Acix

- by Chio, (with cover-art by Milo)

Table of Contents

Part One: Human Prey
Part Two: Minty-Fresh
Part Three: Awkward Meal
Part Four: Predators
Part Five: Waiting
Human Prey

Quiet. That is the key to sneaking up on your prey. To be quiet and to remain unseen. My prey? You see that group of humans over there? Wearing their fancy clothes and boom-sticks -- trying to look all important and busy as they roam around their camp. My plan is to attack after sundown while they’re all huddled-up by the campfire eating their gross cooked food. I tried it a-few times -- they call that food? No, thanks!

While waiting for sundown, I play fetch with my dino, Rexio, and eat some berries -- it’s fun to toss them in the air and catch them in my mouth! If I miss and they fall on the ground, they do get a-little dirt on them. That’s okay though -- I don’t mind a-little dirt -- adds texture, I guess. Don’t worry -- I know which berries are safe to eat and which are a no-no. Kind-of learnt that the hard way!

With my tummy now full and the sun disappearing over the horizon, I decide to start my attack. I hop on the back of Rexio and slowly navigate closer to the human camp while keeping quiet and hidden. Once I feel close enough, I slap Rexio’s butt to make him run. He’s a tough boy -- he does not mind and it seems to be the best way to quickly get him into a sprint.

Rexio and I leap over the short wooden barrier and breach the human camp. We run around stirring-up trouble and making all the humans panic in fear. Some of them try to chase us but we are just too fast for them! Silly humans. We leap over their fire-pit, maneuver around some tents, and yell our battle-cry. Rexio and I don’t touch any of them and they still run in panic -- why? Clearly, Rexio and I are the superior hunters if we can make an entire camp of them run and scream without hurting any of them.

Once satisfied with our results of mischief and fun, we run out their camp entrance and back into the tall grass before disappearing into the jungle. It’s a-little difficult to navigate through all the thick brushes and trees but we’ve made a-few trails over-time. There’s no need for me to keep riding Rexio and he probably needs a breather, so I hop off of him and lead him down one of our paths back to our cave.

Ah, home -- always happy to be back at our comfy little cave. Today was a good day -- tomorrow, I think we’ll go fishing and cook-up a nice meal. Tonight, though, I just cook-up a nice soup made from random root veggies we found. Rexio will not eat it though -- he goes hunting for whatever he can find while I warm my body with the hot soup. The nights can be a pretty lonely time for me; but oh well, it’s just how the fates have determined I should live. I curl-up by the fire and head-off to dream land for the rest of the night.
Minty-Fresh

Morning comes and I awake with a big yawn and stretch. Rexio is also curled-up near the fire with the corpse of some lizard next to him -- looks like he found a big meal! I’m still trying to train him not to bring-back his prey with him though -- since it could lead predators to our home. How does one train them to not do this though? It’s not like I can scold him and make him all confused of what he’s done -- and I definitely can’t drag the corpse far away from the cave every-time he does this.

I get-up and do another few stretches before grabbing my spear and heading out from our cave. Rexio will remain asleep for the rest of the morning and will probably track me when he wakes if he wants to hang-out. There’s a stream with a small waterfall nearby that I like to go-to for fishing and, (I sniff my pits.) Yep -- smells like I could use a bath before catching some fishies.

Arriving at the stream, I strip to my birthday suit and tippy-toe under the little waterfall. Brrr! It’s always pretty chilly at first and makes me shiver. I try to ignore the chill and scrub myself all-over with some nice minty-smelling leaves. The chill soon goes away as I feel clean again and smell nice and minty! A-few more scrubs on the places that need extra-attention and I tippy-toe back out from the waterfall before giving my clothes a wash as-well. I probably should make at-least one other outfit but this has worked just fine so-far.

Slipping back into my wet clothes, I grab my spear again and find a spot in the stream where fishies will likely swim-by. The trick is to remain completely still with your spear aimed in-front of you. My clothes will likely dry while waiting for a fishy if they even come today -- some days there’s lots and others -- not so much. Well, I just wait and I wait, and some fishies swim nearby but I need to wait until one gets closer to my spear.

