With utmost tenderness, the assembly laid the bodies upon the earth.
Instantly, the apes formed a ring, united in the stark grief of their loss. Tears streamed down their faces, bodies bowed in profound mourning. Sorrow was palpable in their deep exhalations, a sincere and desolate farewell.
Mokessa, at the core, bore the weight of leadership, the burden of the alpha. Her feelings were a tempest, a soul-deep ache that, paradoxically, ignited an inner warmth, a fragile hope striving to pierce the gloom of her current state.
Her gaze absorbed the tragedy: forms resting on the emerald bedding, the dry crimson staining the fertile soil, while the sun, its rays strained through the forest canopy, sketched shadows that flickered like apparitions.
Her weeping intensified, hot droplets tracing pathways down her silvered pelt. Her muffled sobs, mingled with the others, defied the stillness of the jungle, where even the fowl dared not raise a note in that moment.
Thoughts haunted her consciousness:
"I should have shielded them!" "Mogu, where do you dwell now?"
The troupe closed ranks around her, a crowd of bodies offering solace — gentle touches upon shoulders, hushed laments of fellowship. It was the strain of severance, yet also the resilience of kinship. The scarred female embraced Mokessa with the empathy that only shared suffering imparts in such a fragile hour.
Amidst her lamentation, Mokessa sensed an anomaly: the earth beneath her feet trembled faintly, an unseen resonance ascending, like the beat of the forest's clandestine heart. No one else perceived it; the troop remained still, submerged in their distress.
"What is this sensation?"
She mused, the perplexity forging a curious divergence between her sight and her perception. She glanced down, where the foliage stirred subtly with the passage of the air and the ground seemed to undulate in a fashion she had never witnessed before.
Perhaps it was a forewarning of something greater, an intuition verging on the divine?
Her crying ceased abruptly, as if jolted, and her eyes, in a shock, dilated widely, the intensity of her sorrow heightening her sensory input.
— Don't you perceive it? The ground… it is shaking… — The others stared at her, utterly incomprehending.
A younger male touched the ground and inquired:
— What are you suggesting, Alpha? — Her silence was a mute admission, as if confessing that only she perceived the event. He stood erect, seeking the firmness beneath his feet: — There is nothing occurring, Mokessa. It is your own heart that is turbulent, and I understand your anguish well.
- - -
— Where have we emerged? — she murmured, her voice a thread of curiosity and doubt, as her gaze traversed the faces and the surrounding emerald expanse of the woods. There was an almost childlike quest in her expression, perhaps to discern something familiar, or perhaps, simply for the pleasant memory of the first fruit she had sampled.
Someone from that world of people approached, their speech a soft echo on the breeze:
— As of yet, no one knows the answer. — it was a man, tall and corpulent. — Nor how we acquired the ability to communicate.
She drew nearer, her gaze lingering on him, a tender fascination with the exposed flesh.
Her hand reached out for his skin — a gesture of discovery. The man, in turn, settled a light finger upon her hand, in a silent covenant, as they charted the terrain of their own physiques.
— Are we not like a mirror image? — she whispered, in a tone laden with sweetness. — So near, almost the same entity?
— Everyone present. We all bear resemblance, and yet… we are so distinct. — he retreated precisely half a step. — Observe that woman? — he gestured, pointing his attention. — Her hair cascades like the flow of a river I observed a few yards from here, and her complexion is as bright as the day.
— Such an array of pigment, in hues that merge and inspire wonder… It is a beauty I have never encountered, a nascent world unfolding before me. I retain no recollections of my former state, only of that vibrant clarity. It seems that tomorrow and yesterday are a chartless enigma. — She hunched slightly, the volume of her speech diminishing. — It is a peculiar emotion. Ultimately, what essence are we?
— No one fully grasps it. — the man replied. — And I sense that one day we will possess the capacity to comprehend everything and everyone. And the purpose of our genesis.
The woman experienced melancholy for the first time. Nevertheless, there was also a fresh current igniting her chest, a gentle anticipation for the revelations awaiting her in this newly commenced existence, so enigmatic and devoid of definite roots.
— Come with me. I shall guide you to the river. — the man uttered, beginning to ambulate.
— A river? What might that be…
He promptly interjected:
— Where the waters flow in unity. I believe I am the sole individual who has explored those banks thus far. — he faced her, anticipating her companionship.
They journeyed side by side, and their passage unfolded across hills that, being so gentle, seemed to invite easy walking. There, where the soil was generous, the arboreal life drew moisture from streams and ponds through their root systems, in a perpetual cycle that fostered their vigorous growth.
Subsequently, the track enveloped them in dense thickets, where the daylight only squeezed through, filtered by a living ceiling of woven branches and leaves that appeared to whisper on slopes that barely dared to ascend.
— Is this a river? — the woman was astonished, glimpsing the movement of the liquid behind bushes and foliage that obscured her view. — It moves! Is it alive as we are?
— I do not know the answer. — he inhaled deeply. — You pose numerous questions for which most of us have no conceptual reply. — The woman raised her eyebrows, and he stated: — Let us descend. I wish for you to observe it closely.
The woman nodded her agreement and followed his lead, navigating the descent of the mildly steep hill, which nonetheless deposited them at the banks of the brook, unharmed and unscratched.
— May I make contact with it? — she posed another query.
The man swiftly knelt, looked at her, and placed his hands in the waters, gently rubbing the dampness onto his visage. She, then, began to mimic his action.
— I utilize the river for ablution or to ingest moisture. I presume the others will soon uncover it, should they experience the need for fluid as I do.
— Do we all experience thirst? — she inquired, rubbing the confusion from her expression with her saturated hands. — What is thirst?
— I have already stated, young woman: no one here knows anything, about any subject.