Chapter 19

  Dreams - Max

  Max slept soundly through the night. He would sleep soundly through the night, but woke up shivering. The air had grown cold, and now he knew his guess was correct; the gorillas gathered closer to him and to one another, staying warm. Max wished he could look around to see where they were all lying.

  He wondered if there was a way he could roll over and eliminate conquest. Maybe Max thought, but dismissed it. He wasn’t certain that doing it would protect the herd or the Forest. It wasn’t worth trying. Even if he could do it and escape, because he hadn't found the herd. Besides, Max was certain he couldn’t kill the gorilla in his sleep. Even if he did, he knew that he and Link wouldn't survive. So, Max tried to go back to sleep.

  A thought cost his mind, and he whispered a prayer, so low that even he couldn't hear it. “If it is at all possible. Please let my parents know I'm okay.

  Far away in the upper plains, two elephants woke up with a start. They looked at each other.

  Max’s mother said, "What happened?"

  His dad looked at her and said, "I just” he paused, afraid to say the word, but then said it in a whisper, “Max."

  Max's mother nodded. "I did too. He's alive.”

  With those words said, the two wrapped their trunks around the others and held on tight. A new hope that they forgotten returned.

  Meanwhile, Max was having a far different dream.

  Max was standing in an open field. It wasn't exactly the Savannah, nor the Upper Plains. In front of him, stuck in the ground, was a white stick. The stick was straight, it was half the size of his trunk (1 ? inches) and nearly as long as Link was tall (3 feet). He looked beyond the stick and saw Link standing off in the distance, holding his paws out.

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  "Throw it here! Throw it here!" Link said.

  Max reached out and grabbed the stick. The long white thing felt strange in his trunk. It was strong and of a variety of wood that he'd never seen before

  "Come on, come on!"Link clapped his paws together, looking excited to catch it. Max threw the stick, and when it reached Link, he jumped up and did a flip that Max had never seen a creature do before, outside of the water. Once the otter caught the stick, he threw it back to Max. Max managed to catch it in his trunk. Max was amazed at how easy it was.

  "Come on!" Link patted his paws again.

  Max threw it back to Link. Again and again, they threw the stick back and forth. Max knew that something was wrong, but he accepted it just like he did when he dreamed that he could fly.

  There was no way he should be able to catch a stick like this with his trunk, let alone this easily. Throwing it, yes. He knew how to throw things with his trunk. But catching? No, that was always a trick that he never quite managed. To his delight, time after time, he flipped his trunk out, grabbed the stick from the sky, and then returned it to Link.

  The longer they played, the darker the world came around them. And then it seemed to Max that the world around them was filled with darkness and flames. Max threw the stick, and Link caught it, jumping up like before, and landed this time not on the ground, but on a field full of white sticks. To Max's horror, they weren't sticks. They were bones. And Max looked around, and he heard laughter, a laugh of the type he had never heard before, and he froze in fear. Finally, Max turned and…

  Max shuddered as he awoke. It had been cool. Now, it was cold. The sun was just beginning to crest the horizon. Rays of the sun were just coming over the tops of the rocks around them.

  Max looked around and saw that Link was already awake. Max had no desire to go back to sleep. So shook his body, and as he had heard so many bull elephants do, let out a loud trumpet, trumpeting sound, and started to get to his feet. It pleased Max to no end when he heard the grumbling of the gorillas and felt them move quickly away from him. But that was the last pleasure Max was going to feel this day.

  As Conquest got up, he said, "We're awake now. Let's get moving."

  Bond quickly grabbed Link. After letting him take a quick drink, he grabbed Link and jumped on Max's back. He tied Link to a rope that went around Max’s neck and jumped off.

  Max refrained until all the gorillas had gotten something to drink. And then when Max got over there, he found only enough water for one long drink, then nothing was left.

  They turned and walked out between the rocks back onto the sand. Conquest set a grueling pace. Storm grumbled, as did most of the gorillas, but it wasn’t going to last long, as they needed all the strength they had just to keep up.