to an ape before, except maybe the one in the fish tent. You wonder if this could have been the same one.

"You saw, what i saw?" His deep raspy voice brings you out of your thoughts as he nods to the scope you were looking through. You glance at it and back up to him, not knowing how to answer.

The both of you jump when you hear a faint swishing sound in the back of the room, whatever creature is there knocking some objects onto the ground. Instinctively you back up, reaching a hand up to Noa as your body goes into fight or flight.

Then, a bird swooshes out of its hiding place and the beat of its small wings sound as it flies past your heads. You glance at each other and you're the first to crack a smile, then he does, both of you finding the scare from the small bird humorous. You didn't know apes could laugh or smile, but a strange feeling settled in your chest when this one did.

word count: 1041
updated two days in a row, yay

- raine