The Last Guardian of Borneo

Part 1: The Dog Days

It was the hottest day of the year.

The rainforest groaned beneath the weight of the sun. Trees that once stood like proud sentinels now bowed like weary warriors, their leaves curled and brittle. Cicadas screamed—their piercing song like glass shattering in slow motion. Even the river, once a singing artery through the forest's heart, had been reduced to a sullen trickle, its voice hoarse with thirst.

I had known many summers. I had known their mischief, their moods, their mercy, but never one like this.

The heat was different. It shimmered with deceit—mirages that danced just beyond the reach of truth. It made even gods forget who they were.

And I was forgetting.

I am—or once was—a guardian. One of the old ones. A Tombiruo.

They say we were born of sorrow and storm. Spirits shaped from grief, bound to the rainforest like blood to bone. We moved like whispers in the mist, cracked thunder into warnings, stirred clouds into songs, and broke monsoons into rhythms. We were never seen—only felt.

I do not know if that was ever truly me. Memory is slippery now.

The villagers no longer leave offerings of rice at the roots of the great tree. No chants echo through the canopy in the moonlight. No child hides beneath their mother's shawl when trees rustle in the dark.

The loggers came. Then the oil palms. Then the silence.

And still—I remained.

I am the last.

My name is lost—if it ever existed. My form is no longer smoke or shadow, but flesh now. Heavy. Failing. My breath wheezes like old bamboo scraping stone. The vines no longer heed my voice. The birds no longer speak my name. The wind no longer listens.

Only the heat remains.

Part 2: A Face in the Trees

A sharp pain coils in my chest. Not unfamiliar. It visits each morning now, like a loyal hound—reminding me I am no longer eternal and even gods can rot.

I rest beneath the Nunuk Ragang—the great red strangler fig of Bukit Malapi. Once sacred, it stood crowned in offerings. Now, it is ringed by scars, its roots exposed like bones. Still, it remembers. Its bark holds whispers of incense smoke, of prayers murmured into dawn light.

I lean against it, as an old man leans on memory. The leaves above hang limp, too tired to sing.

Then I hear them.

Not spirits. Not beasts.

Humans.

Boots crunch dry leaves. Voices—loud, careless, young. One laughs. One curses the heat. Another snaps a photo of a butterfly with a machine that purrs in their palm like a contented cat.

Tourists.

I peer through the ferns. There are five of them, maybe six. Their clothes are bright like misplaced petals. Sunglasses shield their eyes like polished beetle shells. They do not see me. I am part of the scenery now—moss on rock, shadow in heat, memory fading in the underbrush.

One drinks from a metal flask and sighs.

Then I see her.

A girl—lingers behind.

A child no more than seven summers old. Small, soft, and uncertain, trailing behind the others. Her hand clutches a faded stuffed dog; its fur ragged from love. Her cheeks are flushed Her brow glistens. Her sandals slap too big for the path. Her parents do not notice she has paused—they walk ahead, eyes down on their devices, voices impatient.

She stops.

And looks straight at me.

Not past me—at me.

My breath stills.

She blinks once. Twice.

Then she lifts her stuff dog, arms outstretched.

An offering.

I tilt my head.

She doesn't flinch. Doesn't cry. She smiles. Small. Shy.

A flower blooming where no sun should reach.

A single cicada falls silent.

And for a moment—just a flicker—something stirs. Not power. Not memory.

Hope.

Then her mother's voice barks out—sharp, cold, impatient.

The girl glances back towards the sound, then again at me.

And in an instant—so fleeting I might have dreamt it—she bows.

A child's bow—clumsy, deep and full of grace.

Then she is gone.

Part 3: Ashes in the Air

The heat surges again swallowing the forest whole. My vision blurs.

That night, the moon rises red. Angry. Tired.

I do not sleep. I sit beneath the nunuk ragang cross-legged, bones aching. The hum of machines echoes in the distance—metal teeth still gnawing at the earth, even in darkness, they devour.

I whisper the old names of the stars.

Only two remember to answer.

My hands—once shaped of mist and greenfire—are now wrinkled, spotted, brittle. I press them to the soil. The heartbeat of the forest is faint. Sluggish. Dying.

I am a god crumbling into ash.

And the world no longer prays.

In the heat, visions come.

My brothers—gone. Rimbak, the cloud-chaser. Senakang, who whispered to the roots. Dandai, who laughed in the river. One by one they vanished, returning to whatever void birthed us. I alone remained.

I wonder now if that was pride... or punishment.

A storm once rose when I wept. Now, my tears dry before they reach the ground.

A howl coils in my chest. Low, ragged. A final song, remembered by no one.

I let it loose.

It rolls through the forest like a wounded beast. Not loud. Not angry. Just... tired.

No one answers.

But something shifts.

A breeze stirs.

The nunuk ragang sighs.

And for the first time in many seasons, the sky weeps—a single drop kisses my brow like a farewell, cool and clean.

As the breath left my lungs, the wind carried something unseen—soft as mist, light as memory. It drifted far beyond the canopy, over rivers and roads, until it brushed the cheek of a sleeping child. She stirred, cradling her stuffed dog closer, dreaming of trees that spoke in song.

Part 4: The Inheritance

They found me at dawn.

Or what remained of it—old bones curled beneath the nunuk ragang. Some said it was an orangutan, aged and forgotten. Others dismissed it as vines tangled in root and rock.

But the girl—the one with the stuffed dog—she knew.

She returned years later, older, alone, quiet.

She left no footprints. Carried no camera. Only flowers.

She planted them in a circle around the tree and whispered something into the wind.

She placed a faded stuffed dog at the base of the nunuk ragang.

Then she sang—a melody far too old for one so young to know.

The forest paused and listened.

Birds drew near. Cicadas fell still. Even the river—a thin ghost now—seemed to remember its song.

From that day, the nunuk ragang grew brighter. Its shade deeper. The wind, gentler. The air, cooler.

Some say a new spirit walks Bukit Malapi now—not fierce like the old ones, but gentle and kind.

A guardian reborn.

Some say the girl became the first of a new kind. Others believe the old ones never truly die—they become stories, and stories live on, carried by those who still believe.

Either way, the forest sleeps a little easier now.

So, on the hottest day of the year, if you stand still and listened beneath the nunuk ragang...

You might hear an old god breathe.

Or a child's song.

Or both.

by MoRaS