The Isle: Inferno
Part One
The wind parted for them like a gathering of loyal subjects. Soaring through the sky, the aerial predators cast shadows over the lush, green canopy below. They scanned the primeval landscape for their prey. They were efficient, focused hunters, although they were more than capable of unleashing non-discriminating, chaotic carnage if they desired. But on this day they had a particular prey item in their sights, and nothing would distract them from their prize.
The denizens beneath the blanket of foliage momentarily put their never ending struggle for survival on pause upon hearing the whumping sound echo through the air, heralding the approach of the airborne hunters. Some creatures simply hid because of the unnatural, eerie nature of the sound, instilling within them with a sense of uncertainty; a primal fear of the unknown. Those more experienced in life, however, skulked away into the shadows with a different, much more nauseating fear crawling up their spines, and one just as primal. It was a fear born from previous experiences with the aerial creatures, and the parasites that travelled with them; experiences in past lives that had resulted in the crackling of skin, the popping of eyes from immense heat and the boiling of blood and organs inside their bodies.
Coursing through the creatures below, the fear of fire ensured that none rose to protest the passage of the hunters as they soared in search of their quarry.
…
The sunlight filtered through the mottled green ceiling of the forest, bathing the Alpha in a speckled, warm glow. The unevenness of the light complimented her skin pattern; a mixed blend of patterns consisting of shades of brown, tan and black. Even when resting and illuminated, she faded into her surroundings with unnerving ease, as did the rest of her pack. Eight strong and made up of four adults, two juveniles and two hatchlings, they were a successful group of predators, as evidenced by the half-eaten corpse of an adolescent crested herbivore splayed out in the centre of their clearing. The trumpeting herbivore had been the latest kill in a long string of successful hunts.
She looked to her growing family scattered around the open patch of forest, shielded from above by the outstretching branches of trees. The other three adults lay resting like her, digesting the hefty meal they had just enjoyed. The two juveniles played and bickered. She was more than content to let them continue; only issuing a warning hiss or bark when they became too raucous. They never challenged her word, dipping their heads briefly and calming in fear of upsetting their Alpha.
And playing on and around the pungent carcass were the packs most recent members. The two hatchlings explored every inch of their surroundings. Merely two weeks old, they had much to learn about the myriad of dangers present in their home. So, whenever she herself was not keeping an eye on the curious youngsters, one of her subordinates was. Even though they were her offspring, each pack member was as dedicated to ensuring their survival as she was. They were the future of the pack; the first individuals nested and bred by the Alpha. They hadn't awoken like the rest of them in the cold darkness.
It was not something that her mind attempted to question or understand. It was, unbeknownst to her, far from any natural method of birth. But to her, it had become as much a part of life as the rising sun. From the first moment she had been released into the primeval wilderness, she had had to fight for survival in an unforgiving landscape. She had not always succeeded.
So far, she had met five different ends. Yet she still always awoke in that dark chamber, with fragmented images and feelings from her previous life ingrained in her mind. It had allowed her to develop her skillset to the point where she was now a proficient survivor and predator in her environment; her survival and hunting instincts now honed to a keen point. After mastering those, she had then been able to amass a following. And having achieved that, the instinct to propagate her species had arisen.
She had chosen the stronger of her two male followers. He had proven to be a valuable ally in surviving the trials of the wilderness. He had experience, like her. He knew when to fight and when to retreat; knowledge gained from fatal mistakes, like her. He lay on the other side of the clearing, watching the two hatchlings as they investigated the dead beast. A branching stripe of tan-coloured skin ran down his back. However, whatever bond she shared with him was inconsequential when compared to the responsibility she felt to protecting her young.
The other two adults preened nearby. They had essentially become standby surrogate parents to her young, putting the lives of the offspring ahead of her own. It was the natural order of the pack hierarchy. They were forbidden from becoming a mated pair themselves. If they were to produce young of their own, the Alpha would not hesitate to kill their brood and possibly them.
