The tribe has gone mad before the sun.
They gather in the dark outside the great cave, breath in the cold air, packed close but not warm. No fire. No song. They watch the door the way I watch a thicket where something breathes. When it opens they run. Not from a beast. Toward one.
Inside, the cave is bright with light that does not burn. And the food, the pelts, the flat black spirit-stones they press to their faces, all of it is piled high, and above each pile a marking says the price is small now, smaller than yesterday. This is the hunt. This is the whole hunt. They have made a season where the meat lies down and begs to be taken, and still they claw for it.
I see a woman clutch a box to her chest and turn her shoulder against her own kind. I see two men lock hands on the same shining thing and pull. No one is hungry. Their bellies are full. Their caves are full. Yet they fight as if winter comes tonight and only one will eat.
I understand fighting for meat. I do not understand fighting for more when you already have.
Then I see it. The pile shrinks. The bright thing runs out. And the ones who came late stand with empty hands and a hurt in their faces bigger than hunger, because another took the last one first.
Ah. Now I know.
It was never about the thing. It is about being the one who takes it. That, I know in my blood.
They have found a way to be predators again. Weak tribe.
Clever trick.