Survive

You begun as a child to the Guarani people, history rich in the areas of southern Brazil, spreading to Paraguay and Bolivia in the current age. Your people have a history of invaders from far away coming to erase their customs, their language and their entire selves. Yet they survived, they survived the attempted murder of their culture and then some. They survived long enough for you and your family to be born, for many families in your little hidden village among the trees and vines.

The Guarani people, as they lived and grew, members here and there found themselves absorbed into the arms of Uktena and Balam partners, making future generations that will thrive still alongside their unknowing cousins.

Your home near the human city of Curitiba, your family, were part of something greater in the Jungles. Keeping secrets were second nature to them, as they protected their territories. You were a kinfolk to the Balam, your Father long gone now as he feel in battle with Things-That-Should-Not-Be deep in the jungles. You lived with your Mother and younger Sister, the little kitten fresh to her fur. You were so proud of her, learning her new strength and showing her how to properly fight. You were a Kinfolk, but you never felt disadvantaged, bearing a knife and learning to spar with the others. Your Village, they guarded a secret, deep and old, parts passed down family lines and taught to each generation. You knew the key secret of your family, all in the hopes that if anything happened, the secret will continue on through the Kinfolk.

You knew how to fight, to hunt in the jungles and keep the land in harmony with your trips within. You knew the plants to eat, the plants to paralyze and the plants to kill. You knew the rivers safe for drawing water and the places to avoid during certain seasons. You knew how to survive, as those that came before you had.

But you were not prepared for the raid.

You were in the Jungle with the first teams arrived. Your first clue was the smell of smoke and blood on the air. How the beasts of the vines fled and all went quiet. You could feel the creeping terror in your blood and bone as you rushed back home to the fires. You could hear the fighting from the Balam and stronger members, the screeching of unholy monsters the invaders brought with them.

You run to your home.

You wish you hadn't.

You wish you didn't have to see your Mother dead, your Sister defiled and killed before your eyes. You only remember so much after this point, a blank in your mind's eye. You remember blood, and steel, and the look of surprise in the eyes of the Man below you. You remember the light leaving them. You remember taking his tags from his neck, so when his body was ever recovered, he would have no name.

He would never make it to the other side, nameless and disfigured. No God would claim him now, his soul forced to wander in a place between it all.

You remember crawling to the treeline and vines, curling up as you bleed. You don't remember being stabbed, but you remember the dull pain as the world grew dark. Then there is warmth, a hand on your arm. Then another. Then more grab a hold as you are dragged further into the jungle.

You woke up, long after it was all over, in a place so hidden that you can barely hear the sounds of people. You look down at yourself, feeling cold and your breathing had stopped. You taste iron on your tongue, the smell of old blood sharper in your nose. You see the ring of people ahead of you, waiting for you. They tell you who and what they are.

They tell you they saved you.

They tell you that you now must forget your life before.

They tell you that everything you once had is gone and scattered.

You remember asking them why they didn't help your people before. Why wait until you were dying alone to act. You can feel the strength in your bones, you know with this you could have helped them more. They tell you that it isn't their way, to help the Humans, they have to stay hidden.

All you heard was them saying they refused to help those suffering. They refused to stop the fighting and slaughter. They refused to help while your Mother was killed and your Sister was robbed and slain.

You wait then. Learn what you need to learn. You survive, as those that came before you had, as they always will. You wait and learn until you know enough to go forward. You wait until it is close to the dawn. You wait until they all sleep.

You wait until they are completely at the your mercy as you stake their hearts.

You drag them all into a circle, the canopy ahead open like a sun-roof. They are in a circle, hands barely touching, forced to look up at the sky. They are prone, at the mercy to the universe.

You tell them to wait to see if anyone could help them. To wait and see if they find them and choose to interfere. You tell them to wait and feel the moment all hope snaps when they are abandoned to their fate because someone with the ability to help refused.

Then you are gone. You move forward with your anger, blinded by it, looking for an outlet to make the world bleed for what it took from you. You found an outlet, for a time, becoming a monster that only took and never looked back.

Then the anger ran out, then you were filled with a hollowness and guilt of not staying. You could have helped your people rebuild, but you were scared they would turn on you for what you were made into. You could have watched from the dark, help what needed helping. You could have kept some contact, letting them know the key secret wasn't truly lost that day.

But it had been too long now, the new generations of that day grown beyond you or memory. It has been too long now to go back, as much as it pains you to think about. So you start to write, to leave a record in your native language, hoping that one day, when you were brave once more, you can leave the book by the rebuilt Village of Balam, so they had the lost piece once more.

Now you wait to see what comes next. You are slowly regaining that human part of you, now able to see beyond your rage. You look for the next chance to disappear, ever the survivor as you have been, as your people have been. You remember the enemy that took your Village and tore your family apart. You know their name and you remember your anger. You have a target to aim that anger, is the vast difference than before. All you needed to do is wait for your chance to slip away and begin your campaign against the true target of your ire.

Once you are gone though, once that chance appears, something larger shows on that horizon. The world is coming to an end, as every doomsday script is proved, with you looking upon it all in your inability to fight against it. You do not believe you can survive this, not after everything else, everything else was at least tangible. This was the dying of a world, or every living thing that walked it. This was the end.

This was also a beginning.

You watched the Emerald Mother spring free and lead the people away. You remember running onto a ship and hiding in its hull. You remember coming to a new world and seeing the sun that did not wish you dead.

You felt free, if only a fraction, among the feeling of loss at what once was your home. So you take a ship, which one you were able to get, and set out into the stars in search of something more. You look for jungles, something alien but still the same. You find a home among the furred jungle cats there. You slowly reveal the place to whichever Balam you cross paths with, looking for artifacts of your Tribe.

Now, three hundred years since the End, you chart the stars and seek out new Suns. Sisters and Brothers to the 'true light' your family knew. Something different but the same, as you remember the secrets well of your village.

You now sown new secrets and knowledge. You now teach old and lost ways to the new Balam, teach new things to other Baset that join the alien-race of Feline Fighters. You now hold memories of a world before them.

You survived.