I've Found You

Chapter 2

The night drew on, Mala describing the Kanou people, or the 'ferals' as he often referred them as. Blue sat cross legged on the floor, which was covered in a matt made by weaving dried palm leaves. Despite the obvious and terrifying situation, Blue listened intently, intrigued by Mala's story.

He described how he had been foraging when he found expedition 02, they were ghost like figures, their eyes were sunken right into their skull, one might say they took on the appearance of a skeleton and if you were to poke them with the tip of your finger, you might find their skin would tear like wet newspaper and your hand would be left in their stomach as your finger waved around on the other side. Mala had taken one look and instantly recognised the situation as that of starvation. He took a long, hard look at the faces of those who reminded him of the famous painting, 'Scream'.

"Wait a second," Blue interrupted, "don't you live in the jungle? How do you know about the scream?"

Mala paused, and then ignored her and continued on with the story. He took no notice of Blue's puzzled expression. So far, Mala had been nothing but kind. She had seen the way his brown eyes seemed to stare an endless hole into the night sky as he looked out the window when he was telling her the story. Why did he chose to ignore her? Blue took note of this peculiar behaviour as she has found many times as you never know when you might need the knowledge.

Mala left his foraging spot to think about what he had just seen. Should he help them? They didn't look overly dangerous, but they must certainly be able to cause harm if they are provoked in such a way. They were probably delusional, and if Mala was to approach they might very well attack him in their wrong state of mind. But surely he couldn't leave them there, to starve, to rot away with the jungle that had caused them their terrible misfortune?

Mala paused his thinking. There was a small gust of wind that blew past him that could have almost been mistaken as a whisper. It came again. This time he was unsure what he was hearing. Was it a whisper? He stood still. It sounded like the voice of a human that was spoken ever so slightly, so quietly, that when Mala heard the sound it tickled his ears, sending a tingling sensation from his head, traveling softly and wispily down to the very tip of his toes, then spreading out to the ground and seeping through the soil. Now he could hear the whisper louder, like there was and echo in his head. "Bad............le..........n't............h...p......them." what were the voices trying to say? The message came again. Mala replayed what he had heard over and over in his head until he had a clear idea of what the voices had told him, "Bad people, don't help them." At first Mala was confused, who are these voices? Then he was hesitant, should he trust the voices and listen to them? He finally made up his mind, if a heavenly, spirit like voice had told him a simple and clear message, then he was going to obey it.