Where tigers never venture

Later, in the middle of the night.

Without a sound, Golden Star suddenly opens his eyes. Snuggled up against his deep-sleeping tiger protector, the feral kid observes the temple's walls surrounding him. While he initially encounters difficulty discerning his home's reliefs, it doesn't take long for the little Seuna Saming's tapetum lucidum¹ to awaken and reveal what the night hides from the ordinary person.

Golden Star slowly lifts himself from Khamot's flank, letting the slightly chilled night air blow over his human skin. Taking a few steps away from the tigress, the young savage sees the grassy ground and the pond where Khamot and he often come to bathe and escape the daytime heat. This window on the night world doesn't surprise him that much: while he had never ventured out of the den alone during the night, Khamot had already accompanied him to teach him the art of hunting the animals living according to the moon.

The tiger child glanced at his sleeping, unsuspecting mother. No sound he makes alerts the tigress' keen hearing. Golden Star has learned many lessons, and feline discretion is one of them.

"...Tigers can do whatever they want... So what shouldn't they see ?" Golden Star thinks.

As a result of this curiosity, Golden Star takes his first steps out of the temple without Khamot's protective presence. He takes these first steps in the night breeze, leaving the ruined temple's courtyard and reaching the pond he affectionates so much.

Golden Star lowers his head as he finally reaches the pond bank and takes a few sips of fresh water. He sees a Malayan tapir² and a marbled cat, who, one far from the other, are also drinking on the opposite bank. While the marbled cat leaves immediately at the arrival of the tiger child, the tapir raises its head towards Golden Star and sniffs in its direction for a few seconds before leaving in its turn. After finishing his drink, the young man looks up at the sky. What he sees makes his eyes widen.

Stars decorate the navy blue sky above the tiger-tailed boy and the nature that saw him grow up. Although each one's glow seems insignificant when set apart, these cosmic objects' sheer number is enough to enlighten their magnificence. A sublime nebula streaks across the sky, crossing and sublimating the stars. As for the full moon, it is enthroned where the sun presided a few hours ago and blesses the jungle with its soft, soothing glow, and its beams bombard Golden Star as if to reward his audacity to have gone out alone.

This spectacle amazes the feral child, who had never paid attention to it during his hunting lessons. The oniric view is all the more pleasing as it allows Golden Star to see and identify his territory as if he were in broad daylight. His eyes shine, enlightened by stars like the ones he admires. He then looks down to see the horizon, recognizing the entrance to the jungle, the same area whose smell he will never forget.

"That smell... It must come from a big meal!" The young wildling spouts in the jungle's royal language.

Leaping with vigor, Golden Star makes his way back to the jungle that had seen him miss his kill when the sun was still shining upon it.

Walking through the dense woods, Golden Star lets his ears flutter to hear a symphony resounding: that of the tropical nightlife. Several skillfully mixed scores intertwine, partitions from which the musicians do not always hide. Thus, looking in all directions, Golden Star sees in turn some of the musicians of this natural orchestra. A binturong³ slowly but surely roaming the trees; Indian muntjacs⁴ feasting on berries and leaves; tokay geckos emitting their characteristic croak; an Asian rock python crawling on the ground, plowed with its undulations; a few nightjars⁵ singing under the stars; and mongooses trotting through the bushes. Golden Star perfectly sees these animals' fur, scales, and feathers through his feline vision, while regular humans would only see the bright reflection of their eyes.

Oblivious to the nocturnal jungle animals, the young and wild prince makes his way through the thickening woods. With every step he takes, the animals he sees become scarcer and scarcer and flee from the direction he is going.

With every meter he walks, Golden Star smells more and more of the strange and ominous odor he has come to investigate. A smell that intensifies as the symphony of the night jungle fades with distance. While the scent of carrion would repel any other human being, this is by no means the case for Golden Star, for whom this smell is, above all, synonymous with an easy meal.

Not losing sight of the trail that motivates his disobedience to Khamot, Golden Star stops in front of the edge of the dark domain where no animal is to be found. Thanks to his tapetum lucidum, Golden Star can see better what he couldn't discern earlier: even denser vegetation and a path which, although apparently uneven, seems quite practicable by any animal, even slightly agile in its movements.

Looking to the right and then to the left, Golden Star rushes into the gloomy chasm. So much for the other carnivores: the meal hidden in the darkness will be his!

Golden Star slowly advances in this place where the brightness, even for him, is reduced step by step. It is not only the sun; the moon also seems to have abandoned and denied this corner of Thailand. And these celestial bodies are not the only ones.

While his first steps in the dark territory were linked under the respective signs of prudence and curiosity, a new sensation gradually takes hold of the feral child. A feeling of apprehension that becomes stronger and stronger as he consequently moves away from the entrance.

