Primitive Instinct: The Journey Home

The moon waned as I stayed close to the camp and the fires that helped me see.

I cut branches and small saplings to make a bed frame to keep me above the colder air on the floor and a crude crutch for Roar so he could move around the tent and slip outside to answer the calls of nature without my help. He told me about all of the creatures that I’d find and how to find their trail for Diesel as well as the natural markers that he used to navigate the valley and along the sharp inclines of the mountains around us.

The new moon came then slowly grew bigger until it was time for me to go out on my first solo hunt. I woke early to find Roar was already making tea for us and I got up to get food for breakfast, finding mold on the vegetables and the smoked and dried meat nearly gone.

“Will you be okay here by yourself?” I asked Roar as I tossed a bit of meat to Diesel and chewed on my own.

“I will be very bored, but I will do my best to survive,” he answered, smirking as he poured a cup of tea for us both as I came to offer him breakfast and sat on the side of his bed with him as we ate. “Will you be okay out there by yourself?”

“I’ll have Diesel, but yes. I think I’ll be okay,” I nodded. “It scares me, still, because it’s all so new, but there’s not many other options, is there?”

“Not many, no,” he sighed. “I got careless. I slowed down when I knew I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s not your fault, Roar,” I told him. “I don’t like that you used yourself as bait, but it was the better choice. I hate admitting that, by the way.”

“I know you do,” he chuckled.

“You were lucky to have survived. Period. Hurt or not makes no difference to me. I’m just glad you aren’t hurt worse, or dead,” I told him. “We’ll have food for the snow cycle and stores for when it’s time for us to leave. I’m not as sure of how, but I’ll make it happen. I’ve been told I’m clever, so I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”

“If anyone can, I’m certain it’ll be you,” he smiled and nodded. “Now, be sure to stay in the areas I told you of. Orou are the most common predator here, but they tend to stay up where the most baan’tu and skall are.”

“I’ll be careful,” I got up and went to get my boots on and pick up my snowshoes. “Diesel knows the smell of orou now and he’s got more muscle than he did when I got a new fur.”

He chuckled and handed me my pack and weapons before putting my hat on my head and pulling my fur shut around me.

“Be very careful, Fern. If you aren’t back by the final meal, I’ll have to come find you,” he told me.

“I’ll be back before then, Roar. I promise,” I nodded and gave him a hug. “Don’t do anything to make me want to add your ears to my hat.”

“I’ll do my best,” he laughed and hugged me back, using his crutch to duck out of the tent with me.

I got Diesel in place at the front of the sled and then stood on the back.

“I’ll be fine, Roar’kaol’tok,” I told him before I tied the flaps of my hat closed and knocked on the antler to tell Diesel to pull so we could cover ground quicker.

As much as I wanted to start on my plans to secure a sustainable source of meat by setting traps, we were very, very low on food right now. I needed to find enough meat to keep us going for a day or two before looking for a place to set the traps where they’d actually get sprung.

Once we had gone up the game trails that crisscrossed the woods around here for a few hours, I got off the sled and took the lines from Diesel’s harness to pull it over my shoulder so he could use his nose to scent things out without having to worry about the sled behind him.

We traveled a fair distance up the mountain before I found an outcropping that looked kind of like Pride Rock from The Lion King and I figured it would be a good spot to get a great view.

I left the sled below and climbed up, looking out over the huge expanse of dark world that was lit only by the moon and frowned before looking up at the sky.

“Oh God,” I whispered, having one fear confirmed. “There’s no satellites in the sky. No red flashing lights from towers. No light pollution from any kind of town or city anywhere and that is a very, very long distance I’m looking at right now.”

I sat on my knees and held my head in my hands as the freaking out started.

“I’m not just far away from civilization. I’m on a whole different planet?! No. No, there’s still other explanations,” I rambled, trying to control myself. “No, there isn’t! Even at the poles, you can still tell a satellite in the sky from a star and there are no freaking satellites! There is no fucking way there are no satellites!”

I yanked at my hat until it came off and I started breathing rapidly as I dropped it in the snow and put my hands on my face.

“Stars! Stars. Constellations,” I gasped and looked up, finding the North Star and all of the little constellations that I recognized, and it only confused me more. “I’m on Earth. But it’s not Earth because there’s no satellites and mammoths are a thing and so are giant t-rex bears and cat dogs and jackalopes. And let’s not forget to mention the people that have animal characteristics, which is weird but super freaking cool, admittedly.”

Diesel barked and I groaned as I looked down to see him staring up at me, his head cocked to the side.

“Having a moment,” I called down to him and he got up to come meet me. “I don’t understand any of this.”

I felt a wet nose on my cheek and Diesel sat beside me, patiently waiting for me to start talking it out with him.

“This is Earth,” I said. “The stars are the same. But it’s not Earth. The blinky lights and the stupid satellites are missing and all of the weird, kind of cool shit that we’ve seen... Diesel, I don’t think this is a scientific engineering thing. Whatever happened to get us here, it happened at the place where the fence was electric and the guys with guns and the other guys with lab coats... Oh my God. I’m going to sound like Uncle Rudy, but I think we’re in a different reality. Like a different dimension or whatever.”

I think I read a paper about divergent human genomes. Apes, the closest genetic relative the human race has, don’t have any kind of webbing on their hands and feet yet humans do. It’s only a tiny little bit, but it’s there. Also, the wrinkles we get on our hands and feet when we’re in the water too long. It’s meant to help us grip better. All of those were adaptations meant to prepare us for a life in the water, yet we didn’t evolve for that. We developed along the lines of technology, not primitive survival. We made advanced tools and those tools put us on the path to evolve less instinctual traits and develop more intellectual traits.

But the Mapok... All of the Mapok, I’m assuming, evolved along natural assimilation. Roar had fur and claws to protect him. He had fox-like ears that helped him hear even small game under layers of snow or predators who were stalking him, though I’d already witnessed that it wasn’t fool proof. His legs were shaped to give him speed. His eyes were meant to help him see in the freaking dark, for shit’s sake.

“Diesel,” I panicked some more. “There’s no technology here. No tech means there’s no way to go back. Even if we wanted to go back, we don’t have a choice but to stay here.”

I started to understand what this new development meant, and I could feel the contents of my stomach roiling.

“Forever.”

I fell to my hands and threw up.