But for the moment, her dominance remained unchallenged. The two juveniles they had assimilated into their ranks may indeed become more problematic as they grew, but she would worry about that situation at a later date should it arise. For the time being, each pack member shared a healthy sense of respect and fear of her and her rule, even her mate.
She raised her head. A scent on the wind had reached her senses. It was faint, but nevertheless present. While not as well developed as some of the other denizens of the island, she had a keen sense of smell, and it allowed her a view of the world hidden to some. She could pick out different animals by the faint traces of pheromones that travelled through the air. She had a library instilled into her mind of potential predators and prey, and the whiff she had just detected was just strong enough for a distinction to be made. The image of the horned runners entered her mind; creatures larger, faster and more powerful than her. Once before, she had fallen victim to the jaws of one such beast. They represented a clear and present threat to her and her pack, and it was not the first time that she had picked up their tell-tale stench on the air in the past couple of days.
She had suspected that the pack was being tailed, and it was a theory becoming more likely with each faint sign of their pursuers. A low, barely audible rumble emanated from her chest. In response, each of the three other adults raised their heads, alert and ready. The juveniles still tussled nearby, keeping relatively quiet, but obscuring her concentration. She let loose a growling hiss with more venom than the usual warning she gave them. They responded instantly, stepping back quickly from their playful skirmish and lowering themselves to the forest floor, heads down and feet shifting with unease.
She turned her attention back to the surrounding woods, panning her head slowly, scanning the foliage. Nothing moved in the green that presented an early sign of danger. The air still hummed with the living sounds of the forest. She inhaled deeply, trying to pick up on any other trace of the horned predators. But no further sign of danger showed itself. The surrounding forest seemed, by the standards of the inhumane wilderness, safe. But she was certain that danger was not far behind. She knew that the scent of their kill would already have travelled across the landscape. Flies buzzed around the shredded herbivore, and small flying creatures darted from the trees, momentarily landing on the cadaver to grab a toothy mouthful of flesh in their disproportionate jaws before retreating back through the air to the safety of the canopy. Larger creatures would almost certainly catch wind of the scent soon, if they hadn't done so already.
But as she looked around her, she calmed. Not only were they surrounded by a dense thicket of foliage, keeping out the larger denizens of the island, but they were also a strong pack. They had cornered the juvenile herbivore in the clearing and had brought it down with ease. They had tackled tougher and more lethal prey beforehand.
She issued a grumbling bark as she turned her head towards the other female, a distinctive command to keep an eye out for danger. Without hesitation, her subordinate pushed herself up onto her feet and moved towards the edge of the clearing and into the trees. For a few moments she was out of sight, before her head popped up above some of the smaller trees in the thicket. Each time they rested, they would pick a vantage point where the designated sentry at the time would assume watch. An elevated escarpment of moss-covered rock just beyond the tree line had been selected as the current spot. The female took watch with acute vigilance.
Drawing her eyes back to the hatchlings, she watched the oblivious speckled youngsters as they continued to investigate the environment around them with unfaltering interest. Their big, yellow eyes scanned each detail they could find. One, the male, began to chase a small, skittering creature across the forest floor, practicing honing his hunting instincts even at such an early age. Her confidence grew. The pack was strong and, more importantly, had a future.
The first thumping beat reverberated in her eardrums, and her body went rigid. The Alpha rose to her feet. Like a panicked heartbeat, the heavy sound echoed through the air, low and quiet at first, but increasing in volume steadily. The others had noticed it too and were now up and alert. The sentry barked a warning from her post. The Alpha's head darted around as she tried to pinpoint the source of the noise. It was a sound that she had only ever heard a handful of times from a long way off. But this beating chorus was drawing closer. A buzzing moan began to accompany the rapid thumping. She issued a shrill bark to the hatchlings. Gazing around them with uncertainty, they snapped to attention and quickly scrambled across the clearing and took shelter under her larger frame. The juveniles huddled nearby fearfully. But as she glanced at one of the adolescents, she noticed that it panted and looked around in panic. It was the female juvenile, and it had always been the more headstrong and boisterous of the two, displaying characteristics of a more dominant individual. But now it oozed a sense of stark dread more acute than any of the rest of them. As it began to step back into the dense foliage of the tree line, the Alpha concluded that the adolescent knew something about the source of the sound that they did not; and that notion filled her with a sense of unease threatening to match the obvious terror that gripped the younger creature.
