[center][h2][color=gold]Gaki[/color][/h2][/center]

A dream. A nightmare, always the same. Awakening, the sun beating down on him--but then the world shook, a deep tremor shaking the foundations of [i]everything[/i]. The instinct to move driving him, many suns and moons, through jungle and over plains and into the depths of the earth. All the others were moving too; further and further, in search of food, in search of shelter, he went on and on. He could no longer see the sun. Cold...numb...now more than ever, he had to keep moving...

Somewhere in the Labyrinth, deeper than the Hunters, deeper than the Jak-Jak's nest, where packed snow and frozen mud had given way to walls of ice...deeper still, where there was no water left to freeze, sheer rock stretched into the distance and branched in serpentine paths. Luminous moss and mushrooms, their soft fluorescence a sign for creatures that would eat them and pass the spores somewhere else, were the only sources of light. The cold was only slightly more bearable here, the layers of earth providing some form of insulation. Things moved in the shadows, things with sharp eyes or sometimes no eyes at all, things with thick hides or things with blubber or fur. Things with claws and fangs.

He had no claws, nor fangs. His teeth were small, his jaws were weak. His hands were strong, but the nails were flat and too thin. He had a sharp knife, though, made from a fragment of rock with a vine wrapped around its bottom half. He had his weapons, made from thicker vines that had been braided and cured into ropes, glued with insect secretions to keep them from unraveling. He wore them now, as much to help his hands keep warm as to protect them from the rough cave floor. And he also wore the hide of an Anteka he had come across, out there in the snow--it made him look like a wooly, moving lump with a pair of antlers at the top. But his breath still steamed in the air, and he had to stop every so often and rub feeling back into his bare feet. The leaves that he normally wore for camouflage had shriveled in the dry tundra air, and were beginning to brown even though he'd only picked them recently.

The Jak Jak's roar echoed, even down here. He looked up at the sound, his eyes watching where the dust fell from the ceiling. Monsters...they needed to eat, too. Their nest had to have a way out, into the places where game roamed. If he found the Monster that roared, he would find his way out of these caves, back to the light and warmth of the sun, back to wood that he could use to make fire!

"GAH-KIIIIIIIIIIII!!"

A shrill cry, but the enclosed space amplified it and sent it rolling down the tunnels. In the wild, the cry was a statement. [i]I am here. Be aware of me![/i] or [i]This is my territory![/i] or a message to one's own kind...but Gaki had never seen any other creature like him, except for...He shook his head.

Listening for a response, he ran through the Labyrinth on all fours. When the echoes died away he roared out again.

"GAH! KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!"