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Chapter 1
Pain.
Jeff woke with a start, finding himself laying on a beach next to an ocean with the gritted taste of sand lingering in his mouth. Vigorously spitting out some sand and a tiny, bewildered crab, he slowly lifted his head. Soreness ached at his bones. A soft breeze whistled past and died as soon as it hit him. He did not remember in the slightest going to the beach near his house, or any beach for that matter, nor going to sleep before waking up here. Maybe he had been drunk? But . . . he didn’t feel hungover.
Why couldn’t he remember anything? Anything about how he got to wherever this could be—he knew everything about himself, and everything that had happened to him that he would normally remember. His name; Jeffrey Sonar, what everyone called him; the weird guy, his waifu; Jennifer Sonar, and that he was very hungry.
But he could have figured that out pretty easily anyways.
Given that he had to do with joints that protested in pain every time he moved, he was able to get up on his feet quite fast.
Jeff turned around and froze. There were no houses facing the beach. No cabins. No settlements. No nothing. All he saw was a large pond, surrounded by various plants and a few trees, none which he recognized. Which was unsettling, considering he was a plant specialist. All that could be identified was grass, covering the plains which were lined by the beach he had awakened on. And how could he be sure that even that was just grass?
A sort of land-tower dominated what he could see in the distance, which was basically nothing. To the right of the tower’s top were islands. Floating islands, strapped to each other by what looked to be vines, supported in the air by nothing at all.
“Oh, no,” Jeff whispered. “where in the name of Satan am I?”
It was getting harder to see. The sun receded into the horizon with every second that passed. Why had he woken up at sunset? This was all so wrong. A new why or what or how presented itself every waking second. Why was he here? What was happening? And . . . would he—
His mind was jolted into reality as a rustling came from one of the fern-like plants with solid leaves. A large, dog-like russet-colored creature hopped out of the cluster of low-lying bushes, not yet noticing Jeff. The creature sneezed, shook its head rapidly, and dropped into a relaxed lying position. It looked to be about shoulder height, but without the tall ears, it looked like it would only reach mid-waist.
What the hell—? Jeff thought.
Jeff’s gaze then flickered to something glowing in the water, gliding smoothly towards the shore where the odd canine-like creature rested. It burst out of the water with no warning, revealing itself as another weird creature—this time a much more terrifying one. It had an extremely long, blue, glowing tail, and a mostly red body with black on its head and back. Its waist bore two large spikes in a row, as well as short horns, with more spikes lining the edge of its skull while facing its body. It had quite thick legs that looked extremely strong. The creature had light gray talons, and the claws were long and light gray, too. Along its body were glowing circles of blue. When it opened its mouth to snap at the dog-creature, it revealed a glowing blue mouth lined with eerily sharp teeth. It was at least twice as tall as Jeff from the ground to its shoulders, and three times as tall from the ground to the tip of the tall spikes on its waist.
The russet dog-creature’s eyes widened in shock. It let out a yelp of terror and darted off, more or less along the beach. The glowing creature thundered after it at once, letting out a roar of rage. Malicious intent shadowed its scowling eyes.
The dog-creature was barely able to outrun it, and the glowing creature nearly snapped its tail off more than once. As they drew closer to Jeff, he snapped out of his terrified trance and bolted, much faster than the dog, driven by the instinctive desperation to stay alive. But barely after he started moving, his feet stumbled on a huge seashell Jeff had not noticed was there earlier. His face slammed into the sand, the gritty texture slightly scraping his cheek. The dog-creature bounded past him. The glowing creature directed its attention to Jeff, sprawled on the ground, trying to regain his footing on the shifting sands.
Delight flared in its eyes, and it changed its course, careening towards him. He managed to scramble back up, and took off running. The glowing creature snapped at him as he raced for his life, the tip of its snout grazing Jeff’s back. Jeff outran the creature quite easier than the dog-creature. Grass flattened beneath Jeff’s feet as he ran. He fled toward large rock spires that were smaller and much closer than the large tower in the distance. He darted around a tree, reached the rocks, and into a small cave. If the cave hadn’t been there, he would have smacked straight into the rocky wall, and the glowing creature most likely would have caught and killed Jeff while he was still dazed. To Jeff’s surprise, he stumbled straight into a large, furry, russet-colored body that let out a yelp of surprise when he slammed into it. It was the dog-creature from earlier. The glowing creature slowed to a stop as he reached the cave. It shoved its head in, trying to reach Jeff and the other creature, and snarled in frustration as it couldn’t. Jeff’s heart pounded as it leapt into his throat.
Finally, with a last snarl in vain, the creature stormed off back towards the pond. Weak with relief (and exhaustion from the pursuit), Jeff fell against the wall, and to his utter surprise, the dog-creature collapsed onto him, wagging its tail with—pleasure? That was a bit odd. Not a moment later, it leaned over to lick him in the face. Jeff spluttered as slobber fell on his mouth, but didn’t push the dog-creature away.
Tentatively, Jeff placed a hand on its head. It leaned into his hand a small bit, its eyes halfway closed with contentment. Jeff smiled and gave it pets, just like he would an ordinary dog.
“I need to give. . . whatever you are a name.” Jeff murmured. Oddly enough, the word—well, not really word—rukig immediately flashed through his mind. Why? He didn’t know, but something made it feel right. Oh, well, no reason to dwell on it. He already had enough to figure out.
Jeff smiled. “Hm. Rukig. . . I think that suits you.”
The Rukig snuggled up against him and immediately fell asleep. Worn out from his ordeal, exhaustion flooded through Jeff, and he leaned against the soft wall of dirt. Maybe he shouldn’t be trusting this unfamiliar creature this much. But it seemed so harmless, especially compared to the other creature. Besides, despite its small size, it might be stronger than it seemed, and it might be able to protect him if something were to enter the cave.
With those thoughts as his consolation, Jeff drifted into a surprisingly undisturbed sleep.
Chapter 2
Jeff woke up feeling only one thing.
Really, really, really persistent hunger.
He stood up wincing, his stomach bellowing. Why did hunger have to hurt so much?
His movements alerted the Rukig, which immediately sprung awake. Its eyes shined with—ambition? Excitement? Either way, it seemed eager. It followed Jeff up until the rocky entrance of the cave. Jeff poked his head out of the opening, straining his ears for any sign of a threat. The rukig poked its head out too, its ears twisting forward. Its nose twitched as it sniffed the morning air. The rukig carelessly trotted out of the cave, obviously sensing no danger. Jeff still skeptically followed.
