It was dark and the sky was gloomy. The smooth, black clouds hung melancholy over the darken jungle. No noise could be heard in heavy silence. Everything, the black clouds, the damp ground, the sad jungle, and even the frightened animals seemed to know that a dreadful thing was about to happen. The animals were hidding in the shelter of rocks.
Two figures, clad in brown leather clothing, stole through the forest. Not a single leaf rustled or a single twig snaped as the humans went by. Even the clouds seemed frozen in total silence, unable to move from that position.
Then, as if a dear one died, the clouds turned darker. Thunder roared in the air and lightning flashed in the sky. The winds howled and raced wildly through the trees. Rain pounded the ground like giant tears. The two humans started running to escape the anger of the sky.
A cave came in view, and the humans raced in it, a second before a tree was knocked down in front of the cave leaving only little windows to the outside. Both humans were soaked, and water dripped off their leather clothes and to the cave floor. They sank to the floor to let their muscles relax. They listened to the fierce wind and pounding rain.
One was a boy about sixteen years old. He was tall and had strong muscles. His hair was jet black and fell around his ears. His eyes were dark brown, and his skin was a deep tan. The other was a girl, who was a full head shorter than the boy and a year younger. The girl was very atheltic. She had hair as black as a raven that fell around her slim waist. Her eyes were a dark jungle green. Her skin was darker than the boy's. Despite their looks, they were from the same clan. They thought more than they clan people and hated the way the clans killed each other.
The girl got up and nudged the other lightly with her foot. The other opened his eyes halfway and looked up at his friend. He moved a little and let out a moan.
"Get up, Kevan," the girl said. The boy groaned as he got to his feet.
"Can't we rest a little longer?" He asked. They had been gone from their clan for days, and they had no food left. His stomach growled, "I'm hungry, Vareta."
"You won't get anything lying down or in this storm." Vareta said. She was watching to trees bend and sweep the ground with their long branches. A sad sight indeed, for those trees normally stood strait and tall in the bright sunlisht. She turned back to her friend, "Get up!"
"All right, all right." Kevan said. he got up and brushed the dirt from his pants. He looked up a Vareta. "Do you think they started another fight?"
"Yes, the sky only goes black when a clan attacks another clan. Ours must have started another war with the clan north of the river." Vareta said thoughtfully. Her dark face turned angry, "Why do we fight and kill each other? There has to have been a time when humand didn't kill each other."
"How do you know?" asked Kevan. Vareta's green eyes shone brightly.
"I just know!" she yelled. Her friend pretended to block a hit.
"That will not make the clans believe in a time of peace. We must find believable evidence that there was such a time. Then the clans will have to choose if they want to live live like that again. ' I just know,'" Kevan said sarcastically, " won't stop them from killing themselves."
"Kevan, we have to try to stop them. Why do you think I ran away?" Vareta said. Her hands were on her hips as usual.
" I thought you were running for your life," Kevan said rudely. Then his voice turned softer. "At least I was running for my life. You know that the clans hate intelligent humans. They were going to kill us."
" Let them try!" Vareta said. She was looking at the tree outside again. Her green eyes flashed like the lightning. No clan likes intelligent humans, and she was above their stupid, pitiful way of life. The only thing that the clans believe in is that they must kill members of other clans.
She remembered the day she made up her mind to leave. The clan members were holding a meeting in the largest mud hut. Their discussion was about her and her family. The before beforea fire set by young children got out of hand. Her family was burned alive. She was not home at the time but was in the woods by herself. Using theirintelligent minds, the elders decided the Vareta murdered her family. They were going to killed her the next day but she ran away with Kevan first.
The trees seemed to lie on the ground, and the rain was making rivers of fast flowing mud. Lightning flashed brightly and thunder roared above. Vareta was glad they had found the cave. She then heard, barely above the roar of the outside world, a soft rumble from deep inside the cave. She turned and stared into the darkness. It was then that she realized the cave continued deeper into the earth. It was from the darkness that the rumble came.
" Come on," Vareta said and she started going deeper into the cave with a reluctant Kevan following.
From tiny holes and mini-caves, the eyes of animals peered out into the darkness. They watched the humans pass and remained silent. The horrible storm had driven the animals into the cave. Animals of all sizes, from little mice to large deer, were cramped into the little corners, holes, and hidded behind rocks. Vareta and Kevan were watched by hundreds of frightened eyes that seemed to glow in the dim light.
With every step deeper into the cave, the low, soft rumbling got louder. The noise was soon a loud crashing. Vareta realized that it was water and wondered how water got in a cave. The humans continued into the cave, following the noise. The cave tunnel had been getting lower, narrower, and colder. All of a sudden, they seemed to enter a room that had a tall roof that slanted upwards, walls that widened and seemed to fo on endlessly, and the temperature got warmer. The air had a freshness to it and was filled with the noise of a fast moving river.
The was a river, a very large river that seemed to just pop up out of nowhere into the large chamber, and then it seemed to disappeared under the other wall. The river was very fast and the water was crashing against the rock wall before it was sucked under it. On the side near Vareta and Kaven, there was a large, tranquil pool. The pool had a very slow, calm current though it was fed by the fast moving river. The beauty of the subterranean chamber amazed Vareta and Kevan, who never in their lives had seen anything like it.
" It is amazing!" Vareta exclaimed. Then she noticed that a fawn, who had gone to the pool for a drink with it's mother, tripped on something. It was a dull reddish brown color and was half buried in the dirt. Vareta walked over, scaring the doe and fawn back into hiding. She knelt down and began digging at the strange object. Kevan helped her.
