The fire is dead but the cave still glows. Fake light, colored, from a box that thumps like a chest before a fight. No warmth in it. I put my hand near, and nothing.
Too many of the tribe here. I do not know half these faces, and half of them do not know they are still standing. One sings to no one. One weeps by the water-room and calls it laughing. Two paired at the wall, close, not fighting, so I look away, for that is their hunt, not mine.
There is meat somewhere. Flat, orange, in a box that once was hot. Cold now. I eat it anyway. A hunter does not refuse fallen food.
The strong ones have already gone to sleep, the smart ones too. What is left is the young and the loud, who do not yet fear the coming light. They should fear it. I have seen the morning come to men who did not honor the dark. It shows no mercy.
One stands on a high place and shouts a name, over and over, of someone not here. This is grief. Or this is territory. With the young it is hard to know the difference.
I stay near the door. Always near the door. When the sky begins to gray at the mouth of the cave, I will slip out, and the box will still be thumping, and the weepers will still weep, and none of them will remember I was here to see it.
Weak tribe. Warm den. Bad fire.
I have known worse nights.