An Unlikely Pair: The Colossus And The Scout

An Unlikely Pair: The Colossus and the Scout

Derros grumbled and Nastrea chuckled at him. They were both sweating in the sweltering, primeval heat. Insects, some as fat as a charcoal-colored chitin finger, orbited about their exposed skin along their heavy scaly armor. Angry sunlight stabbed between colossal tree trunks like glassy shards, wind tussling richly enshrouded trunks covered in mossy plated growths.

“Derros”, said Nastrea with a smirking laugh on her lips, “you seem like a hatchling, you know that? Pale as a weaver-worm freshly spurted from its-”

Derros interrupted. Irritated at the tall black woman, and also trying to hide his own laughter behind an unhappy expression.

“Would you hush up, you talkative squaking menace? I’m not sure what’ll drop me first: the predators, the parasites, the heat, or goddamn you!” Much to the young mans dismay: Nastrea burst further into laughter and clutched her stomach, wheezing in syrupy humid heat.

Derros sighed, wiped his brow. The young man was tall, but not as tall as his companion, and pale skinned. His lengthy curly hair was unruly. His armor was light and simple, fit for a scout to traverse the steaming jungle with ease. Nastrea on the other hand was tall and crowned by midnight dark hair, with vigilantly speckled green eyes. The woman’s armor was heavy, but organic with slick curves and tactical gear: ammunition cartridges, communications maintainers, chemical disperers, even a small active reactor that could be used for a rapid deployment vehicle or long term campsite. The pair trudged through the scraping forest floor.

As they walked, little did they know: they were being hunted. For deep in the shadows of the murky jungle, predators are abound always..

Excerpt from the Intergalactic: Unrest on the Frontier

In an interview with the Intergalactic, David Randal (photographed above in his Exo-Multiplatform Unit, or EMU) expressed the viewpoints common amongst spacers in these trying times. “It’s hard work, work that can kill or maim with even the greatest in safety tech. And out here, on the frontier? We’re undersupplied, practically forgotten about. Now rumors of war, whispers of aggressive aliens? The Company has practically abandoned us to the Deep Black.”

Tensions continue to mount as protests Galaxywide have spread to nearly five hundred systems now. We reached out to Haven-Uros-Iln Industries for commentary, and respectfully received none.

Dinosaurs on the Brain

I have dinosaurs on the brain. That’s a bit silly, isn’t it? But I swear: I’ve dinosaurs on the brain. I can feel their breath, their movement when they pass by. I can hear their rumbling and chirping and crying and howling, feel their knightly armor or exotic feathery-tuft. I can sense their passage; swift and quick or slow and graceful.

At the library, on the way home, at the park, at the restaurant: I have dinosaurs on the brain. I can feel things like the unseen breeze. I watch them amble down packed highways, or stride along crowded beaches. Softball games dont phase them, cookouts neither. Graduations are just another boring shindig for the dinosaurs on their way. Hooting movie theaters dont scare them away either, not one bit.

So here I sit on my front porch under the summer night sky, beneath stars the dinosaurs wouldn’t recognize, in a neighborhood crowded with houses and metal stumps we funnily call cars. The dinosaurs don’t mind. Not at all. Their never-ending August goes on, gorgeous and unreachable, primeval paradise in all its savage, strange, stinging reality.

I’ve dinosaurs on the brain. Really, it’s true.

Night of the Metal Trees

I am lost.

I stand, unsure, afraid. Unfamiliar light and painful sounds and rushing motion blare at me with an unnatural malice.

I turn and turn and turn, slashing with claws and snapping jaws, quills raised, iron feathers shivering.

Where am I?

My vastness dwarfs such tiny glassy-metal trees, but I am fearful, and step uncomfortably, slipping, careening into painful metallic thorns. My calls do not bring familiarity, my connection to the Earth severed and dull.

Is this Uhan, the Bleak Underworld? Or something else..?

I scramble, limping, howling.

Running.

Primordial Interlopers

The first reports by telephone were an interesting and fairly entertaining joke to both local law enforcement and newspaper offices in the late evening, early morning hours.

“Well.. we didn’t know what to make of it in the slightest”, reports an obviously tired, exasperated Sheriff Elizabeth Cadieux-Andrea.

The Sheriff, a dedicated woman born in the town of Larson and known dedicated community servant was woken in the night roughly around 2:30 a.m., receiving a call from the on station Officer Howard James.

