Chapter 1

Now...

I am being held at gun point an occurrence that is getting old, my hands held high, the woman is hiding behind me, some how it always involves a woman.

"Fellas you are about to make a mistake here, I don't want to harm you." I say, knowing they wont listen.

They laugh, they always laugh.

"You should of minded your business" The one with the gun says.

"The lady clearly no longer wanted your company" I say as she moves further into my shadow, I can hear her heart beating in panic.

"Look, you two just walk on and we all can go our separate ways" I say.

They look at each other an laugh.

"Maybe when we are done with the bitch we can start on you, or maybe I just kill you now and get it over with." The one with the gun says.

"I doubt it." I sigh.

The one with the gun approaches me, pointing the gun at my face.

"You got a pair on you man" He says aiming the gun at my forehead.

Always some quixotic misadventure that always ends in the reminder of how unlike them I am, how alien I am to them, they are always so violent, always.

The gun goes off aimed at my forehead, and in that brief flash I go back to the first time, the very first time, my first memories.

Then...

Naked and alone, I lay in the dirt, I am covered in some kind of fluid, slowly I stand, uncertain of my location, I look around, endless savannas stretch in all directions. I look at my hands they are as alien to me as my location, I have no idea who I am, or how I got here, but I am not with out resources, I have instinct, I have some knowledge.

I pick a direction and begin to walk, the day passes quickly as I walk, I see animals I have no name for, creatures that graze, creatures that hunt, I watch the creatures eat and hunt, strangely they ignore me, it seems they do not know what to make of me, I am as alien to them as they are to me. Eventually I make it to a watering hole, several animals are gathered around drinking from the water source, I observe them for several minutes before I decided to wash the slime and dirt from my body.

I look at my reflection in the water, I touch my face watching the reflection do the same, nothing seems familiar to me, what the hell happened to me. I step into the water, going out until I am submerged to my waist, I wash the filth and scum from my body, I submerge myself further, going completely under, When I come up from the water I notice I am not alone.

She stands at the edge of the water holding a canteen made from animal skins, she sees me emerge and is startled at my presence, she appears to be a similar species as me, she is wearing what looks to be animal skins, her own skin is a golden bronze color, her body is lean and muscular from what I could only assume is a hard life. She is shorter, and from my reflection I can see slight differences in her facial structure from my, overall we seem more alike than different. I slowly start to swim toward the shore in her direction I know she is no threat to me, she seems to be enthralled with me, watching me, so much so she does not notice the movement behind her, I do.

Three men emerge from the brush, moving silently toward the woman with spears at the ready several yards behind her, she does not notice them stalking toward her, I pick up speed swimming in the water at her, as soon as I can feel the ground under my feet I start to run, I judge that it will be a near thing, as soon as I leap out of the water I see the lead man raise his spear to strike at her back.

She drops the canteen at my leap, she must think I am leaping at her, she drops to the ground as I sail toward her causing the mans stab to miss her, I sail straight into him, we clash together and roll to the ground, I am not sure what has come over me, but I know that this man is no match, just as I knew the women could not harm me.

I roll with the man struggling to grab his throat, meanwhile he has stabbed me in the gut with his spear, I struggle and am able to wrap my arm around his neck, slowly cutting off the oxygen supply, I can sense his breathing slow and his heart rate, we roll around for a bit before I feel him go limp, I wait a bit before letting go, I stand over the now sleeping man. Looking over at the two other men, both are staring at me with apprehension, they look down at my midsection, I grab the spear head and pull it from my body tossing it to the side, they look at each other and turn running away.

I look over to see the women staring in awe at me, she is also shaking like a leaf, I walk slowly over to her with my hands out to the side. She is just staring at the man on the floor, shivering, as I approach she doesn't even pay me any attention, when I get up to her I look down at her, I am at least a head taller than her, I wave my hands before her face, she shakes and looks at me, I can see her eyes mist over.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

Not knowing where the words came from, I know enough to know that she may not speak the same language as me, it seems I have selective information, I know about language just not the origin of the one I speak. She looks at me confused, she looks back to the man and then to me, she says something to me that I don't understand, she runs her hand over the wound on my side that has already started to heal, she is looking like she is starting to panic.

"Its okay, I won't hurt you." I say.

She looks to the man again than to me, she seems to notice he is still breathing, she looks at me and chatters something quickly at me, she pulls a knife made from some kind of rock and points at the man, and moves to hand me the knife.

