Chapter 11

Somewhere I Belong

Mikey hung by his tail from one of the lower branches of a small tree, growing only a few metres from the main herd, and gazed through tear filled eyes, at the pretty much bare, rain-soaked, landscape and the steadily darkening rain clouds which had occupied the sky for the past week and a half that the large mammoth herd had been travelling. Thankfully the tree's densely packed leaves had turned out to be pretty effective at keeping out most of the, now lightly falling rain, which had allowed him to take a short nap before nightfall in moderate comfort and safety.

The journey so far had not been pleasant, after having chosen the longer, supposedly easier path, these animals had been forced to endure perpetual driving rain, rapidly falling temperatures, and little to no rest during the day, however the whole thing had been especially difficult for Mikey.
On top of his ever increasing sense of hopelessness and grief over his dead family and the seemingly permanent loss of contact with his father, the adolescent now had to be on a constant look out for Diego, who had unfortunately elected to accompany Manny as escort for herd, but none of these were anything close to the real source of his misery and he wasn't at liberty to discuss it with anyone.

As it had turned out, Amy had been one of many, many possums who were travelling alongside the mammoths as part of an agreement that the two species had reached just before leaving the flooded valley; whereas the mammoths provided day time transportation and protection for the possums, who would usually be asleep by morning, as long as the males acted as night watch for the mammoths and looked for areas for them to have breakfast when they woke up.
Unfortunately this meant that Mikey had had to switch to a nocturnal sleeping pattern after a lifetime of living in daylight, which had only served to depress him more, however it had been living within this large group of possums that had given rise to his latest grievance and it was this relatively minor problem that seemed to trouble him the most right now.

With a small sniffle, the young possum used the back of his hand to wipe away yet another tear as it welled up and began to run over his upside-down forehead and toward the ground below. Using the other arm to reach up and grab onto the branch from which he was hanging and beginning a slow, inverted crawl toward the tree trunk and down to the ground.

Upon landing with a small squelch on the soft, muddy ground, he noticed that several of the other possums were already up and on the go; some of them were conversing with mammoths about everything from what had happened during the day to giving hints on the best place to sleep. Several more of the other possums were scampering around in the falling day light, amongst the giant, drowsy, fur balls; looking for friends, family members and things to eat for breakfast.
Many of the younger females were sporting two to three young possum children, either clinging to their back or trailing very close by, and many of these females had a male accompanying them, ranging from more mature looking fathers, who were probably parenting their second or third litter, to adolescents and new fathers looking for parenting advice.
It wasn't just possums and mammoths either, many weird, and not always wonderful, animals were wandering around in the dusk, either looking for places to sleep, such as the sloths, glyptodonts and the various birds which flew low overhead, or just waking up to the night like the possums.

Although it had initially filled him with immense jealousy to see all of these happy families and individuals, as the days went on he had come to find it as a comforting reassurance that there was still some peace and happiness in a world which seemed so dedicated to destroying him, and it always made him smile to see the evening wake up rush.

"Hey Mikey my boy, how's things?" called Colby, Amy's, very friendly, older brother, and a father who was currently on his third litter of two with his mate, Larissa; both of whom Mikey had met the day after the trek had begun and had become fast friends with their fourteen year old sons, Emile and Florian.

He now watched as the family began to scurry towards him, running under, around and sometimes over the other animals, often receiving some angry shouts from the tired and grumpy day light ones.

Upon reaching the base of the tree, the family took it one-by-one in turns to greet Mikey in their own way, starting with Colby himself with a traditional handshake, through to Emile and Florian who both hugged Mikey at the same time from both sides, sandwiching him completely.

"Well, how are you going?" Colby repeated with a smile, placing an arm around his mate and giving Mikey a small, suggestive wink to indicate that Larissa was indeed pregnant with her fourth litter, "Sleep well?"

