Primate's Progress (Planet of the Apes Chernin|Reboot series/Monsterverse/Jurassic World)

[all fictions]

Author's note: Surprisingly not inspired by the recent entries of these franchises. I was well fed, obviously, by these series as a big fan of "monke" and "animals take over after us": Skull Island and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters last year; Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and Jurassic World: Chaos Theory back to back during the spring of this year; and a fourth Jurassic World movie next year. But they really had no incidence on this story, which I had first written back in summer last year as part of last year's flash fiction writing contest (here) on the theme of "wonder", where it started as a 1K word-long oneshot before becoming this monstrosity, but I had the idea for years before this, ever since 2017 I think, when War for the Planet of the Apes and Kong: Skull Island came out the same year. The idea grew, took shape, and solidified as the years went by, especially when I saw Kong actually sign during Godzilla vs. Kong. I got almost discouraged when I learned of the existence of the comic crossover Kong on the Planet of the Apes, but the fact that it was actually completely different from my idea (notably by using the original continuities of both properties for the crossover) gave me a boost of confidence.

(Also, I generally found the story of Kong on the Planet of the Apes pretty mid, they didn't really take advantage of the premise to do much interesting with it. If you want to read a good Planet of the Apes crossover comic, Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes is much better IMO.)

Anyway. To make a long story short, this longshot(?) has approximately zero spoilers for New Empire, Kingdom, or Chaos Theory. There's only two minor elements I brought in from them, one very obvious, the other more low key, but neither spoil anything regarding the plots of these movies and TV show. So enjoy.

One last thing: I was originally gonna mark this as a oneshot, but two more ideas came to me while writing, so hopefully I can make an anthology sort of thing of unconnected oneshots in that world if people like my writing.

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Primate's Progress
​

If cattle and horses had hands, and were able to draw with their feet and produce the works which men do, horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make the gods' bodies the same shape as their own.

—Xenophanes of Colophon, Fragments​

This morning truly felt like spring had arrived. The pair had finally left the hurricane behind them, its gathering of almost all the clouds to the west leaving them with few on a clear blue sky punctuated by a light sun shower. By the time they had woken up and ridden out on their horses, the sun had broken through the perpetual cloud cover of the last few days, and was now high and bright ahead of them as they headed towards it and their destination. Grass growing out of the cracks in the gray soil glistened in the morning light, and, a few feet below them, the sinuous river glimmering along the elevated road they rode on flowed lazily. The air felt crisp on their skins and smelled fresh in their nostrils. Not for the first time since leaving their village all those months ago, she thought that the world was truly vast, far more immense than she had ever thought.

In contrast to their tranquil surroundings, the two apes made for a gloomy picture. Atop their horses draped with saddlebags, they were slumping wearily on their saddles after riding for several hands of days. While they were no longer caked in dust and dirt, the rain having washed most of it away and leaving their fur matted with a shiny luster, their bodies still bore the scars of their journey, some a few cuts, others long ugly gashes, still a violent red for the more recent ones, or a discolored beige for old wounds. Juno could feel her lips crack and bleed, her throat sore from the lack of water despite having taken a swing not too long ago. Puck's ribs were visible, leathery skin stretching over the bones, and she doubted she was any different, her belly twisting painfully from hunger.

Still they rode on without pause, knowing well the danger of not reaching their destination and finding shelter before nightfall. Their horses' hooves clip-clopped and rose dust on the strange gray earth humans made their roads out of, the one they traveled on rising high off the ground, as high as any ape village would be built. So high was it that the river below to their left looked almost like a shimmering snake from their vantage point.

As they made their way into the human city, gray earth and overgrown wrecks giving way to tall ruins, Juno looked at their surroundings every so often, and not just out of caution.

Without the bad weather, the city was now fully visible, and it was a strange and solemn sight: the rainbow created by the sun and the rain arched over mountain-tall towers, scorched and leaning against each other like drunken giants long asleep, with their feet in swirls of ocean water running through rivers that had once been paths, strewn here and there with rubbles and countless weatherbeaten metal husks too rusted to tell what they had been. Many of the abandoned towers were made of a strange, clear material that reflected the sun into a sharp light and made them too blinding to directly look at. Others were so bare their entire skeletons was exposed, frames of metal red-brown with rust, groaning like dying, rotting beasts, and swaying dangerously in the wind, their collapse in the future written.

Replacing the warm spring smell of bark and wet earth was now a persistent smell of decay, a mixture of the damp stench of waterlogged rot and the metallic scent of rust and blood. The only sounds were the groaning giants, the whipping wind and the splashing made by the light rain, and their horses wading in shallow water. The city that once resounded with life and noise so many hands of years ago now stood dead and quiet, just the history of another world. A world neither of them had ever seen and could only imagine.

It was just as well. The last thing Juno wanted was for them to get ambushed by predators so close to their goal, and the silence, while overbearing, would make any other noises clear and distinct, warning her in advance of any oncoming threat. From time to time, she heard distant screeches deeper into the city, and once or twice, she saw flying shapes in the skies that she really hoped were just birds.

Even without that, she found human cities to be strange and confusing at the best of times. Their roads, when they weren't flooded or reclaimed by nature, seemed to spread chaotically in every direction, not just vertically but also horizontally. They could lead down a hill or even deeper into gaping tunnels deep in the earth, or they could rise high into the air rivaling the cyclopean buildings, zig-zagging and merging into and diverging from each other in a dizzying maze of gray stone. Everything seemed built not for utilitarian reasons, but to be grandiose and unnatural, like a world unto itself with its own distinct rules from the outside natural world, and even more frightening than the savage wilderness in its alien logic. It all put her on edge.

Puck, as usual, seemed oblivious to any of her worries. Perhaps even moreso than usual: a vibrant nervous energy emanated from the chimpanzee and he had been showing his full teeth in a nervous grin for a while, quietly hooting and grunting to himself, while constantly fiddling with his pendant. She had even caught him over-grooming himself, removing nonexistent dust and fleas out of his hairs, seemingly never-ending with how often he picked at his fur. When he caught her looking at him, he stopped picking at himself and looked at her sheepishly.

Nervous? she signed.

Just a little, he signed back. We are just so, so close, it does not feel real. And after all we went through, the possibility that this was all for nothing, a foolish waste of time…it scares me.

Don't be. You prepared for this day, no? Then I believe you will succeed, she signed resolutely. I am with you all the way, to the end.

She touched and caressed his arm reassuringly, softly hooting, in a bonobo gesture of affection devoid of the usual sexual connotation, before they set their horses at full gallop as they rode into the city, splashing up water along the way.

…​

Moments later, they reached a tower Puck deemed appropriate. It stood in one of the non flooded parts of the city, so they were able to tie their horses on the first floor and climb the rest of the way to the roof: Juno with her rifle, spear, and the heaviest saddlebags slung across her back, as the bonobo was the stronger of the two; Puck held the lighter saddlebags like their provisions and what he needed for his ritual. The scars were sore and smarting during the climb, but not painful enough to truly hinder them. Once they reached the top, she could see why Puck chose this spot.

The building overlooked a strange, immense human structure. While worn down by time and tear, she could make out huge walls adorned with panels scribbled with the unreadable human pictograms, surrounding a clearly delineated area, filled with what looked like countless stairs jutting from the walls and leading down to a field. She couldn't make sense of it. A village or a fortified settlement maybe? The high walls and few entrances certainly made her think it was similar to one. But why build a town in the middle of their city?

But the enigmatic structure was easily eclipsed by what lay at its center: the green of the field abruptly ended in an enormous hole that escaped all measurement, deeper and darker than anything Juno had ever seen. A hole so colossal she could picture the towers of the city falling down it in their entirety and still keep falling after, unable to reach a non-existent bottom. It looked less like a physical landmark and more like a rip in the fabric of the world, one that would drag her down the abyss if she looked at it for too long. The wind coming up the chasm made a distant screeching sound that raised the hairs of her fur. It sounded like the voices of a thousand fiends, and she couldn't help but think that it was the sound of the many who had fallen to its belly.

