Chapter 4: The Green Giant and the Waterfall

The alien morning broke through the canopy, greeting the brothers with a renewed sense of purpose. With their charred bamboo spears in hand—though the bows were delayed until they found the right fibrous wood—they marched toward the sound of the rushing water.

When they finally broke through the tree line, the scenery stole their breath. The river was a sweeping ribbon of crystal-clear water, carving its way through the dense, emerald jungle. They knelt at the banks, drinking deeply. The water was crisp and revitalizing.

“Still no aquatic life,” Inori noted, wiping his mouth. He peered into the transparent depths, looking for the darting shadow of a fish, but found only smooth, pale stones.

“It is highly irregular for a fresh water source of this magnitude to be devoid of an ecosystem,” Kaguya observed, his brow furrowed.

“It depends on the source,” Takuya replied, looking upstream. “If this river originates from an underground aquifer or is cut off by a massive geographical barrier like a waterfall or a dam further up, fish wouldn’t be able to migrate into this specific section. For now, we rely on the land.”

They spent the day marching alongside the riverbank, chewing on strips of dried bird meat from the previous night. Takuya meticulously kept track of the time, etching another mark onto his improvised calendar. Day Three. As the sun began to dip below the towering trees, painting the sky in bruised shades of violet and orange, Takuya ordered a halt. “We move away from the water to camp,” he instructed.

They trekked about ten minutes inland. The site they found wasn’t as defensible as the first night—just a slight depression between three massive tree roots—but it would have to do.

Over a small, carefully concealed fire, the conversation turned heavy.

“We need a contingency,” Inori said, tossing a twig into the flames. “We are walking on the assumption that following the river leads to a civilization. But what if we are the only intelligent bipeds on this continent? What if there is no human equivalent here?”

Kaguya adjusted his glasses, the firelight reflecting off the lenses. “Then, biologically and sociologically speaking, we become the progenitors. We introduce agriculture, metallurgy, and medicine to whatever rudimentary species exists, or we build it entirely from scratch.”

Takuya nodded slowly, his politician’s mind already weighing the monumental task. “We have the foundational knowledge of human history. If we find no civilization, we will forge our own. We have to brace for that possibility.”

What the brothers didn’t know, as they banked the fire and settled into their sleeping shifts, was that they were not alone.

About fifty yards away, hidden perfectly in the deep shadows of the underbrush, a pack of four-legged predators watched them. They were lean, built like panthers but with entirely too many joints in their limbs, moving with absolute silence. They were highly intelligent. They had tracked the smell of the roasted meat, but seeing the sharp spears and the unfamiliar fire, they held back. They would not strike tonight. They would follow the strange, two-legged prey. They would wait for the perfect moment of carelessness.

The next morning, the brothers resumed their trek along the riverbank.

Survival was a constant process of trial and error. Takuya had attempted to fashion small knives from the hollow bones of the giant quail, but the avian skeletal structure was too brittle; the bones shattered under pressure. Instead, Inori had scoured the riverbed and found a sharp, dense piece of flint-like stone. Takuya spent the morning carefully knapping the edge against another rock until he had a functional, razor-sharp stone knife.

It was during this search that Inori stopped, dropping to his knees near a boggy offshoot of the river.

“Takuya, look at this,” Inori called out, his voice practically vibrating with excitement. He pointed to the gravel, which was stained a deep, rust-red, and then to a strange, iridescent film sitting on top of the stagnant water.

“Oil?” Takuya asked, kneeling beside him.

“No, iron,” Inori grinned. “That reddish-yellow soil is hematite. And that film on the water? It’s an ‘iron slick,’ caused by iron-oxidizing bacteria. This entire area is rich in iron ore. Give me a clay furnace and enough charcoal, and we skip the Stone Age entirely.”

“Take note of the landmarks,” Takuya ordered, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of steel.

“There’s more,” Inori added, pointing to the inside bend of the river where the water slowed down. “Where you find heavy iron deposits, you often find other heavy metals dropping out of the current. If we see deposits of black sand—magnetite—or veins of white quartz in the bedrock around here, there is a very high probability of placer gold settling in those crevices. Gold means currency, Takuya. And conductive wiring.”

With a renewed spring in their step, they continued until the afternoon sun beat down on them.

Up ahead, a massive tree dominated the riverbank. Its branches hung low, heavy with bright green fruit the size of small Earth watermelons.

Takuya raised a hand, signaling a halt. Hanging from the branches were a dozen strange creatures. They were grey-furred, with brown, strikingly expressive faces. They had two legs, but four distinct arms, allowing them to swing and peel the heavy fruit with alarming speed.

Inori cautiously approached a half-eaten fruit that had dropped to the grass. He picked it up, sniffing the vibrant yellow flesh inside.

“Citrus,” Inori said, surprised. “It smells exactly like an orange.”

