Chapter 7

The dark night finally closed in. Tanning the skin of the sky with darkness and sparking stars. The viewing of the jungle was still light and clear to see. Mowgli rode on Bagheera's back as the panther took fast through the jungle like snapping blurry images quickly in his mind. Bagheera lead themselves to a high cliff and carefully clawed on a bendy tree, strongly hanging out on the edge. Bagheera laid down on a strong, thick branch, and Mowgli jumped off and sat next to his friend. They sat close by the edges of the bending tree as they could get a wide view of the whole jungle below. There was nothing but peaceful silence echoing throughout the jungle, nothing to hear nor see. All except, the glowing lights by a small area near the side of the river, the man-village. Mowgli knew exactly what and where it was. However, Mowgli didn't wonder the fact why Bagheera brought the man-cub up to look at this view, especially with a clear sighting of the man-village. His mind was on one thing, one creature that horrify troubled him.

"Who was that?" Mowgli asked Bagheera but he kept his eyes on the glowing lights of the village, "That tiger?"

Waiting Bagheera's for Mowgli knew the panther knew that tiger, firstly huffed tiredly Bagheera finally answered, "His name is Shere Khan."

"He has return from hunting" Bagheera added.

"Hunting what?" Mowgli asked.

"Anything. But mostly cattle" Bagheera answered.

Mowgli's eyes widen in shock as his mind splashed back of the dead cattle he saw after his running practise. Now, he knows it was Shere Khan who killed the cattle, it was the tiger who broke the one of the scared laws. Mowgli could see and smell the toxic blood of the ripe off flesh and blood of the cattle in his mind stinking through his nose and sickening in his mouth.

"You see more man arriving" Bagheera pointed down by the village, Mowgli spotted a few more man walking up to the village. Bagheera explained, "They have come to kill the tiger."

Mowgli slowly laid his back down on Bagheera's smooth, black fur while continued gazing down at the man-village. The tired man-cub asked, "Will they kill him?"

"Um…" Bagheera didn't have the right words to say for it was a hard questioned to answer out of knowledge, "It will be a challenge. Shere Khan is a clear beast, but also dangerous."

Bagheera looked back at his sweet cub unaware for Mowgli that the man-cub is why the tiger is dangerous. His compassion twisted his wisdom to must know what he could do for the life of the man-cub. The panther looks back down and started a new, but similar conversation, "Mowgli, Shere Khan hunts down and kill anything challenging and new."

"If Shere Khan… ever wants to kill you" Bagheera's yellow eyes meet with Mowgli's dark brown eyes, "There's a safe place where he wouldn't go."

"Where is that?" Mowgli narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, you know…" Bagheera slowly looked back down with a calm tone of his voice trying not to make it misleading, "…the man-village."

Mowgli grew a small, cheeky smile as he believed he heard a joke, "Why would I go there?"

Bagheera closed his eyes and taking a deep, calm breathe in, before breaking down the walls. Bagheera answered, "Because you are a man-cub?"

Mowgli first looked confused at the panther, "That is a nickname you call me. Like mother calls me frog and…"

"No, Mowgli…" Bagheera's voice sounded shameful, "…you are a son of man."

After, a shock wave flew through right into the man-cub's body. Shaking his bones in fear as he raised up. The curiosity of himself being different than the other wolf cubs. The way his paws are more flatten and less fearful claws, his furless skin and his rounded teeth. Every second of his life believing he is a wolf but now scanning the way man are like by the way they act and the way they look. His throat was dry like there was no more air to breathe. The wide eyes didn't blink at once to unravel his thought, Mowgli felt deeply somehow, he knew of his difference, yet he couldn't fell to believe. His heart stop, time stop, everything stopped at this moment. Mowgli could see it all now, the truth behind his skin.

"I have seen the way he stares at the village" Bagheera describe perfectly of Mowgli's feelings, "You scan the ways of man. You know you are one of them, little brother."

Mowgli bravely sucked in a lot of air through his nose and proudly replied, "I wish to be a wolf."

"Mowgli…" the man-cub could feel Bagheera's sad, desperation through his soft voice, "Khan will not give you up. He wants your blood, little brother. Believe you to be his right. "It was Shere Khan who killed your mother all those seasons ago, and now he wants to kill you"

Puzzled, Mowgli wide eyes narrowed, "My mother-wolf, Raksha is alive and well, living among the pack."

Bagheera huffed in grief knowing the difficulties for the man-cub to understand, "No. Your true mother. The female creature of mankind."

"What?" his heart was twisted sore. Understanding his entire life in the jungle was a lie. But now, he learns of his true mother he shall never see, or hear, or know in his lifetime.

"No… No… The pack…" Mowgli tried to think of ways to solve the tiger situation, "The pack will protect me."

"Mowgli, if you fail The Running..." Bagheera tried to explain.

"Then I will not fail" Mowgli irrupted, ignoring the facts and the truths about all of this just now. He doesn't wish to hear it anymore, but the panther didn't stop warning.

"You will not be able to join the pack" Bagheera managed to finish.

"I will not fail!" Mowgli faced Bagheera and roared angrily.

"Then promise me this" Bagheera could tell that Mowgli will not take this easy to submit and to sink in, "If you do fail... you will go to the village."

Mowgli looked down in rage, Bagheera voice yelled more seriously, "Look at me, man-cub!" Once Mowgli slowly raised his head and their eyes meet, Bagheera ended, "Promise me, Mowgli. You will go."

The man-cub still stare angrily at Bagheera's yellow eyes. He held a grudge look on his face, not a single movement from his lips to say either he agrees or not. His shock and angry plunged amounts of coconut weight over his head and shoulders. His tiredness was making his stress in mind worst. He took a grip on a vein and swing himself down from the top of the tree to the closest floor edge of the cliff. Bagheera didn't bothered stopping Mowgli from leaving, knowing the man-cub needs to time to himself. He watches the man-cub swinging down until he reached the ground and began slowly running on his two legs towards the wolves' den. The black panther huffed in deep sorrow knowing how hard it is to explain to the man-cub and how his response. Bagheera stayed up in the tree branches gazing up to the children of sparkly stars, as the panther prayed for a miracle.

Mowgli couldn't stop running, his heart wouldn't let his legs stop. Believing if he could keep running, then he would running away from everything that has happened. The tiger, the truth, everything. But, they all fast and attached to his mind, they never let go. Haunting him till he reached to the den. His legs finally slowed down, Mowgli slowed down and walked on the rocky grounds. Every step he takes by his two legs, a sharp pin of shame sewing through his rushing bloody veins. Knowing wolves run on all four legs, his heart crumbled with pain of his disbelief of being a wolf. Mowgli finally reached to his home den, noting his wolf family; his Grey Brother, his three younger wolf brothers, his mother-wolf and father-wolf. All of them were sleeping still and peacefully, while Mowgli carefully slip inside through the wide, narrow hole. Instead of hugging in close with his wolf brothers to sleep by each other, Mowgli lay quit far away from them with his head facing outside into the still, nightlight shiny through the jungle. His stressful eyes grew tired and slowly shut themselves closed. However, his mind was still awake and haunted by the thoughts of Bagheera's words, the thoughts of his wolf-family unrelated by blood. But, mostly the visions of the bloodthirsty tiger, Shere Khan, for the man-cub didn't know of the lies and secrets. Yet, realising the tiger knows the man-cub know than Mowgli knows himself.