Now, the problem of finding something to eat. He had no idea of what could be poisonous, so he would have to take his chances. Jeff and the rukig continued on their way, soon finding two pools with a cave on the left. and a tunnel on the right of the right pool. Near it were bushes and vines with fruits. At least, that was what they looked like. Some of them looked like fruits he knew, but with far different colors. There were strawberries, but they were more of a soft pink than red. To be absolutely honest, they looked like they tasted much better than regular strawberries.
Perhaps they did.
Other fruits that looked like normal plants were large melon-looking things that were striped white and pink, much like a beach ball. There were also blue pumpkins. Those were odd. Fruits that were much more unfamiliar to him were berries that looked like Minecraft glowberries, some blue-purple berries speckled with white that took the shape of two fish hooks attached to and facing away from each other. Then there were some red-orange ring-shaped berries that reminded Jeff of Spaghettios. Huge Spaghettios that grew on bushes.
Jeff decided to take his chances with the pink strawberries. As he had predicted, they were much more flavorful than what he was used to. Once Jeff and the rukig were full (the rukig had found a mystery carcass somewhere), they left the area.
After they had traveled quite a distance from the area with the bushes, they paused to lie down. Without reason that was immediately clear, the rukig’s ears perked up. Its head turned to face the bushes. Jeff’s ears caught a faint chittering. He decided, along with the rukig, to investigate. Crouching in the bushes, he came across a pair of raptors. Actual raptors. They were very small, about as tall as the rukig was without its ears. They were a light sandy color, with an even lighter underbelly, with darker sandy-color stripes on their back. They had feathers bursting out of their underarms and legs, and at the end of the tail. The feathers were blue, and there were also spikes on its neck, back, and tail that were blue. There were patches of blue on the body, and they both had a crest that was black, besides for the blue patch on it. Below their elbows and thighs was a dark gray color, and the foreclaws were large and facing upward.
They were trotting around a pile of dry plants, with a piece of flint and another rock. One held the flint, while the other slid the rock rapidly across the flint. Sparks flew. The rock must have been metal.
They’re trying to start a fire! Jeff realized. Should he help them? But then again . . . that was illegal . . . but he probably wasn’t anywhere on earth. So that meant no laws.
Which meant he could commit arson.
He broke into a smile and jumped out of the undergrowth. The rukig let out a startled yelp and scrambled after him. The raptors screeched and jumped back, dropping the flint and the metal. Jeff grabbed them and expertly slashed them together, making sparks fly everywhere, and immediately setting the pile on fire.
The raptors screeched again, this time in delight. One ran up and grabbed a thick, flaming piece of grass, and threw it on a massive, thick bush. A bellowing roar immediately sounded from the inside. Another unfamiliar creature thundered out of hiding, fuming with anger.
And, to Jeff’s absolute surprise, one of the raptors spoke. “YES! TAKE THAT, YOU LITTLE IMBECILE!” One shrieked. How could Jeff understand what they were saying? There was no way these raptors knew english, and that was all that Jeff knew. So how in the world—
His thought was interrupted by the new creature roaring in anger again.
This creature was a large, thickset creature, like a moose, but shorter, thicker legs, a long tail, really long ears like a bunny, skinny horns which sported a brilliant blue, and fur. Really thick fur. Everywhere.
The raptors jumped into the bushes and fled, and Jeff ran after them, grabbing the rukig since he was faster. The raptors weren’t as fast as Jeff. The new moose-thing was nearly as fast, but as it chased after them, it immediately got stuck in the thick plants. Panic sparked in its eyes as the fire drew closer. With a desperate wrench, it ripped free, leaving a lot of fur behind, and fled. The fire burned what it could, which wasn’t much because of the plants being quite wet, and fizzled out. But the bush was already reduced to a collection of ash. It was obvious that the moose-thing lived in there.
Jeff, who had stopped to watch the moose-thing, caught up to the raptors, and found them, on the ground, making repeated chirruping noises and trembling uncontrollably. They were most definitely laughing. Jeff and the rukig burst into laughter as well. Since Jeff knew now how much fun arson truly was. The rukig had most likely figured that out as well. Now that he was close enough to get a better look at the creatures, he could see the difference between the two. One had longer spines and feathers, with a flattened tail, as if it had been squashed at one point. The other had shorter spikes and feathers, with an unsquashed tail.
“THANK you.” The long-spined one chittered. “HOW did you FIGURE OUT how to DO THAT?”
“Also, WHAT IN THE SATANIC HECK ARE YOU?” The other one yelped.
“Uh—Jeff?” Jeff decided to say.
“What’s a Jeff?” The short-spined one asked.
“A Jeff is what he just said he IS, you disgrace. Go steal a brain from a Brequewk. It would be a massive improvement,” the long-spined one snorted. “Were you even LISTENING? If he says he is a Jeff, then that is what a Jeff looks like! Anyway, we are BELLUVARAPTORS! Be afraid!” the long-spined one turned its attention to Jeff. “I’m Dune, and that IDIOT over there is Sandstone, properly named, because he is dumb as a rock, and sandstone is rock. Now, let’s go set some stuff on fire!”
Chapter 3
Jeff, the rukig, and the belluvaraptors were now near him, and they all were lazing about in the sun. After all, there was no reason not to. Arson was rather tiring.
And hunger inducing. Now Jeff was hungry again. “Euugh. Are you serious?” He muttered. He poked Dune awake. “Hey. Dune. Dune. Dune, I’m getting food. Make sure the others don’t freak out over my disappearance.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever, don’t commit any arson without us,” Dune mumbled sleepily.
Jeff exited the entrance to the cave they were in. Sunlight burst from a large hole in the roof. Jeff trotted out to where some herbs were. They were sort of far, because most of the nearby stuff had been eaten by Jeff, the belluvaraptors, and that moose-thing from earlier, a molangai, as the belluvas called it.
Jeff then heard a stomping noise. He looked up—and saw yet another creature towering far above him. It looked like it was as tall as about 17 of the glowing creatures he had seen on the first day (Dune said they were called lures), if they were stacked vertically.
The thing did NOT notice him.
Before Jeff knew it, a massive foot loomed above him. He attempted to flee, but it crashed down right on top of him. Pain flared through his legs and left arm as two of its toes crushed his legs, and another toe nailed his left arm. The creature glanced down at a smushed Jeff, and just walked away. The nerve!
“Ow. Owwwwww . . . I . . . will . . . SET YOU ON FIRE . . . someday!” Jeff screeched after it. It took all of his effort.
And before he even did that, he had to have better than two crushed legs and an arm to move with. Jeff groaned in pain. How bad was this? All but one of his limbs were completely useless, so he rightfully assumed the worst. Was this it? If a creature tried to kill him, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. He certainly couldn’t get food, either. Hopefully the Rukig and Belluvaraptors would find him, otherwise he had no hope. Jeff immediately began hyperventilating, both from pain and panicking. If he tried to move his injured legs or arm, his efforts were just shot down by splitting pain.