“That is biologically consistent,” Kaguya noted, observing the four-armed monkeys. “On Earth, oranges in tropical climates are naturally green. They only turn the color ‘orange’ when exposed to cold temperatures, which breaks down the chlorophyll. The fruit is likely safe.”

Inori chuckled, hefting the massive green sphere. “If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll find durian in this world next. Hopefully, it smells better than the ones back home.”

The monkeys abruptly stopped eating. They stared at the brothers, letting out high-pitched, warning screams. The brothers froze, hands gripping their spears. But when Inori took a deliberate step forward to test their boundaries, the monkeys shrieked and scrambled higher up the canopy, fleeing from sight.

“Cowardly,” Takuya muttered, relaxing his grip. “Collect the fallen fruit. We need the hydration and the vitamin C.”

They slung their spears over their backs and began gathering the massive green oranges. The juice was incredibly sweet, a welcome relief from the dry bird meat.

But as Takuya bent down to pick up a third fruit, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The jungle had gone completely, unnervingly silent. The ambient hum of insects had vanished.

He slowly stood up and looked into the dense canopy above.

His blood ran cold.

There weren’t a dozen monkeys. There were hundreds.

They had silently crept back through the interconnected branches, forming a massive, grey ring around the fruit tree. Their brown faces stared down with calculating, hostile intelligence. They hadn’t run away; they had retreated to gather the entire troop.

The largest of them—a heavily scarred alpha with silver fur—dropped onto a lower branch. It bared its fangs and let out an ear-splitting, resonant shriek.

Instantly, the entire canopy exploded into motion.

“Run!” Takuya roared, dropping the fruit.

The brothers didn’t hesitate. They sprinted in unison, tearing down the riverbank. Behind them, the sounds of snapping branches and furious screeching echoed as the horde of four-armed monkeys dropped from the trees, pursuing them on all six limbs with terrifying speed.

“They’re flanking us!” Inori yelled, glancing over his shoulder. The monkeys were using the trees alongside the river to cut off their escape route inland, forcing the brothers to stay on the narrow, rocky bank.

They ran until their lungs burned. The thick air of the world made every breath feel like inhaling fire.

Suddenly, the roar of the monkeys was drowned out by a much deeper, more thunderous sound.

Takuya skidded to a halt, pebbles flying under his shoes. Inori and Kaguya crashed into him.

The riverbank abruptly ended. The water violently churned over a steep rocky drop. A waterfall. It wasn’t a massive, lethal drop—perhaps thirty feet into a deep, churning plunge pool—but the rocks below looked treacherous.

The shrieking grew deafening. The first wave of monkeys broke through the tree line, barring their teeth, completely cutting off their retreat.

It was a dead end.

Takuya looked at the roaring water, then at his brothers. They were all competitive swimmers in their youth. It was a gamble, but standing their ground meant being torn apart.

“Jump!” Takuya screamed over the roar of the water.

Without a second thought, the three brothers leaped into the void.

The cold water hit Takuya like a concrete wall. He plunged deep into the churning white foam, the current violently spinning him around. He fought his way up, breaking the surface with a gasp. He kicked hard, fighting the undertow, keeping his grip on his spear.

“Inori! Kaguya!” he shouted, coughing up water.

A few yards away, Inori surfaced, paddling fiercely. Further downstream, Kaguya was already using the current to angle himself toward a shallow, pebbled embankment.

They dragged themselves out of the water, collapsing onto the smooth stones, chest heaving, completely drenched. High above them, at the top of the waterfall, the monkeys paced furiously at the edge, shrieking in frustration, but unwilling to make the jump.

Takuya rolled onto his back, staring up at the alien sky. The green oranges were gone, washed away. They were cold, wet, and back to square one.

“Status?” Takuya wheezed, sitting up to check his brothers.

To his absolute shock, Kaguya was laughing. It wasn’t a panicked laugh; it was a genuine, clinical chuckle of pure realization.

“Why are you laughing?” Takuya demanded, wiping water from his eyes.

Kaguya sat up, pushing his wet hair out of his face, his eyes gleaming. “The fruit is identical to a terrestrial orange. The monkeys possess familiar primate social structures and ambush tactics. Don’t you see, Takuya?”

Inori caught his breath, his eyes widening as the realization hit him too.

“The flora and fauna here run almost parallel to Earth’s evolutionary tree,” Kaguya explained, a massive grin on his face. “Which means the probability of this world naturally evolving a highly intelligent, bipedal hominid—a human—just tripled.”

Takuya stared at him, then let out a sharp, breathless laugh of his own. The logic was flawless.

“That is incredible news,” Takuya said, catching his breath. He looked out at the dense, endless jungle ahead of them. “And terrifying news. Because if humans evolved here… who knows what kind of weapons they’ve built waiting for us tomorrow.”