Cruel Harvest

By Gerald Rowen

Chapter 1

In the steamy OctopusTree jungles, the usual cries and calls from Filth,
the land of fallen trees and decomposing rot, are silent. The creatures of the forest were trying to hide, but not everything is going to make it through the day alive. Hoarse calls are exchanged in the Tangle, the savage mess of twisting branches which lies above the Filth. Down below, giant fungi growing of the dead stump of a TreeFlower begin quivering, then they explode in a flurry of speedy action. A grubby Leafworm bursts from its hiding place and slithers away with surprising speed. Mere seconds later a tanish-brown blur streaks after it, quickly closing the gap between itself and the worm. The predator is of a Jaftick, the most feared hunter on all of this planet. The Jaftick is a large, catlike creature, although it has DNA more similar to that of a giant weasel, a giant weasel-like creature with slitted eyes and angled, serrated teeth. It quickly closes in on its prey with speed faster than an earth cat and prepares to catch its leafy prey. Pause. Now you must be thinking, Hold it, I thought he was chasing a worm, not some walking salad. Both those statements are true.

Cruel Harvest
The Leafworm is a large worm with leaves growing from his back to absorb sunlight and feed the worm, hence the name. Of course theres no sunlight in the Filth, but when the Leafworm needs to feed, it slithers up a tree and up to where the Tangle and the sky meet. This area is called the Roof. When its not hungry, it spends its time in the Filth, much easier to hide from predators. But not all predators. The Jaftick was just about to seize his prey when a golden flash sweeps across his vision. When the Jaftick looks again, the Leafworm he was chasing is gone. It digs its claws in the ground to look around. Its cruel eyes suddenly fix on a Moncke. The Moncke must have swung down and snatched the Leafworm right off the ground. The poor worm squeals and wiggles around furiously, trying to free itself from the Monckes grip. A Moncke is an orange-ish furred ape-like creature, it had stubby, tough claws and a small tiger-striped tail. It has an omnivoristic set of teeth, rather like a human, but unlike a human, its main diet consists mainly of meat, but there is starvation cutting through the Moncke packs like a Jaftick claw through flesh. This particular Moncke was a new hunter and it didnt quite know the rules of the jungle. Especially the most important rule. Never reveal yourself to the voracious Jaftick. The Jaftick was not used to things taken from his claws and viewed this act as an act of rebellion against the true master of the forest. The Jaftick

roared and the Moncke finally seemed to take notice of the bulky, yet somehow lithe figure below him on the ground. The poor Moncke screeched in horror and dropped the unfortunate Leafworm on the ground, hopping to appease the Jaftick. However the Jaftick completely ignored the Leafworm and it took advantage of this opportunity and wiggled away. The Moncke yelled and climbed farther into the Tangle to escape the Jaftick. The Jaftick forgot his prey and leapt up on a soft trunk and began scaling the tree. This Moncke had attempted to steal prey from a Jaftick. Now he would pay with his life. The Young Moncke had snatched prey like that because his pack was starving. Jafticks were killing all the prey leaving nothing for the Moncke packs. Many Monckes were keeling over from hunger, gasping on the ground, starving to death. So the novice hunter went off on his own, without a pack, to get something to eat. This young Moncke had not seen the Jaftick. He knew a Leafworm would only move that fast if it was being pursued, but he had hoped the predator was something that edible too, like a Slidonian, so he might bring two creatures back to eat. Instead, he screwed up and didnt check the chaser before he swung down to rip the Leafworm from the ground. So now he had no food, and he was leading a Jaftick to the only home he has ever known.

