Post Apocalypse: Tyranny & Chimpanzees

5. CAMP

It's cold...

I'm.. floating? No. Something's holding me up. Someone is holding me up.

I swung my fists wildly as I screamed, hitting something hard just as that feeling of levitation.

I scurried on my hands and legs backwards, till I hit a tree, just as the person fell on his back with a grunt.

"Ow?!"

Ah, dang. I forgot what happened just before I lost consciousness.

Just before I lost consciousness... That calm, reassuring feeling I had when Servile spoke into my ear with his arms around me. I just couldn't help but succumb to his persuasion.

And his embrace.. I felt my face heat up.

"Neon. Are you alright?"

I jumped out of my incomprehensible thoughts with a startled squeak.

"My bad," he lifted his palm from his mouth and took a look at it. "I was trying to put you in bed, next to the campfire. I thought you'd sleep through till morning."

I couldn't tell if my punch had drawn blood, or if he could tell, either. It was dusk and I could barely make out his face.

Also, my arm, which struck his face was starting to hurt.

"Ah," I briefly inclined my gaze to the faint light that seeped through the trees in one direction, where Servile had been taking me to. "I'm so sorry. Are you hurt?"

"Oh no, not at all."

But I caught him wipe something off on his clothes. I decided not to press the issue, but it did leave me with a sense of guilt.

I got up and dusted my body, heading to the camp while hoping I didn't look as awkward as I felt.

The aroma of roasted fish filled my nasal cavity as I came to a stop, drooling a bit, realizing my hunger.

Two leaf beds had been arranged diagonally, surrounding the fire like a triangle missing a side, and six skewered fish cooked away above it.

I observed the scenery.

I noticed the net bundled up on the floor, green as it had just been knotted from fresh grass fibers.

Ropes which he must have made from the grasses that populated this area.

And the trees had enough space in between them so the fire wouldn't scorch their branches or set them on fire.

I couldn't help but admire the shrewd details of what seemed like a little bit of work at first glance, but wasn't.

I've seen people spend days just knitting a single fishing net.

People, huh. I never would have imagined that everyone I knew would simply be gone just like that.

I slouched to the bed with my pouch beside it, accepting the fish on a stick Servile offered without a word.

He helped himself with another, before taking his seat on the other pile of leaves.

I turned the fish to the side, so it's unwavering eyeball stared at me.

You and I are kind of alike, I said to it. We both lost all we had. I lost my family, you lost your life. But things can get better, right? We'll both be in better places if I go to a safer island before the volcano erupts, you are going to end up in my stomach. Nothing better than that, at this point.

Our conversation ended when hunger got the better of me, and I bit off it's crisp, delicious, salted head.

"Hmn?"

"I got some salt from the river.." Servile explained halfway through his second fish "-well, it's technically not a river, since it contains salt... Or is it...?"

"How did you boil the water?" I inquired curiously.

  He searched the floor with his eyes briefly before raising up a blackened, flat, metal plate. "I happened to find this relic laying around," it still had some shiny crystals stuck to it's rusted surface.

I was a bit repulsed by the rusty thing, but I had no right to complain. With the Stark difference these fish had from unseasoned ones, it was completely worth it.

Another thing that glistened in the firelight was the drop of blood below his nostril.

I wrapped my hands around my knees and placed my head on them, turning away. "Sorry about making you bleed, and all."

Servile reflexively swiped a finger under his nose and glanced at it, before smudging it as he rubbed his fingers against his palm with a shuffling sound.

"You already apologized," he retrieved his third fish, gesturing at the other two. "Go on."

He's simply worlds apart from that Boro in terms of character.

I picked my second fish.

"Anyway, you did notice the knives I have in here," I patted my pouch. "Right?"

He flicked his brow. "Knives are tools, aren't they?" And with a more serious tone: "Those aren't relics as well, they're too smooth and rustless to be. I wanted to personally ask you about it as well."

I stared at him quizzically. "What do you mean, you guys have never used a newly made iron tool before?"

"Iron?" He was surprised. "Where does it come from?"

"From the -you aren't messing around with me, are you?"

"I'm honestly not," he promised. "I've never seen any form of iron extraneous from being any sort of relic."

Convinced of his unawareness, I explained to him how I'd seen the men of my community mine iron and coal, a process which was alien to him.

We ended up exchanging narratives of how advanced our communities were with each other.

It seemed like his smaller community lived a more primitive life than we did, oblivious to the fact that a lot of relics are attainable through extraction and processing of minerals.

The things that seemed to be trite knowledge to them was simple wood crafts, as they had no nails, and clay pots with which they cooked.

They did, however possess greater substantial knowledge of naturally medicinal plants, which, ironically, still couldn't save them from dying off even before my community.

I didn't voice it to him, but I couldn't help but wander why the two communities, separated by just a relatively thin strip of water, evidently, purposely never interacted for several decades.

As we discussed into the night, we grew weary, and our fire seemed to reflect that.

We soon dozed off, snuggled between layers of grass and very large leaves, with a dimmer fire to carry on into the night.