This was most definitely going to be the death of him. All alone and helpless in a world he knew next to nothing about.
Why did this happen to m—
A thing popped out of a lake nearby. It was about as tall as Jeff, and it was very bright and colorful. It had petal-like things hanging from its body, short legs, and cute little toe beans. The entire thing was cute, despite its size.
It trotted over to Jeff and sank its tiny little fangs into Jeff’s leg. He expected pain, but instead, the pain went away, and suddenly he could feel his legs and arm again. They were no longer completely crushed, and they looked exactly the same they did before he had been squashed.
“What.” Jeff said in disbelief. The thing let out a whale-like whistling sound, and shoved him onto his legs, which was not very hard, considering it was literally as tall as he was, even though it was standing on all four of its legs.
“GO SET IT ON FIRE!” It whistled. It still felt so weird to hear things that weren’t people speaking in a way he could understand. “I can’t do it, but YOU CAN! It keeps stepping on everybody, so I have to heal WAY MORE CREATURES THAN I SHOULD BE. AND since I am UNABLE TO HARM, AND SINCE I AM LITERALLY , LIKE, 90% WATER, FIRE WILL DRY ME TO A CRISP.”
Jeff leapt up, glanced around rapidly, and remembered the flint and metal from his pocket. He quickly sharpened a random branch, used the flint and metal to set the branch on fire, ran after the huge boreal, and stabbed the branch into its foot. That was all that he could reach with the stick. The creature bellowed, but Jeff was too quick. The fire rushed rapidly up its leg. Within just minutes, its back legs, tail, waist, and half of its upper body were scorched to a crisp, and the rest of it was about to be. Despite this, it still bellowed in rage and pain. It finally succumbed to its death once the fire had burned all of it except its head and the upper neck. Soon it was only charred bones.
“OK, now I am pleased.” The cute thing said. “I am a moonelle, but just call me Moon. And THAT was a NASTY BOREAL that was SQUASHING EVERYBODY. Now, WHAT in the NAME OF THE DEVS ARE YOU?”
“PFF—uh, Jeff.” Jeff said again. If he was the only human, then he might as well be called a Jeff. He didn’t know what a “dev” was supposed to be, but he assumed he would find out later.
“OK! I’m coming with you. You don’t get a choice. Heh.” Moon whistled. “GET ON ME AND I SHALL CARRY YOU.”
Jeff hopped on Moon and sank a bit. Moon was right—she WAS 90% water. Jeff nearly immediately became soaked. And as they trotted off, Jeff realized he was still hungry. He nabbed some strawberries as Moon went by them, and carefully kept them at a distance from Moon’s skin to prevent them from getting soaked.
Chapter 4
Jeff, the rukig (who’s name was Ash, Dune finally told Jeff a few days ago), Dune, Sandstone, and Moon were heading through the forest with tall trees and bushy…uh…bushes. The trees looked like redwood trees, but they PROBABLY WEREN’T. Jeff made Moon swear NOT TO TELL the others about getting squished because he didn’t want them freaking out over it. They were looking for something to commit arson on, specifically something to eat, since they all needed meat, except Moon, who was like a plant, and only needed water, using photosynthesis for food somehow.
“UUUUUUUUGH,” Sandstone began to whine, “there is NOTHING to EAT HERE. WHY can’t we GO SOMEWHERE WITH FOOD?”
“That’s what we are DOING, you tomato,” Dune snapped. The strawberry Jeff had brought was eaten long ago.
Eventually, the woods came to an end, and more plains appeared. To the left, they sloped up, past a lake that was shining at the edge of the woods, but actually ran along a lot of the woods, and the slope went up into some mountains. To the right, there was a large cliff-hill thing, with caves. One had a pool and a waterfall as far as Jeff could see. In front, the plains kept going. In the far distance, Jeff thought he could see, once again, a mountain, but it was spewing smoke. A volcano.
“Ooh, look, look, the volcano!” Sandstone yelped. “Do you think it will erupt this summer?”
“Probably… The last time it erupted was a while ago, and I have heard it’s getting REALLY full.” Dune chirruped, sounding hopeful.
“What? Huh? Did I hear volcano? HOW OFTEN DOES IT ERUPT?” Jeff said nervously. He hadn’t experienced eruptions before.
“We have volcano eruptions every, like, four to seven summers.” Dune answered. “They aren’t that bad. Meteors fall from the sky and it’s hard to breathe for a few days afterwards, but they aren’t dangerous unless you are caught off guard in the open and you are too slow to dodge the meteors, which you most likely are fast enough to dodge them, but you still will get hit by dirt and stuff knocked loose from the meteor slamming into the ground at Mach 7 speed.”
A strong gale whooshed above them out of nowhere, making Jeff and the belluvaraptors fall. A bird thing was speeding by, flying faster than anything Jeff had ever seen.
“A HALA! LOOK DUNE A HALAQUAL AAAH I WANT TO RIDE ONE!” Sandstone screeched, completely OUT OF CONTROL.
“SHUT.” Dune yelled back as Jeff smacked Sandstone. “I NOTICED IT WAS A HALAQUAL FROM THE WAY IT SMASHED MY FACE INTO THE GROUND.” He was rubbing his snout, which was bleeding a bit now. He grabbed a leaf and stuck it to his snout where it somehow didn’t fall off.
“Whoops,” an innocent-sounding voice said from behind. Jeff whirled around, seeing the “halaqual” behind him. It wasn’t too big, only a bit taller than three of Jeff, but that was because its wings were holding it up high. It had no legs. Its neck was sort of long. Jeff just stared at it because it was rather odd-looking.
Noticing Jeff staring at it, the halaqual looked back and squinted. “Oh, dear, am I going crazy? What is that thing?”
“It’s a Jeff.” Moon squeaked, biting Dune’s face.
“Huh. Thought I had seen every creature here. Guess not.” The halaqual chirped. “Oh well, hello, then. My name is Cumulus, and I am a halaqual.”
“I am Dune, and this idiot is Sandstone. That’s Moon-” he pointed to Moon, then to Ash “-and that is Ash. See anything around we can burn?”
“Um. Burn?” Cumulus said nervously. “W-well, yes, there’s a moemoea over by the lake. Better watch over you, make sure you don’t burn the world or yourself,” Cumulus added under her breath.
“YAAAAAAAAY! ARSOOOOOOOOOOOOON!” They all cheered. Then they ran off to burn and eat the moemoea, whatever that was.
Chapter 5
Turns out, moemoeas are like parasaurs. Just on four legs instead of two.
“Have you ever been to The Oasis?” Cumulus asked them.
“Nope. Always wanted to go, though.” Dune said thoughtfully. “Yep! Change of plans. We are going to The Oasis.”
