The Air That Made Him Feral

Cro arrives in the dark forest, where primitive trees crowd close and unfamiliar animal calls tremble through the undergrowth. A sharp chemical stink hangs in the air.

The air presses against Cro's skin like invisible fingers. His forehead begins pushing outward over his eyes, while his jaw slowly juts from his face.

His bare feet swell larger against the forest floor. His toes spread, his balance shifts, and each step threatens to become a heavy knuckle-walk.

Hair pushes longer across Cro's head and forehead. The red cropped top and blue shorts remain unchanged, bright scraps of childhood beneath the dim canopy.

Somewhere beyond the trees, primitive animals move through the brush. Their calls draw nearer as the chemical air thickens around him.

The affected person transforms into a caveboy whose appearance matches the others except for skin, hair, and eye color.

Cro tries to keep walking toward where his friends should be, but his enormous feet drag and twist beneath him. His balance collapses into a painful, stumbling knuckle-walk.

His forehead bulges farther over his eyes, and his jaw pushes outward. Longer hair falls around his face as the chemical stink thickens between the primitive trees.

The red cropped top and blue shorts stay on him, but the small boy’s shape finishes changing into a caveboy like the others, with his altered skin, hair, and eyes setting him apart.

He reaches for the next step and finds only instinct. Names, faces, and the reason he entered the forest slip away, leaving the trees vast and brutally unfamiliar.

Unable to follow the path as a boy, Cro stops beside a low ridge. From there, a narrow game trail descends toward a faint, steady draft that smells less sharp than the surrounding air.

The trail offers a different way forward, but Cro no longer knows whom he meant to find. He lowers himself onto his knuckles and faces the descending darkness.

The affected person transforms into a caveboy whose appearance matches the others except for skin, hair, and eye color.

That person loses all memory.

Two small figures emerge from the game trail, moving on enormous feet and knuckles. Their matching caveboy shapes are marked by different skin, hair, and eye colors.

The freckled blond caveboy stops first, head lowered beneath long hair. Beside him, the round-faced blond caveboy sniffs the chemical air and watches Cro without recognition.

The sound makes the second caveboy jerk his head toward Cro. Neither face carries a spark of remembered friendship, only wary attention and primitive curiosity.

The two caveboys descend together and settle near Cro at the trail’s edge. Their huge feet scrape the earth while the less sharp draft moves through the trees around all three.