Hidden in the darkness of the night, Y'shaati and I'ppi were eating the meat that both managed to get a few hours earlier in that human village. The little monkey happily tasted the big, juicy boar leg. The monkey-girl, on the other hand, wasn't enjoying her dinner very much. However, she couldn't deny that the piece of meat she held in her hands was the most delicious she had ever tasted.
For some reason, the red flower had the property of making the meat taste better and have a better smell. It was very different from when she hunted and killed a living prey.
But what baffled the monkey-girl the most was the ease with which humans allowed them to escape from the settlement. Both were practically surrounded and at the mercy of the humans... why they changed their minds so suddenly? Questions continued to surge, and she was still far from finding answers...
At that moment, I'ppi said something that left Y'shaati surprised: the little monkey mentioned that he couldn't help noticing her resemblance to humans. The shape of her body, her height, her fur on her head and other details were suspiciously similar. For a brief moment, I'ppi was afraid to think that his new mother wasn't what she really believed. Seeing his anguish, Y'shaati dropped her piece of meat and squatted next to the little baby and spoke directly to his eyes to regain his confidence:
"Y'shaati may be human, but no like them. Y'shaati be monkey... monkey of heart."
Two days after that incident...
As Y'shaati and I'ppi got farther and farther from the Amazon rainforest, the Monkey Queen could notice that the jungle was beginning to lose its beautiful color, turning into a lifeless shape of gray. Looking at the sky, she saw that Father Sun's presence had vanished, and a dense fog prevented her from seeing beyond a couple of trees in front of her. Little by little, the jungle was falling into perpetual darkness.
What the Naka'i elders warned her about, was true... Y'shaati realized that both had finally reached their destination... from there on, she and the monkey pup were inside the Darklands.
The little monkey, still traveling on Y'shaati's left shoulder, told her that they had arrived at his home. Meanwhile, Y'shaati couldn't help feeling a little afraid as she looked around. Everything was so different in this place compared to the jungle she knew. The trees had no fruits or any other type of food hanging from their leaves or branches. An abnormal silence flooded all the corners of the jungle. The monkey-girl had a very good ear, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't manage to hear a single noise... the song of the birds, the sound of water, the very breathing of the great trees... nothing of that existed in the Darklands. The only noise she could hear was the one she made while swinging from vine to vine.
It didn't feel natural... it was disturbing... as if this whole place were sick... or cursed...
I'ppi tried to explain to Y'shaati that this distressing silence was due to the fact that no creatures inhabiting in the Darklands dare to leave their hideouts. Most of the time, the animals of this place remain unseen, but always watching... staying out of reach, either to avoid the terrible predators that lurk around or simply to surprise and kill a distracted prey. All the living beings of the Darklands are carnivorous... even some plants...
As she listened to what the little monkey was telling her, Y'shaati couldn't believe that such a dangerous place could exist. The innocent tone with which I'ppi called this place "home" left her nervous for a long time.
Y'shaati decided to stop on a branch to think about where to go now. The fog was causing her sense of direction to be lost for a brief moment. While she and I'ppi crawled along the thick branch they were, the monkey-girl could see a shadow move quickly beneath them. She and the monkey pup remained quiet for a moment. Trying to identify what that obscure figure was, Y'shaati hung upside down to look at the jungle floor. Then, out of the corner of her eye, Y'shaati saw it again. Another shadow that dissapeared in less than a second. She began to feel observed... something wasn't right.
I'ppi also noticed the presence of something moving quickly from below. Startled, the baby monkey jumped on the monkey-girl's back. Once reincorporating her posture, Y'shaati decided not to stay still in one place for too long and immediately jumped from the branch to pick up the nearest vine to continue making her way through the thick fog.
As she continued swinging, Y'shaati at last began to hear sounds... however, she noticed something disconcerting about this: the noise wasn't coming through her ears... it was inside her head. That weird sounds were whispers...
The Monkey Queen began to hear voices in her mind... voices similar to those produced by humans. Macabre whispers of the two-legged people. And to make things worse, the uncomfortable noise was gradually getting louder and louder. I'ppi, on the other hand, didn't hear anything. Y'shaati suddenly started to feel weak... what was going on? What kind of sinister horror was causing this?
The monkey pup couldn't help but see his mother's face begin to look pale and exhausted in just a matter of seconds. The voices were becoming hellish for her. Y'shaati started to feel dizzy from the vines movement. Her body trembled as she could feel her arms lacking the strength to hold on to it. Even her beautiful azure eyes began to close. This wasn't going to end well.
When she least expected it, Y'shaati unconsciously let go off the vine in which she was traveling, falling directly to the dark jungle floor with I'ppi. Completely terrified, the baby monkey ran straight to the monkey-girl's inert body to try to wake her up as quickly as possible. The exposed position in which they were, could make them be an easy prey for predators. Panicking, I'ppi pulled from Y'shaati's blonde mane with his small hands to wake his mother. However, this was futile.
Suddenly, the monkey pup felt the shadow's presence they had seen minutes ago. It was approaching them. However, great was his terror when he saw not one nor two, but more than five shadows slowly getting close to them. Their silhouettes were strangely similar to those of humans. Two legs, two arms and a head... but, there was a small detail... when I'ppi finally saw them closely, he realized something horrifying: they weren't human...
Their bodies were made of branches, ivy and leaves. And their heads were like bushes. They looked like living foliage, as if a small tree had come alive...
The baby monkey, scared to death, ran away at full speed, leaving Y'shaati behind. However, one of these horrible creatures quickly extended his arm as if it were a vine-made whip, catching I'ppi before he could escape. The little monkey struggled to get free himself from the vine that wrapped his small body without success. When the creature contracted its arm into its own body, the monkey pup ended trapped inside the creature's entrails. After that, the other living bushes began to envelop Y'shaati's unconscious naked body as well. As she was only a little smaller than them, the creatures simply tangled her, dragging her across the ground. I'ppi screeched and cried desperately for Y'shaati, begging her to wake up. Then, the creatures began to slowy walk away, taking their captive preys with them. Soon, the creatures simply disappeared into the dense fog...
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