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Where no hope is left, is left no fear.
–John Milton
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2033
After the celebratory dinner, Dingane initiated Mwamba officially into the cultic army. Taking a hot knife from out of the dying coals beneath the massive kettle, he made Mwamba kneel before him. From his pocket he withdrew a small leather pouch, and tipping it on its side slightly, he emptied a small amount of a white powder bearing a slight blue tint and reeking of fungus onto the tip of the blade, which crackled and sizzled on the red hot metal. Slipping the pouch back into his pocket, he stuck his left pointer finger into his mouth and nipped it with his teeth so that a tiny puncture wound began to seep out blood. Squeezing his bleeding finger, he let three drops fall onto the hot end of the blade, sizzling and hissing as it mixed with the powdery compound.
“Open your mouth, boy, and prepare to touch the depths of Hell on earth.” Mwamba offered his open mouth, and in one sinisterly precise movement Dingane flipped the blade over and slapped the solution onto the tip of Mwamba’s tongue. Stifling his screams as best he could lest he offer his suffering up to the ancient creature, Mwamba acutely felt as taste buds were soldered and the thick smell of burning flesh seeped up his nasal cavity. Only a moment of the most intense pain occurred as the boiling liquid was quickly absorbed into the open flesh of his wounded tongue, and seeped speedily into his blood stream. Quickly the effects of the drug took hold of his adolescent mind; quickly the pain drifted away and was instead replaced with the darkest sort of fear.
Dingane slowly and triumphantly removed the heated knife blade from the youth’s mouth, slipping the blade back into the coals where it had been taken from. “The compound that I just sent screaming into your body is a homegrown herb of my own devising. It is similar to opium and can be similarly refined into a variety of tasty products, but the special blend that I just gave you is infused with hallucinatory algae that we also grow here on the plantation…” Dingane’s words trailed off into a world of dark swirling colors. Mwamba managed to keep his balance, but he stumbled out of the tent and clutched to the warm aluminum of a nearby shack. Dingane’s laughter was deep and biting, and Mwamba felt the sudden urge to flee.
“No one will stop you, boy, go, experience your first walk with the Shadow…” Permission given, Mwamba began his tumultuous journey towards the tree line, leaving a raving band of idiots behind him caterwauling and laughing at his expense.
The jungle was coming alive with the sounds of the night, and in the distance a gorilla rumbled while various birds and monkeys called. Despite the fact that the sun had finished its lazy course through the sky and retired for the night, Mwamba could detect everything perfectly, in fact, he could sense wherever there was life… it was as though there were burning orbs throughout the jungle, some larger, some smaller. Trees were a different shade than animals, insects seemed to be like a teeming river whereas mammals and avians were warm glows. The entire jungle was alive, everywhere there was life, teeming, gnawing, growing, dying, eating, sleeping; wherever Mwamba turned his eyes he could see the pulse of life. Then he looked down, looked at his hands and feet, and there was nothing. Beneath his fingers he could see the pulse of his blood, but while the forest fauna and flora glowed with life, the color inside himself seemed diminished, like a candle flame flickering against a stiff wind, liable to go out at any moment.
Mwamba screamed, and tore at his face with broken fingernails.
The jungle screamed back, haunting melodies rife with the call of the wild.
Blood seeped from Mwamba’s face and he tore at his chest, ripping the thin cloth shirt from his torso and burying his fingernails deep within his flesh. Looking down, the blood contained a flicker of light, but it was extinguished as soon as it bled from his body. Turning his face towards the sky, towards the haunting glow of the half moon, Mwamba screamed from deep within his soul, a roar that at last silenced the calls of the vast wilderness surrounding him.
The jungle went silent.
Mwamba kept screaming.
