The First Jumper (first draft version)

The First Jumper 09: Death

The monster jerked to the side, emitting a loud cry, and knocking Little Bear off his feet with one of its legs.

He rolled with the blow and came instantly to his feet, spear at the ready, but then he realized the creature already had a spear embedded in it.

He whirled about.  Where had it come from?

Then he heard Tiger's voice from the jungle behind him.

"Kill it!" Tiger shouted.

Gerleesh was in agony.  She had been so caught up in the moment that she had paid no attention to what was around her, other than her new-found friend.

The stick had been well-thrown, she knew.  It had missed her circulatory pump, but it had hit a major artery.  Already, she could feel her life beginning to fade.

She would have welcomed this moment any time in the last five months, as only right, when she had outlived her planet.  Now, however, just meeting the first being to share her loneliness, she felt cheated once again.  Irrationally, she scrabbled for life.

Tiger saw the monster collapse down onto the ground, and rushed out of the jungle.

"Give me your spear!" he shouted at Little Bear, and reached out to grab it.

"No!" Little Bear shouted back, but by then, Tiger had grabbed the spear.

Both boys held it with both hands, each trying to wrest it away from the other.  Little Bear knew he could not win against the stronger boy in this contest of strength, but he was determined not to let the creature be killed by his spear.

As they strained against each other, a gurgling cough came from the monster.  Both boys turned to see a spray of black liquid come from its mouth.  Some of it landed on the boys.  It smelled foul.

"Aieeee!" screamed Tiger, as if he had been caught by the sabertooth himself.  He jumped back, and Little Bear wrested the spear away, and turned it on his friend.

After one wild-eyed look at Little Bear, Tiger turned and fled into the jungle.

Little Bear turned back to look at the strange creature, but whatever it was, it was clearly dying, although it was pulling at the spear with its hands.

Little Bear took the spear in his hand, and pulled it out, eliciting a cry from the creature.

And then it was more calm, sitting down on the ground, its palm flaps covering its wounds.

"I'm sorry," Little Bear said.  "I would never have hurt you."

Gerleesh could feel her life draining.  She reached bloody palm flaps to the creature's face.  If only we could have become friends, she thought.  I could have told you of my world, and my sorrow, and my never being able to have a child.

And somehow the thought of her lost child rose up as Gerleesh's last thought, as she remembered how she wished she could feel herself pouring her soul into her child, becoming free from her body.

Little Bear was overcome with grief.  He sensed something special had just been lost by Tiger's actions, and he wished he could save the creature, somehow.  He reached forward and tried to cover its wounds with his hands, as it put its hand-like things on his face.

Then, something extraordinary happened, and it was like the Cave of Flying, after all.  He felt the creature's grief, and her terrible loneliness, and her joy at finding someone to share her life, and her grief at not having a child to pour herself into.

And that was the last thing he remembered.

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