Looking at it, she felt a pull, a tug on the back of her mind, wondering what it would be like to leap into the hole. It was like when she climbed a particularly tall tree or ruined structure left behind by humans. At first, when she looked down, she could feel terribly afraid, utterly terrified to slip and fall to her death. And then, she got the inexplicable desire to jump. It never lasted more than a few seconds, but for a few, terrible moments, she had the intense need to see what would happen if she let go. What it would feel like to fall from so high, without thinking about the landing.

The hole exercised the same attraction, but far, far stronger. The wind blowing from it seemed like it whispered encouragement, while it was gently tugging at her fur to drag her forwards, push her towards the hole to meet its master at the bottom of it.

Managing to tear her eyes away, she steeped away from the edge, and distracted herself by watching Puck set up the implements of his ceremony. He affixed cloths to long sticks that he placed at the corners of the roof. On some of the cloths, drawn with white chalk or black charcoal, was a familiar sign, the same on Puck's pendant: a circle, with a four-pointed star inside. It was Caesar's Sign.

The other cloths wore another symbol, one she did not recognize: two sideways triangles with their summits touching. For some reason, it looked to her like a really crude and simplistic drawing of a butterfly.

On the largest cloth laid out at the center of the roof was an object, a heavy metal box of metal cords and metal sticks ("antennas, like insects"), as well as small rotating wheels over the object, which Puck started fiddling with for an arcane purpose that only made sense to him. She did not know what it was, only that it was human work and emitted awful screeching noises if you weren't careful with it.

And that it would be the thing to help Puck call Kong.

Not for the first time, it all felt vaguely sacrilegious to Juno. She was not the most faithful follower of Caesar nor the most learned of apes in the higher mysteries of existence (she was far too practical to bother), but she still held the Lawgiver in her heart. Mixing his Symbol with human ones felt…impure, somehow. And while she knew Puck was far smarter than her, even smarter than most apes of the Order of Caesar, she wasn't sure what to think of his theories.

But, in the end, "Knowledge Is Power" said the Third Law. Puck had every right to learn more about the world. She would believe in him. Even as he put on a strange, unnerving leathery mask with a tubular nose-mouth and large, round eyes that gave him an insect-like appearance. Even now she trusted him.

Her masked friend turned to look at her, probably trying to be encouraging, but she struggled to look him in the eyes when the glass eyes of the mask showed nothing, and every grunt, every breath, every sound he made came out as a raspy rattle out of the mask. Instead she focused on the symbol of the triangular butterfly on the mask's forehead, and tried to put on her best smile.

You can do it, she signed.

Puck seemed to sense her unease. He held up his two fists together, towards her.

Apes Together Strong.

The familiar gesture warmed her heart, and she smiled, genuinely this time, in gratitude, raising the sign back to him in return. He nodded.

And Puck got to work.

…​

The first day yielded no result. Puck hooted and hollered around the makeshift altar to no avail. He even rain-danced to increase his chances, but nothing. Once the sun started to set, they called it quits and started setting up camp. Juno climbed down to feed the horses, and barricaded the entrance to the building to prevent them from getting out, and to prevent other things from getting in. Once she got back up on the roof, they shared a meal of roasted nuts and lizard meat, and Puck regaled her with what he knew of the city.

Apparently, humans called it "Boss-tun", or so she understood when Puck said it to her out loud as he didn't know how to sign it. Juno had grown so accustomed to all apes using hand talk that it felt strange to hear voice talk. She wasn't fluent in it, but she could at least make out the sounds. Puck also hadn't said it, but he probably felt self-conscious at his signing now, with two fingers missing, even though it didn't really bother Juno. But she wouldn't push him on it.

According to the legends, this is where it happened, he signed. The end of the world.

Juno raised a skeptical eyebrow at that (her sister taught her that, swore it was a human facial expression, but how would she know?), and pointedly looked at everything around them, grunting in disbelief. The world doesn't look ended to me.

Ha ha. He somehow managed to make his signing drip with sarcasm. It was something to be proud of, her ability to make him stop in his tracks. Never let him be too used to explaining things, she didn't want him to get full of himself. My teacher told me about it, that the world has had multiple "worlds"...or rather, let me try again. The world, like an ape, has many ages it went through.

He must have seen her look of confusion when he started, so she appreciated the course correction. Juno was not dumb, but she knew her strengths, and it was more focused on the real and practical than ideal and theoretical. She could at least understand his simile, the idea of the world growing like an ape: going from little, to young, to adult, and to old.

Seeing that she followed him, Puck continued. The world does not grow like you and I. It is like a snake, shedding its old skin to become anew. Each time the world "matured" and started a new age, it caused countless disasters on its surface, as old lands gave way to the new. And every time, the dominant people get killed, leaving so that a new kind can replace them. He had a small, sardonic smile at that. The gods of old upstaged by the little apes that once worshiped them, who now own all the power they once had.

That made some amount of sense to her. As far as apes could tell, they had awoken only a few hands of years ago, but humans were thought to have Changed when the world was younger, much younger. It may be that they themselves had supplanted an earlier race.

That said, this was all very basic, she could see where he was going and it made her want to roll her eyes. She grunted again, this time openly scoffing. Yes, yes, when apes awoke, humans became sick and slowly died off. Everyone knows this, even little apes know this! Why are you doing a lesson for little ones and telling me what I already know? Next you will tell me about Koba the Betrayer.

Because it was not just the sickness, Juno, Puck signed. The Wakening was only one of the things that ended the humans. When the world died to be born again, an older, giant kind from a previous age, thought to have vanished, rose up from their slumber and put an end to humankind.

He pointed to the side, and she knew what his finger pointed at. At the hole. The gaping maw. The sun lengthened the shadows of the tall buildings and it looked to her as if they grew towards the hole, inextricably attracted to the void, like insects falling down into pitcher plants.

They fought there, he continued. The beast from the earth and the beast from the sea battled the monster with three heads, and it ended the world. He hesitated, for a heartbeat. …Kong was the first beast, according to my teacher. After the end of days, he climbed down the hole, to reign in the Below-The-Land, while the other beast reigned the seas above.

There was still light, but Juno felt like everything got darker all of a sudden. She sensed all the hairs of her fur rise as a cold wind blew. She tried very hard not to think about where the wind blew from.

Stories, she signed, convincing herself. Stories and nonsense. 'How would your teacher even know?' she almost signed but stopped herself. This belief in the existence of "Kong" was the whole point of their journey. Questioning Puck's idea and his teacher's lessons at this point would just start a fight and she hated when they fought.

Puck had a small smile and picked up the leathery mask. My teacher had this saying. He said it came from the humans and drove their own search for knowledge, especially of what came before them. Even when it seemed impossible. He turned the mask and showed her human pictograms written there. They wrote it wherever he found what they knew about the giant beasts.

He read the human symbols out loud.

Beyond logic lies the truth.

More human nonsense.

They cut their discussion short as the sun set completely and went to bed. As usual, Juno took the first watch, taking post on a corner edge of the rooftop to watch out for any incoming danger. Her wounds itched, and she scratched them idly, sickening pleasure at picking at the flesh.

There was nothing else to do but wait. Alone with her thoughts, the distant screechings, and the hole in the world somewhere in the outer darkness.

…​

The second day was worse.

Puck had started his rituals, punctuated by fiddling with the metal box, early in the morning, as soon as the sun rose. But still no result: no Kong, no signs, and no change, not even a minor change in the weather. By midday he was running ragged, sweating and breathing hard, and his movements had turned sluggish. He sat back down with a frustrated sigh, his wet and matted fur spattering a few droplets of sweat as he did so. He returned to tinkering with the contraption, but in a far rougher manner, unlike his previously careful, almost reverent handling of it the day before. He even hit it once or twice, grunting in frustration.

Juno had never seen Puck so distraught before. He was usually so very patient, she had seen him take days to slowly teach the little ones to count with their hands. It felt like nothing could ever rattle him, that he could always face come what may…she didn't know how to make him feel better now that he was so visibly upset. Or rather, she knew, but she did not want to tell him to give up on his quest, when everyone else had already done so before. And she had promised him she would stand by him to the end.