Golden Star, who thought he could rely on something other than the corpses' scent, realizes that it is the only beacon he has left to follow. Seeing becomes harder and harder in the darkness, even for the child's tiger eyes. As for his ears, they perceive nothing but the slight whistling of the wind that makes the leaves and the wild kid's spine shiver. But apart from these faint, ominous sounds, nothing reaches Golden Star. He thinks, or rather he hopes, that he can at least hear the howling of monkeys or even the croaking of amphibians. But there is nothing, not even the hum of an insect.

This area is not inhabited by animals that only reveal themselves at night. It is not settled by discreet arthropods either.

This den of darkness is presumably empty of any life other than plant life - any resident life, at least. Golden Star is all alone with that weird meaty odor, with this grim climate that would urge any other creature to flee this grove abandoned even by the most undesirable critters Mother Nature has bred.

This atmosphere, this cursed air that makes him feel like he's being watched, Golden Star feels their weight penetrating through the pores of his skin. The scent still doesn't leave his nostrils but takes on a whole new consistency in the tiger child's mind. It doesn't take more than this macabre atmosphere to give him an idea of why the carnivorous guests invited by the scent don't walk past the-

Crack.

Golden Star stifles a scream.

A noise breaks the silence he was just starting to get used to, making him jump abruptly. He frantically looks to the sides before looking down at his paws, or rather his hands. He stepped on something that he can guess the shape of.

"A... bone?" He mutters.

The brown-haired boy's eyes widen. Bone means meat; that smell didn't fool him!

Golden Star then resumes his exploration with a more hurried step. The light is beginning to return to these strange woods; a few hundred meters away, Golden Star sees the moon's rays pierce the thick vegetation and illuminate what seems to be a mass of bizarre nature. The scent is getting stronger and stronger, so much so that Golden Star doesn't smell anything else.

Nothing. Not even the two rubies pointed at him from the tree branches.

Golden Star is getting closer and closer, determined to get his hands on a protein treasure.

Snap. Crack.

More bones. Golden Star has never seen them shaped like this; he doesn't know who they might belong to. As he moves on, the bones pile up.

Squelch. Squelch.

He steps into something somewhat slimy. He brings his hand to his mouth, smeared with a substance so dark he can't tell what it is. He then licks it off, unable to make out the scent. His eyes grow three sizes as a shiver runs through his body.

The ferrous taste of blood, much closer to his own than that of other beasts... It gives Golden Star a horrible feeling.

The feral child slows down as he gets a better look at the mass emitting the cadaverous scent. There, the little man freezes, staring only at the mass, ignoring the blood that stains the ground and all the surrounding vegetation.

It's a mass of human corpses, savagely killed and partially devoured in the middle of the many skeletons littering the floor of this demonic lair, corpses that not even flies or cockroaches would have wanted to touch. Khamot's words and orders slowly come back to Golden Star's mind as he contemplates the massacre of his fellow creatures that the moon shows without concession... As if to punish him for his curiosity.

"Never go near those who ate man's flesh. They are the most dangerous beings in the jungle."

Golden Star didn't understand, he didn't measure the reality of this ban until now. This taboo that his mother had taught him takes shape before his eyes.

He understands better why the animals fled the entrance to this cursed place, why no beast resided in the darkness, and why Khamot had been aggressive in the first place.

It was all due to the humans' forbidden flesh and its specific smell.

Curiosity disappeared from Golden Star's mind. He has seen far too much. He is in the land of a demon.

The child steps back, shaking like a leaf. Only one thought haunts him: to flee. To return to Khamot.

Splat.

Golden Star suddenly turns around. With horror, he sees a fallen forearm on the ground, bathed in a dark, slimy expanse. Drops are beading from above.

Grrrr...

Golden Star slowly lifts his head after hearing that feline growl. A growl he doesn't understand.

His golden gaze sweeps the Tropical Hell from bottom to top. He suddenly stops because of what he sees just above a solid branch.

Two round rubies glowing in the dark with sharp, smudged fangs below.

RoOoOoOaAaAaAaAaAaRrRrRrRrR !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The scarlet-eyed ebony beast leaps from its perch towards its prey, mouth wide open and all claws out. 

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¹ Tapetum lucidum : a reflecting layer present in the eyes of several animal species, including felines, that grants them a good night vision.

² Malayan tapir : a large Southeast Asian herbivore characterized by its short trunk and its black and white coat.

³ Binturong :  an Asian, tree-dwelling viverrid looking like a mix between a cat and a bear. 

⁴ Indian muntjac : a small and mainly nocturnal Southeast Asian deer.

⁵ Nightjars : nocturnal birds characterized by their long wings, short legs and very short beak.