It isn't easy being in the Green.

Lost isn't really a thing.  Well, not a thing to me.  See, to be lost is both to not know where one is and to care that that's the case.  There's a Jungle above me, and that's cool.  I couldn't point you to any civilized habitation of man, but I wouldn't be heading there if I could anyway.

I'm out here in the tropical heat and the humidity, wrapped in one leopard's hide and tracking his brother's.  I know that he's heading down towards the water at mid day, tracking his own prey so that he lives another day in this snake eat frog world.  Maybe he'll go past the plane wreck the way he's going even.  Haven't really been there in a while, not since last spring at least.  Not because of bad memories or anything, just because the rest of this place is so much more interesting than a bit of man-made trash.

The graves are there too.  Looks like he's sitting on top of the cockpit looking down at them even.  They're overgrown now, just sticks planted firmly in the ground with grass sticking up.  I didn't know them, didn't really see the point of graves myself, but it's probably something that they would have wanted, maybe.  Not like anyone really talked on the flight, not that I remember anyway.

That branch up there will do fine for the drop, leopard'll never know what hit him.  circle around, climb this tree, angle over there.  Back at the beginning I never would have been able to do this climbing, had to survive on the floor of the jungle in caves.  Odds were I wouldn't have survived long, didn't know that then though.  Got lucky with the animals, I was never in their path.  Plants too, found the good ones and stuck with them, watching the apes here to get clued in when I could.

Yup, silent as a hawk I can dive right down on him.  knife in one hand, bracer 'round the other.  Found the knife in the baggage.  I think it was the old man's.  He was in front of me on the flight, snored too.  Big fucker this knife is though, and sharp.  The bracer is just bark affixed with vines.  A few months back I tried something like this and nearly got my arm shredded if I hadn't moved it fast enough, so a little protection from the claws and teeth will go a long way.

And the drop.

Grab.

Yell.

Stab and slash.

He's struggling.

Hard to get a good angle in.

One more.

Got him.

Blood dripping down through the dust on the cracked glass.  Soaking the fur and my knees.  Good kill.  He didn't manage to jump off down to the ground.  If he had I mighta lost my grip, but he just circled.  Now I need to smoke the kill and wash the blood off.

Lotsa thing come when they smell blood around here.  A few might even come to the sounds of the fight, so speed is important.  Listen and skin, then cut the choice bits off and stick them in the sack to eat, along with the pelt.  I can leave some of it behind and then I'll have a few more predators off my back for a day.

Up to the canopy for traveling.  Slower, sure, but much less chance of getting ambushed like that leopard.  Bugs chittering and a monkey howl a ways away.  even some birds are back already.  And something else.  Humming.  Not natural.  A small black dot of humanity against a patch of blue on green.

I run.