He crept along through the underbrush. Everything smelled of green, except for a hint of…? No, he couldn’t smell them anymore. But could they smell him? Or see him? His markings should conceal him, or at least make him much more difficult to spot, but he always tried to move with the wind. “Move with the wind, be like the tree, be like the grass. No one notices the grass.”, his camouflage trainer would always say.

But there was no wind. He tried to detect any wind at all, but everything was absolutely still. ‘Visual only, then.’ But he could still hear crickets, so that was something.

[chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp][chirp]

’12 chirps, add 5, so 17 degrees. Cool enough for running, warm enough that I can stay here for a while.’

He heard elephants trumpeting off in the distance, to the South. ‘Help is coming. Where are you?’ He just had to stay alive along enough for them to reach him. And find him. As they were searching, his camouflage would be as much a help as a hindrance.

And then he heard it. The slight mistake of the not-quite-master sneak. The subtle swish of the grass slightly out of tune with the wind. Like a snake, but not quite so serpentine. They were behind him. To his left. Did they see him? How many were there? He heard one, two, no, three. The third was very good, coming around a little further to the West, trying to flush him out.

Luckily, he had prepared for just such an occasion. He just hoped that the birds would forgive him. He pressed a button on his wrist guard. He waited.

Out of the corner of his eye, a speck in the distance. A blizzard of feathers from the tree to the South. Squawking from all the trees. In that instant, he did nothing. His pursuers used the commotion to move unseen, or so they thought. ‘9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, and, oh, 7 o’clock.’

The trumpeting was getting closer. He just needed one more distraction, just to buy him a little more time. But his falcon was busy de-feathering its meal, and was of no help.

This wilderness was too important to risk explosives, even tightly controlled ones. Small arms were out for similar reasons. That only left…”When you are outnumbered and outgunned, when they are tracking you and are almost as good at moving like the grass as you are, you must move like them. If you move like the grass, they will spot you, even though you are marked like the grass. But if you move like them, there may be just enough space in their shadow to hide…”

Last time he checked his chrono, it was 18:30, it was now or never. Too much later and the sun would set too much for this to work. ‘Swish, swish, swish, thud.’ It wasn’t a big thud, but it was enough. He set out, hiding his footfalls in their sounds and his motions in their shadows.

The trumpeting was almost upon them. The elephants moved into the clearing, trumpeting greetings. He heard the sounds behind him diminishing. He got up, and trumpeted back. They had much to discuss.