After about an hour, a fishy swims close enough for me to thrust my spear at them and pull them onto land where it will sit as I try to catch one or two more. Every now-and-then, I’ll eye my catch to make sure no other predators try to steal it from me -- I hate when that happens! About an hour more and I catch another two before the fishies start to become less common. So, I stop for the day and start to head back to my cave-home with my three catches safety stored-away in my bag.

On the way back, I smell smoke in the air. A fire?--hope not, but it sure smells like it! I decide to check-it-out by following the smoke and the smell. A-few branches slap me as I slowly navigate through the thick jungle off from the trails -- stupid branches! It took the rest of the morning, but I eventually get to the edge of the jungle to the savanna. I recognize this area -- oh, no, it’s the human’s camp out there that’s burning! Did they get attacked?--I mean, by someone other than me. Maybe I should go check to see if they need any help -- they’ll probably just panic and try to chase-me-off though.

Hmm -- not too far from me is a girl crawling in the tall grass. She’s injured and I did kind-of terrorize her friends; so, maybe I should make an acception and help-her-out. Yes -- I go over to her and offer my hand. She yelps while holding her injured side and slaps away my hand.

“Go away!” She screams. “You did this!”

Did I? I don’t think I did this. I only play with the humans, not try to burn down their homes. I shake my head and kneel next to the girl.

“Not me.” I say. “Someone else?”

She looks at me confused and skeptical. Surely, she should have seen the attackers, right? It couldn’t possibly be me since I always work alone with Rexio and only humans use fire as a weapon. She can’t think about it too long though, since it looks like she just passed-out. Great -- now I have to carry my fishies, my spear, and a limp body back to my cave. At-least she appears to be around my size, so she shouldn’t be too heavy or awkward to carry. This will be a long trip back through the thick jungle. To avoid the mean branches from slapping me some more, I find the previous path I made before heading back with the girl over my shoulder.
Awkward Meal

Already, it’s sunset by the time we get back to my cave-home. Rexio met us along-the-way and sniffed the girl but the girl was clearly still very out-of-it. I thought about putting her on Rexio to make the trip faster, but we were already pretty-close to home at the time and I’m not sure how he would react to a human riding him. To be honest, I’m not sure how to react to this girl when she wakes up either. She’ll know where my cave-home is now -- unless I bonk her really hard on the head, but I don’t want to do that! I guess I just...feel a-little obligated to heal her up and send her on her way. Or, maybe I feel I need to prove that I’m not the horrible boy who burnt their camp like she assumes.

I lay her down by the fire and start cleaning her wound with hot water and some healing herbs. I’ve had an infection from a wound before and it’s terrible! Not even silly humans who hate me deserve to go through that. Once clean, I wrap a cloth around her waist to keep the herbs from falling out -- a clean cloth, of-course! I always keep healing supplies in my cave -- just in-case. A quick inspection of the bandage and an examination of her entire body to check for any other damage.

“Hey! Stop that!” She shouts.

Oops! Looks like she’s woken-up while I was inspecting her. She shuts her legs and I quickly jump back as I blush and lower my head in an embarrassed bow.

“S...sorry!” I stumble my words to her. “W...was checking w...where you were in...injured.”

I remain with my head lowered to avoid eye-contact as she made me realize what I just did. Surely, she knows it was with good intentions, right? It’s not like I’m attracted to humans or anything. Luckily, she sighs and sits against the wall of my cave as she notices her fresh bandage to, hopefully, figure-out I was working-on healing her.

“Th...thank-you.” The girl says to me in a calmer voice as she looks around. ”...where are we?”

Looking up at her with my cheeks still blushed, I sit more calmly while Rexio sits next to me. I give him some head scratches and answer the girl. “M...my cave. This is where Rexio and I live and...hide.”

She keeps her hand on the bandage and blinks at me. “Hide? From big cats and stuff?”

I nod and brush the back of my head. ”...and...and kinda from humans too.”