The Oasis was, expectedly, an oasis in the desert, and it was FULL of creatures. And that was exactly where Moon, Dune, Sandstone, Ash, and Cumulus wanted to go.
“NOPE.” Jeff said as soon as he saw it. “NOPE. NOT GOING. NOT RISKING MY LIFE.”
“Oh, don’t be like that. There’s a peace treaty thing, and violence is a crime there, unless there is absolutely nothing to eat.” Cumulus said, dragging him back, and then wandering off for a random reason she did not state.
“What if there’s nothing to eat? THEY’LL EAT ME! AND THE—” Jeff started, more dramatic than he should’ve been.
“You will literally be, like, the smallest thing there. There’s no way anyone will want to eat you, stupid.” Dune interrupted
“I’M LARGER THAN YOU! ALSO, WHAT IF THERE’S SOMETHING SLIGHTLY LARGER, AND I’M THE BIGGEST THING IT CAN SAFELY EAT!?”
“You will deafen it if it tries,” Sandstone muttered, not even sounding stupid for once.
“And that’ll stop it from killing me? I am NOT GOING! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”
“Really.” Dune said. “Cumulus, get over here,” Dune beckoned with one claw.
“Yeah?” Cumulus asked, coming over.
“Jeff the stupid idiot is being a stupid idiot. He won’t get his ass over to the oasis because he’s paranoid so we need you to pick him up and drop him there!”
“NO! GAH! DON’T! FINE! I’LL GO WILLINGLY!” Jeff yelped, fleeing from Cumulus.
“Then what are you waiting for?” Sandstone snapped.
Moon ran up behind Jeff and threw him onto her back. “There,” She said triumphantly. “Now you CAN’T run off without squashing me, which is SUPER MEGA ILLEGAL.”
They headed down to The Oasis, with Jeff grumbling the entire way with his arms crossed.
They entered Oasis and no one noticed them. They found a hole with a pool, and Moon said the pool was actually a tunnel connecting to the underground river that carried the water in the Oasis into the sea. They settled down there.
Jeff decided to go off on his own because he was still in a grumpy mood at the others. They didn’t notice. There were SO MANY CREATURES there. Most of them were way too big to notice Jeff, but that was a problem, because he was in constant danger of getting squished again. Some creatures here, Cumulus told him, included Hellion Wardens, Ardor Wardens, jotunhels, imeaorns, gramosses, aurarons, ikorans, gnolroks, aolenus, athulyth, irdegardes, gyrodous, turgeons, ghibli, crata peritinas, kendylls, kerukus, laharpes, lus-adarchs, luxces, molangai, sana’atas, teinooks, tarakotus, salrahns, valkurse, zohdok, yeba’idi, yggdragstyx, yohsog, and some healers, which were luckily not more creatures he had to worry about, since they were either moonelles or valkyries.
He saw two imeaorns in a corner, fighting over a bit of meat, before a jotunhel produced more meat for each of them. They became happy. But before they ripped apart the meal, one noticed him.
“LOOK! BASH! LOOK! A—UH—A THING! LOOK, IT’S ALL ANGRY!” It yelled to the other.
“AWWWW! THAT’S SO ADORABLE!” The other one—Bash, he was called?—yelled back.
“I’M GONNA KEEP IT!” The first one announced.
“NO, I AM!” Bash yelled back.
“NO, IT’S MINE!”
“NO, NO, NO! MINE!”
“WELL, I SAW IT FIRST, THEREFORE IT IS MINE!”
Jeff just stood there, extremely confused, as they argued over who would “keep” him. Whatever that meant.
“Nope, neither of you get it, because it’s mine.” Cumulus spoke almost tiredly, grabbing Jeff.
“HEYYYYYYYY!” Bash whined. “BUT I WANT IT!”
“Too bad,” Cumulus snapped.
The imeaorns grabbed their meat and stomped away from oasis, whining about stupid interfering halaqual thieves.
“What did you start this time?” Dune asked as Cumulus brought Jeff back over to the rest of them.
“I did absolutely NOTHING,” Jeff protested. “They just started arguing over who would keep me the second they saw me.”
A nearby sand-colored creature with six legs, wings that looked skeletal, and a large eye-like thing on the top of its head that was holding a carcass peered closely at Jeff, probably wondering what the hell Jeff was.
The six of them decided to just leave and get food, keep an eye on Jeff in case something else decided it wanted to keep him, that sort of stuff, just an average day. The six-legged thing stumbled after with a curious expression, as if it wanted to ask about Jeff. But as they left, they heard a shrill shriek of pain. A spiky, white-blue-orange thing stumbled in, heavily injured.
“What happened to that magnarothus?”
“What?”
“Who broke the rules?”
“Will it live?” Many creatures had gone silent, with some muttering.
“KOS—” the creature took a long, shuddering gasp of pain”—SIGMATOX!” The magnarothus wheezed, then exhaled one last time before suddenly becoming a large chunk of corpse.
The entire Oasis was stunned into deafening silence for a moment, before exploding into a screaming mass of panic.
“WE’RE GOING.” Cumulus said, grabbing a bewildered Moon in her beak before Moon was able to be squashed or lost in the panic. Dune and Sandstone leaped onto Cumulus’s back, beckoning Jeff to do the same. Jeff leapt on as well.
“HMNG RN!” Cumulus said through Moon, then began to fly, quickly gaining speed.
“WHAT’S A KOS?!” Jeff yelled to Dune through the wind.
“IT MEANS KILL ON SIGHT!” Dune screeched back. “IT’S WHEN A CREATURE COMES TO OASIS OR SOMEWHERE AND KILLS EVERYONE THEY CAN! A GROUP KOSED THE OASIS SOME YEARS AGO BEFORE I HATCHED, WHICH IS THE ENTIRE REASON SOME RULES WERE PLACED IN!”
“YOU TOLD ME THERE WASN’T GOING TO BE ANY MURDERING!” Jeff accused Dune and the others.
“HOW WAS I TO KNOW THERE WOULD BE A KOS?!” Dune screeched back.
Jeff felt blood spatter his back, so he whipped his head around to an extremely morbid scene. There was blood, disembodied organs squished beneath feet, fresh scraps of red-coated flesh, bones, skin, meat, body parts, and other bloody shit flying into the air and strewn across the bloodstained sand. A very large creature that was softly glowing and coated in blood was ripping creatures apart. Just now, he was slowly ripping a kendyll apart, limb by bloody limb. The kendyll’s tail and two of its legs were already torn off, and another leg was being thrashed around and dislocated by the grinning—what had the magnarothus called it?—sigmatox. A bloodied joint threatened to protrude from the plated skin of the kendyll. Bits of mist was dissipating, and the sigmatox looked a bit sleepy.