No matter what, she felt like she was being a poor friend.

Suddenly, with an angry roar, Puck slapped away the metal box. It bounced off the cloth it laid on and hit the uncovered ground with a clang, kicking up some dust with it. And something strange happened: the box unfolded and came to life, seemingly on its own, several new parts emerging and expanding beyond the case. The new appendages were adorned with the strange clear material, similar to ice, that you could sometimes see on human objects such as the more intact towers of the city. The pieces of ice-like material came aglow, not from reflecting the sun, but from an unknown, seemingly internal light source, displaying more human scripts and symbols. It was a strange light emitting no warmth, nothing like sunlight or firelight... no earthlight at all...

This all happened so quickly she did not have time to ask Puck what was going on. And then the box spoke.

ALPHA FREQUENCY FOUND

And then the box screamed.

A piercing, high-pitched shriek rang out, a noise louder than any other the object had produced before. The head piercing shrill sound echoed through the desolate roads of the ruined city, seeming to reverberate off the crumbling buildings. Announcing their presence to the entire world.

Puck acted quickly and threw himself at the box, frenetically hitting and turning the little wheels, until the object, against all logic, decreased the volume of its scream, like it was sounding farther and farther away, before ceasing completely. For a time, the echoes of the shrill cry resounded off the walls of the dilapidated remains of the city, before they, too, faded away.

Silence fell over the city.

The moment stretched on, the entire city holding its breath in anticipation. The heavy, eerie stillness pushed down on the rooftop, surrounding the apes, amplifying the sound of the blood rushing in their ears. Juno had her back pressed against the parapet wall, squatting low enough to not be seen over it, while Puck was laying as flatly as he could on his stomach with his laced hands on head. The two apes were motionless, their breaths shallow and their hearts pounding a frenetic rhythm against their chests.

Each passing second felt like an eternity, filled with dread at the unknown. Juno's senses were heightened, every nerve on edge, beads of sweat forming on her brows and glistening as she strained her senses for any sign of movement or danger.

Then, a subtle shift in the air, a whisper of sound and movement from somewhere further away that stirred the stillness. Juno tensed, her grip tightening on her spear, until she realized what the disruption was and where it came from.

The distant cries of horses.

Juno's eyes went wide as she realized that they had forgotten their mounts downstairs, completely exposed to danger, even moreso when their panicked neighs would only attract more attention to their hiding place. Puck made to get up, slowly starting to rise from his prone position, but Juno reacted quickly and pushed him back down to the ground, hard.

DOWN, she hissed harshly, the unfamiliar use of spoken words strange on her tongue and hurting her throat.

Startled, Puck recoiled at her sudden force, and he looked at her, his eyes wide with shock, and a little flicker of fear. She didn't know what he saw in her face, but it was like he was looking at her for the first time. Like she was a complete, terrifying stranger.

And then she saw his eyes glance at something next to him. The metal box. The thing that caused all this. His mistake.

Just as quickly, the look melted away, replaced by sadness and sheepish guilt, as Puck nodded at her sheepishly and deflated, now cowed, before lying back down.

Juno released him, and her hand hovered just a moment over his back before retreating, shaking, balling it up into a fist to stop the trembling. She did not have to be so hard and she did not have to hurt him, but what was done was done. She did not have the luxury to feel guilty yet.

You will have all the time to apologize later, she thought.

Instead, she reached behind her, her fingers hesitating for a moment before unhooking the rifle from her back. Extending the weapon towards Puck with a sense of urgency, she signed, Take this. You might need it more than me. Puck's eyes widened in surprise as he accepted the rifle, his hands trembling slightly under its weight. I know you don't like weapons, but just to be safe. If anything flies or climbs towards you, just shoot a few warning shots and take refuge inside.

Puck hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.

Without further delay, Juno left him behind on the roof and lept into action, her muscles rippling as she tackled open the rusting stairwell door, and scaled down the crumbling stairs inside, a less exposed route than climbing down the building's front face as they did when they arrived. Clinging to handrails and crumbling walls, with each step and each leap the sounds of the panicked horses grew louder, their frantic whinnies echoing off the dilapidated building, fueling her determination to reach them swiftly.

Juno landed gracefully on the deserted ground floor below, ignoring the dull throbbing of her scars, her eyes scanning the darkness for any sign of danger. She found the horses huddled together where they left them, their eyes wild with fear as they strained against their restraints. With a reassuring gesture, palms open, she approached them slowly, hooting quietly with her voice calm and soothing, hoping she could calm their nerves and trying to ignore her own thundering heartbeat at the idea that anything could be attracted by the noise and burst through the door behind her.

But as she drew nearer, one of the horses reared back, a panicked whinny escaping its lips. Juno froze, her outstretched hand trembling in mid-air. In a blur of movement, the horse broke free from its tether with a cracking snap, its hooves pounding against the dusty floor as it bolted towards the nearest exit.

Panicked, Juno lunged forward, reaching out in vain. But it was too late. With a desperate leap, the horse crashed not through the exit she had barricaded, but instead one of the shattered transparent openings of the wall, shards of the strange material glinting in the sunlight exploding outwards alongside droplets of ruby red blood from where the horse cut itself. Wind rushed in, carrying with it the echoes of the wounded horse's terrified cries as it galloped into the roads beyond. There was nothing Juno could do. They would just have to manage with only one horse.

She led the far calmer remaining mare to one of the adjoining rooms on the floor, far away from the entrance and without any view on the outside. There was plenty of grass growing through the cracks for the horse to feed on, a cool wind blowing through the room like the rest of the drafty building, and a door she could close behind her. After ensuring she was as comfortable as possible, Juno left the room, making sure to close the door behind her, before climbing back up to the rooftop, where she found Puck peering over the edge of the roof. Before she could grab him, she heard it: snarls and hisses, followed by the panicked cries of a horse. She quickly rushed to Puck's side.

She looked back down, and her blood ran cold.

Against all odds, the fugitive horse had come back, right in front of the tower, its brown coat marred by the cuts made in its escape, but also new gashes of an angry red on its sides. Maybe it had remembered the way to them or caught their scents and followed it back to the building.

Or, more likely, it had been led, chased back here, because it was not alone.

Surrounding the horse was a pack of predators, easily keeping up with its speed with long, incredibly swift stride. They were slender, slightly larger than the average ape, agile on their hind legs and balancing with a stiff feathered tail. Their hides were coats of feathers, vibrant plumage shimmering in the dappled sunlight, and they had stubby wings for arms. A single, long, curved claw adorned each foot of their hind legs, the scythe-like nails clicking against the ground or digging into the earth, some shining with streaks of fresh blood. Juno would have almost thought them flightless birds, if not for their reptilian heads, their skin leathery and pebbled, with a pointed snout and long rows of teeth instead of a beak, and unblinking, amber eyes.

She had also never heard of birds hunting in loose packs like dogs. But they were not like dogs, no, not even birds or any other beasts she knew: there was something unnerving, indescribably unnatural about the way they moved, the way their pace was all wrong. The coldness in their movements, the lack of anything reflected in their eyes, never blinking. The complete stillness when they stopped moving, like they weren't alive at all, the only sign of life being their breaths coming out in soft hisses through their flared nostrils.

These creatures, with scales instead of furs, cold blood instead of warm blood, were as far removed from apekind as could be. And when she recalled what Puck talked about the day before, she couldn't help but see them as another kind of life from another kind of world. One older and darker than their own.

Puck turned to her, eyes wide. He had also recognized them.

Stalking lizards, she quickly signed.

This was exactly what she had feared, that the ruins would be infested with reptilian beasts and they would be forced to deal with them again. They had gotten lucky before, but it had been a close thing and they bore the scars to prove it. And luck was never a sure and constant thing, relying on it to escape being eaten by these animals was futile and foolish. At least stalking lizards weren't as dangerous as armored grass eaters or one of the Great Beasts; even back at the village they contended themselves with targeting the very young children or the elderly.