The girl looks around my cave some and then at Rexio. ”...oh.”

Rexio paws at my bag and gets my attention as I’m reminded of the fishies in there. They need to be taken-care of soon before they start to go bad and all the time spent fishing will have been a waste! So, the girl gets-up and carefully wanders my cave as I clean the fishies outside. I’ll preserve two of them in some of the salt I took from the humans and one to cook over the fire. Cleaning fishies is always messy but Rexio seems to always enjoy eating the discards as the more edible parts go to me.

After covering the fishies in salt, I find the girl sitting by the fire -- perhaps she wants to watch me cook the tasty fishy. I sit-down by the fire opposite to her and lay the fishy over some hot stones by the fire -- am sure she wants to keep her distance from me as-much-as I want to keep a safe distance from her.

We don’t really say much to each-other -- just sort-of sit opposite of each-other and scan one-another for reasons to distrust. At-least, I assume she’s doing this as-well but I’m not really good at reading people. Never even had someone in my cave before other than Rexio. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by her though -- just keeping his distance as-well. She doesn’t seem like a bad human yet and also doesn’t seem to be upset with me. Once the fishy is cooked, I hand her half and we eat and stare at each-other.

She wrinkles her nose and puts it back by the fire, “It’s a-little under-cooked.”

So, I squint at her and tilt my head as I resume to eat my under-cooked fishy. “It’s perfect! Humans overcook everything.”

The girl shakes her head and pokes her fishy as she waits for it to burn. Silly human... I sigh and stop eating to put both our fishies back on the hot rocks to further cook. I guess I can try to cook things that she will enjoy while she’s healing-up here. I even sprinkle some herbs on her fishy for her that I think humans usually use. After poking the fishies and looking at her, she nods and informs me that they’re now cooked.

“Thank-you.” She says with a smile.

Weird... Never had a human smile at me before. At-first, I thought she was showing me her teeth as a sign of intimidation, but...I think she’s just being friendly. A friendly human that doesn’t want to attack me -- never experienced this before so I try my best attempt at a smile. We share some idle chit-chat as we enjoy our meal and get to know a-little about each-other. My fishy is definitely cooked too much for my liking but I get to know her name to be Willow, her favourite food to be sausage, and her favourite activity to be gardening. I’ve never actually thought about growing my own food -- maybe I could give it a try some day.
Predators

Over the next couple weeks, Willow and I would get to know each-other more. She would work on planting a-little garden as-if she wanted to stay longer, and I would make our favourite foods -- even if I had to occasionally eat terribly overcooked food for her to enjoy it. Rexio and her get to know each-other as-well as they get comfortable enough to play and Rexio even lets her on his back when we go hunting. Willow is still pretty-terrible at being sneaky and hunting -- but she’ll get better in-time and then we’ll surely be unstoppable. I kind-of hope she stays.

The next morning comes and I awake with another big yawn and stretch. There was some left-over fish by the depleted fire that I nibble on while walking around the cave looking for the injured girl. It seems she’s nowhere in the cave so I look around outside with no luck in spotting her. Her footprints are pretty visible and appear to be leading away from my home. I don’t want her informing any of the humans where my cave-home is and she’s in no condition to be wandering around anyway, so I decide to follow her trail.

It looks like she at-least stuck to the path and didn’t attempt to cut through the thick jungle -- that would just be suicide in her state. They appear to be leading down the same path I take to the stream, which is good -- means I can catch some more fish on the way back. It’s unfortunate that she has such poor taste in food, but I don’t mind overcooking her food while she’s here -- I’ll just keep mine that way I like it!

Not long later, I get to the nearby stream where the girl’s trail would continue to lead me. I continue following and -- is that her coverings on the ground? I get closer a poke the fabric with my spear -- yep, these are the coverings she was wearing. Turning my focus to the left, I see her bathing under my waterfall. She doesn’t notice me and I try to avert my eyes, but my curiosity is too much not to stare a-little. I’ve never seen a girl’s body without coverings on before -- I noticed she was different than me when examining her but didn’t pay much mind to it at the time.  Now -- I’m noticing all of her as the water splashes and massages her exposed body.