For the first time, Jeff thought about home. He now wished he was at home. Home wasn’t full of murderous giant glowing creatures trying to rip you apart in the most painfully slow way possible.
“Wait. WHERE’S ASH!?” Sandstone screeched.
“OH, GREAT!” Cumulus yelled. She deposited Jeff, Moon, and the belluvaraptors on a large mountain that was very cold.
Cumulus dove back towards Oasis. She had to rescue Ash.
“ASH!” She shrieked as soon as she was in range. There were more sigmatox coming, a group, and Cumulus had to go fast. A responding yelp sounded, and she saw Ash weaving his way between the number of bloody, decimated bodies. But the sigmatox heard its cry too. It immediately whipped around and ran towards the sound. Alarm flashed through Cumulus. She dove towards Ash, the sigmatox nearly on top of the poor, terrified rukig. She grabbed Ash in her beak as the sigmatox’s jaws opened nearly on top of them, and felt the jaws snap shut on her tail. She held back a screech. There was a tearing sound, and a piece of her tail came off in the sigmatox’s jaws. Blood spurted out of the end as she let out a muffled bellow through Ash.
With a scrappy, desperate flight, Cumulus managed to fly slowly to the Tundras.
Jeff paced, with his worry growing every moment that passed. Finally, after what felt like years, he heard flapping, and saw Cumulus flapping her way back, Ash in her jaws.
“Ash! Cumulus!” Jeff shouted.
As Cumulus crashed into the ground beside them, Jeff noticed her tail was stumpy and very, very bloody. Moon immediately ran over and bit the wound. It stopped bleeding, but the tail did not grow back. Cumulus probably would not be able to have the tail back.
Chapter 6
The six of them had passed oasis in the night, walking, because Cumulus’s tail hurt too much to fly. They had seen something quite traumatising. At least three or four other sigmatoxes had been heading into oasis. Jeff SWORE he saw a fire horse thing, but no one else had, so he hadn’t mentioned it.
Jeff realised they had gotten close to the floating islands. Honestly, they kind of weirded him out and he wanted nothing to do with them. As he looked closer, he thought he saw movement on the islands. He was about to shrug it off, when the shadows detached from the island, and half-fell, half-flew down. He elbowed Moon, and she was about to snap at him, before he pointed to the shadows, and she stared at them. They all had paused, waiting, tense, for the shadows, on the beach next to a large lake that was below the islands.
As the shadows flew-fell closer, Jeff realised that they both looked like little versions of the sand-coloured six-legged thing he had seen just before the KOS, except one of them was adorned in only shades of blue and grey. The creature was . . . oddly familiar-looking.
“Ghiblis!” Moon whispered. “Like, super young ones! What are they doing?”
The creatures, or ghiblis, collapsed onto the sand. Jeff noticed the one coloured like the one from the Oasis had dark marks stretched across its front right legs and part of the wing, too. A burnt smell wavered through the air, which meant the marks were probably fresh burns.
The burnt one staggered into the water, and a slight hissing sound could be heard, which confirmed that the marks were burns. A sigh of relief escaped from the burnt ghibli’s jaws.
The Sans ghibli turned around, noticing Jeff, Cumulus, Ash, Moon, Dune, and Sandstone. It froze, simply staring. The other ghibli waddled out of the water, and turned its head in the direction the Sans ghibli’s head was turned. It too saw Jeff and the others, and froze up just like its sibling.
They stayed that way, staring at each other, for a rather long while.
“Um. Are they ok?” Cumulus whispered, breaking the awkward silence. The ghiblis squeaked in alarm and attempted to skitter away, but the injured one almost immediately collapsed. The Sans one noticed this and tried to help it up as quickly as possible, but wasn’t strong enough. Realising it could not get its companion away, it tried to hold a stance between it and the group. Both of the ghiblis were trembling in fear.
“They look so scared,” Jeff commented. “What happened to them?”
“How should I know? Whatever happened, we need to help them. Clearly they’re very young.” Cumulus answered.
“I don’t see why it’s our probleeEEEAH!” Dune began before being knocked over by Moon.
“Wait!” Jeff piped up. “I recognise these things. I saw one. . . well, a much bigger one that was a little bit different—at the Oasis. Before—you know.”
“You did?” Cumulus turned to Jeff.
“OH NO!” Moon yelped at the same time. “WHAT IF THAT WAS THEIR MOTHER, AND SHE’S NOW SUPER MEGA DEAD, SO NOW THEY ARE ORPHANS, SO THEY HAD TO RUN?!”
“W-well. . .” Cumulus mumbled. “That’s, uh, a lot of ghiblis look similar, maybe it was just another relative . . .”
“BUT LOOK AT THEM! THEY LOOK LIKE SOMETHING REALLY MEGABAD HAPPENED TO THEM!” Moon ractpnteked. “SO MAYBE YES IT WAS THEIR MOM, SO NOW WE HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THE BABY GHIBLIS, FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR MOTHER!”
All of the shouting made the two baby ghiblis bundle up closer together. One began to cry, and the other as well.
“Oh no! Look, they’re crying! We need to STOP ARGUING and DO SOMETHING!” Moon snapped at the others, trotting over to the ghiblis and curling herself around them. They seemed to calm down, relaxing into her soft squishiness, and their sobbing gradually diminished. Their trembling relaxed but did not fully vanish.
“Uh. . .” Dune began. “We aren’t very, uh, good with children. . . We’ll just, uh, head this way. . .” They scooted off, stopping at a distance. Cumulus sighed, wandered to Moon and helped her soothe the ghiblis. That left Jeff as the one standing there awkwardly and quite unsure of what the frricklefrackle he should do. He ended up slowly backing away to where Sandstone, Ash and Dune were watching. Neither did he have experience with children, especially plane-thing children from alien planets. If anything, he would probably make things worse. However . . . he was rather curious. After a minute of telling himself that he shouldn’t, Jeff stood up and stepped over to Moon and Cumulus. He had to admit—the ghiblis were actually rather cute. The baby versions, at least. As soon as Jeff cautiously reached for the Sans one, it grabbed his hand, sniffed it, and bit his finger.
The group of now eight had settled into a cave behind a waterfall that was alarmingly close to Oasis, but it was the closest shelter besides an overhang that was far too exposed. Given that the time was only the crack of dawn, everyone else was asleep besides Moon and Jeff. Bored, Jeff decided to go for a walk.
“HEY. Wait UP!” Moon yelped, scrambling after him as he wandered off. “I’M BORED TOO!”
Moon and Jeff took a stroll to the redwood-looking forest. After wandering around for a short while, they decided to rest by the lake. As soon as they began to relax, Jeff thought he could hear muted voices in the undergrowth. Moon tipped her head, obviously hearing it too.