The little monsters were smart, circling the agitated horse while still keeping their distance, avoiding getting hit by its hooves as it neighed loudly and trashed in a frenzy. Attacks came swiftly, always from outside the horse's field of view and in his blind spot, animals leaping legs raised while the horse was distracted by other packmats and slashing it with their dagger-claws, before retreating quickly. Some did not retreat fast enough or got too impatient and charged recklessly, resulting in a few getting sent sprawling after receiving the full force of a horse's kick to its body, and sometimes not getting up at all.

But the horse was exhausted, loudly gasping for breath and foam bubbling at its mouth, tiring itself out just as the beasts wanted. Blood was flowing in rivulets from its wounds, seeping out every time it took a step and took a breath. And it seemed dazed, shaking its head as if to shake off invisible flies, and moving slower and slower every time he dodged its attackers, stumbling more and more every time it took a tentative step.

It would be over soon. There was nothing Juno could do.

The pack was closing in, snarling menacingly with fangs bared and glistening with saliva. They were no longer cautiously keeping their distances, emboldened by the weakness of their prey. They made riskier and riskier sweeps, darting in and out of the horse's range to take actual bites out of its flesh.

Next to her, Puck was gripping the edge of the roof with so much strength he was trembling. Juno herself felt her heart was beating so hard it was like her entire body and the roof were shaking. Her knuckles went white as she gripped her spear so hard her hands hurt.

But they could not do anything that wouldn't put them in danger. They had barely escaped with their lives the last time they had encountered lizards. Juno had seen stalkers in action before, and she knew they were excellent climbers of even the steepest cliffs. If they knew they were here, they would promptly get to the roof, and while Juno was confident she could handle a few stalking lizards, it was not the same for an entire horde of them, certainly not while having to protect Puck at the same time, even if he had her rifle. He was a poor shot, and every bullet was precious.

The fight was lost before it even began. She was powerless.

No matter. It would be over soon.

Juno took a breath. Blinked.

And the horse vanished.

What?

At first, she did not understand what had just happened. The stalkers themselves had stopped in confusion.

Abruptly the horse hit the ground from above, its limp form devoid of life landing with a sickening, wet crunch in the middle of the pack. Blood splattered everywhere, all over the ground and all over the surprised lizards, reminding Juno of the grotesque image of dropping an overripe, rotten fruit from a great height. Sprawled all over the ground, it didn't look so much like a horse than just a pile of red meat and bones. From what she could see, the bloody carcass had its neck limp, bent at an unnatural degree, with open red gashes where the skin had been pierced by something.

Like teeth.

A shadow fell on the dead horse and the predators surrounding it. One of the stalkers stood up in surprise. The rest craned their necks up.

The carcass had landed at the feet of another, enormous beast. Bird-like feet, three toed talons clutching the ground with every step. The feet were attached to enormous hind legs with powerful muscles in its haunches, trailing up a powerful frame to a square head towering two stories above the ground, ragged chunks of bleeding flesh in her jaws. Its skin was a mottled reddish brown, the color of dried blood, with a short mane of fuzzy filaments across its neck, chest, and back. The animal was immense, and yet such a large creature had moved with incredible speed and agility that it had covered the distance to the horse in quick bounding steps and claimed the prey for itself with neither the apes nor the stalkers realizing. It stomped forward towards its meal, and the ground shaking with every step made Juno belatedly realize that this is what she had confused for the beatings of her heart.

The Destroyer, Juno had often heard it called. Others referred to the beast as the Thunderer, or the Terror. Whatever its name, it was one of the biggest and most dangerous predators in the world.

And it had been led right to them.

The colossal lizard opened its huge jaws and fangs, and a roar split through the air.

The sound, the call, Juno could feel it rattling her bones and boiling her blood. It was like she could taste the roar at the back of her throat. It woke something within her, something…basal. A primal sort of feeling, an inherent panic, an ice-cold terror coiling in her gut and jamming through her spine to her lower brain, written into her blood and the blood of all of apekind, that screamed danger and run. It was the fear of being eaten, the scars earned through millennia of falling prey to bigger, stronger animals; she was back in the faraway homeland of the apes, where it was always warm and the trees bore food of all kinds, but also where her ancestors kept watch for predators in the night, dark and full of monsters.

Long after the roar had ceased, she could still hear it, the noise having crept through her ears and continued to echo and bounce around her skull, nestling itself comfortably in the folds of her brains. In the bright light of midday, all she could feel was darkness roaring around her.

All the stalkers gave the beast a wide berth and slowly backed off, never taking their eyes off the new challenger, as if to reconsider their plans. They seemed to quickly realize the situation was hopeless and they slunk away, moving back towards the shadows of the ruined city.

Triumphant, its lips curled in a snarl, exposing so many teeth as it made a rumbling noise halfway between growling and cooing. It bent, swinging its massive head down, saliva dripping off its jaws and onto the meat. It sniffed it repeatedly with its blunt nose, moving its head slightly to the left and right with each inhalation. It nosed at its meal, like it expected it to come back to life and flee, and when it didn't, it bent lower, its thick counterbalancing tail swaying back and forth, and one of its great hind limb held the carcass in place and there was a sound like a ripe cabbage cracking apart as the teeth tore into bone and flesh, grasping a mouthful of horse in its jaws. Satiated, the Destroyer disappeared into its city, not sparing another look at the two apes on the roof, stuck frozen with fear.

…​

We are leaving, she signed, her hands and fingers flying fast in her agitation. Already she had packed most of their belongings, starting to work as soon as they had been sure the area was clear. Even then, as a precaution, she had scattered on the rooftop some of those small, whitish and wrinkled five-petals flowers said to act as repellent to lizards. Even if she was skeptical of the folk remedy, it had seemingly worked before, and she needed some peace of mind anyway, no matter how unfounded it might be.

The only thing left on the roof was Puck's ritual site and it took all her willpower not to trash it. That, and Puck was standing in front of his setup, almost protectively guarding it. While she had been hastily preparing their departure, Puck had done little more than simply stand next to his implements and gaze guiltily at his metal box. She really, really wanted to throw the infernal machine at him, or at the very least throw it off the building. Either would please her. Juno, he signed. We can't. I'm sorry, I know I messed up, but I am almost close…

She slapped his hands away and Puck flinched in shock, but she was too angry to care. You were "almost close" to get us both killed is what you did. What were you thinking? You are lucky your cursed box did not attract flying lizards. If terror birds had been around, then we truly would have been done for. She gestured at her scar, three parallel cuts of an angry red going straight down her abdomen from when she was almost eviscerated a few weeks ago. Was this not enough? She raised her chin and pointed at the scar going from the hollow of her neck to the base of her jaw. Was this not enough?

Then she stabbed a finger at Puck's left hand, the one missing two fingers, and she growled, loudly. Was this not enough!?

Puck had deflated, almost making himself smaller, yet he did not move. I can't leave.

Juno grunted. You most certainly will. We may only have one horse now, but don't think I won't drag you to the saddle by force.

No, you don't understand. I cannot leave, I need for this to work. Puck had held the signs for cannot and need for a heartbeat or two, stressing their importance to the meaning of his sentence, while shooting her desperate looks.

It made her pause.

What are you talking about?

The light of the setting sun cast deep shadows on his face, creating deep ridges in the wrinkles of his face, deep-setting his eyes to the point they were obscured. It made Puck look way older, like he had aged a lifetime. He sat down next to his metal box, not close enough to set it off but within a shorter distance to reach it were anything to happen.

Or if I tried to get rid of it, Juno thought.

Puck fiddled with his pendant for a moment, the sign of Caesar briefly shining bright when it caught the light, before letting it fall and starting signing. The Order, it is… He stumbled over the sign. Divided.

Because of Kong's existence?

