chapter 12

third-person point of view:

as he stood amidst the trees, he shrieked victoriously while savagely beating his chest with his lower hands balled into fists as his upper hands held the two halves of his dead enemy. He felt strangely empty inside as he thought about the events of his life that had led him to this moment.

He was the alpha of his pack, and now after easily defeating this once insurmountable foe, he finally became the strongest predator of this small world.

But things were not always like this. even though he was the strongest now, he had not been born that way, but he had earned it with hard work and dedication instead.

He was born into a pack of four-armed silver gorillas, and even though he was born into a species that was one of the two strongest in this small world, the other being the giant tigers, he was tiny and weak compared to others of the same pack.

And so he was abandoned, his pack choosing not to waste precious recourses on what seemed like a lost cause to them and instead channel these recourses towards other gorilla cups that were bigger and stronger, thus having a better chance of survival reaching adulthood.

He, however, did not give up on himself even if his pack did. And so, he chose to struggle and rebel against his fate instead of simply succumbing to it and silently waiting for death.

And so struggle he did. Every day posed a new challenge for him: securing food to avoiding predators, and finding shelter when the weather soured.

Whether it was rooted, fruit peels left behind by other animals, and even tree bark when nothing else was to be had. He ate everything he could find.

To avoid much bigger, stronger, and quicker predators than himself, he had to adapt and outsmart them. And so he learned to act stealthily, only scavenging for food at times when he knew that predators would not be awake and roaming about.

Finding safe shelter from the wrath of mother nature, however, proved to be the most complex challenge. As such, places were very few and were already occupied by other strong creatures.

So he chose to make one of his own and started to carve the bottom of a rotting tree with a sharp rock he had found earlier. And even though his progress in doing that was plodding, he did not give up, and after an entire week of hard work, his work was finally done, and his simple shelter was finally complete. It wasn't much to look at, but it was a home, a home that he made for himself with his own hands.

He continued to live in this manner for a year until he was strong enough to start climbing trees. And so he stopped eating other animals' leftovers and started to eat fresh fruits by climbing trees and picking them for himself.

And so another year had passed. Finally, having sufficient nutrition, his tiny body started to grow at an explosive rate. And he was even able to defeat some of the smaller predators that he stood no chance against before his small growth spurt.

It was at the moment when he defeated the first foe that he decided merely surviving was no longer enough for him. he would grow strong, strong enough to eat as much as he wanted, and most importantly, strong enough so that he would no longer fear anything.

And so he started training himself by looking for all kinds of predatory and dangerous creatures his size or slightly bigger to fight against.

His old pack has also moved to a clearing in the forest near his home and invited him to join them, which he refused. It's not like he was holding a grudge and refused out of spite, but he was used to living alone as he also helped the pack and cooperated with them occasionally.

And he continued his cycle of eating, fighting, and sleeping for an unknown number of years until he was at this point, carrying the corpse of the strongest predator in this small world and shrieking in a declaration of dominance.

"hey four arms."

he suddenly heard a voice breaking him out of his thought. And as he turned his gaze towards the direction of the sound, he saw a weird small creature standing on two legs.

"let's fight" the strange small creature charged at him, and the rest was all history.