: Fear

Kusana heard the distant rumbling and was frightened. Nothing he knew of made those kinds of sounds when stepping. Kusana pulled his meager belongings and decided to hide atop a tree while there was still a miniscule amount of light.

As a child, Kusana was able to climb trees very well because of his calloused hands. It seemed that he still had his touch. After bringing his belongings up with him, Kusana waited for the rumbling to pass. The rumbling dissipated, but Kusana could tell that whatever had been let out into the habitat was still present.

Kusana peeked down the tree to see if his sight was any good. Although his eyes adjusted to the extremely low light levels, it was still very hard to make out minute details like grass. In fear of what was present, Kusana kept peering down.

Because of the massive amount of anticipation and anxiety welling up inside of Kusana, he couldn't fall asleep on top of the tree. Kusana gulped down the saliva that was stuck in his throat and continued watching. Eventually, his worries dissipated and he got in a position ready to sleep.

Kusana had no dreams, or at least had no time to mull over them since he was quickly falling from his position. Only a couple milliseconds had passed when he fell, but his eyes quickly widened and he grabbed onto a branch.

His arms and face were scratched up from the small fall, but he was wide awake as the branch he grabbed onto began snapping. Kusana located the next branch that was thick enough for him and swung towards it.

The branch hit his stomach, but Kusana didn't let go. He knew he was forgetting something when he fell asleep. There needed to be something to tie him to the branch, but he had nothing and rolled off the branch in the middle of his sleep.

Fully wrapping his arms around the branch, Kusana took a look at his throbbing hands. Both were bleeding slightly from being scratched all over the bark of the tree. Kusana needed to treat this wound soon or else it had the possibility of getting infected.

There was a subconscious fear in his mind that something was chasing him, so Kusana quickly looked around. After searching for a minute or so, he found a plant familiar to him that he read in books. It was a plant with a lot of gel called aloe vera that had antibacterial properties.

Kusana broke off the stem of the plant and checked if it was the correct one. The stem looked like a long, flat and bent green triangle, but the inside was gel. After confirming it was the right one, he scraped the gel out of the stem and massaged his hands with it.

Kusana ripped off a piece of his pants and wrapped it around his hands to make sure it stayed on them. Kusana looked up and actually observed his surroundings. In the nearby area, he could hear loud growling. Kusana immediately froze in place and waited.

Standing completely still for nearly four minutes, Kusana thought he had heard the growling stop, but a large creature came out of the brush to the left of him. Kusana could barely make out what it was in the darkness of the "night".

The animal certainly wasn't something made of natural means. The beast had pure white skin and fur and an extremely bony complexion. Despite its horrid state, the beast had a powerful look to it's walk. The thing had a round head, but a wide maw and pure black eyes. It's elbows and knees protruded far from it like spikes.

The creature's round and beady eyes whirled toward Kusana. Kusana couldn't make out the color of its pupils but what caught his attention was the repeatedly clacking maw that let out a low growling noise. It's teeth were unnaturally sharp, teeth that Kusana did not want to come into contact with.

A long tongue snaked out of the beast's mouth. Kusana remained still but was disgusted by the creature. The open nostrils on the creature sniffed loudly, before it fully turned to Kusana. He wasn't sure if it would work, but Kusana stood his ground and attempted to psyche out the beast.

If the creature worked using normal animal's methods, Kusana knew that running was a sign of weakness to it and that running would make it hunt him. Fighting it immediately would make it take his approach as a challenge, and he would be mauled to death by those sharp and long claws.

Therefore, the best option was to stand his ground and assert his dominance. The idea of this would be that Kusana would look threatening and the creature would respect him as the higher animal. Except, there was a small problem with this idea.

If Kusana tried to growl at it too loud, it might have companions in the area and then the issue would be out of hand. The much louder rumbling noises at the start of the night were surefire evidence of it.

Kusana hoped that it would be intimidated by his slightly more beefed looks(compared to the creature, not him) and run.

Kusana started with growling lowly at the creature. A fire of determination lit in his eyes as he continued the act. The clacking sounds stopped as the creature growled back at him. The tactic seemed to be working for now, so Kusana took a small step forward. The creature inched backwards and Kusana slowly assumed a lunging position.

He wasn't actually going to lunge at the creature, but Kusana wanted to make himself look threatening. The sound of his growling slowly increased in volume, and Kusana tried barking at the creature. It was seemingly scared by him and scurried off.

After the thing ran off, Kusana let out a breath he didn't notice he was holding onto. He was so focused on not dying that he didn't notice his blood rushing or his heart heavily thumping in his chest.

Kusana didn't want to think of the thing, just the hideous sight of it was enough to give him nightmares. Since he wasn't sure what time it was, Kusana was about to return to the tree to sleep when he heard another song playing overhead.

Unlike the previous song, it was reversed so that the ominous part played first, then the happy part. Kusana could infer that this signified the day, so he collapsed on his butt. The lights overhead slowly turned back on and allowed him to see again.

But it all didn't end there. Kusana heard the loud rumbling once more as the song played. Loud, shrill screams pierced Kusana's ears as the rumbling got closer. A trio of the hairy beasts came charging out, their maws unhinged and screaming.

Kusana immediately ducked under the three beasts, waiting for them to rip him to shreds. Except, it never came. All Kusana heard was the thumping getting farther. He let out another sigh as the beasts left. Something told him they would be gone for the rest of the day.

Something smelled right in front of him. The sneaky bastards left a large pile of poop next to his feet, and he just stepped in it. Kusana immediately started running to the waterfall to clean his feet off.