Endosymbiosis

34. Fear

"I once ended up on a... 'Desert Island'." I started my tale. "For the first few noxdiems I spent there I just circled the perimeter, looking for any reminders of civilization that would help me at least know where I was. But I didn't find anything, for many, many noxdiems... Around me, there was only sand, trees and wild animals, that wouldn't show me a path through the stars to escape..." I sighed. "No one who would hear me scream..."

"No one to hear you snore!" Lupan teased and then everyone threw glasses at him.

When silence fell again, I continued, above the crackling of the fire:

"But then, one night, when I was used to the silence and the occasional howling in the dark, I ended up hearing a different sound, coming from inside the dense woods I saw from the beach... It was a kind of music, so rhythmic, ethereal and mysterious that it could only have been created by someone... Had I not investigated the island enough? Was I really not alone?" I looked up from the fire and looked at those studying me: Lupan and Deinos were trying to figure out if the story was real or not, Plumala was cowering in fear of everything, and Korrok and Doxy were trying to figure out what I was hiding below. I turned my eyes to the fire. "Even when I slept, that song was in my head, as constant as my breathing, as persistent as my heartbeat..."

"As annoying as your snoring!" Lupan yelled and I threw my shoe in his face. I didn't even snore that much!

Everyone stared at me with a request for me to continue, and I did:

"Each night the music got closer... Louder... More real... And I felt that if I didn't find out where it came from, some morning I would wake up to find it on top of me, entering in my head like it was never more than a dream..." I swallowed. "At one night, the curiosity to find out who was creating it did not let me fall asleep, so I took my weapons and ventured into the forest." Everyone looked at me full of expectations. "I spent hours going in deep. The more I entered, the more the darkness enveloped me and the more the sound increased... Until I came across a cave of red rocks, where the sound was the loudest." I sent a look at Doxy, who was holding her breath. "Slowly I entered the cave and descended the uneven stone steps, until, in the depths, the walls seemed to start to move under my hand... And, with each step to the bottom, I heard something behind me, calling me outside as the music drew me into the darkness below..." The eyes around stared at me as if they were with me inside that cave. "I kept going down and down until I came across a crack... And through that gap between the walls a wind passed, whistling so loud that it was able to reach the beach from which I had come and form that melody that had not left me sleep well for so long..."

"The music came from a cave, then?" Doxy whispered, beside me. "And not the creation of some other intelligent being?" I nodded.

"But that crevice wasn't rock-steady..." I continued. "It opened and closed, organic, contracting and expanding, breathing... Because it wasn't a cave... It was a gigantic snake!" Claws and fingers bit into the grass. "I left quickly... And then I finally understood that no one had created that song, as I had so longed for... Because I was truly and completely alone..." Everyone stared at me for a moment, waiting for something more, but I just said: "That's it, guys. The end."

"Did you even kill that creature?!" Lupan squeaked.

"I blew it up afterwards, but that is not the focus of the story!"

"These stories don't need to have a focus, Phaga!" Korrok laughed. "They just have to make Deinos shit like that time before!" Everyone laughed like hyenas in the night, while Deinos tried to convince us that what he had released was some secretion of fear from the espineros, and not what we thought.

"That story didn't count! It wasn't even scary!" Lupan barked and Deinos protested back:

"Yes, it did! You just don't want to because you'll lose this round!"