Chapter 14 - The Mainland

After barely escaping the felids and the dangers of crossing the water, Dusk and his colony finds himself in a completely different world, unlike what was on the island. Upon landing, the colony is greeted by other chiropters, who look a bit different that what Dusk is used to. He notices that the new colony has soldiers, something his colony didn't have a need for. The colony is introduced Gyrokus's colony, where they learn about some of the things that have happened since Dusk's colony began living on the island. such as new carnivorous species appearing, the actions of Carnassial, and how life has been since the Pact was fulfilled. Gyrokus offers the colony refuge.

In this chapter, Dusk is for the first time complimented, by chiropters other than his close family, for his idea of using the thermals, which may have saved the entire colony. For the first time, Dusk felt special, and was not shunned, or avoided by others. Immediately afterwards, Dusk began feeling elevated emotions, despite all that has happened. This shows how important it is for our needs to be satisfied, for our emotions to be stable. Before, Dusk constantly felt lonely and rejected, but now he was special, and felt satisfied with himself.

Chapter 12 - To the Coast - Chapter 13 - The Crossing

After the attack on their tree, the leaders of Dusk's colony decide it is best to travel to the mainland, where they can enlist the help of other beast to try and prevent Carnassial from harming other creatures. The colony then proceeds the next day to the coast, guided by Dusk (whose speed and agility were extremely useful). His job was to warm of the colony of any danger ahead. At the coast, the elders try to figure out how to glide to the mainland, but are weary as the wind is against them. They don't have a choice though, but have hope as Dusk suggests riding the thermals above the water to cross. Dusk tries this himself, but sees a felid who appears to have gone back to warn the others.

In the next chapter, the chiropter colony attempts the crossing, while riding the thermals. Many struggle, but eventually it works. They barely escaped the felids as they took off. As the chiropters glide over the crossing on the thermals, the birds arrive, and attempt to use their wings to disorient and slow the chiropters down, while shouting insults such as "egg-eaters" at the chiropters. The entire colony barely makes it across the clearing.

After reading these chapters, I realized once again another connect in this story to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The chiropters the previous night were driven out of their beloved sequoia tree, and no longer had a suitable shelter, one of their primary needs. Since they had not shelter, they all decided that they must go to the mainland, and find a place safe enough to shelter them, so they could once again have safety and security, one of the primary needs of life.

Chapter 10 - A Change in the Tide / Chapter 11 - The Massacre

Finally, the book starts to get into some real action.

After Dusk's encounter with Sylph, he finds his only companion within the colony was now shunning him too. Dusk goes off into the forest by himself, where he once again meets Teryx, who tries to explain what the birds had done. Teryx then reveals to Dusk all of the things that had been happening on the mainland, regarding Carnassial and his prowl, and warns Dusk that they may cross a land bridge onto their island. Dusk tells his father, who ignores him. Late at night, dusk hears some strange noises, and goes to investigate. He discovers paw prints leading to the island, and hurries back to inform his father.

The next chapter follows Carnassial and his prowl as they begin exploring the new island that they just arrived at. They find a giant sequoia tree with chiropters on it, and scheme to hunt the chiropters. The chapter then goes back to Dusk, as he tries to convince his father of what he has found. His father believes him, but feels they are under no threat as the felids are the allies of the chiropters (as conditioned in the pact). He is proven wrong, as their tree is infiltrated by the felids. After a frenzy of panic and fear, during which the chiropters attempted to escape the felids, the chiropters find refuge in a different tree. During the attack, many chiropters lost their lives, including Dusk's mother, Mistral.

A felid hunting chiropters

Throughout these chapters, I once again noticed that Dusk was continually deprived of his need to belong to a group. Although he was still loved by his family, he did not feel a part of the colony. His feelings of loneliness were multiplied, when even Slyph shunned him. Carnassial, on the other hand, seemed to have his needs over satisfied, as feeding on creatures on the ground was not enough for him. He decided to go to the island where he planned to hunt every creature there, and take over the island. He clearly lusted for power, as his needs became over satisfied.

Chapter 8 - Teryx / Chapter 9 - Outcast

In this chapter, Dusk meets a bird named Teryx, which, although not forbidden, was not something he wanted others to know. He gets to know his new friend, who revealed shocking information about what others thought of chiropters (egg eaters, saurian killers), and also revealed the location of a dead saurian nest as proof. They are discovered though, by Teryx's mother, and Dusk barely escapes her beaks. Dusk goes and finds the saurian nesk, and on returning, finds his father trying to fly. He tells his father of what happened, who tells Dusk it is nothing to worry about. The chapter then goes to Carnassial, who, after being driven out, is found by other fellow felids who feel the same way as him, and decide to join together into their own meat-eating prowl.

The next chapter is where this book begins to get more interesting. The next day, the dead body of a fellow newborn chiropter, one of Sylph's friends, is found, with his wings ripped off his body, and beak marks in his wings. The colony view this as a threat from the birds as a result of Dusk's flying, and makes his stop flying. After wards, Dusk is virtually shunned by everyone in his colony except his close family. Dusk decides to go off on his own and become a loner, during which he licks mushrooms (which he was told were poisonous). Dusk then gets a hallucination where he sees felids, chiropters, and other creatures like himself, all fighting. Waking from his vision, Dusk finds Slyph and some friends attempting to destroy an egg, which he stops them from. This chapter also ends by going to Carnassial, as he devours a bird's nest.