No words were needed between the two. They both immediately crept through the undergrowth towards the voices, stopping as they caught glimpse of whoever was talking.
One of them was that fire horse thing that Jeff had thought he saw, and apparently DID see.
Jeff nearly screamed when he saw the other creature.
It was a sPoOkY sigmatox.
The sigmatox seemed smaller than the attacker or its friends that had arrived later, and the sigmatox’s glowy parts were pink instead of green for some odd reason, and it was speaking to the fire horse in a hushed, panicked voice.
“. . .and I heard a sigmatox attacked the Oasis. Spark, what if. . . what if it’s. . . Terror?” It said, sounding rather nervous.
“That would be really, really bad.” The fire horse, probably called Spark by what the sigmatox had said, responded.
Jeff looked at Moon before the two of them made an unspoken decision to bolt off, hoping the creatures wouldn’t hear them.
They did.
“WHO WAS THAT? HEY, COME BACK!” The sigmatox yelled, crashing through the bushes toward them.
The sound of footsteps gradually pounded closer and closer until the fire horse leaped out of the bushes in front of them.
“FUCK!” Jeff yelled, the both of them skidding to a stop to avoid slamming into the scorching-hot body. The sigmatox jumped out of the bushes behind them, its extra arms splayed out to block the other escape routes.
“What in the actual name of the devs are YOU?!” The sigmatox gasped, out of breath. “And who’s side are you on? ”
Jeff glared at the sigmatox, trying to decide whether or not to tell this creature that information. But then again, it had said the word “dev”, which sounded like something that was considered some sort of sacred being, something that the others said the sigmatoxes who had raided Oasis definitely would NOT believe in.
“What he is is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.” Moon squeaked angrily. “At least, not until YOU tell US who’s side you’re on, before we KICK YOUR ASSES!”
“I’d like to see a 90% cutesy water healer creature kick my ass,” the fire horse grumbled. “Or whatever your little thing over there is.”
“I have a NAME!” Jeff protested. The fire-horse ignored him.
“You don’t want to know how,” Moon said ominously.
“Rrrrrgggg! FINE. I’m Slaughter, that’s Spark, and we are NOT on the other sigmatox’s side.” The pink striped sigmatox snapped.
“AND HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO TRUST YOUR WORD!?” Moon screeched. “YOU ARE LITERALLY HOLDING US CAPTIVE.”
“Shut up.” Spark mumbled.
“Rrgg. They do have a point.” Slaughter sighed grumpily, hesitating before releasing her blocks on the escape routes. Moon immediately pelted away, and Jeff, confused, stared after her before shaking his head and sprinting after her.
Moon, being faster than Jeff and having a head start, got to the others WAY BEFORE Jeff. She was finishing exaggerating what they had run into when Jeff stumbled in. He bent over with his hands on his knees, absolutely exhausted.
The ghiblis were still asleep in an absolutely ADORABLE little cuddle puddle, but everyone else was awake.
“JEFF!” Cumulus scolded. “DID YOU AND MOON REALLY GET INTO A FIGHT WITH A SIGMATOX AND A VALKURSE?! ”
“ What? No!” Jeff yelped. “Moon, what did you say?! ”
“Uh. . . Well. . . I may have exaggerated a little bit? ” Moon tried. “Okay, maybe a lot.”
That meant Jeff had to explain what actually happened. Which was rather tiring.
“I don’t think we should trust those things,” Dune announced when Jeff had finished.
“They let Jeff and Moon go,” Cumulus pointed out. “If those guys had been on the KOS’s side, Jeff and Moon would be very dead right now. And since they clearly aren’t, that means that we might be able to trust their word.”
“I hate it when you’re right, you damn frog.” Dune grumbled.
Just then, a VERY LOUD squeak came from the cuddle puddle. The two ghiblis had awoken and were now obviously VERY hungry.
“I’d better get them some food,” Cumulus sighed, exiting the den and flying onward, still wobbly. Dune, Sandstone, and Moon began to start arguing about something, Ash was calming the ghiblis down, so Jeff was the only one watching at the entrance when a plethora of glowing purple eyes suddenly appeared.
Jeff shrieked and scrambled back. Everyone else whipped around, noticed the eyes, and screamed as well. Now that Jeff looked for a bit longer, he was able to see that there was, in fact, actually a body that these eyes were attached to, but they were black and transparent. Almost like a 3-D shadow. What he could see was a body with stumpy legs, long, bony toes, fur lining the back, 3 pairs of eyes on the head, which had teeth on the front, and an eye ON THE THIGH OF EACH LEG. What was even worse was that THERE WERE TWO OF THE CREATURES.
“EXTERRERIS! RUN!” Moon yelped, shoving the baby ghiblis, Ash, and the belluvas into a small cave in the side of their den. She ran up to Jeff, grabbed him, and bolted into the little cave as well.
“. . . Oops,” A rather scary, raspy voice said.
“I told you that was the wrong way to appear.” Another raspy voice, slightly higher pitched, snapped. “NOW they are HIDING. What are you gonna do about that, HMMM?”
“Um. Say, ‘hello, sorry we scared you, we just want to exist here’?” The first voice guessed.
“You vexatious oaf. Literally.” The slightly higher voice replied.
“Oh yeah? Well. . . you SPLENECTIFYING BOWLHEAD!”
“What is that even supposed to mean?”
“Quiet, Ripjaw! We need to make them think we’re gone.”
“GREAT JOB, SHREDDER, YOU JUST RUINED IT.” The higher voice, Ripjaw, snapped.
“Oh? Like you ruin EVERYTHING EVER?” Shredder, the other exterreri growled.
“I AM GOING. MY BRAIN CELLS ARE BEING FRIED JUST HEARING YOUR VOICE.” Ripjaw snapped before storming off.
“YOU NEVER HAD ANY BRAIN CELLS TO BEGIN WITH!” Shredder grumped. She did not follow after Ripjaw. “I’M STAYING HERE UNTIL THEY COME OUT!”
“REMIND ME HOW YOU STILL EVEN EXIST ANYMORE?” Ripjaw’s fading voice echoed.
“No thanks to YOU! Stupid stupidface! I hope toxic fungus grows in your teeth!” Shredder screeched right back. A few moments later, a sigh and footsteps announced that Shredder had bolted after Ripjaw.
After an actual hour (perhaps even longer), Dune finally crept out cautiously. His nose twitched as he sniffed the noon air to be sure that the exterreri were gone. He let out a massive sigh of relief when he caught wind of nothing. “All clear!”
They all bounded out of the cramped cave, thankful that it was over.
Cumulus landed. “I heard screeching, what’s going on?” She yelped.