Letting my guard down, I allow myself to be snuck-up on. Some large humans manage to grab me from behind when I had my eyes on the injured girl under the waterfall! They take me to the stream with a tight grip on my arms while I struggle and tug against them. They push me to the ground while still holding me tightly. Rexio comes out from behind them and tries to attack but the humans were prepared -- they toss a net over him to capture him as-well.

“Hey! You!” They shout to the girl as one of them examines her coverings. ”You know this boy who was spying on you?”

The girl yelps and attempts to cover herself with her hands. The large humans don’t wait for a response as one of them sneaks-up behind her from the other side of the waterfall to grab her too. She struggles against their grip as I did with no luck either as they bring her over to join me. They don’t even bother to put her coverings on as they forcefully carry us away while dragging Rexio in the net behind them. Who the hell are these humans if they are not with the girl?

After about half an hour of being carried, I give-up struggling to escape and the girl soon follows. It would be several more hours of travelling down paths and through thick jungle that’s hardly familiar to me before we eventually arrive at where they were taking us. Apparently, there’s another human camp over here that I’ve completely missed. It looks much larger and hard much more weaponry than the one near my cave -- could this be who attacked them?

They soon bring us to some wooden building where they toss Rexio into a cage and tie-me-up at a post nearby before testing the strength of the chain attached to my ankle and leaving with the girl. I shout at them -- trying to get them to tell me where they’re taking her or to get anything out of them but they just laugh as they continue to leave me alone in the building with Rexio caged nearby. These humans seem different. They are not the prey that I am familiar with -- they are predators and have made Rexio and I their prey.

Sundown eventually comes and my tummy rumbles from a lack of food. Rexio’s cage is too far away for me to lean against or to give him pats and attention, but I try to pass the time by talking with him all night. He doesn’t understand much of what I say, but it’s clear he understands the attention and tries to talk back to me in his dino chirps and barks. He’s a good boy but I fear what the humans would have planned for him -- for us.
Waiting

Morning again comes as I’m woken by the door opening and humans laughing after hardly any sleep -- it’s a couple of grown-up girls with a basket full of foods. They stop their giggling and chatting among each-other as they keep their distance from us and lay-down the food in three separate piles by my bondage pole -- one for fruit, one for veggies, one for meat. They pull-out some kind-of slab of meat from the basket and toss it into Rexio’s cage to feed him. I guess they want to keep us alive for now; but if they didn’t, they could have just slit our throats at the water stream.

So, what am I supposed to do with these three piles of separate food? Are they wanting to see which I’ll eat from? The two grown-up human girls sit by the door and seem intent on watching me closely. I’m starving and feel like grabbing what I want from the piles, but, I can’t help but want to play a trick on them. If they seem so intent on figuring-out what I will eat -- let’s keep them guessing and confused! So, I sit in-front of the piles of food with my legs crossed and chin on my fist as my focus swaps between the choices and the silly humans watching me.

My hand picks-up a fruit as I pretend to examine it before putting it down. I then give a pepper some finger-pokes, then pickup their cooked meat and give it some sniffs before putting it back down as-well. Gross -- they very-much overcooked and burnt their meat as-usual! It’s hard to even pretend to be interested in such a thing, so I grab a fruit and take bites into it with my legs still crossed. The fruit’s juices dripping onto my lap as I stare at the human women attempting to figure-me-out -- they shall never succeed! Besides, I don’t plan on staying long and will escape with Rexio when I can.

The two remain sitting by the door as I continue to eat -- giving them a glare as I take bites out of whatever I want. Are they going to stay there watching me for the entire meal? What a bunch of creeps. I make sure to eat as slow as I can -- taking small bites and chewing slowly while still glaring at the humans. My finger pokes some of the food again -- picking up random things and going to take a bite out of them before putting them down and choosing something else.