"Its okay he wont hurt us, I put him to sleep for awhile." I shake my head no at her and reject the knife, I see no reason to kill the man as he now poses no threat.

She looks at me oddly but nods, she points at herself and says. "Jora".

I nod, she points at me.

I shake my head. "I don't know." I say.

She points at herself "Jora." she points at me. "Idinnoah".

I laugh and shake my head.

"no no". I say "I don't know my name."

she tilts her head.

"Idinnoah" she says again.

I just shake my head laughing as she grabs my wrist and pulls for me to follow her, I figure I have nothing to lose so I follow, she leans over the man, I am worried she will stab him, but instead she starts removing his clothes and handing them to me, I take the animal skins and put them on, I notice she blushes as I pull on the loin cloth. I try to talk to her but she does not understand me, she chatters something to me and points to the horizon, I assume that is where we are headed.

After walking for a few hours I see smoke on the horizon, I point to it and Jora just nods, that is where we are going, an hour later we arrive at what looks like a small primitive village. There are several structures that have been burned to the ground, I see birds circling as well and several bodies on the floor, all male, Jora runs to what seems like an arbitrary set of bodies, she falls to her knees weeping at one set. I assume this is some relation to her, there is a spear in his chest like the one her attackers had used, she points toward the burning tent and chatters something.

I am taking the scene in, I can see tracks leading north from here, from the looks of it who ever attacked this village took the women and children while killing the men, the women is still weeping over the body of one of the men. I sift through the destruction finding several spears, I bind them together and sling them over my back, I call to her and point to the tracks when she gets to me, she shakes her head.

I point in the direction they went and to us, I point in the same way and take a spear and point, she seems to get my meaning, she tilts her head and nods slightly, she runs to a spot near the burning tent and digs, she begins to take out what looks like smoked animal meat, she bundles it up and carries it to me, she motions with her hand to eat. Thats when it dawns on me, that it has been several hours of hard walking, and I do not hunger nor do I thirst like she obviously does.

I wait as she eats, once she is done we head out. It is not long before we reach the first body, she checks it over, it is small child, male, obviously he couldn't take the hike and his captors killed him and moved on. Something flares in me, you should not harm the weak, it is something I know for sure, I am still looking at the body as Jora moves on, I can feel the anger swell inside me at the childs death, "do not harm a child, protect the weak from those who seek to oppress them" I hear it in my head yet I do not know how I have heard this before.

"Idinnoah" Jora says.

I look up and nod to her, we continue our walk, it is several more miles before we come to a women laying on the side of the path, she is naked and tied to a tree, it is clear she is dead and that her captors have had their way with her, the anger grows again, and my desire to find the remainder of Jora's people grows, I am eager now to find their captors. I watch as Jora shuts the womans eyes and unties her from the tree. For some reason I feel we should be burying the bodies but Jora makes no move or effort to do so, so we continue on Dark will soon be upon us and Jora moves to make camp, I shake my head and point at the road.

"we must keep moving." I say.

She just tilts her head at me, I begin a long miming of people sleeping and us sneaking up on them, she watches with her brows furrowed, on my second attempt she starts to nod and pick up her pack to follow me, I need to learn her language but now is not the time. We find three more bodies on the way, all younger children, the forth body is a women and infant both dead with a spear wound, I can almost see red at this point, Jora is beyond tears now. I wonder how many left in her tribe at this rate, these men are animals and I shall treat them as such.

It is dark by the time we reach their camp, they have lit a campfire and seem to be unconcerned about being discovered, I count 9 men with spears, 12 women and 6 children. I motion for Jora to stay in the darkness away from the camp as I creep forward. I make my way slowly toward the light of the camp fire, I see three of the men in the process of enjoying one of their captives, this decides it for me, I stride right into the light of the fire like I belong their, I rise one of my spears and flint it at the man about to enter the captive, the spear takes him in the neck with enough force to in him into the ground.

"You can all leave now and not be harmed further." I say a loud.

Of course no one has any idea what I said, a man emerges from the shadows I did not see before, he is dragging a young boy by his hair, the child is in distress, in his other hand is a knife, I can only imagine what he was doing earlier, my visions goes red, It is not clear to me what happened in the next few moments, but I find myself holding the severed head of one of the attackers standing in pile of bodies covered in their blood.

Jora would later tell me she had never seen such violence in all her life, not even from the predators of the field, the remainder of her village is saved that night leaving 13 women, 4 young girls and 3 boys. With out men to protect them they will be helpless, that night I take it as my duty to protect them at least until we can find another friendly tribe.

Now...