He shook his head. It is more fundamental than that. He paused, gathering his thoughts. Above them, the sky was turning pink between lowering gray clouds. A calm breeze brought to her nostrils the sweetly fragrant scent of the white flowers. The Order of Caesar is dedicated to knowledge, he continued. Always has been, ever since the days of Maurice, companion of the Lawgiver. Knowledge Is Power. But recently, there have been schisms, disputes, and there is a growing faction within the Order: the more discoveries we make, the more knowledge we learn, the more their minds wonder, and the more they wander into very dark places, believing there to be the deepest secrets. And it leads them to very…

Puck stopped signing, his fingers hesitating mid-air, and clenched and unclenched his hand, shaking off his nerves. Some members of the Order believe…they believe that Caesar was not simply raised among humans, at first believing himself one of them before finding his true people. They believe that humans were the ones who gave him the Gift of Wakening. They are saying that the Awakening was neither a miracle nor a natural process. It was human work.

What? Juno was not sure what she had expected, but it was certainly not that. If Puck's ritual had felt sacrilegious, this claim sounded like an outrageous blasphemy. Something said only by someone ignoring reality and believing they could fly if they fell from great heights and flapped their arms fast enough. The frustration, the red-hot anger that had been coiling in Juno's guts ever since that cursed box had alerted the entire city boiled over, and she was grateful for a target that wasn't her companion. Have they gone mad? Did they fall out of trees too many times? Did they stay in the sun too long? The Order is supposed to be the keeper of knowledge, not peddler of complete nonsense.

Puck nodded. Nonsense, yes, but one they believe they can prove based on deductions. Humans could do a great many things in their time. They could control the very land, easily razing forests and flattening mountains. They could talk across vast distances, even across oceans. They could even fly, if legends are to be believed.

It was true that a lot of what humans did or were said to have done sounded a lot more like magic. They had contrived countless ingenious things, many that apes could never understand in a lifetime. Humans were clever, yes, but not that clever. In the end, their things were the end of them, as many of what they devised were turned to evil or led to their destruction. That cleverness of theirs had been their downfall.

That certainly did not mean—

That does not make them gods! she signed.

He grimaced. They argue that humans were powerful enough that they might as well be. Some of them are even saying...the evidence is shaky, but some are claiming that humans created the lizards.

So they think humans created the animals now too? she signed disdainfully. That they made the birds, the bears, the horses, and the dogs?

I do not know the details. Supposedly, it is specifically the lizards, and that humans did not create them, but brought them back from the dead. That the lizards were from an earlier age of the world, one where they dominated before humans replaced them. And that, in their arrogance at the height of their power, humans brought back their former precursors for their own pleasure.

Even the things Puck had said about Kong had been less outlandish, less insane. And that's their argument? she signed. Humans maybe did all these impossible things, so clearly they were the ones who Changed apes?

That is what they preach. Humans did all these and more human work. He cast a look at the rest of the city. The sunset was almost spent, casting a deep crimson glow on the crumbling structures, and the waters flooding half the city were magnetic with ruddy color. They built this, and he gestured in a way to encompass the entire city, its impossibly high towers dotting the horizon. To them, who is to say humans couldn't give apes intelligence?

Despite the fact that Puck was only repeating the words of others, they enraged Juno all the same, to the point she could feel the hairs of her fur bristled. She grit her teeth so hard the tension thrummed through her skull, making her ears ring and her vision waver. Her hands balled into fists so tight she could feel the sharp bite of her nails into her palms, and a wet and sticky sensation as she drew blood. She could imagine digging those nails into the flesh of those fools, letting their blood flow over her hands. She felt twisted with fury.

How dare they. How dare they, the upholders of Caesar's words and deeds, deny his gift? How could they spit on his legacy? How could they pretend apes were no more than a whim of humans? No more than human work?

Juno had heard many tales on the birth of Caesar. It was hard not to, when he loomed so big in ape history, yet few alive now had been around when he walked among them. Most accepted he had been born normally to normal ape parents, but there were outliers. Some she had heard believed he had sprung from the stone of humans' prison for apes, adult and fully formed. Others still said he had been created from lightning striking a tree. But it did not matter to her if Caesar had been divine or not, whether he had been born, created from lightning, or emerged fully formed from the earth.

Caesar was the Lawgiver, and that was enough for her.

Something at that thought made things fall into place in her brain. It was like sunlight piercing through a clouded sky, the way the haze of her anger dissipated into limpid clarity. She looked at Puck, and the dawning realization must have shown on her face because he looked back in understanding.

She had to ask. Puck. If that is what they think of Caesar, what about his Laws?

He nodded gravely and exhaled a long drawn out sigh. It is as you suspect. They have not challenged the Laws, not yet, but my teacher believes it is only a matter of time. If they can make people believe Caesar was only ever created by humans, that would mean all his Laws are the result of human work and therefore worthless to apes. Why follow the words of something made by humans after all? Apes are their own people, they should make their own laws for apes and by apes, not laws by their former masters.

She felt a cold shiver arc down her spine.

The words sounded reasonable, inspiring even, without the full context, but the actual meaning was sinister. These words could spell the end of ape society, a call to lawlessness, all over a lie.

Before the Change, each kind of ape had had its own instincts and customs—in many ways quite alien to one another—and yet, thanks to Caesar, the many had become one. One kind of ape under one set of law inheritors of one world. But if the words of these dissidents were to spread and to be believed, the Laws allowing the union of all four kinds of great apes would be erased, allowing various apes to fight over who would get to shape apekind in their image.

Ape Not Kill Ape? Not their Law, therefore every ape would kill any other ape for any reason. Apes Together Strong? Not anymore, now each ape would only ever associate with their own kind, chimps with chimps, gorillas with gorillas, and every other kind would be their enemies. Ironically, this would also make the Order's mission statement worthless, but it might also have been the point: after all, how else to thoroughly discredit Caesar than destroying the last bastion preserving knowledge of him, of his teachings?

This wasn't just an ideological dispute, this was a conflict with the potential threat of ending all of ape society as they knew it.

Juno glanced at the rivers coursing the ruined human city, flowing around the decaying towers in intersecting right angles you could never see in nature. Bathed in the last rays of the sun, just as it was getting darker, they turned from a fiery red to being dyed a deep, darker crimson, close to bruise purple. In her spiraling mind, they were rivers of actual blood, gorged from the blood of hundreds, thousands of apes, their festering corpses bloating the waters, picked apart by the corpse eating birds and lizards. All the bodies of those who would die when the Laws fell, when ape kills ape, condemned to serve as a forever feast to whatever beasts came after.

The scent of the flowers smelled sickly sweet now, the scent of flowers used to mask the foul odor of dead apes, and it was choking her.

And she realized something else, hit by the same crystal clear clarity. That's why you went on this journey. We aren't just here to prove Kong exists, are we? It's not just so you can earn your graduation from student to teacher?

It wasn't, no, Puck signed, shaking his head for emphasis. I—we need Kong. My teacher agreed that he would be strong proof of ape intelligence long before humans, something that would discredit the dissenters. He paused and shot her a guilty look, before looking down. She watched him raise a trembling hand and rub it on himself in abashed nervousness, first running it across his face, before moving it up, palming his forehead, raking his fingers through the hairs on his head, before resting it on the back of his head. I am sorry I lied to you, I truly did not want to, but I had to leave fast and could not let the true goal of my journey be known. Another group, members of the other faction, left at the same time as us, heading north towards the coast. They were headed for the location of the First Village, the first home of Caesar and the apes after Awakening, looking to bring back proof, fabricated or otherwise, of their claims. And in that same direction was the supposed place where the lizards were let loose on the world, and proving humans had a hand in that would lend them more weight.

Puck kept looking at the ground, so when Juno saw his hands shake near his heart, he was giving her a picture of what he felt. You may not forgive me, but please, let me try to call Kong again. I know more about the device now, I think I can get it to work without alerting the entire city. Give me a day: if I fail, we go back home.

After a hesitation, head still lowered, he extended a hand, palm up.

An open palm in supplication. The universal symbol of asking for forgiveness.

Juno looked at Puck's hand for a long moment. This was far too dangerous, when they knew a herd of Stalkers and at least one Destroyer was in the same city, and the only reason they were not killed by the Great Beast was due to it not noticing them. Puck had extended his right hand for a reason, his left would have reminded her of just how much danger they were in. She did not want to die, nor did she want her best friend to die on a foolish quest.