It took a few minutes to dig up the object but when they were finished, they held a pot in their hands. Vareta ran her fingers of the cold, smooth surface and it's long narrow neck. Inside the pot was a book that was caked with dirt and mud. Kevan brushed it all off and started listened reading it.
"'. . . we have no food left, and only water from the river. The noise outside is getting worse. Bombs are alwaying falling, and explosions rock the cave. Animals hid with us, but we don't have the heart to kill any yet . . . Hannabelle is very sick, and fear fear she is dying . . .'" Kevan read while Vareta listened carefully. She thought about what Kevan had just read and it puzzled her.
" Kevan, go to an older entry," Vareta said. " Maybe it will give us an idea of what has happened."
"' July 2, 2097, The days are calm and quiet. The television warns about attacks, and we fear that the war is upon us. We have found a cave, far from any town or city. There we, all of my family, will hide until the war is over. We have packed more food than I have ever seen before, and we must hide it quickly before the war breaks out. . .'" Kevan read. He looked up at Vareta.
" This could be our evidence, Kevan," Vareta said with excitment. " The evidence that a war caused us to be like we are now."
" No, the elders would just think we wrote it." Kevan said grimly and Vareta's hopes fell.
" Well, they must have left something else behind." Vareta said, searching behind a large rock. " Come on and look."
They searched the cave for a long time while animals watched curiously. They found nothing. Kevan sat near the water reading the book. Vareta was behind a group of rocks examining the ground, when she looked up and saw a hole between two of the large rocks. An animal ran from it, knocking into something. Being curious, Vareta reached in and felt around. Her hand hit somehting hard, and her fingers wrapped around it. She pulled it out carefully. It was a large book with an old red cover. In gold letters something had been written at the top, only the letters were unreadable from age.
" Kevan, I found something!" She yelled, and she heard Kevan scrambling off the rock he sat upon. Kevan came over and looked over her shoulder and looked at the large book in her hands.
" Wow. Open it," Kevan urged. Vareta opened the cover, expecting more words but what they saw was amazing.
On the front page were four retangles and in each retangle was a seperate picture. Some had animals, some had people, and some had neither but all were in color. Both humans stared at the retangles. They had seen nothing like this before. It was truly amazing.
" What is this? Magic?" Kevan asked in a whisper.
" It is as if someone froze them in the retangles." Vareta said, Kevan nodded. " This is our evidence, Kevan. Everyone knows that we can't freeze time. And look at those huts, they are not like our mud huts."
Vareta pointed to an extremely tall tower-like structure made of metal poles put together. Kevan saw writing beneath it the rectangle. The handwriting was neat and wasn't that faded. "' The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France,'" he read slowly. Then he looked at Vareta. " Humans built that."
" Look at this one," Vareta said as she turned the page. She pointed to a with a giant woman on it holding a book in one hand and a torch in the other. Her body was green from sea storms and upon her head was a crown. Vareta read the small writing slowly, "' The Sataue of Liberty, New York, United States of America.'"
They looked at every page and it's retangles of frozen time. Vareta found three more books in the hole. Some had pictures of people who were named and probably family of the man who wrote the book. " Look, that woman is circled and underneath. the piture is her name, Hannabelle. She must have died."
" Oh, my," Vareta said as Kevan helped her gather the books. They put them in the leather bag they had used for food. " Okay, after the storm, we'll show this to our clan."
They filld their water bag up at the calm pool and then started back down the the cave to its mouth. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had turned into white puffs. The sun shone brghtly, welcoming the animals back into the forest. Vareta and Kevan headed back down the way they had come.
Everything seemed happy, birds cooed from their nests, rabbits gave a little chuckle to anyone that passed by, deer grazed peeacefully as if the storm never happened, and the foxes showed off their red coats, gleaming in the sunlight. Vareta and Kevan raced along, anxious to show their clan the albums of frozen time and the book. The came to the clan; a few mud house werestanding, the others were trampled or callapsed. The clan people, those who survived the attack, were rebuilding the mud huts and barely noticed the two young humans. Other humans, some Vareta and Kevan's age, came running with mud balls in their hands. The toosed them at Vareta and Kevan, laughing each time one hit them. They were chanting as well.
" Vareta, Vareta. How is your day?" the chanted, sneering and laughing. " Have you got an intelligent thing to say? Vareta, Vareta."
Vareta's face got hot, for the other teenagers teased her about everything she ever did. Kevan placed his hand on her arm to keep her from saying something nasty back to the other humans. Vareta and Kevan were the only intelligent humans in their clan; no one else could think of anything except how to survive and how to kill.
" They are only stupid humans, ignore them," Kevan encouraged Vareta outloud as he encouraged himself mentally.
The clan elders, if thirty-one-year-olds are elders, met to listen to Vareta and Kevan. They listened to Kevan read the book and said nothing. None believed any of it to be true. Then Vareta brought out the albums. The elders shrieked in horror as Vareta opened the first ablum. The cursed the two young humans, and one elder grabbed three of the ablums and tossed them into the fire. Vareta grabbed the last one before any of the elders could. Kevan held the book and they ran from the mud hut with the elders racing after them. Vareta and Kevan ran off into the night, and the elders gave up the chase.
The night was clam and tranquil, and the stars shone like diamonds in the sky. The moon was bright silver, shedding a slivery glow onto the sleeping forest. Animals slept in their homes and even the trees slept, hanging tiredly. The breeze blew so gently, hardly stirring a leaf. Everything seemed at peace.
Two figures, clad in brown leather clothing, stole through the forest. Not a single leaf rustled or a single twig broke as they passed. They knew where they were going, to the only place that was safe. One held the small diary of the dead. In the arms of the other one was a large book. The figure held it tightly, not letting it go. For it was the only thing that proved that humans didn't always kill themselves. In her arms was an ablum of frozen time.