Raising her head, the Alpha let out a quick succession of hissing barks, in order to be heard over the rising, beating drone. It was a simple command to hide. The pack reacted instantly, bolting for the more substantial cover of the thicket. Dipping her head, she nudged the hatchlings towards the cover of a low-hanging cycad nearby. They scampered on tiny legs into the embrace of the plant and the ferns behind it, quickly followed by the Alpha. She turned back to the clearing and bent down over her huddled offspring, spreading her claws outwards so that her brood was covered totally. Peering out from the cover of the fronds of vegetation, she tried to spot the source of the infernal noise. It was only as the roar of the unseen threat washed over the clearing did she look up.
Two sleek, black shapes shot through the sky above the canopy. She only caught glimpses of them through the branches and leaves as they passed, but they certainly were not the long-beaked creatures that ruled the skies. The never-ending roar sparked a memory in her mind; an encounter in a past life that had resulted in a death that she could not fully rationalize. She crouched lower, shielding her huddled hatchlings even more, dread gripping her tightly now. A theory as to the nature of the flying creatures gave her understanding as to why the petrified Juvenile had displayed such fear.
She didn't dare to leave her hiding spot as she heard the roar of the beasts change tone. Rather than continuing on their flight path, the creatures had turned and were looping back around. She could occasionally spot them through the holes in the canopy. They were circling the wider area like the scavengers that picked the carcasses other hunter's kills clean. She was certain that there would be no way that they could see her or the pack. She knew of others like these creatures, or at least the beings that the roaring creatures carried. They had dull senses. But they were dangerous, and before that point she had no idea that they could fly. As long as they stayed hidden, she knew that they would be safe. They were masters of their environment, and the things above would surely not dare venture into their domain. If they did, she would be ready. They would not get the chance to kill her. They would certainly not touch her brood. Naivety had been the cause of agony and death in the past when encountering these creatures, but she did not make it a habit to repeat mistakes.
The volume of the aerial roar changed once again as one of the creatures broke away from its circling maneuver and headed in a straight line towards the clearing. Within seconds it closed the distance. She huddled into her offspring, defensively putting as much of herself between them and the creatures overhead as possible.
They couldn't see her and the pack, surely? Her head darted around. No; the others were just as concealed as she was. She wondered if they could smell the carcass. She had believed that these creatures had a very poor sense of smell. But nevertheless, the beast headed directly towards them over the trees. She tensed her legs and brought her arms in, ready to shield her young and to leap to their defense. Her maternal instincts went into overdrive. She was ready to fight; any thoughts of self-preservation now totally overshadowed by her ingrained need to ensure the survival of her offspring. She inhaled, braced for whatever came next. A feral rage boiled inside of her, ready to erupt. She was ready.
The beast roared as it passed over the clearing, soaring away high above her hiding place. For the briefest of moments, she relaxed ever so slightly as the danger seemed to subside. Then she heard the whistle. Looking up to the canopy clearing, she had just enough time to register the large, pointed object that shot through the covering of foliage and into their refuge before chaos erupted.