"Oh, umm, it's been okay, I guess, I'm still getting used to sleeping in daylight but it's getting better," Mikey answered honestly, with a small smile of his own, and looking toward Larissa now noticing the distinctive smell of pregnancy, "How long now?"

"Sorry?" Larissa asked, apparently unsure of what Mikey had meant.

"Until the litter, you're pregnant aren't you?" asked Mikey.

"Oh, yes, yes I am actually," Larissa answered cheerfully, "It's Colby; He likes to have kids around but Emile and Florey here have announced that they're leaving in summer, so we decided to have one more litter."

"Yeah, real loud like, eh Flory," Emile piped up jokingly, giving a small nod toward his brother.

"You bet it was loud, Emile, and it was scary!" Flory responded, trying his best to look terrified but both he and his brother merely broke into hysterical laughter and began rolling around on the ground, with Mikey joining in with the first actual laugh he'd managed in months.

"He he, ahh guys, how about you go find yourselves some breakfast," suggested Colby, smiling weakly with a look of intense embarrassment on his face.

"No way, I've got heaps more to te-" Emile began, but was cut off by his father.

"Oh no you don't!" Colby shouted, gesturing for them to go away, "Go and find something to eat, NOW!"

"See ya' Mikey," Emile and Flory both called back to Mikey in unison as they scampered off quickly toward a group of five or six other children, probably with the intention of spreading their joke or joining them in the mud sliding activity in which they already appeared to be engaged.

Colby sighed and shook his head as he turned back to Mikey with a small smile, "Kids eh, he, he they always know more than you want em too," said Colby thoughtfully, before turning to his mate, "Well, to answer your question, Mikey, we think we've got about ten days until the birth, then a couple of months before they leave the pouch, you know the usual." he paused to look around for a second before continuing, "I don't know about you but I'm feeling a bit hungry and don't forget you're eating for two, Larissa, or is it three again? Hmm, anyway see you later Mikey and please tell Amy that she's got some new nephews or nieces come to think of it. Anyway tell her their on the way. Oh yeah and tell her about Emile and Flory's decision, I think she'll want to be there for her nephews when they go out on there own. You know to give them some her usual hints and things."

"Will do Colby, bye Larissa," Mikey gave the two a small wave as the couple sped off into the night to find something to eat, leaving him alone once again but definitely a lot happier than he had been.

"Hey, there you are Mikey," called a voice, which he recognised instantly as that of Amy, his friend and current source of moral support, who he could now see standing beside a bunch of brown furry animals, which were currently too tightly packed to make out properly, "Come over here, I found some food for us."

Mikey immediately dropped to all fours and sprinted as fast as could through the light rain and mud, over to Amy, who met him with a hug and small, friendly kiss on the side of his face, which he had already accepted as merely a friendly greeting and certainly nothing more than that. Especially since he'd come to think of her as more of a mother than just a friend, a simple impression that she seemed to be well aware of and appeared to be enjoying it.

Amy pointed down at a small mud hill, which stood immediately next to Mikey's right foot, about level with his knee in height, "That's an anthill Mikey."

He yelled and jumped away instantly, fearing the lasting sting of the infamous stinger-ants which were known to inhabit leafy undergrowth and damp mud, and were currently crawling all over the anthill.

"No, Mikey, there not stingers," Amy laughed, kneeling down and picking one up, the yellow striped insect, which was about one centimetre millimetres long, abnormally large for an ant, struggling in her hand, "Stingers don't have this stripe or the amber coloured thing here, and they're much smaller," she pointed at the ants abdomen which was coloured just as she had described, seeming to contain some sort of brown-orange substance, "This, Mikey, is a honey-ant."

Upon finishing the sentence, Amy threw the entire ant into her mouth and began to chew, "Try a couple, but don't just eat one or you won't taste much," Amy stated, coaxing several more onto one of her fingers and licking them off, chewing happily.