But on the other hand, the situation had changed, and the stakes were now far higher. If they left empty handed, they may come back to a collapsed ape society, where Caesar and everything he taught and built was cast down and trampled underfoot. A world where apes turned feral again, killed and took from one another, and were no better than humans.

She felt trapped, stuck choosing between two risky paths in the dark. This was no choice.

The hole screamed. The Destroyer roared. She could feel the maw closing in.

Finally, reluctantly, she brushed her palm across Puck's own, accepting his apology.

She had no choice. No choice at all.

…​

On the morning of the third day, the sky was once again cloudy. Gray, stormy clouds had rolled in during the night, blanketing the entire firmament in the color of stone. No rain drops yet, but the air was still and charged with so much electricity it raised the hairs on one's fur.

Puck was the first to wake up, after they had spent the night inside the building for precaution. Back on the roof, he set his altar back up, placed the metal box in its center, and wore his leathery insectile mask, by the time Juno woke up, fed the horse, and scattered more white flowers just in case. She watched him busy himself back and forth, but would not stop him as promised. She would only watch, sharing her attention between Puck, the empty roads below, and the worrying clouds above.

Juno was only half paying attention, as her mind was still whirling with the shocking revelations of yesterday. The idea of apes deliberately trying to make Caesar out to be a human creation was so incongruous, so foreign to her, she could still only think of it as a bad dream. People back home were trying to destroy Caesar's legacy and here she was, on the other side of the world.

She knew it was silly to think she could have changed things, even if Puck had told her from the start. She did not have any authority or position to stop the faction within the Order of Caesar. She was not an Elder, a warrior, or even a scholar. She was simply a hunter, a very skilled one but a hunter regardless. And despite her accomplishments, they all didn't matter in such a situation, they were completely useless. She was powerless.

Puck's plan might be the only viable solution.

As if on cue, she heard a small sound, low beats, slow even, tapped soft and gentle, coming from the altar. Puck was beating on the metal box once more, but this time it was with intent and purpose, with a deliberate rhythm like he was beating a drum, if drums were played at the speed of a heartbeat. Like it did before, the box bloomed and unfolded, with little whirring sounds as it did so, and still alight with its alien light. This time, as she paid more attention to what the box was displaying, she saw one of the symbols was the same triangular butterfly as the one on Puck's mask. On other displays she could see undulating lines of every color of the rainbow, shaking frantically like hair in the wind. The largest display simply showed three concentric circles.

Along the beating of his makeshift drum, Puck started to hoot quietly. His voice took on a lower pitch, a deeper timber than usual. And, below the voice, was a rhythm, a chant, wordless but powerful. And the box reacted to it: she watched, fascinated, as the lines of color moved to join within the concentric circles, and slowly started to spin

And then the box sang.

It began to beat a deep, slow rhythm, similar to Puck's own percussion. Thum, thum, thum. It sounded like a heartbeat. Juno felt the thrumming of the box all the way to her bones.

As it continued its rhythmic song, the spinning colors on the box shifted and morphed rapidly, becoming a swirling vortex of light and color. Juno struggled to understand what she was witnessing. The vortex's undulating patterns whirled chaotically into waves, peaks, and valleys, with each wave rippling outward from the center, like the ripples on the surface of a pond disturbed by a stone. But it wasn't random: the waves pulsated in tune with the rhythm that seemed to echo through the very air around her, dancing and shifting in perfect harmony with the unseen forces that surrounded it. When Puck and the box sang high, the waves surged into peaks. When Puck and the box sang low, the waves receded and plunged into valleys.

For a moment, Juno forgot where she was, lost in the enchanting dance of light and sound before her. The colors pulsed and shimmered with each passing moment, casting a hypnotic spell upon her senses. All around her the air itself seemed to move to the beat, and her own heart seemed to follow the rhythm, beating to the melody against her ribcage.

Time passed.

An eternity passed.

No time passed at all.

She blinked, and in doing so blinked water out of her eyes.

It was like she had been under water and abruptly surfaced and was hit all at once by an overwhelming wall of sensations that assaulted all her senses overloading them she was soaking wet and freezing cold and shivering the patter of raindrops pelted her and drowned almost all sounds but for the howling shrieking wind her own heartbeat thundering in her ears her lungs burned like she held a breath her legs numb and crawling with ants and her head her skull her brain…

What…what is going on? What happened? was all she managed to think through the fog of an intense headache. The powerful sense of dislocation she was struck by made her stagger backwards and she might have fallen, on the ground or off the roof, if not for the support of the parapet wall.

I must have zoned out, she thought, trying to calm herself down. Maybe even taken a nap, for a few seconds or a few minutes perhaps. No more. Perhaps slightly longer. No, that can't be it. It can't have been that long, right?

It couldn't have.

Otherwise, it would mean she had missing time, that she had a complete blackout in her memories, and that scared her, the idea that her mind was outside of her control. Or maybe that, in her absence, the world had gone wrong and confused: at that very moment, reality seemed as inconsistent as a dream, jumping around in time and featuring impossible things.

Suddenly, the very air lit up all like someone had flashed a bright white light all around her, the roof, and all the surroundings illuminated as if it were day. The stormy darkness suddenly dissolved into a vivid moment of daylight as lightning struck behind her, throwing everything on the rooftop into startling relief. Including—

Puck?

With everything lit in harsh clarity, she realized she hadn't noticed Puck was still doing his ritual. He was no longer sitting beating on the box, but he was now fully dancing in the rain in front of the idol. He swayed rhythmically from foot to foot, hair of his mane fully erect like he was struck by lightning, sometimes stamping on the shallow puddles. The rain didn't drown all sounds completely, so she could infrequently hear Puck loudly hooting and screeching as he danced, muffled through the mask.

Consumed as he was by fanatical awe, she didn't think he could hear her even if she tried to get his attention. His mind was too far gone, perhaps in the same faraway place she had been before she woke to the storm. His swaying shadow was dancing madly on the ground, circling her own who was still and frozen.

Shadow?

There should be nothing unusual about seeing her own shadow, but shouldn't have the lightning faded by now? It had been more than a minute and lightning rarely lasted longer than a few seconds. More than that, no sound of thunder had followed: no rumbling, no booming crack, nothing.

And yet the rooftop was lit up like it was broad daylight. There was a bright white light source behind her, making everything else appear in harsh silhouette and stretching the shadows at her feet across the rooftop like dark fingers, elongating unwholesomely, but whatever it was, it wasn't lightning. She didn't know what else could make that kind of light without being the sun, and unlike it, this light provided no warmth at all, or none she could feel here. It was just a brutal harsh light, stark white and beyond bright, so much so that her temples throbbed even not looking at it directly.

Death-light, she thought, incoherently. The kind of light that wakes the dead and makes them get up out of the soil and walk. The kind of light—

And when she turned around, to finally see, she did not understand what she was looking at.

The hole in the world was still there, but it was now unrecognizable, even stranger. Gone was the pitch black darkness implying no bottom. Instead, in an impossible spectacle right out of her dreams, out of the hole burst a very bright light like another sun had landed on earth, shining the surroundings in garish illumination. The light from below must have been searing hot, for all the rain falling towards or near the hole had turned into sizzling vapor, instantly boiled away by the temperature of whatever power came from beneath the earth. A kaleidoscope of weird colors and shapes scintillated within the white, like rainbows in motion, and reflected off the mist in diaphanous shine. The jumbles of color and half-coherent images streamed by too fast for her teary eyes to comprehend and briefly blinded her, the afterimage of the light burning bright crimson on her retina.

It was terrible, that light. Unearthly, out of this world, the hot light of an empty place where things no ape had ever seen might live. It terrified her. It fascinated her. The pull of the hole was even stronger than it had been before, and she wanted to go into the light. She wanted to see where it came from. What was behind it.

