The First Story

Heart pounding, feet hitting the shaking ground, hot air, lava blasting, shouting, running faster, jumping, grabbing, a bundle in one arm, holding, screams...

      The woman gasped bolting up on the damp forest ground she had been sleeping on. She wrapped the deerskin blanket she had used for warmth around her shivering form. Beside her, a baby wrapped in a fur lined blanket stirred in its sleep.

      The woman placed her elbows on her knees and let out a long defeated sigh. The night was still young, and the light of dawn was still far away. The woman threw her head back, her long coarse hair the color of the night sky brushed against her back. 

       The woman stood, she was sore, her naked body caked in dirt. Her feet and hands were covered in blisters from climbing and walking from sun-up to sun-down looking for someone....anyone who had survived the destructive force of nature that had wiped out her tribe.

     That night the woman never found sleep. When the baby started to stir and cry she nursed him and then headed on her way picking up her walking stick, and her beloved stone hunting knife. 

       She could vaguely  remember the feeling of joy when bringing home a good meal to her sickly husband and ever hungry children. Now only her youngest child remained. And numbness was the only thing she felt.

     When the woman first started out on her journey to find others she would make a dash on her walking stick every sunrise. She had long since run out of room.

     The large hot sun was directly overhead when the woman first felt a difference. She stopped. Her senses hadn't yet failed her. Holding her son close to her chest she crouched low to the ground baring her teeth waiting to defend the life of her child from any manner of hungry beasts. She had long since stopped living for herself.

     The foliage in front of her rustled against the hot dry breeze that had been tormenting her dry sunburnt skin since the sun had come up. She crouched just slightly lower to the ground ready pounce, ready to kill. 

      But then two children, a male and a female just learning to walk stumbled out of the tall grass into the clearing and froze in front of her. A tall male came bursting out of the foliage after the young children. He froze when he caught sight of the woman with the hunting stick.

     Then sounds started to come out of the children's mouths, as they pulled nervously on the deerskin wrapped around their father's waist. They were sounds the woman had not heard in a long time. 

     Words, the way the members of her tribe communicated. This man and his children were not a part of her tribe, nor one that she knew of.

      "Who are you?" The tall bearded man asked of her.

      "In my tribe they called me Huntress." The woman raised her head forcing her mouth to speak the words she was sure she had forgotten.

      "Are you alone?" He interrogated.

      The woman nodded.

      "Are you also the sole adult survivor from your tribe, from the Fire Storm?" The man asked.

      "I am."

      "Come join us at our camp..." The man stepped aside.

    Years later Huntress, and Leader (the name of the man, she later learned) traveled far and wide searching for survivors of what they called the Fire Storm. They created their own tribe and finally settled down in a warm environment that never feared the cold. Leader and Huntress became the tribes Chiefs and ended up having three children of their own.

     Towards the end of her life, long after she could no longer hunt her eldest son came to her. "Mother, tell us how you met Leader."

      Huntress smiled at the frail older man beside her.  Members of their rag tag tribe of survivors and their children gathered around the fire to hear what she had to say. She closed her eyes remembering Mother Nature's slaughter of the people she knew and loved that brought her to where she was that day. She re-opened her eyes afraid that the night terrors that woke her screaming every sunrise were too evident on her face. Leader grabbed her hand to support her, "It started long ago, in a different tribe, where I was a very different woman..."

      And with wide eyes the tribe leaned ever so slightly forward not wanting to miss a single word of the first story...