By RD Rivero

December 17, 2000
 

"Can it be? Has it been five years now?"

"Indeed - five, long years."

"How could I have been so -"

"Don't let it torture you - think of it, like a dream, like a long, drawn out sleep," Tygra said, half in and out of the shadows of the moon. The other tiger sat on the newly-dug dirt pile, facing, longing to his friend. For a while the two said nothing, staring in amazement at each other. The horrible memory of the five-year absence, that seemed to have lasted as long as an eternity, was in an instant wiped away.

Endless, silent minutes passed.

When he found Tygra shivering in his nakedness he set upon instantly to start the fire. Everything was proceeding exactly as he had planned. Earlier that day he had gone about the choppy terrain, collecting masses of dead and decayed vegetation, storing the brittle fuel in bags that he had brought with him from the Tower of Omens. He spilt the contents onto a patch of clear ground and managed the mess into a neat, rounded pile. The orange tiger helped him set it ablaze, reanimating the dead leaves in the flickering flames.

From a knapsack he took out a fresh bundle of clothes and handed them to his friend.

"I've been dying for a bath," Tygra said. "A warm, soothing bath - the peace, the comfort. It's been five years, you know."

Bengali looked down, smiling. He let the shovel, still laden with dirt, fall into the cover of the encroaching underbrush.

When Tygra finished donning on his new clothes the white tiger handed out a stash of food and water - again in silence they drank and ate together.

"Bengali, you wouldn't believe -"

"It doesn't bother you?" he interjected abruptly.

"Bother me?"

A pause.

"The food you mean? No, I love it," Tygra said, holding up a broken tortilla chip.

"No - you know," he answered, twitching his head in the direction of the hole he had dug out earlier.

"You've always worried about me."

"You're the only real friend I ever had," Bengali said, solemnly. "I don't know how I was even able to live those five -"

Tygra stopped him, pressing his dusty fingers upon his own lips. "It wasn't your fault."

"But it was," Bengali was disturbed and emotionally distraught, "and on top of that to know that it was my fault, my stupidity, that it was I who -"

Again the red tiger had to stop his friend - that time physically. He hugged the white tiger hard and, whispering into his ear under his black striped mane, he said: "It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not you fault -"
 

Owls called in the distance. Circling overhead, flying in the dark clouds, were frilly plumed vultures. Bengali stood before the large, dark hole, carved out of the loose soil of the earth. Vermin squirmed in the rancid dirt. Worms poked their slime covered heads into the air. He looked away, tormented. Though Tygra had forgiven him - as it was in his noble nature to do so - he felt that he was unworthy of redemption.

"I'll never let anything happen to you ever again," he said, shaking his head.

"I was worried. If something had happened to you, I don't know how I could have gone on. That's why - but now, not that doesn't matter. I'm back and things will never change like that again."

"It'll be just like it was before." Bengali smiled a little.

He and his friend moved away from the pit, discussing what they would do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
 

The fire was dying in the chilly, night air. The ever circling vultures came closer and closer to the ground. A new chorus of howls and laughter echoed from the misty void between the trees of the forest.

Bengali was wrapped in his blanket, dreaming, sleeping soundly thinking his friend was also peacefully resting on the opposite side of the little fire. Third Earth would be normal again, the Thundercats would return to their happier, old selves now that Tygra was back from his mysterious disappearance.

Only he knew what had really happened that fateful night but he never talked about it or brought it up to anyone - not even to Liono. The common belief was that one of the hostile, aboriginal inhabitants of the plant cornered him, mistaking him for an animal and killed him. Tygra, for his own part, knowing that his attackers were not evil, may have been too restrained in his defense. When enough time had passed the others came to accept that version without question and began to practice a more vigilant attitude around strangers.

The secrecy bothered him and, alone, he suffered greatly.

As for the events of that damned night, Bengali had never said anything about how he planned to get even with the Mutants for what they had done to Pumyra - the Mutants that he knew for a fact were camping out on those very same grounds. Nothing about how Tygra warned him against traveling into the wilderness by himself. Nothing about how the red tiger had managed to follow him, invisibly. Let alone, nothing about -

Five long years - eons - but it was well past and healed and then at last the flames were out.
 

The glaring sun hit Bengali's face that morning. His eyes fluttered open, pointing to the vast, blue sky. The birds no longer soared in the heavens but he could still hear their presence, their pecking, wings flapping, calling - but the effect was far and distant. Groggily, he got up from the ground and inspected the small scene in the great clearing. Only smoldering logs of unburnt wood and ash remained of the fire. Strewn over the grass were the scraps of food wrappers from the meal he had eaten that night before. He saw, too, Tygra sleeping bag, still rolled up in a neat ball for it had not been used. And next to it were the new, folded clothes he had given the red tiger - again unused.

He ran around, screaming and yelling out Tygra's name but no answer came to his cries.

He stumbled upon the grave he had dug out the night before - the vultures had congregated inside it and quickly he scared them away. Alone, he looked into the deep hole standing amidst the broken, battered remains. He relived the events of that accursed night.

He was being chased, he did not know who it was and he was afraid. Once he had cornered the interloper in the stark shadows he threw rocks at the silhouetted figure. He fired at it with his hammer until it slipped and fell to into a ravine. He did not know if it was a Mutant or another perpetrator and only in the light of the day was he able to see just who it was - and it was the unthinkable. He had murdered Tygra - indeed, there he was, exposed, interred, dead. Dead, dead as he had been for five years and would continue for all eternity.