She blinked, and when her vision and her thoughts cleared, the already surreal picture had gotten more demented, something utterly incomprehensible to match her blighted fascination. The field all around the hole had cracked like an egg, crisscrossing web-like fissures spreading all around it, but instead of crumbling into the hole, it went the opposite direction. She watched, fatally fascinated, as whole patches of earth peeled upward like scabbed skin being torn out. They slowly broke off the ground, green grass revealing an underside of dark earth and sinuous pale roots, and rose in the air, held aloft by nothing, in total defiance of the laws of nature.

And that's what it had been since the start, hadn't it? Defiance of the laws, defiance of nature. Defiance of Caesar. And if this was the result of trying to stop his legacy from being destroyed, this spectacle of the world ending, was it worth it?

In the commotion, Juno hadn't realized Puck had slid next to her. He was no longer dancing or pant-hooting, but even through the rain, she could hear him hum to the beat of the heartbeat song metal box, breathing through his mask in that raspy, horrid sound.

She grunted to catch his attention. What is happening? she signed.

The end of a world, he signed back, still humming.

We have to stop this. This—she gestured towards the refulgent sight, where soil and rocks were now slowly spinning around the column of light—should not be. It is unnatural.

We can't stop it. It's coming.

For some reason, Puck did not let his hand fall back and held the sign for the last word. To Juno's feverish brain, it read like he said It's coming coming coming coming coming coming…, repeatedly, to the beat of the rhythmic song.

All sounds seemed to follow it, she realized now, like all the noise in the world were brought to this one area of the roof and all harmonized. The box, Puck's hums, the rain, the strobing light, her own heart, all beat in unison, responding to the dazzling light from the hole in the world.

Thum, thum, thum.

As the song reached its climax, the storm reached its peak, and the world seemed on the verge of tearing itself apart; something else, a more essential state of existence perhaps, drew that much closer to being unveiled. Abruptly, Juno felt pressure in her ears before they promptly popped, half deafening her. Dizziness swamped her, and she floundered against the parapet, the rain and the music now dull and muted. On the other side, the hole was suddenly incandescing, as if the sun rose to a new dawn, and it got even brighter, blindingly so, before a ray of light erupted and shot high in the sky, first breaking through the steam, then through the layer of stormy clouds. As the beam burst, there was a rushing of wind, and the world came back to her in a roar as her ears popped again, painfully, the rushing of noise—storm, song, shining light—racing through her.

But there was another sound, one that seemed to grow in volume, coming from the hole. A distant rumble, less of a sound than a sensation, a big one that you could feel in your feet, up your legs, in the pit of your stomach. The pitch never changed, but the volume did: it was as if there were some incredibly loud object that was just arriving here.

It's coming.

Something came out of the abyss.

Out of the mist, it sank into the dirt, getting a better grip. Juno wasn't sure, but it looked like an axe of gigantic proportions with a shining blue blade. Then her gaze tracked back to the hand holding it. Immense, furry—simian. Another hand reached out of the hole and slapped down on the surface. And Kong rose.

Clambering out of the hole, he seemed to rise and rise, so high that he would have blocked out the sun had it been there. As it was, he created a disturbance in the rain, leaving a void where the rain would fall by his sheer size. He was a massive, impossible creature the size of a mountain, higher than even the tallest of lizards, with arms and legs like any ape, but of different proportions than any of the four kinds of apes: his pronounced brow, the small crown of his hair, his massive arms that hung below the knees. Juno almost thought him a gorilla were it not for his upright posture and lack of potbelly. His vast body was covered in old scars, marks where the fur had not grown back that implied ancient, mysterious battles. Even from a distance she could feel his heat.

He was more real than anything Juno had ever seen or known before. Seeing him felt like everything around Juno turned translucent, like it was all false, and now an old, tangible reality emerged from beneath the illusion.

The Great Ape spotted them and walked towards them, the steamy fog parting before him like shredding spider-web, and paying no mind to the ruins he crushed beneath his feet, producing great cries of twisting metal and crumbling rock wherever he walked. The earth shook beneath his feet, but not like with the Thunderer: this time, it was like she truly felt the whole of the earth moving, rolling somehow, beneath her feet. He moved closer as he stared at them, closer and closer, until his warm breath washed over them, and his head filled their entire view. His face was dark and heavy, containing rage and magnanimity, as if he might switch between the extremes of both without warning. She gazed into his eyes, not green like many apes, but brown: not the color of young leaves, but the color of old tree bark, of the dark soil. The eyes of something as implausibly ancient as the land beneath their feet.

She was looking into the face of God.

Juno had never believed Kong existed, not really. It all sounded so ludicrous. She had figured the quest would be unsuccessful and amount to nothing, even as she entertained the idea to support Puck in his endeavor, as any loyal friend would. Worst came to worst, she would be there to comfort him when it inevitably failed.

But what now? In the literal face of how wrong she had been, of this god-giant bigger and older than all, everything she knew, everything she had been seemed so, so small. Petty concerns did not matter in the face of how vast and old the world was, how it had existed since before her birth and would remain long after her death. And how this god, the son of the earth, had lived through it all, unchanged, eternal.

Why would God care for Caesar's laws? Ape not kill ape was no concern for a Great Ape no other ape would be able to wound, much less kill. Apes together strong did not apply to a Great Ape stronger than every living ape working together. Knowledge is power meant nothing to a Great Ape who had been alive and had known of the world since before the apes Awakened.

It was all so insignificant.

Dimly, she could glimpse Puck at her side, the mask now in his hands, his face wearing an expression of pure joy, of ecstatic awe, in contrast to her dread. Looking at him, it was like she couldn't recognize him. Kong seemed to be aware somehow that Puck was the one who summoned him, because his large eyes fixated on the chimp, and he exhaled in a huff through his nostrils in his direction, flattening the hairs of Puck's fur with the warm wind and slight wet mucus, washed away in the rain.

And then, from out of the storm, Kong spoke to Puck.

Kong roared to him.

The roar was completely different than the Destroyer. Instead of primal, fear-driven instinct, what rose in Juno's heart was just as basal, but unlike fear. The roar resounded with something from a far deeper place, from the darkness before her eyes first opened, waking memories that were not hers. If the roar of the Destroyer reminded her of her ancestors guarding against predators in the night, this felt like they were calling her, calling her back to the home she had never been in and had doubted existed, the warm forest of the fruit trees and the tall grass. The roar contained flowing rivers, growing grass and trees, the pumping heart of the oceans. If she listened to it even more, she felt uncannily certain that the song would erase her, that she would lose all that she was, her mind would quiet into total silence, and she would return back to how apes were before the Change. No more thoughts, no more selves.

The last thing Juno felt was this unknowable mind pressing down on her.

She did not ever remember much of what happened after that. When later asked, she would tell and construct a coherent enough story: Kong came out of the Abyss and spoke to Puck in the storm, she would say. Sometimes she would say he spoke in a pillar of cloud, other times it would be in a pillar of fire. In other tellings, Puck was on a mountain instead of a crumbling human tower. But she clearly remembered seeing Puck sign to Kong and the Great Ape responding in kind, which shouldn't have been surprising that he knew hand talk. But beyond that and what Puck would tell her later, everything was a blur. Thinking about it was like trying to recall the dreams she had seen during the deepest, blackest sleep of her life.

She did remember how it ended though.

Someone tapped her shoulder and she felt like she came back from far, far away. Juno had lost time again: the storm had abated and the torrential rain had turned into a light drizzle. The sky was still gray and cloudy, but it was lighter now, the color of chalk. She looked back at the ape who called out to her and, for a moment, she only saw a stranger. But that moment passed and she saw that the chimpanzee was simply Puck. Her old, familiar friend.

We have to leave, he signed nervously. Now.

Kong was no longer looking at them. Instead, his eyes were fixed east, towards the parts of the city so flooded they eventually submerged beneath the ocean it was built next to. He scowled, thumped his chest once in defiance, and then the giant ape took off in that direction, taking giant crunching, slamming leaps that shook the ground. His departure was like a heavy pressure on Juno's mind eased up, just a little.

She looked at Puck in incomprehension, her unasked question in her eyes. Wherever he goes, he always follows, was the only thing he signed, not elaborating further.

