LEVEL 7VILLAGE

Kai stood at the edge of the ocean at looked up at the sky as the light for morning began to start to appear. The small lights above began to slowly blink out as the morning grew brighter. Behind him, the early morning fog began to rise from the ground below the Village built into the steep terraced hillside. Animals in the Jungle began to move and stir about, the predators of the night went to their dens while the other residents of the Jungle began their day. Kai was tall and slender with a muscular build from working hard doing physical labor on several projects. Unlike most of the others in the Village, Kai was curious about many things others took for granted. The Village faced the Ocean, and was surrounded on the other three sides by dense Forest and Jungle growth. Over the years, many attempts had been made to penetrate the Jungle and Forest to see what was on the other side, but every attempt had failed due to the deep darkness, thick growth, and many predators who attacked the unwary explorers. The Jungle provided food for the Villagers, but the Elders did their best to prevent any further explorations into the area out of concern for the safety of the remaining Villagers. Strangely, the predators remained deep within the Jungle boundary, and did not venture out into the open Villageareas.

The Elders always warned people not to go too far out into the ocean, bad things were known to live under the water, and going too far into the Jungle meant Death from the unknown creatures within. Over the years, several other Villagers had made trips along the shore of the ocean in both directions to try to see what was beyond, and they always came back with tales of huge canyons and massive waterfalls with no way to cross guarded by strange beasts with glowing eyes and loud fearful cries that moved swiftly without walking like normalanimals.

The ocean seemed endless, and nothing could be seen across the vastness, even by those villagers who had tried to cross it by boats they had made. They brought back tales of fantastic beasts beneath the waters with strange glowing eyes that could be glimpsed occasionally. The last group that went out several years ago told the tale of one of the creatures emerging from below, right under one of the boats, and crushing it like it didn’t even noticeit.

Even knowing all of this Kai was not satisfied. He saw the birds of the air flying across the ocean, and watched them until they disap