Jill wakes. Everything's different.
The leaves are bigger. TOO much bigger. So are the blades of grass. The waterfall's louder.
She's like a mite to everything. She's still in her bikini.
The birds, bugs, and monkeys are louder too. They all scream through the leafy sky, and won't shut up.
Confused, Jill tries to remember what happened. That leopard must've done something to her...
Nearby, a bug creeps in the shadows. It's not a bug. It's a nanobot with a camera. The camera points its lens at Jill, and spies on her first moments as the Congo's tiniest primate...
By day, the Congo is full of browsing monkeys. They don't all look the same, but in the Congo, and elsewhere in the eastern hemisphere, they're all folivorous.
Talapoins stick close to one another, and stay high in the trees. They leap into the swamps below, and forage.
They're the smallest diurnal primates in the Congo. If Jill can't interact with them, she'll be in a tighter spot than before...if not up shit creek.
The trees are like mountains to Jill. She's not sure if she can climb one. Aloft, and in the river shallows, she can hear the talapoins' vocal signals. At some point, she must try to make contact with them.
Ordinarily, she'd prefer the solitude. But she's never been this small before, and hence might need protection from any Congo animal small and/or predatory enough to mistake her for their next meal.
Jill's mother, after all, didn't get knocked up with her just so that her legacy could get mistaken for a bug by a tiny insectivore running wild in the Congo, no differently than the poachers who killed her and her life's occupation...
Treacherously, Jill begins the long climb up a tree. She's lucky this isn't the Amazon. Over there, the trees grow over 150 feet tall. In the Congo, they tend not to grow half that tall...in spite of how often it rains here.
Alas, Jill is mite-sized. This climb, in one way or another, could very well be her last.
She's blonde. She's got a small body. She's got a flat chest. She only wears a light blue bikini. For men, she's more than a sexual temptation. For an elephant shrew...well, let's just say she's better than going hungry for a few nanoseconds.
Water is the talapoins' element. They swim like champs. They dive, and forage for food at rock bottom. Alas, the bottom isn't rocky. It's a jungle; the bottom of everything has been decaying for millennia. If not for the fungus infestations, it'd be Africa's largest compost bin waiting to spontaneously combust.
The trees are their rock. They aren't leopard-free, but they're better than drowning when tired...or getting snatched by a crocodile. They can climb better than chimps. Chimps just get more credit for climbing because they're bigger than monkeys, and thus inspire humans more often while doing so.
The sun beats down on the jungle. It doesn't always; on most days, it rains out here. But even when it does, talapoins can't see at night.
The wind blows, testing the trees' strength. And every now and then, a talapoin is unfortunate enough to get stuck in a giant on its death day. It's a long fall...even for a Congo hardwood. But fortunately, it usually takes a force stronger than gravity to kill a talapoin.
At least Jill isn't in one of these trees when it falls. But even so, she'd best not spend too much time trying to get through to these monkeys, on the off-chance this is her tree's death day...
She'd be like a flea to the talapoins, she knows. And that's unfair; they're the smallest diurnal primates in the Congo. And she's the smallest human. She'd be as good as a talapoin if she wasn't already as good as a flea.
Jill doesn't often feel like a talapoin, though. She FEELS like a gorilla. That's why she took such good care of Joe, for as long as it lasted. But of course, she wasn't guaranteed a bond with Joe that was as envious as her mother's with his mother's in their respective lives...before that awful eight-fingered poacher killed both.
If not for baby Joe, he'd still be TEN-fingered... And no closer to playing Emile de Becque in South Pacific, no doubt...
Beneath Jill, a nanite follows her up the tree, pointing a camera at her bikini-clad ass. She doesn't see it.
The talapoins are virtually a superorganism. SURELY they've got room in their ranks for a flea-sized human...
Jill isn't sure she's got much to give these talapoins. She didn't have much to give Joe, other than affection, and knowledge of games she used to play with her own mother over a decade back...and the knowledge of how to BREAK rules of said games she used to play with her own mother...
Alas, Jill doesn't know how she feels about being dominated by a talapoin alpha male. But she does know that it should be a mercy in contrast to being dominated by Joe...
This crucible will call for Jill to compromise her sanity, she knows. But then, it's not like the Congo was doing much to preserve her human sanity anyhow...
Jill's gotten really high up in the tree. She didn't know she was afraid of heights...until she woke up the size of a mite in one of the tallest trees in Africa.
Far away, across a flooded clearing, she can see some talapoins socializing. If only she knew of a way of getting to them...
Behind Jill, a huge finger poises just behind her ass. It flicks itself.
Jill screams. It feels like a battering ram just smacked her ass. She's lucky she doesn't fall out of the tree. She whirls, and meets her attacker...
It's an Allen's swamp monkey. He laughs, and leaps away, leaving Jill alone and helpless on the branch.
Jill doesn't know what she's more overwhelmed by; having been flicked on the ass by one of the Congo's smallest monkeys, or how far those monkeys can leap. She knows it isn't as far as it looks, of course. But at this size, it scares her. She's like a flea to them.
On the upside, some of them can see her. On the downside, they don't seem to be as cordial as Joe was. But of course, Jill and Joe had their playful moments when they first met. But Jill must confess none were as intense as what that Allen's swamp monkey just did to her.
This'll take some getting used to. Jill just doesn't know if she's up to it.
Her ass still hurts. That Allen's swamp monkey sure had a thick index finger...