The Jungle

Chapter 1

Bahati woke with a start.

A few moments ago, he had been dreaming, but it was no ordinary nighttime fantasy. It had been a spirit dream. He was sure of it.

In the center of his den, a fire burned low and warm, heating the damp wetness of the underground. The shapes and colors rose and fell in a subtle display of red, orange and blue. He stared at the fire for a moment, his imagination conjuring images of megasharks, gravewolves and even something as small and as insignificant as a butterfly in flight.

His hand hovered over his chest, and grasped the giant claw of a terraraptor, his spirit animal, hanging around his neck. It was the size of a banana and when you took the wooden casing off, and it was razor sharp and doubled as a knife. He pulled it out of the case that hung on a leather string around his neck and turned it over in his hand slowly, pondering its message. What had it been trying to tell him?

Unfortunately, his movement startled his mate, Joto, who had been sleeping soundly at his side. She turned over slowly and pulled her bare torso from under the furs the couple slept under. Her hand reached up to cup Bahati’s cheek. “What bothers you, darling?” she asked, twisting her fingers in his shaggy, blond curls.

“The gods sent me a dream,” he whispered, putting the claw back into its wooden sheath. “Something important is about to happen, Joto. I must go to the edge of the island and sit beside the sea in meditation. I am to stay there until I receive a sign.”

A flicker of fear crossed Joto’s face, but she kissed him softly and rested her head in the crook of his neck. “It’s so close to the Thunder Season. What if the gods are drawing you away to kill you?”

“What if they aren’t?” he rebutted. “What if I have been chosen for something?” His green eyes glittered in the light of the dying fire.

“I will make a sacrifice,” Joto whispered. “I will bring a basket of yams and a goat to the priest. Perhaps then the gods will spare your life. When must you go?”

Bahati placed his arm around his mate. He closed his eyes and breathed a deep sigh. He loved Joto with all his might and he knew she would not like what he was going to say next. Still, he knew he must put her through the worry of not knowing if he was safe, and he knew she would not like the suddenness of it. “I go at first light,” he replied. “I cannot delay.

“But Bahati!” she cried, sitting up. “The Thunder Season starts tomorrow! It isn’t safe!” her green eyes were wide with fright.

Unbeknownst to Bahati, Joto harbored a secret, one she had been keeping for three days. It was the one thing that would be able to keep him here, safe behind the walls of the colony, protected from the thunder of the gods. Now was the appropriate time to tell him, she thought. “I am with child,” she whispered, sliding a hand over her stomach. “The priest claims that the gods have told him it is a boy.”

Bahati sighed. He had not expected that twist. According to the law of his people, a man must provide for his mate as long as she was with child. To leave her now would be nothing less than a horrific sin. The gods would surely kill him during the Thunder Season.

Perhaps the vision had been nothing more than a dream. Perhaps the gods were testing him. In all of Bahati’s nineteen years, he had never known the gods to contradict themselves. They were not gods of oxymoron, but gods of a straight path. They never deviated from one path. It was always the same, as with the seasons: rainy season, dry season, and the Thunder Season. There was no ebb in the constant flow. Still, he was the only man in the village who wore the claw of the Terraraptor around his neck; the others had lesser spirit animals. Their tokens were easier to obtain, such as the tail of a rockfish, the horn of a goat, the tooth of a tree-cat, or a spider preserved in a drop of amber.