Cruel Harvest
All the Monckes knew the threat of the Jafticks stood not only through hunger, but also, entire tribes of Monckes had begun filing out of the Jungle to find some sort of safe haven to the North. None ever returned. When people are about to die, they see their whole life flash before their very lives. It doesnt work that way with Monckes, but that didnt stop this adolescent from flashing back to when it all began. Several years ago, life was perfect. Monckes ruled the jungles, thinning the plentiful herds of prey, and the only danger was a rival tribe of Moncke, but that was all the better to prevent overpopulation. Then it all changed in the blink of an eye. The Monckes that lived in the jungles were on the upper middle half of the continent, Eurotiv, never had even heard of the southern half of their world. Near the base of Eurotiv, the Jafticks had evolved, and they each held large amounts of territory, so they were forced up north as the land was claimed by other Jafticks. They only ever met one another for mating, which hardly lasted any time at all, then the pair would part. So, the Jafticks, expanded Northward and eventually into the Monckes homeland. At first, a sort of war took place, if you could even call it that. The territory-less Jaftick aided one another for the first (and last) time in history. On the southern border of the Jungle, where grasslands meet Trees a tribe of Monckes saw the ferocious attackers grouping to destroy the Moncke packs. They alerted the other tribes, and they too, all formed an unusual alliance. This Jungle belonged to Monckes! Thus the battle began.

Most of the Monckes swarmed onto the brown grass and met the attackers head on. The Monckes had the numbers, but the Jafticks carried the power. Some Monckes threw stones from the trees, but the conclusion was inevitable. The Monckes were slaughtered like turkey on Thanksgiving. Only a small number escaped to hide in the forest, hoping they could return to their lives, but things would never be the same. The Moncke snaps back to reality, as he breaks through a wall of dead branches into a clearing. It was about as big as a basketball court, with tan, scratched branches weaving around one another to create a floor, walls, and a ceiling. The Moncke began screeching and making flapping movements to warn the other Monckes. When the Jaftick broke through the wall, he was met by a ragtag team of starving Monckes. The Monckes had the element of surprise, and with that, they have been able to bring down a Jaftick before. Howling, the monster leapt up in the air and twirled like an acrobat and came crashing down on the attacking Monckes, if it had some breathing space, the beast would crush them, but he was forced to slash to keep the claws and teeth away from his pelt. The Moncke who had brought the Jaftick here had decided he needed to fight too. He felt guilty about what he had done and he had no interest in dying, but he just simply didnt plan to. Not all the Monckes were fighting, Only the Pack Leader and his chosen Personal Pack, who were picked by the leader to be his Soldiers. When Monckes battled like this, only a certain amount fought close handed. The others

Cruel Harvest
hung back, otherwise theyd simply get in the way of the others. When a Moncke was felled in combat, another rushed to take his place. It was actually, not a bad tactic, they used that tactic during the battle at the southern end of the Jungle, but they had lost that battle. The Moncke responsible for the attack bounded across the clearing and pounced on the Jaftick, who roared in response and ripped the inexperienced Moncke from his shoulder. The Moncke fell to the ground. The Jaftick reared up to bring down a killing blow. All the other Monckes were frozen, except their leader. The sight of a young Moncke about to become soup stunned all the members of the Moncke pack, but he has been leader for years, and he knows what must be done. He charges and tackles the Jaftick, who is again caught by surprise, and the two are flipped into the air, and the Moncke uses the addition of weight to his leap and channels it into a forward flip that breaks through the floor and sends them both plummeting into the Filth down below. Right before impact, the Jaftick tears the Moncke away and sends him into a tree, with a single claw still embedded in the Jaftick. A second later, he hits hard. Initial reaction? More surprise. Then the Bodyguards all suddenly unfreeze and throw themselves towards the hole in the branches. On the ground, the Jaftick seems to be momentarily winded and cut up. The Moncke leader fared much worse. He obviously broke some bones and received a variety of minor wounds. He lay on the ground breathing shakily with his eyes fixed on the hole through on his home.

