FCF - The Carnivorous Plant

Raali

This chapter is the first translation from Czech to English. You are welcome to rewrite it, if you make it better, I will send you 10 000 Gift Points.

Please note that I'm trying to write simplest way possible. The story is moved forwards mostly just by using various events.

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It’s evening, Jaffa is sitting outside his almost finished hut. He holds a roast leg of an animal in one hand and he digs into the dirt with other hand. He is bored and looks somewhat helpless.
It can be seen that his prehistoric hut is almost finished. Support columns are made from the largest and strongest poles in the neighbourhood. Only very brave hunters can afford such a luxury, because freely fallen branches or whole trees can only be found deep in the forests. Cutting down trees is very dangerous.
The only fly in the oinment is the roof, and that’s what bothers Jaffa. While roofs of other huts are decades old shells of giant creatures, similar to turtles, his building is tangled from vines and leaves. The installation of a such a roof is quite pointless, because it´s already been blown off by strong winds several times. So the young alien is thinking of new ways.
His father comes and shakes his head in puzzlement. He´s very slim old man, even though he doesn’t match his age. His voice is hoarse and very weak.
"What’s up son, got problems?"
"I don’t know what to do with it."
"You should go home now, you go deep into the jungle to hunt every day, so I’m sure you’ll come across some shell eventually."
Jaffa answers with a different tone.
His girlfriend Arvin comes out of the hut and serves both men with baked pancake made ​​of leaves and fruit.
"Maybe you're right, but we cannot sleep in your place forever. What if a baby begins to grow in Arvin?"
"When a man and a woman are together, a child always grows in the woman." Arvin smiles and strokes her man’s hair.
The father looks at them and speaks with a little concern.
"Especially if you see any Raali, run away as fast as you can! "
Arvin gets closer to Jaffa, she is scared.
"Don’t say that in front of Arvin, dad. You know that we need to go hunting."
Suddenly, as if some idea came to Jaffa. He doesn’t listen to his father anymore, but digs the ground again and draws squares and ladders in it.
"Sorry, but I have to repeat it to you all the time. You know Raali is the reason why we cannot cut down a single tree! It can see everything, and if you see them, it may be too late."
Jaffa and Neme are on their next expedition in the middle of the jungle. Their only weapons are small stones attached to a short piece of wood behind their belts. They carry ten cages with baits for Actans. Their focus has been closely specialized to hunt in dead forests for a long time and they are so successful at it that they can feed half the village. From their boarders they receive various stone dishes, utensils and rare old pieces of furniture for their home.
This time they decided to go to the nearest dead forest behind a large hill in the direction of the rising sun. They periodically change the areas so they don’t extinct Actans before they can multiply. Today, however, they have a particular urge to shorten the hunt and go again to the same place.
When folding the cages, Neme is stretching and warming up like an athlete, to get proper blood circulation in his muscles. His friend initially thought it was a bit strange, but last time Neme was a bit faster for some reason, so he decided to undertake a series of stretching and relaxation exercises along with him.
"I can’t wait to have another roast stored inside here." Neme strokes his belly.
"You didn’t have breakfast?"
"Layka ate everything for dinner! She is so hungry as if she was expecting a child, it’s really weird!"
"What did you expect? Every pleasure costs something." Jaffa says gleefully.
Both are already stretched and ready to take two cages carefully so they don’t accidently click and close during the run.
Suddenly they feel a fear they have never experienced before! About ten metres in front of them there is rolling rounded shrub about a metre in size with a weird material inside, looking like jelly.
"It's Raali, run!" Jaffa shouts.
They both throw their cages on the ground and sprint for their lives!
The shrubby ball named Raali spins in their direction with a slight bouncing motion and it´s gaining speed. Along the way, a strong, long tentacle extends out of the soft material inside and with a quick flick it cuts down trees on the left and right.
Jaffa and Neme hear the cracking sound behind them and are finding out that the Raali is right behind them and two felled trees are falling in their directions!
They only barely managed to avoid them, Neme jumps aside at the last minute, so he doesn’t manage to select the direction where to jump and slams his head into a stone on the ground! He lies right next to the carnivorous leaf and falls into a coma.
Jaffa quickly jumps to him and drags him to safety. With horror on his face he checks whether the Raali is approaching, but suddenly it´s rolling away from them and then it’s gone. He doesn’t have the time to wonder why, because his biggest concern at the moment is to bring his friend back to consciousness by slapping him.
Neme is waking up with a dopey expression.
"Layka, come to cuddle me, sweetheart.“

The second day, they both set off back to fetch their cages. To make hardened, high quality cage that can withstand the fangs of small Actans, can sometimes take weeks, if you can’t work on it from morning till evening. Therefore, it is literally very painful to loose ten (!) such great traps at one time.
They hope with rumbling stomachs that yesterday was just a coincidence, but it wasn’t. They are pleased that even in casually thrown cages four Actans got caught, but as soon as they pick them up, two Raali rolling bushes are after them!
Their fear is much greater today than before, but they don’t drop their cages during the run. At one point Neme looks back and realizes that nothing pursues them anymore.
With their last strength, their bodies fall on the ground and they are breathing very heavily.
"Maybe I am overreacting, but it looks like the Raalis don’t want to get us there!" Neme gasps for air.
"It’s strange, and why do they always let us escape? Apparently no one has ever seen them twice in a lifetime!" Jaffa is shaking his head.
They are sitting for a moment and watching the small Actans as they try to bite out of the cage with their fangs.
"Better not risk it and let’s run home. We will kill them at home."
"Yeah, right!" Neme agrees without anything further needing to be said they set off to the settlement.

It’s evening and Jaffa has built a stone fortress in front of his hut. Very smoothly designed. He used great ​​flat granite as a floor, which was laboriously hewn by a local stonemason, and so far it has served as a kitchen table for Arvin.
Around this granite bedrock are heavy stones built a metre high and inside this stone prison three little creatures have been released. Two females and one male.
Jaffa is on a diet for the second day and he keeps his portions imprisoned still alive. Arvin just shakes her head over that. Neme is approaching them.
"What are you doing ?" He is wondering.
"Two days ago when I spoke with my father, I got an idea. Imagine a place where you can come and just take and bake an animal for dinner."
"What?"
"Or come to a place where there are plenty of harmless shrubs on which juicy berries would grow now and then."
"Such a place doesn’t exist!" Neme knocks on his head and has hidden doubts about mental health of his friend.
"But could be! All it needs is to supply everything good and let it live in the place. I call it..." Jaffa makes a dramatic gesture - "Farming."
Neme’s silent expression shows that he doesn’t understand that one bit.
"Stop making fun of me and wake up, Jaffa! You're dragging hard stones, just to imprison rodents while you still don’t have a roof over your head!"
Jaffa shakes his head. Since Arvin didn’t understand this plan and now Neme doesn’t get it either, he is a little uncertain, and again he goes through it all again in his head what it´s probably necessary to do in order to make farming work.
"Maybe we bake them in the morning and maybe in the evening, because Actans don’t rot now buddy!" He proudly strokes the stone wall.
Neme shows a surprised expression and looks again at the trapped, helpless Actans inside the stone fence. He realizes that it is probably a very good way of storing food!