Mikey placed his finger cautiously onto the anthill, preparing to pull it back the moment any of the unnervingly huge insects attempted to bite him, although he did enjoy the tickling sensation they made as they crawled up and onto his hand. Once he had managed to get about five of them onto his finger, Mikey quickly raised them to his mouth and proceeded to suck them all off.

At first they tasted like any ant, with an odd kind of bitterness that only the aardvarks appeared to enjoy, but as he chewed on the delightfully crunchy insects, they cracked open and a magnificent, honey like sweetness began to fill his mouth. It was practically heavenly compared to the other morsels that Mikey had been scrounging up in the past few days.

He immediately placed his finger once more on the anthill, this time letting about ten or so climb on before he pulled it away and cleared them off into his mouth, and this time the taste was even stronger with the increased number of delicious honey-ants to crunch.

Before long he was attempting to get whole handfuls of them, sometimes accidentally bringing some mud too as he proceeded to feast on the delectable insects, but he didn't mind since the ants themselves were more than flavoursome enough to cover up the bland dirt.

After several minutes of complete an utter pigging out on the ants, Mikey finally sat back, placing a hand on his stomach which, for the first time in months, felt completely full, and looked to Amy, who had long since had her fill and had spent the remaining twenty minutes sitting and watching Mikey eat.

"So, you how do you feel now?" she asked, glancing at Mikey's slightly rounded stomach, as she spoke.

"Much, much better, thanks for showing me," he replied, as he sat and let his stomach settle after having eaten so many honey ants in such a short period of time.

"No problem, Mikey," Amy assured him, with her usual smile that always seemed to occupy her face whenever he was around, "It's pretty easy to find them."

"How?" Mikey asked.

"Simple," Amy replied, pointing toward the small furry lumps that were snoring a few feet away, which Mikey now realised were aardvarks, "Those guys love honey ants too, so I know that if there's a lot of them in one place, there's bound to be a honey-ant nest nearby," and noticing that Mikey was now very drowsy and yawning, mostly because of his lack of sleep, she added "It's okay if you want to take a nap, I'll take your shift for you."

"Nah, if I last this one out, I'll be nice and tired in the morning," Mikey replied, getting to his feet to walk over to the guard post to which he had been assigned the previouse evening, "But thanks anyway."

As he started toward the large boulder on the northeast corner of the herd's sleeping area, Mikey heard Amy get up and begin to follow him, "Can I come with you, just in case you change your mind?"

"Sure, I mean if you want to you can," Mikey answered, not looking back but continuing to walk toward the boulder, although he really appreciated that she was willing to give up her free time just for him.

"I just want to make sure that nothing bad happens, plus I've got nothing else to do anyway since my brother's still busy looking after his kids," said Amy, as she drew level with him.

"Oh damn I forgot to tell you, Colby told me to tell you that Larissa's got another litter on the way. I think he said that they'll be born in a few days and then a while more in the pouch," Mikey began, looking toward Amy as she walked along beside him.

Her face instantly lit up with yet another of her giant smiles, "That's great Mikey, was my brother happy."

"Colby? Yeah, it was his idea actually," Mikey replied, with a large smile now spreading across his own face.

"It always is," laughed Amy, and from what Mikey could tell this was probably true, "Wait, does this mean that his sons are leaving?"

"Ahh, yeah, Emile and Flory are leaving in summer," Mikey answered.

"Good for them," Amy remarked, then her smile begin to fade, in fact it seemed to disappear entirely, "I remember when my children left, the boys were thirteen and their sister was about nineteen." Amy gave a small, sad sigh, "I never heard from them again; at first I thought it was normal, that they were busy living their own lives, but then Colby's children always made sure to check in every now and then. If one of them didn't it was always a sure sign that they were, well, not living anymore."

Mikey could see that tears were beginning well up in Amy's eyes as she spoke, almost as if she was on the verge of crying herself.

"I took the news the only way I could, I had to assume that my sons were dead," she continued, tearfully "I don't know what would have happened to Ellie, but I'm pretty sure she's alright whether she visits or not."

