Appu lost his family

 

Appu opened his eyes and looked about. There was no one around. Where had everyone gone? He sat up in fright, but his head hurt. He shook his head and yelped in pain. What was that? Why was his head throbbing so much? Where was mom? Where were his friends?

Suddenly he heard some voices, shouts, drums and the thumping of footsteps. Suddenly it all came back to him. He was with his mom and his herd, walking through the sugarcane fields. The sugarcanes tasted so yumm and mom had said he could have one. He had loved chomping down on the cane she gave him. They were all walking peacefully, when suddenly there was a loud boom and aunty Hilda fell down. Everyone around him started screaming and running. Mum pulled him closer and nudged him along. She wanted to get out of there as fast as she could. She was scared. Seeing her scared, Appu was scared too.

Before he could take a few steps ahead, he heard another boom and Mom collapsed behind him. What was happening? What was that boom? Mom looked at him and pushed him ahead and said, ‘run Appu run.. save your life, go as far away from this place as possible… just run”.

Appu did just that, he ran, ran as fast as his feet could carry him, run as far away from the boom as possible, run like his life depended on it, run because mom had said so. He ran and ran and ran and then exhausted he fell down and before he knew it.. he fell asleep.

Now as he sat up, it all came back to him. The booms, the screaming, the chaos, Aunt Hilda, his mom.. everything. He slowly stood up and looked out of the clearing and that is when he saw. He saw crowds of people surrounding his herd. He saw his mom on the ground, the mud soaking in her blood. He saw Aunt Hilda lying motionless and then he saw his friends – some in pain, some lying dead.

He was sad. He had lost everything. He was now an orphan.

He hated humans. He hated the people who lived in the villages near his jungle. Those humans took away the jungle, the grass, set boundaries, built walls; all in his jungle. Where would his kind go? Where could the animals go?

He hated humans, he hated the villagers, he hated people.

He was all alone.. all alone in a jungle without his parents or his family, being hunted by people….where could he go???  

...to be continued.....