Raising A Human
Reluctant Guardian

Moshe awakens from a night terror. It is early morning, just before daybreak. He rises into an upright position. He experiences shadows of a dream or a memory, he is not sure which. He begins inspecting his body, checking for something slimy, painful...? He cannot even describe to himself what he remembers. He rises from the bed, picks up a bottle of water, and exits the tent.

The sun will break the horizon in just a few minutes. He feels strange and confused, even afraid. Something happened last night. Something had frightened him. He just cannot identify the blurry images that are drifting through his mind. He drinks half of the water, seals the bottle, then checks the fire pit. No embers are present, but the ashes are still smoking.

He adds some dried grass to the pit and stirs it. He places a few thin branches over the grass. His mind begins to identify last night’s strange occurrence. He remembers the terror of being choked and smothered. It was more than a dream. He is sure of that now. He was attacked, but by what? Where did his attacker go?

He walks around the camp. He is looking for anything that does not appear normal, maybe some tracks in the sand. “Damn!” He shouts aloud, as he sees the tracks from the beach that lead to his tent. Something had crawled from the water, leaving a long indentation in the sand. Further inspection reveals tracks from his tent that lead into the forest.

He knows that he must follow the tracks and replace his attacker. The fire starts in the pit. He stirs it and adds larger pieces of fuel. He walks to the beach to check his fish trap. The day’s hunt demands readiness and a properly fueled body.

While his fish breakfast is cooking, Moshe begins to sharpen one of the long branches that he had burned. He uses two hand size rocks to chip away the charred wood. It will be good to have a proper weapon for defense. He would rather confront his attacker with a spear than with a walking stick and pocketknife.

From the forest he hears a sound. Maybe an animal? He stops from his spear making, stands and looks toward the forest. He doesn’t see anything that appears to present a danger. The sound he heard was possibly a growl. Maybe his attacker caused the sound?

The tracks are easy to follow, even after leaving the smooth sand and into the forest growth. Moshe marches forward, keeping his eyes on the trail. The trail ends at a tree. He hears an animal sound that is nearby. He raises his spear and turns around in a circle, to view the area. Not far away from the tree, among some short bushes, he sees the cat. The cat is growling and hissing at the tree.

Moshe is afraid, but he does not feel threatened by the cat. He feels terror of a worse threat. To what is the cat responding? Moshe looks all around the tree, and then he looks up. He immediately moves away from the tree to get a better look at the odd thing that he sees hanging there.

Some type of a pouch, or organ, has attached itself to the tree. It appears to be made of biological material. The organ thing is translucent and is filled with multiple veins. The veins stretch throughout the mass of the glob thing. There is a small black spot in its center. Moshe thinks the pouch thing is moving, throbbing, maybe even breathing.

This is the thing that attacked him, smothered him. It tried to kill him. He raises his spear to attack the thing. The globules material pulses and sends out a faint blue light. The light enters Moshe’s eyes. He blinks rapidly and lowers his spear.

He is experiencing a warm memory. He remembers his grandmother holding him, while she told him the ancient stories of their people. He forgets that he is about to kill a creature. He does not feel terror. He feels happy and sleepy. He slumps beside the tree and falls asleep.

In the dream, Moshe holds a child, which is frail and weak. He holds it close, protecting it from his grandmother. She tries to hit it with a stick. She commands him to throw away the child. Moshe does not, he protects the defenseless being.

He awakens in a panic. He understands immediately what has just happened. That thing in the tree did this to him, with a blue light. It made him sleep because he was raising his spear to attack. Did the thing defend itself? Is it intelligent? He walks around the tree, examining the cocoon shaped thing. The cat has left the area. He is not yet sure how he should respond to this thing, this invader. He feels afraid.

Moshe leaves the thing in the tree. Throughout the day, he plans to go back and check on it. Walking away, his mind is busy trying to understand what this bizarre event means. He speaks aloud to himself, “It crawled from the sea to my tent. It attacked me. It overpowered me. I blacked out.”

He reaches his camp and cannot decide which task he should work on next. He had cut some grass blades, which he plans to weave. He had collected a few rocks and branches. He believes that he can turn these pieces into tools.

