Stone and Water

In the Ur-times, before Light was Bright and when The Song still played through everything and everywhen, Stone was hungry.

He had rolled from his brother Mountain days ago when Sun had just started it's journey and now he found himself by the water. The water lapped gently at Stone, and he found it soothed the hunger. But it still persisted. This vexed Stone. He sat in the gentle water for a thousand days, pondering how he would sate the great hunger that he felt, how he could grow himself big and strong like Brother Mountain. He thought and thought, so deeply and so long that he did not notice the water was shrinking him day after day. By the time he realized what had happened, he was a famished pebble, drowning in the gentle waters.

This vexed Stone. But he was too small to roll now, so he sat in the water, and stewed with his siblings that had suffered a similar fate.

They're Not.

That's the thing. They're not dinosaurs. They never were, dinosaurs went extinct sixty-five million years before anyone could even start to imagine their majesty, and long for them to shake the earth once more. These things, they are pale copies, imitation meat trussed up in the ill-fitting clothes of their ancestors and set free to adapt to a world that has no place for them.

Don't worry, they're making a place for themselves wether we like it or not.

But I digress, these creatures look like dinosaurs. Probably for another ten years or so, maybe more. They glide across the land on sure feet, arms and backs bedecked in bright plumage, hunting stealthily through the trees. The big ones lumbering across the plains, leather-skinned and whip tailed. And in a few short years they'll be obsolete, as our understanding of a world an eternity passed comes more clear. But these won't change. Because they're not dinosaurs.

They're what we think dinosaurs were. Cobbled together from bits and pieces of modern day animals and a pitifully basic understanding of the process of evolution's effect on a creatures genome.

Sigh.

The knowledge of the great lie sits under my skin like sandpaper. It grates on me every day, distracts me, keeps me from enjoying the essential grandeur that is before me.

They're not dinosaurs.

But god damn, do they play the part. An allosaurus rumbles past, sniffing the air, looking for me. Or maybe dinner. Probably both. The corner of my lip rebels into a slight smile before I can convince it otherwise. The allosaur heads off into the forest, dissappearing into the foliage.

I shoulder my rifle, adjust my bag and slip out of my blind. There's work to do.

Al came up from the south, and didn't smell like he'd had much luck. Probably nothing to worry about there then. And I'm sure as shit not heading north after the big lad. So east or west?

I have the GPS. I could pull it out, fiddle with it for a while and get a precise location on damn near every critter in the sanctuary. Theoretically. Unless they changed my password again. Every three months? When was the last time I changed it?

"Fuck it." I shrug, and head off eastward. I'll run into something.

The air is thick and heavy, hot. The sun's heading down, it'll cool out in a few hours. I push my way through the underbrush, sweat streaming off me, careful where I step. East was a good idea. Hit the plains. Get out of the trees, they're trapping the heat. The gun catches on a branch, and I stop to carefully extract it. A soft hooting filters through the trees, and I freeze. My eyes scan the area slowly. Nothing. I slip slowly against the trunk of the tree, turning to face the darkening forest. Where is it?

My heart starts to pound, I have to focus. Don't let it get to you. Don't lose your edge. Find it. Find the sound.

There is silence, save for the blood rushing through my ears.

I get the rifle free from the branch, and shoulder it. My heart slows a little.

Hoot.

Son of a bitch. I roll my eyes. The lyre bird hops from branch to branch, tilting it's head at me. Its beak opens, and a perfect immitation of a Phoruschasid. A Terror Bird. Three metres of muscle and hate, topped by almost twenty pounds of thick, bony, sharply pointed beak and skull for smashing prey.

"You're a dick." I shout at the lyre bird. It hoots back angrily.

I continue on through the cooling forest. I feel a breeze wind its way through the trees. I'm getting close.

I break through the tree line at last, just as the sun is starting to set. The plain stretches out before me like an ocean of grasses dotted with islands of trees. And working its way across it is a small herd of sauropods, thick elephantine bodies ponderously plodding along, preceeded by long elegant necks and followed by even longer, whiplike tails. It's a beautiful sight.

But something tugs at my attention. Something's out of place here. And when it hits me my stomach sinks like a stone. I grip my rifle tightly, as the fear takes hold. What I see mulling through the herd much worse than the Terror bird. Worse than the Allosaur.

It's people.

I hate people.