“Oh, nothing,” Moon squeaked. “Just some scary shadows.”
Chapter 7
“So, what the heck are Devs?” Jeff asked. “Everyone keeps saying it like it’s really important.”
“Now that is because they are important,” Moon responded. “So. Devs. This might be a long discussion. Devs are what pretty much every Sonarian inhabitant worships. They are said to have created the world and the creatures in it. They drop meat from the sky, they control where the herbs are, they control the seasons, and more. But they aren’t exactly perfectly benevolent.”
“What do you mean by ‘control where the herbs are?’” Jeff asked, wondering what she meant by that.
“The herbs move every few seasons. Say they are in one area, then they move. They all die and regrow, pretty fast, somewhere else,” Moon answered. “The current known locations of the herbs are Flower Cove, Redwoods, Tundra, Plains, between Redwoods and Plains, and Volcano Cave.”
“There are some creatures that are respected,” Dune began to add. “There are some creatures that represent certain Devs , and they are all larger than the rest of their species. The Dev species are Opralegions, Ura, Nyctoxons, Archalium, Qurugosks, Trutholbyevas, Ghiblis, and Tohukos. Although, Ghiblis and Tohukos aren’t as respected, as they are much more numerous. The main Dev that the species represents is said to be larger, more powerful, and more vibrant.” He explained.
“There are some things that are considered to be wrong, in the name of the Devs,” Moon continued. “Like, stealing from the Oasis food spawner is considered to be selfish and vain, unless you are stealing it to feed your family or group. Some other things considered wrong are killing when it is not needed. Killing is allowed if you are hunting, defending yourself, or defending your group or family. Some creatures, of course, ignore these rules and kill way too much. Like those sigmatox back there. Let’s explain the rest later because I’m tired and I wanna sleep.” Moon flopped down and immediately began to snore quite dramatically. Ash flopped down as well, curling around the baby ghibli puddle.
“I’m going to go find some food,” Dune announced, speeding off. “Come on, Sandstone!”
Sandstone sped off after Dune, leaving Cumulus and Jeff alone.
“Well. What do we do now?” Jeff blinked.
“Go find those two and go with them,” Cumulus sighed. “I don’t trust you, but you’re noisy so get out.”
“Oh. Ok.” Jeff sped off after Dune and Sandstone. “Where did those two idiots go?” He muttered to himself. Spotting some flattened stuff and some little footprints in some mud, he told himself they were Sandstone’s, and followed the trail. After a little bit of walking, he saw blood. Lots of it.
He pushed through some bushes, and saw Dune and Sandstone staring into a tree with wide eyes. They jumped when Jeff came through the bushes, and Dune skittered over to him.
“Jeff. Jeff!” Dune whispered, shaking him. “There’s another human in that tree and it’s injured! Also it looks pretty hateful. So be careful. Because you’re going to it. Because, y’know, you’re a human. And we’re not.”
Jeff blinked. Another human? He looked up at the tree, and saw the glint of an eye. Looking hard, he also saw a huddled but unmistakably human lump. But Dune had probably smelled its scent.
Bushes rustled, and something leaped out. It looked like a raptor, with a long, skinny snout, and it also had spikes, but they looked more like skin, and it also had fur. Portions of its body, including the tips of the spikes, patches on its legs, and its eyes were glowing. Silver grey, light grey, and black were its main colours, and the glowing patches were a faint pinkish red colour. It was also about about as tall as Jeff from the ground to its shoulder, but its long neck made it look even taller. It glanced between Jeff and the belluvaraptors, before dashing over to the tree and hauling itself up. It crept perilously over to the human.
Jeff hoped it wasn’t about to eat the person.
To his relief, it poked the person instead. It glanced down at Jeff, Dune, and Sandstone. The person suddenly moved, hopping onto the back of the glowy raptor.
Jeff yelped as the raptor very suddenly launched itself off the branch and landed pretty close to him. It sped off before he could get a closer look at the person. There was a little blood spattered below the branch and where the raptor had landed, probably having come from the person.
After a moment, Dune shook himself and said, “I’ll go see if I can talk to them. Go back to the cave,”
“Wait—” But Dune sped off before Jeff could finish. He sighed. “Come on, Sandstone.”
The two traveled back to the small cave they had called their temporary home. As they arrived, they saw Cumulus facing off with a bat with absurdly long ears and a sort of feathery tail, almost like a dragon. It was about the size of Cumulus.
“Go away, you toe-eyed foot fungus!” Cumulus shrieked, lashing out at the dragon with one of her wings.
“Hey! Wait! Stop! Please! I just want to ask you something!” It yelped, hopping back, looking indignant. As Jeff and Sandstone approached, it swung its head around to look at them.
“You!” It yelped suddenly. “You look like her! Tell me, have you seen anyone that looks like you? Just, uh, a bit taller? And also female?”
“Um. I saw. Someone. That way. But. I don’t know if it’s who you’re looking for. But I haven’t seen any other humans here, so. I bet they probably are who you’re looking for. They, um, she was with a glowy raptor thing.” Jeff stammered, pointing behind him.
“Ralokai,” Sandstone whispered in Jeff’s ear.
“Um. Ralokai.” Jeff repeated to the bat-dragon-thing.
“Oh! Then that would be Raindrop. Thanks!” The bat thing said, flapping off in the direction Jeff came from.
Cumulus snorted. “WELL. At least you made him go away.”
“Why were you being so mean?” Sandstone protested.
“If you haven’t noticed, there are two children and a completely helpless bean inside our cave.” Cumulus snapped. “I’m not about to let a sochuri, a fucking fire-breather, by the way, come near us.”
“HEY!” Moon yelped indignantly. “I’m not a bean! And I’m not completely helpless!”
Cumulus snorted again, this time in amusement. “Where’s Dune?”
“He’s still getting food.” Sandstone cut in, saving Jeff from having to explain their entire situation, which he didn’t really want to do. Cumulus and Sandstone went inside, but Jeff stayed out, and sat down, waiting for Dune’s return.
A faint noise came from the distance. Looking over, he saw a massive creature (not near as big as the boreal warden), far away. It only had two legs, like the imeaorns, but far larger, and it was black and green instead. He turned away, because the creature was probably unimportant, and it looked like it was too fat and slow to catch stuff to eat meat, so it most likely wasn’t a carnivore.
A small rustling in the grass alerted Jeff. He looked over. Perhaps it was Dune? But it wasn’t. Slowly, a new creature rose out of the grass. It was twice as tall as Jeff. It looked like a raptor, but it didn’t have arms (except for the shoulders), and its snout was long and slender. It was red and tan colors, and it was spiky, with very sharp looking claws, and the toes facing inwards sported very long claws.
The creature glanced around nervously, and then padded slowly over to Jeff.
