Prologue
A blazing sun burns down on the man’s back as he stumbles through the thick African bush, his mind a haze as he struggles to find his identity, he has no idea who he is, what his name is, or where he is from or where he is.
Vicious thorns from the Coral tree cut deep into his flesh as he forces his way through the thicket, the sound of running water spurring him on as his throat cries out for the life giving liquid, and in desperation he throws his body down the steep embankment towards salvation, plunging his head deep into the dark water, drinking deeply, unaware of the surface of the river being broken as one of the giant reptiles that call the Zambezi home slowly start to stalk the drinking man.
Too much water at once, the man falls away from the river, gagging as his stomach rejects the liquid, and in a rush, it is expelled from his burning body. He sits back, away from the water’s edge, his heart hammering like a freight train moving up a steep incline, taking in a lungful of air, gasping, looking around...his eyes wide, fearful as he is unable to understand what is happening to him.
He looks back at the river and his eyes fall upon the giant reptile that waits just below the surface of the water, and with a cry of terror the man pushes back, away from the edge, all thoughts of quenching the burning thirst inside him forgotten as he scrambles up the river bank away from the danger. He is unable to name the danger, but somehow he recognized what it represented to him.
With the river and the setting sun behind him the man turns towards the distant mountains and starts moving slowly through the bush that steadily closes behind him, hiding him from view, moving forward but not knowing where he is going, Piet van Zyl moves into the darkness, the darkness of the falling night, and the darkness of the mind, his memory erased by a vicious blow to the head.