“At first I thought it had to be a joke. Of course it was. I thought, anyway.. I mean, we’ve had crank calls. Calls about a lake monster on the peninsula, stories about ghosts prowling the cemetery. So of course I thought this was a joke—wouldn’t you?”

After a shaky and brief communication with Howard, the Sheriff woke her husband before quickly changing into uniform and stepping out to the surprisingly still muggy air. It must’ve been strange, let alone frustrating: shambling to a police car at ungodly hours of the morning for another ridiculous report beneath seemingly endlessly Milky Way starlight. Mrs. Cadieux-Andrea reports that she was just about to turn at the end of her street heading north before locking eyes with a sight that would forever change her life.

“I thought at first.. I thought a first I was seeing things. You know what I mean—rub your eyes, shake your head. Laugh it off even because it can’t possibly be there. It just can’t. But there it was. Tall as a man with talons and jaws, big as a goddamn lion. Bigger.”

Sheriff Cadieux-Andrea was seeing a dinosaur. My paleontologist contact in the local museum tells me a Ceratosaurus Nasicornis based on a more detailed description the Sheriff would give under oath the following day which described the distinctive nasal horn, small four-fingered hands, and dorsal ridges characteristic of this Jurassic predator. A creature extinct for nearly a hundred million years was striding across a suburban road.

“He just watched me with those eyes. They reflected the most ghastly pale white I’ve ever seen in my life, like wolves in the dark..”

And as quickly as the creature had been sighted, it disappeared quickly into a nearby strand of trees alongside the homes to her right. By the time Cadieux-Andrea had arrived at the police station: nearly two hundred phone calls had been received documenting similar encounters across the entirety of the town.

A local man smoking a cigarette on his front porch watched as a small group of bone-headed herbivorous dinosaurs, Pachycephalosaurus, quickly marched down the road. He noted the animals were seemingly agitated which must’ve been an accurate representation as within moments of being sighted the dinosaurs began to ram into the parked vehicles nearby. The stunned observer told this reporter that the time-stranded creatures did an incredibly bizarre dance between impacting their metallic foes, like jungle birds, and that he could catch glimpses of vivid colors when the dinosaurs briefly stepped under the streetlights.

An young couple (who wished to remain anonymous because of the nature of their rebellious activities) were giddily driving home close to the shores of Lake Rose when, like a primordial fever dream, a massive horn-faced dinosaur (identified as the recently discovered Ultraceratops from a magnificent Deseret fossil bed) crosses the desolate wooded road. The first young woman of the couple said that it was immense: seemingly larger than the elephant from the local zoo, and that in the headlights it’s striking frill was akin to haunting patterns found on moth species. This quote especially sticks with this reporter: “It was like it had a pair of giant, crimson eyes, ringed by black and blue! Like it was starring back at us...!” After what had likely been only a moment or two, the herbivorous titan disappeared back into the forest.

Local celebrity and irritating miscreant of this newspaper (who shall remain nameless to irritate them immensely) spoke to an associate of the Larson Times, quote: “A big bird ate my dog, my poor Princess! It was like—like an eagle big as a jungle cat, with curving claws and black feathers, and it snatched up my poor baby when I let her out! Goddamn monsters! Must be the Soviets, come here to eat and torment the godly, patriotic pets of Americans!” (As of the publishing of this article no connection between the prehistoric arrivals and the United Soviet Socialist Republics has been documented.)

The stories are many, many indeed. And it seems, all in a single night: the mysterious primordial arrivals simply vanished. Searches since Wednesday night have turned up nothing, involving animal specialists and big game hunters and wacky cryptozoologists. Physicists from Moscow, London, and Chicago have arrived, all speculating endlessly on this fantastical scientific curiosity. We hope to publish more citizen accounts in the coming days as the interview process continues. In the meantime: watch out for dinosaurs.

- published in the Larson Times, 1///, prior to the Incident at Harper Town.

Lights, Action, and Relaxation

Late night tonight. I watched a lot of movies today, and relaxed, did my usual walk, picked up the house. Still feeling kind of sick, on and off. Tired. But relaxed. Happy. Excited for Mother’s Day, it’ll be really nice to hangout with my mom and my sister, do something enjoyable for my mom. She’s a really great woman. She works very hard for all that she has. I hope everybody had a good day today, whoever reads these, you crazy bastards. I can’t imagine I say anything very interesting, and I’m sorry I kind of ramble.

- your friend, Zachariah