The concussive shockwave, blinding flash and blast of searing heat hit her all at once. She was propelled off of her feet back through the air, the air within her lungs expelled rapidly from the force of the explosion. Before she collided with a tree trunk, a splattering of liquid fire washed over her, sticking to her skin instantly. Snapping against the tree trunk in a glancing impact, she spun wildly for a moment before colliding with the forest floor, rolling over roots and ferns as the woods around her were set alight. Before her momentum had ceased she began howling and flailing wildly, kicking up burning plant matter and muck as the fiery substance seared her flesh. She rolled frantically, desperately trying to rid herself of the agonizing assault on her skin. Her mind was a blur as her ingrained terror of fire willed her body to do nothing else but escape the blaze melting her tissue. Within seconds, she had thrashed so much that she had dug out a furrow in the forest floor. She bit at her own skin as she rolled, tearing off chunks of fire coated flesh in a maddened attempt to be free of the burning, an act which sent searing pain up through her nostrils and into her gums. The last globs of flaming ooze were smothered in the freshly uncovered earth, and she eventually stopped rolling and lay still, panting and trembling from shock, fear and pain. Her skin had blistered and burned away in several places, leaving exposed muscle tissue from where she had ripped away her own dermal layer to be rid of the burning assault.
The wounds smoked and sizzled. Her mind was paralyzed with a sense numbing agony. She stared with one eye at the canopy above, now set ablaze. Through the fire and choking smoke, she spotted one of the black shapes that had incinerated the area pass over, its drone audible over the crackling roar of the inferno. It was at that point an instinct burst free of its unconscious state in her mind.
The hatchlings.
Legs lashing out, she erupted from her state of torpor in an instant and scrambled to her feet. She darted her head around, trying to spot any sign of her brood. It was an impossible task as the entire clearing and thicket was burning in a brilliant, raging blaze. She raised her head and let out a rasping bark, listening for the response of her offspring. She heard the distinctive bark of her mate in response, quickly followed by a sound off from the female sentry. But she heard nothing of her young. She bolted into a sprint, navigating the burning vegetation as nimbly as her damaged body could. Through the smoke and flames she spotted the blazing ribs of the carcass they had been feasting upon before, the remaining flesh on the dead beast now all but melted away. The entire clearing had been engulfed in a white-hot inferno. Trees cracked and fell in a rain of smoking splinters. Jet black smoke billowed upwards into the sky, which now all but blotted out from view. She went to run into the clearing when a jolt of searing pain on her feet caused her to recoil rapidly. The forest floor in and around the clearing had been bathed in liquid flame. Looking at the blazing patch in front of her, she noticed the burning cycad just to her left. Drawing her eyes frantically to the forest floor, she could make out a small detail in the pool of flames.
A feeling that the Alpha had never felt before crawled through her ruined skin. It was an alien sensation to her, and her legs threatened to give out from under her, both from the immense pain the fire had caused her and from the sickening feeling engulfing her. In a patch of scorching earth, she could see tiny bones, still covered in a few searing patches of flesh. They were scattered, blasted apart and melted from the explosion. But she distinctly made out two distinct skulls of tiny versions of herself, charred black and breaking apart in the inferno.
The incessant sound of the aerial killers could be heard overhead. She drew her gaze to the blackened and blazing ceiling of the forest. Her brain had evolved to operate in an efficient manner that made use of compartmentalisation. She was intelligent; capable of feeling a variety of emotions. But rather than store emotions, her mind converted them. It was a subconscious survival mechanism designed to make use of even the most traumatic mental stresses. The grief that had flooded through her body moments beforehand quickly rotted and boiled into something much more feral; rage. An enemy had presented itself and had taken away her offspring. It now posed a threat to her and the remainder of her pack. Her survival instincts returned to her in a flood, sharper than ever. She raised her head and let loose a quick succession of growling barks. It was a simple command; retreat. But even as she turned away from the remains of her two hatchlings, a plan far more sophisticated than the creatures above could imagine her capable of conjuring, was forming. With a mighty burst of speed powered by her burnt, pained legs, the Alpha disappeared into the incinerating forest, a fire inside of her burning as intensely as the world around her.
This is my second fanfic focused on the The Isle. I plan on writing several stories based around the game, with some delving into its largely enigmatic lore (as of yet). For now, this is a more focused story that will not look too much into the actual universe of the game. The Isle and all of its properties belongs to its respective owners and I highly recommend that you go play the game, which is currently being developed by a dedicated and extremely talented team of people.