||Walk me home||

Two Birds, No Stone

>Perspective Change: Rocket<

The bullet had entered through the eye socket. It was dark red, the pooling blood, already blackening. Some brain matter had exploded from the back the humans' skull and splattered on the grass that lay behind him. The body had slumped in the dirt turned to mud by the old mans own blood like some ungainly life-sized doll. The remaining eye remained open, staring blankly at us, as if trying to press guilt into my fellow apes. But we have seen worse, done worse, had worse forced onto us.

Looking up at the other human just across the warren, the blackened and burned body melded in with the charcoal and wooden remains, you wouldn't be able to pick them apart if not for the fleshly legs sitting out of the edge of the pit, that managed escaped the flames. Sharp hooting brought my vision back to one of the apes that had accompanied us to find and silence the latest invaders to the forest. She was one of the younger apes, the body's visibly fazed her. If I remember correctly her name was Theta, the same as her mothers' name was. She was trying to get my attention, Looking down at a white sheet she had in her grip.

"Look," she signed quickly, shuffling in the spot. "it was in his pocket, it looks like writing."

That drew the attention of three of the surrounding apes, all trying to peer over without wanted to like they are. Walking over to her quickly, stepping over the legs of the man and taking the slightly blood smeared paper from her, it looked like writing, not that I would know what it says. 

"Check for anything else useful," I say getting the attention of the other apes, "then we leave for home". Watching them start pulling guns and packs off the humans, accumulating anything else of value from their camp. 

Just as I was going to get on my horse and tell the others to leave, Bea, an older male gorilla, bent down and attempted picked something else from the human's hand, It was laying half under the human. He pushed the dense body over to better inspect what it was, it was..a stick? No, not a stick, an arrow, but without the tip. He threw it back to the ground, a broken arrow was useless to us.

With a sharp snort, everyone was on their horse and we were on our way home. We turned aside and rode up the slanted hills that made up the mountain. The miles passed by easily with velvety green sprigs of dog-mercury that were scattered on the red soil for our viewing. Finally, we came to the top a slope, where the woods thinned where was a deep little dell, just before the entrance to the main camp. The apes that were watching from the gigantic wooded pikes that boarded the perimeter of the camp began to howel, announcing our arrival to the others, who raced down to watch in curiosity as to what we brought back. 

Dismounting our horses before walking through the towering pikes slanting over the head that makes up the opening of the colony, holding vines and plants that overrun them and hung as they please. The sun passes through the many holes in the gateway and illuminates the dirt ground beneath our feet. Apes sit atop them, and around them almost forming a wall of their own.

Then the living wall parts as Caesar walks down to greet us, holding himself high. Without a second thought, I hold open the palm of my hand for him to run his fingers down before following him, Koba, and Maurice back to one of the inner caves that we use for private gatherings. It was one of the deepest caves this mountain held, being so it was one of the most secure but consequently it was extremely dark, lit only by torches that are hung the walls. 

The floor was sharp with little place to sit comfortably, so most of us stood. These meetings have been going on for a long, long time. The humans started invading our forest a year or so ago. At first, Caesar just wanted us to keep a close eye on them but after pressure from Koba, he sent a small group of apes to check them out. They didn't come back. The humans did though, usually in groups of 2-3. The groups spread out from the bottom of the mountain and met again at the top. Once we were all settled I began to relay what we had found.