Questions are gnawing at his mind. In frustration, he shakes his head, he cannot focus on the chores now. He must figure out what happened. What should he do? Find a way to kill it?

Moshe walks towards the water following the creature’s tracks. He speaks aloud, “It came from the water. Why? Was it not already living in the water? Why did it attack me? And it left me unconscious, but alive! Why?”

He begins to follow the tracks back up the beach, towards his tent. “Why did it go into the forest and up a tree? What is it doing? What is its purpose?”

He notices that the tracks are wider in some places, and then they become thin again. How does this thing move? How can something that crawls like a snake also cover his body, and hold him down with great strength?

The mental pieces of Moshe’s puzzle begin to fall into place. “It is growing something in that pouch, that... cocoon! It attacked me, for something, it needed something to...oh my God! Did it need something from me...to help it grow?”

He has reached his camp and kneels beside the pit. His mind is in overdrive trying to figure out his plan of action. Should he kill the thing? Will the thing fight back. Maybe if he closes his eyes and throws the spear from a distance, he might get lucky. But killing it, will leave him with unanswered questions.

He feels the urge to set up a camp beside the tree, to keep an eye on the cocoon. He needs to think things through before deciding a course of action. He thinks about bathing, but has no desire to enter the sea, where his attacker came from. He remembers that the water containers are empty. He gathers the containers, and the remainder of his breakfast, and heads towards the pond. Today, he will enjoy a freshwater bath.

Moshe places the left-over fish in the same feeding place as the last time. The containers are filled, and he undresses and wades into the water. Near the shore, the water is only waist deep. He moves further to the middle of the pond. The water is much deeper. He stands on his toes to keep his head above the water. He moves back closer to the shore to bathe, satisfied that he now also has a pond to swim in.

On his way back to camp, he gathers some ripe fruit. He will have a quick lunch. He is eager to go back and check on the cocoon.

As he moves through the brush towards the tree, he hopes that nothing is there, and that this is just simply the result of a bad dream. Moshe is disappointed to see the alien thing, still attached to the tree.

He walks around the tree and views the cocoon from all sides. It still seems to emit a low-level throb or vibration. A heartbeat? “No,” Moshe speaks to himself, “The rhythm is wrong. At least it is not beating as a human heart would.”

Though the cocoon is still translucent, it seems to be hardening, at the places where it touches the tree. Moshe thinks that the black spot is larger now. He is sure of it. He thinks about the time that has passed since he first saw the thing, only a few hours have passed. It is changing. It is becoming something.

He moves further away from the tree and sees what he did not first see, when he was close to the tree. He can see the winding path, from the ground and up the tree. Moshe admits to himself that he fears this thing that is growing in the cocoon, but he is also very curious. He experiences fear mixed with fascination. He decides, for now, he will let it grow.

With his evening meal now consumed, and yet a few hours of daylight left, Moshe gathers a few items to take into the forest, to check on the cocoon. Using layers of stripped palm leaves, he wraps a few embers from the fire pit. Though he is not planning to camp overnight beneath the tree, he will build a fire pit and arrange a few fallen branches into a seating arrangement.

Near the tree, he gathers a few rocks for the pit and begins to dig. He gathers enough grass and twigs to start the fire. Moshe places the embers in the pit and arranges more grass on top. He blows on the embers until a flame ignites.

He begins preparing the ground around the tree, giving himself several options to sit near the fire and watch the cocoon. Moshe scans the area and takes notice of the beautiful forest. He had not noticed it, until now.

Before he travels back to the security of his tent, he stirs the pit, leaving no flames. Moshe approaches the tree to inspect the cocoon, again. He sees that the outer shell’s hardness is growing, and the black spot has more than doubled in size.

He feels an odd connection to the cocoon. “Whether you be friend or foe, I bid you good night.” Moshe walks back to his camp, satisfied with himself for being the guardian of the cocoon. He did not choose this task, this responsibility. A greater force has decided that his life would encounter this alien thing. Somehow, he knows his response to this predicament will affect the course of the entire world.