Eventually, I decide I've had enough to eat, so I grab the cooked meat and toss it into Rexio’s cage. He sniffs it and seems somewhat repulsed but gives-in and eats some more -- even he hates how much the humans cook their food and he’s less picky than me! After sitting-down near Rexio, sadly, still out-of-reach to give him any sort of attention, the two women finally get-up and leave our wooden cage -- once-again giggling to each-other. Am we some kind-of joke to them? Jerks.

The rest of the day, none of the humans would visit again until sundown when Willow showed-up. She entered quietly and cautiously like she was not supposed to be here. She runs over to me and gives me a hug and I return the closeness. She holds onto me for a long moment, which kind-of made me feel awkward being held so long, but she doesn’t stay long. She uses a chain of keys on my ankle lock to free me before using it on Rexio’s cage. It takes a-few attempts to find the right key for him but his cage is eventually unlocked.

She gives me another hug and whispers in my ear, “Wait until night. There are two guards by the exit that I’ll distract for you. I need to get back and will be-able to distract them in an hour or two.”

She makes me smile as I rub my ankle -- happy to be free from the metal as I reply, “I’ll wait for you outside the camp. Will you come with me?”

She nods, “I will leave from here and join you once you are free and the guards are busy eating.”

The injured girl, still bandaged-up then quickly leaves as quietly as possible. She’s not very quiet -- terrible at being sneaky, but she is just a human still, after-all. I am grateful for her help though, and will wait an hour before checking to see where the guards are. Rexio seems pretty excited to be out from his cage and licks my face as I give him pats and hugs but we have to be quiet -- I push him down and put my finger to my lips to signal that we are hunting. He knows to be quiet and remain unseen when we hunt.

An hour passes as the sun vanishes over the horizon, (from what I can tell while inside our wooden cage.) I open the door and peek around outside -- the coast looks clear around me and it looks like Willow has just started to distract the guards at the exit. She seems to be chatting with them in a weird-looking way as the guards seem pretty focused on her. She then leads them away from the exit to I don’t know where -- but the path was now clear for Rexio and I.

Again, I put my finger to my lips so Rexio know to be silent before giving him a pat as we make our way towards the exit -- trying our best to keep in the shadows and not make any noise. Half-way there, we back up against the wall of a building as a light glows through it’s window. I peek inside and see several humans eating at a table before ducking and leading Rexio under the window so they don’t notice us.

We make it to the exit and someone behind us yells to call the guards -- we have been spotted! No matter though -- I hop on Rexio and he sprints us further away from this place. It wasn’t long before we reach the end of the open plains and enter the thick jungle where I hop back off Rexio. There were some humans with weapons at the entrance of their camp, but they dare not chase me in this darkness -- even with their torches and boom-sticks, I am for too formidable of an enemy for them!

Rexio and I setup a spot on the jungle’s edge to keep watch for Willow’s escape. He seems confused to why we’re sticking around, and I’m a-little confused why Willow could not just escape with us at the same time; but humans think differently. She may have distracted me and got me captured to begin with, but she also helped me escape -- and she seems different from the usual humans. So, we wait.

Hours pass with no sign of her. I’m tempted to run in there with Rexio to cause a distraction but this camp is much more protected than the other one -- much more guards with weapons. Another few hours pass as Rexio and I eat from a nearby berry bush -- still waiting at the edge of the jungle for the injured girl. We wait more...

Sunrise eventually comes and Rexio could stay awake no-longer -- he’s curled-up under a tree, lightly snoring. I decided to climb partly up the tree to sit on a branch and stare at the camp. Nothing eventful seems to be happening there until I notice the two guards at the exit leave -- probably for their morning meal. Then, I see Willow finally make a dash for it from a nearby building. The two guards to replace the others spot her and give chase -- she will not be fast enough to escape them.

Jumping down from the tree -- which makes Rexio wake -- I hop on his back and we quickly sprint to Willow. The guards gradually catch-up to her as I arrive next to them and Rexio runs into one of them to knock them down. I pull Willow up on his back behind me before Rexio leaps over the other guard and we run back to a nearby jungle trail to escape this horrible camp. We will find a new hide-out and come back one day to see what kind of trouble we can get into.