The Signs (#Merome!)

Bacca Village

Jerome's POV

I woke up to yet another day but today was a special day. Today was the day where I'm going to the edge of the jungle to see what is outside these jungle walls. I never thought that I would come this close to freedom. But, I was taught at a young age that when you leave the jungle walls, the humans will come kill you. They are heartless and only want us for our fur. The bacca race has been slowly decreasing with all the killings and poaching. We had once a major kingdom in which us baccas and the humans where allies. Then one day, the humans came after our people and ran us out. We escaped to the jungle, though only half of our population had survived to see it. We started to thrive again but the humans came back and destroyed us. Our numbers lowered and the jungle slowly was decreasing. Our tribe was one of the smaller tribes which had escaped into the jungle. We had made it pretty deep. No one thought that the humans would go through the jungle for us. But the humans where smart and destroyed the jungle as they came through. Our strong baccas learned to fight and defend our home, killing off many humans. They had decreased their attempts to kill us. But once every year we see young humans come in and survive in the jungle on their own. We don't bother them unless they come close to the village. Which they never do, so we never worry.

I run down to the edge of our village, up in the tree tops and look around. When I don't see anyone, I climb down the tree to a lower branch and swing across vines. I get to the very last tree of the jungle to see these massive mountains in their pure glory. I have only seen them from far away in the village. They look so majestic. Snow covered at the top and tress growing at the lower parts. It was beautiful. But a bit past a little hill, I see smoke. I have never seen smoke before. I have heard of it before, though I was always told to stay away from it. They say that the humans make that smoke. My curiosity got the best of me, I had to go explore. I wanted to see what humans look like. Whenever one passes by the village, my mother would always push me inside. But this time, my mother wasn't here so now I, Jerome, could see them and not be pushed away.

I stood there for what seemed like hours. It was amazing. I would get the small glimpse of a human before they would fall back behind a hill. It was like they didn't want to get seen. But, then I saw one. Then it was followed by others. Before I knew it, there was a small army of them. It seemed like there was the same amount of humans as their where baccas in my village. I started to freak out. What would I do if they see me? I can't run back to my village if they saw me. Better go now before they do. So I ran back to my village.