With a shudder, the Jaftick began to rise, then slumped to the ground again. On the second try, the Jaftick successfully climbed to his feet and limped over to another tree. From there he gave a look of uncontrolled anger and painfully began to crawl back up the tree. The Monckes knew all too well the Jaftick to exaggerate its injuries to throw off enemies, and that it was even more dangerous now than ever. They would have fled to maybe one of the other undiscovered abandoned tribe homes for safety, but their leader was down there and he still was slightly alive...and he was attacking the Jaftick! He pulled its hind leg and the Jaftick fell to the forest floor. The beast slashed at the Moncke and his wounded body fell back and the Jaftick came forward to attack but he instead received a claw slash to the face, he screamed as one of his eyes popped like a firework on the Fourth of July. The one-eyed Jaftick circled the Moncke then pounced on him and they both went rolling away. The Moncke leader attempted to signal something to the others. The Guards begin communicating to the others and they all began climbing out of the cave, which they had lived in for forever. At first, the young Moncke was confused for all the rush, then he realized. Their plan was to abandon the old leader, (who was surely going to die and was sacrificing himself to buy time), and escape. At first the young Moncke hesitated, but then a roar drifted up from the Filth and he decided to follow the others. With one final goodbye, he leaves his home forever.

Cruel Harvest
After some time of crashing through the nearly impenetrable tangle of branches, the Monckes finally crawl onto the Roof, where the sky is open and the ground is tightly woven under your feet. Now, without a just leader to ration food, desperation and hunger attack. Some Monckes dont get more than a mile before they collapse and moan until another Moncke brings something to eat, or they die. As a cannibalistic sort of creature, when a Moncke dies, he or she is rationed through out the survivors as a brief snack. Monckes never have really been up on the roof before. So after the first two days, when a strange floating purplish creature-with a back like a hot air balloon and spiny tentacles dangling from its underbelly floats over the group. They are somewhat curious. An infant Moncke hops over to underneath the strange being and tries to paw at one of the tentacles. Instantly the creature wraps around the infant with its tentacles and tries to flee with its snack. Howling with rage, the other Monckes leap at the flying creature, trying to bring it down. Then the WIND GLIDER inflates the sac on its back a little more and begins to rise. Just before it went out of reach, the Moncke who started this whole thing jumped up, pushed off another Moncke and grabbed onto the spiny tentacle and started to climb. When his grip began to loosen, he looked down. Oh dear, he was a bit of a way up. He had to act quick, otherwise he and the cub would be smashed to bits on impact. He hauled his body upward and grasped a bony crest as a handhold. The Wind Glider, alarmed, raised a tentacle to brush away the nuisance. The Moncke refused to be dispatched and crawled up to the sac on the

creatures back. The Wind Glider reached up and grasped the Moncke and tried to rip him away. As he left the Gliders body, the Moncke struck a sharp blow to the Gliders sac. The sac popped, then all three of them were falling. As he fell, the Glider released his hold on the two Monckes and the older of the two grabbed the baby and grabbed onto the Gliders falling body. He propped his feet against the scaly body and held on. Moments before the crash, the Moncke leapt off the Glider and all his momentum was killed by his jump and the energy all flowed into the Glider. The Glider instantly died, but the Moncke was held suspended in air, then gravity kicked in and they both fell to the mess of branches. Instantly, all the other Monckes rushed over to them. They each had survived! The savior Moncke held up the cub and the others all passed him around for inspection. After a while some Monckes went to see if the body of the Wind Glider was edible. The baby Moncke was cradled in the arms of the Monckes, but the rubbery spines on the tentacles had done their work and the infant was now to the Monckes what it had been to the Glider. A snack. The other Monckes confirmed the carcass of the Glider was edible, and combine that with the minuscule portion of a meal the child provided, all the Monckes finally had an except able meal. Then night fell. The Monckes all settled in for the night. They had lost a just and good leader, a home and a young baby, but for the first time in months, they slept on a full stomach. The young Moncke thought of this, but also, in the back of his mind, the image of a one-eyed Jaftick stalked him.