Mikey stopped at the base of the boulder, which was to be his post for the night, turning to face Amy, who was definitely about to have a breakdown or something close to it, "Did you say Ellie?"

Amy looked toward him with tears beginning to roll down her face, "Yes, I did, why."

"So you say she has two brothers?" Mikey began, the whole situation beginning to unravel in his mind, "I bet their names were Crash and Eddie, right? And they're sister is a big orange mammoth."

"Yes, h-how did you know that," Amy replied, still sobbing a little but more surprised now, than sad.

Mikey smiled, "I met 'em several weeks ago and they seemed fine then, well except for Crash, his nose was bent."

"He's had that for a while actually, ever since he was ten I think," Amy broke in, although she wasn't crying she only possessed the slightest hint of a smile, "Why didn't they ever visit back again?"

"Well, a lot has been happening; the flood for one thing," Mikey continued, still smiling and looking straight into Amy's eyes, "They hang out with this weird bunch of animals, a sloth, a mammoth and that tiger, Diego. Ellie's also got a mate now; it's the mammoth, Manny, I think his name is."

Amy smiled a little more, her eyes beginning to return to their usually brightness after the momentary sadness which now seemed to disappear about as fast as it had appeared, "That's great, do you know where they are?"

"Last time I saw them they were up at the front of the herd, but the only one's I know who came with this herd, are Manny and Diego," Mikey continued again, now beginning his short climb to the top of the boulder, "Tell you what, we should go upfront and ask them in the morning, how about that?"

Although Mikey only then realised that this meant he would actually have to talk to Diego, and that was definitely not something he felt up to at the moment, he didn't complain, knowing that it was probably going to happen sooner or later.

"Great," Amy replied, smiling once more, as she made her own way to the top of the boulder after Mikey, "And thanks, you don't know how long I've been carrying that around for."

Sitting down on the cold, wet but thankfully flat stone, Mikey began to stare around at the shadowy plains around them, admittedly his nocturnal vision definitely made things easier to see but it wasn't quite perfect, sometimes forcing him to scrutinise particularly dark objects before dismissing them as a nothing more than a harmless, dark patches in the mud.

Although the often deep and entertaining conversations he had with Amy over the course of his four-hour watch gave him ample distraction from the boredom and monotony of the task, it still gave him far too much time to think about the many problems that were plaguing his life right now, and among them was the particularly curious group of thoughts which he also found to be deeply disturbing even to casually consider; the same ones that had been eating at him for the last three days at least.
He often attempted to dismiss these bizarre thoughts immediately from his mind, always in favour of some of the much less complicated issues, but as it turned out, ever since he had been exposed to more of his own species than he had ever interacted with in his entire life; these odd feelings had only just been given the chance to surface and were not going away without a fight.

Even though Amy seemed very caring and understanding, he sincerely doubted that even she could help him with this strange new problem, when he himself couldn't understand the feelings that seemed to well up inside himself, especially considering who they appeared to surround and of what relevance Amy was to them.
Admittedly he knew that there were indeed many other animals who had been through the same problem with which he now found himself struggling, but he sincerely doubted that any of them had had as much trouble as he was having in coping with the new prospect and the possible impact it could have on his brand new social life.

His world seemed to be falling apart again, but this time it was over something that he could never have, that he wasn't even sure of why he wanted it in the first place and his disgust at himself for what and who the problem actually concerned. What he found especially concerning were the similarities they possessed when compared to himself and the general belief that to like the opposite was considered normal, and why was it that only now did he fully realise what he had been feeling during the time that he had been around them.

At least he had the remaining three hours to decide whether he should bottle it up and ignore it, or even if he could and for how long, or maybe to just let it out and face the consequences?

No matter what he couldn't help but ask himself, 'Was anyone ever in more hell then me right now?' And to him the answer was very simple, 'Probably not.'