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.....
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