These few chapters seem to show the results of Dusk and Carnassial's satisfaction and denial of needs. After Dusk's needs were satisfied, he suddenly becomes deprived of it. As a result, he goes off, and tries to participate in self-destruction. Carnassial, on the other hand, previously had his needs taken away from him, but quickly, he is now over satisfied. The result is exploitation of other creatures, evident as he devours an entire birds nest, knowing the birds cannot do anything.

Chapters 7 - Way of the Future

Throughout chapter 7, we follow Dusk and Carnassial, respectively, as their differences are finally discovered by the rest of their colony, both of them having very different outcomes. After Dusk's adventure and discovery of his ability with his sister, he got her to promise him never to tell anyone. Despite that, Dusk unintentionally flies in front of his whole colony. His father, though, surprisingly approved of Dusk's unique ability. Later that day, Dusk overhears his parents talking about his differences, and discovers that his mother can see in the dark as well, which reassures Dusk that he won't be shunned by his colony.

Dusk

The remainder of the chapter follows Carnassial as he returns to the Prowl, were he is ostracized from his colony after he refuses to renounce his cravings, and driven away from his prowl.

In class, I learned about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. One of the primary needs of any person, besides the obvious physiological needs, are love, belonging, safety, and security. In these two chapters, we clearly see that these needs are either met, or taken away. For example, regarding Dusk, we see that he has a fear that he will be shunned by his colony, because he is different, and therefore denied the need of belonging to a group. Fortunately his father defends him, and in doing so ensure Dusk security. Carnassial, though, is denied security, and his identity with the prowl. I wonder what the outcome of such outcomes will be.

Chapter 5 - The Prowl / Chapter 6 - The Expedition

In these two chapters, we are following two separate characters, Carnassial, and Dusk.

Chapter 5 follows Carnassial as we are introduced to his own colony, called The Prowl, and where Carnassial lives. The Prowl is made up of a species of animals called "felids", which seem to resemble cats. They are omnivores, feeding on plants and insects. Carnassial and Panthera return to the Prowl, were they are greeted with great respect, as they are two of the best hunters. Carnassial claims that he might have destroyed the last saurian eggs, which is confirmed from reports that no more eggs have been found. The Prowl celebrates, and as Carnassial and the Prowl leader, Patriofelis, converse Carnassial reveals of his urges to kill and eat other beats, which is he reprimanded for, and told to stop.

A felid

Chapter 6 follows Dusk, after the events of the previous day. The elders arrange for an expedition around their island in search of saurian eggs. Dusk and his sister, Slyph, decide to sneak off on their own in their own expedition against the wishes of their parents. During their little adventure, Dusk finally discovers that he can really fly (unlike the other Chiropters), which greatly elates his mood. This is short lived though, as this means he is even more different than everyone else in the colony. The chapter ends in a different way, suddenly following Carnassial, as he gives into his instincts, and kills another beast against the Prowl leader's wishes.

Throughout both chapters, I noticed that the story is similar in many ways to the novel, "The Giver", by Lois Lowry. In both novels, the characters seem to be living in a utopian society, where everything is perfect (or close to perfect), and where being different was highly discouraged, and looked down upon. This is interesting, as I noticed this fits with Northrope Fyre's theories, that literature comes from other literature (or from common conventions). I definitely noticed a bit of Fyre from reading these two chapters.

Chapter 4 - The Pact

After Dusk's encounter with the creature that fell from the sky, he is saved by his father, along with several of the other elders in the colony. He returns to his nest to his waiting mother, Mistral. She talks to Dusk and Sylph about using the thermals to fly, and tells them not to do it again. Afterwards, an assembly of the colony is called by Dusk's father to discuss what had just happened. During the assembly, a secret that the elders had been keeping was told to the whole colony, after one of the elders, Nova, broke her vow of secrecy. The Pact, was an alliance that was made between the beasts (which seems to refer to anything that is not a dinosaur), which was aimed at completely eliminating the saurians from the world. The saurians were predators to the beasts, and as a result, the beasts lived in fear. Eventually, the beasts all decided to form an alliance against the saurians.

Although they could not physically attack the saurians, which were many times their size, they targeted the eggs of the saurians, hoping to wipe out the next generation of saurians. This all happened at the right time, as it was when the dinosaurs were on the edge of extinction, and when other animals began to flourish. This seems to refer to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs millions of years ago. Dusk's colony though, was different, in that the elders felt that The Pact was wrong, and so they decided to colonize on an island away from the mainland.

A saurian

This chapter is interesting, in that it reveals secrets which were previously not known to the members of Dusk's colony. The Pact reminds me of the Holocaust, in that there was a hatred towards a group, and through that fear and hatred, the beasts formed an alliance to destroy all saurian eggs, even the ones which were not meat eaters. Amidst all of that hatred though, there were some people who felt it was wrong, just like Dusk's father, and avoided participating in such acts.