Still a bit out of it, Juno despondently let Puck gently lead her inside the tower and down the stairs. She idly noticed something on his person, strands of dark hair so long he had been able to tie it around his waist. His proof of Kong's existence for the Order beyond their own testimonies. The two reached the bottom of the stairs and went to their sole remaining horse, retrieving it from the room Juno had put her in. The mechanical repetition of every movement preparing the mare for the departure (checking her for any signs of fatigue or injuries, feeding her some light food, securing the saddle and adjusting the straps, deciding what they would bring and what they would leave behind) calmed Juno down. Her focus on the mind-numbing, banal tasks she had done countless times was centering and grounding herself, slowly putting the pieces of her back together. Everything was still foggy around the edges but her mind felt clear. She did not feel so powerless.

While working at removing the barricades from the entrance, she asked Puck, Did he mention Caesar?

He took a moment to respond, probably trying to formulate a succinct response out of the long discussion he had shared with Kong. Something unrecognizable passed over his features, before he smiled reassuringly at her. Oh yes, he signed. Kong told me he knew Caesar. But not now, we have to get going.

And that was enough for her, and she squashed the nagging feeling in her heart at Puck's hesitation and the way he averted her eyes. It meant nothing.

With a final pat on their mount's neck, Juno swung herself into the saddle, followed by Puck. They set off from the room at a trot and left the building, splashing sheets of water left over from the storm as they went, the smell of parched earth after the rain filling the air, like the earth itself had exhaled and her breath of mineral gray and vegetal green had been brought to their noses. Juno was starting to head towards where they had come from when Puck squeezed her midsection to get her attention, causing her to stop.

Look, he signed, and he pointed towards where Kong had taken off, in the direction of where the sun would have risen were the sky not opaque. From afar, she could see the colossal form of Kong, who had climbed to the top of one of the tallest towers around to the east, the gray silhouette of an incredibly tall monolith, with Kong now perched at the top like an eagle, eyes still transfixed east.

She wasn't sure what she was meant to look at, but Puck lightly shook her shoulders and pointed with insistence at something lower than the gray tower. Look.

On ground level, she saw movements, dark shapes coming out of the shadows and hidden entrances of the city, made slightly indistinct in the pouring rain. Juno stiffened, and for a moment panicked that it was the lizards again, hungering for ape meat, and she tried to angle herself to unhook her spear from her back, hoping to cut themselves a path and make a break for it before they were surrounded. But it lasted for an instant before she realized these were not lizards: they did not go on all four, nor did they hunch over, they were all perfectly upright and bipedal.

Are they…apes? she thought. But that was not right either. Most of them were taller than the average ape save gorillas, and the figures were much thinner and not as hunched over as gorillas. She really had no idea what they could be.

Then, one figure, coming from behind them, passed by very close to the horse, close enough to touch, and she almost jumped out of her skin, with one fast hand reflexively reaching back to grab the heft of her spear. But this close, with a look, she could now see what it was. The creature had arms, legs, and a head, but that's where the resemblance to apes ended. In truth, they were nothing more than animals.

They were humans.

Now that she knew what to look for, she could see them clearly. Before them and from behind them, throngs of humans walked and shambled slowly by, male and female, young and old, heading in the same direction despite having no visible leader to guide them. Despite the rain, most of them were naked, exposing their strange, disturbing furless flesh to the elements, although some wore rudimentary furs and other beasts' skin on themselves. They passed by them as if they could not see them, some so close they brushed against the mare and yet they were not reacting to the contact when they were usually so skittish. They emitted almost no sound, the horde processing in almost complete silence, save for low grunts whenever they bumped into each other.

They had nothing to do with the humans who had built this city of course, only loosely related in some sense, to the point the Order of Caesar called them "Novas" to distinguish them from their smarter ancestors. Juno was not sure, but the Order taught that it had something to do with them losing their position and the apes replacing them. That the Awakening Changed them too, but in the opposite way. Now, they were dumber, robbed of speech, and closer to animals, their eyes glazed over and vacant.

And yet…they all looked east. They were walking towards the horizon, but more specifically towards the tower and the Great Ape. She could see them all looking at the tower, at Kong, with an expression she had never seen on Novas before. Many of them had both arms raised towards the heavens, palms open, towards the god-giant. One could mistake the gesture for them protecting against the elements, but to Juno, it looked more like they were offering themselves to Kong. A child no older than three years ran with his eyes on the tower and his arms raised, stumbled and fell, and came back up to run again, his mouth bloody with his shattered teeth. An old man with trembling legs also fell over with a sickening crack, but Juno watched with horror as he started crawling towards the tower, his feeble arms dragging along the rest of his body while behind leaving a trail of blood.

And they all wore the same unsettling expression. Their eyes, transfixed on Kong, were no longer vacuous, but lit by the same fiery, feverish madness. Their faces were twisted in wondrous, rapturous, terrified awe.

Like they were seeing the face of God.

Puck looked on with a fascinated look on his face. Juno only felt dread.

After leaving behind the human ruins, they crested a hill overlooking the city, where Puck bid her to stop again. Look, he told her again, this time with his voice. But it sounded unusually high and strained, and it took her only a look in the direction he was pointing to realize that it was tinged with terror. The same terror that now grabbed her.

Stories and nonsense, she had said once upon a time, so long ago. She had been wrong then, had not known the truth, that the truth of the world lied beyond the logic of its sentient people. Beyond logic lies the truth. And if Kong was real, what else was?

Wherever he goes, he always follows, she thought with finality, now understanding what Puck had meant. The beast from the sea.

In the distance, in the eastern part of the city where the water rose so high the top of the towers formed hundreds of tiny islands, something rose out of the sea: a great dark mass that she would have thought a mountain or a boulder were it not for its spiky dorsal fins. The beast rose higher and higher, straightening to reveal its true, incredible size, Juno's mind reeling at the sheer scale. The monster who had emerged from the bay and stepped onto the land had nothing apelike at all to it, unlike Kong. Instead, the other god-giant was a reptile of titanic proportions walking upright, clad in black scaly armor. Cascading torrents of rainwater and seawater merged into rivers coursing down the mountain of its body. Its immense shadow fell across the city, like he was devouring it by his sheer presence alone. As soon as it was out of the water, Juno saw it immediately turn its head towards Kong's location and snarl.

She saw something else, too. On the shore at his feet, surprisingly, all kinds of lizards had cautiously approached the monster. They were too far away, so she could not see them as well as the giant, but she could make out a few creatures: a herd of stalkers, one destroyer closely followed by its offspring, terror birds she could see circling the crown of the beast's head like an outcrop, some armored lizards. She even saw Long Necks, who, despite their giant bodies, did not even reach up to the knee of the monster.

So many lizards, prey and predators alike, gathered in one place. She knew rumors of this kind of coexistence near watering holes, where an unspoken "truce" ensured animals of all kinds had their turn quenching their thirst. This was different: none of them were drinking, they were all instead looking at the titan before them. But there were no threat displays either, and they should have fled if their instincts had deemed the giant a threat to their survival. Instead they just…stood there. Watching. Waiting.

Juno was not sure of what she saw. She was too far to see much in detail, and it was raining besides. But some nights, she would think about it. She would recall seeing the lizards bend their heads low, like they were preparing to move to attack. Or foraging for insects or grass to eat. Or even to drink the water, even though it would be seawater.

She would definitely not think of how this position of submission, their necks bared, looked a lot to her like the lizards were bowing. Bowing to a king. Bowing to a god.

As the beast from the sea threw its head back and roared until the heavens shook, as the beast from the earth bellowed in kind and pounded his chest until the earth quaked, the only two survivors of a lost age, Juno pushed their horse to gallop, leaving behind the city even faster to not get caught up in whatever would follow. Heading back to the ape world, a world where things made sense and order reigned.

This world had never belonged to them, not really. Not to the apes, not to the humans, not even to the lizards. They had only been allowed to live in it, because it had always been their world, the world of the gods, wild gods, savage gods. Seeing the face of God only revealed the true face of the world: a dark, carnivorous wilderness, red in tooth and claw, drawing you into a digesting maw.

And the wilderness was immense.