“Can I see Moon?” It asked before Jeff could react.
“Um—well, ok. MOON!” Jeff yelled.
Moon popped out immediately. “What!” She yelped. “Oh, hi, Rust. What is it?”
It twisted around to show a bloody wound on its shoulder. It winced. “It really hurts,”
While Moon healed Rust, and caught up with him, Jeff turned back around to gaze out across Sonaria. And then, he saw Dune, finally back. The ralokai was behind him, and the sochuri was flapping around above them. As they got closer, Jeff noticed the person sitting on the ralokai’s back, looking pretty grumpy. As they got even closer, he saw fresh wounds bleeding from their shoulder.
“Guess WHAT?” Dune yelped, skipping over to Jeff. “I got them to COME!”
“What? Who’s cumming?” Moon yelped, looking up from Rust.
“I don’t want to have to explain what happened earlier so I’ll just say there’s another human.” Dune answered.
“Thanks, Moon!” Rust growled, and sped off.
Behind Dune, the sochuri landed. The ralokai stopped next to the sochuri, and Jeff remembered that the sochuri had called the ralokai Raindrop.
Raindrop dumped the person off of his back, and the person let out a yelp of indignation, before stomping off a little ways and sitting grumpily with her back to them. Jeff noticed how tall she was. Quite a bit taller than Jeff.
“Well, she’s in a good mood,” Moon observed.
“She can’t get any grumpier… I think. Actually, wait, she probably can. Like, probably a lot grumpier, actually.” The sochuri snorted.
Cumulus came out of the cave, and stumbled at the sight of the sochuri. She scowled, and placed herself at the entrance like a guard.
“Ok, so I’m Scorcher, and that’s Raindrop, and the very moody person over there is Jaiden. But she prefers the name Jade.” The sochuri announced.
“I’m MOON!” Moon squeaked. “That’s Dune and Sandstone, and the also person is Jeff, the scowling halaqual is Cumulus, and the rukig inside our cave is Ash!” Moon rambled, nearly bouncing off the walls.
“Hey, Jeff, go talk to the person about human stuff,” Dune chirped.
“But whyyyyyyy?” Jeff whined. “Her pissed-off aura could snap my neck. I bet she would break my nose for looking at her.”
“Oh, stop whining and do it already,” Raindrop plopped down.
“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.” Jeff grumbled. He hesitantly took a handful of steps toward Jade, before glancing back towards the others.
“Well, at least they won’t see me getting fucking murdered.” Jeff muttered, glaring at the ground. How ironic that the thing that would definitely end up probably murdering him here was nothing more than another human, and not some alien death creature. He took a few more hesitant, spiteful stomps forwards, ending up near Jade.
Jade whipped around with a look of such fury that Jeff thought he was going to die right then and there.
“What the fuck do you want?” She snapped. “Fuck off! Bitch!”
“Fuck!” Jeff yelped, fleeing back over to Dune. “Dune! Why do you HATE ME SO MUCH??”
Chapter 8
Jeff and the group left their cave. It was far too small for a rukig, a halaqual, a sochuri, a moonelle, a ralokai, two humans, two belluvaraptors, and two swiftly growing ghiblis.
“So like, how do you live with Jaiden? Her presence is terrifying. And she looks like she wants to kill everybody.” Dune was asking Raindrop.
“Oh, she’s just extra-grumpy today. On a normal day, she’s not super grumpy. Just a little grumpy. But she can be fun when she doesn’t hate everyone at the moment.” Raindrop answered.
“Shut up,” Jade grumbled.
After quite a bit of traveling, Jeff realized they had come to the two pools he had stayed at with Ash when he first arrived in Sonaria.
“This place is good!” He told the others.
Eventually, they settled down.
“Ok. Maybe you can try to speak to Jaiden now, so maybe she’ll hate you less, and then she maybe won’t hate us as much?” Moon suggested to Jeff. “Also, she looks slightly less murderous today.”
“That doesn’t mean she won’t fucking rip one of ribs out and impale me with it,” Jeff argued.
“Oh just do it!” Moon yelped.
“Why do you want me to so much!?” Jeff yelped.
“I told you why! See if she’s less likely to murder us now! Please!” Moon whined.
“Ugh. Fine. But it’s your fault if I die.” Jeff grumbled.
He went to find Jade, hoping he wouldn’t die.
“Um. Hi.” He said nervously when he found her.
She glared at him, but Moon was right. She did look less murderous today.
“What d’you want?” She grumbled.
“Uh. Moon had, um, a question. She wondered, if, uh, if you hated her or not.” Jeff stammered.
“I hate pretty much everyone.” Jade snapped. “But if she means do I loathe her specifically, then no.”
“O-k.” Jeff backed off and went to find Moon.
“So does she hate me?” Moon asked.
“She hates everyone. But she said she doesn’t loathe you specifically. So she doesn’t hate you any more than she hates most others.” Jeff answered. “Now sTOP TRYING TO GET ME KILLED.”
Jeff yawned and stretched. The past week had been pretty uneventful, and holy fuck he was bored. He went outside of the cave, looking for something to do. Back in the cave, the ghiblis, Ash, Moon, Dune, and Sandstone were all snoozing in a puddle. Scorcher and Cumulus were chatting nearby, and Raindrop was basking in the sun on a rock. Jaiden was… somewhere nearby? Jeff didn’t know. She was always off on her own for whatever reason.
Jeff decided to take a risk and go find Jade. Even her murderous thoughts were more interesting than this boring day.
After a bit of walking in the general direction of where Jaiden last went, he paused for a moment, then gave up and turned around to head back home. Just then, a snarl sounded behind him. He stiffened, and turned around. There was basically a dog a bit taller than him behind him, eyeing him hungrily.
“...Fuck.” Jeff sped off towards home. But the dog thing was faster, and caught up with him easily, leaping at him. Jeff yelped as the dog slammed into him and pinned him to the ground. Slobber dripped onto him as its warm breath wreathed around his neck. Desperately he twisted, trying to throw the dog off of him. It stumbled, but easily regained its footing. It shook itself and lunged towards Jeff’s neck. Jeff screeched and wrenched an arm free of the dog’s paws, grabbing its snout and wrestling it away from him. But the dog was going to overpower him, and sooner or later it would probably kill him and eat him.
“Fuck off, you stupid bitch!”
The dog yelped as something slammed into its skull and bounced off, leaving a trickle of blood in its wake.
Jaiden!
Now she was hurling herself at the dog with a random branch that she sharpened. She plunged the branch into the dog’s side. It screeched in fierce pain, collapsing. Jaiden tore the branch out of the dog’s side, and blood poured from the gaping hole it left. The dog twitched feebly, letting out a whimper, and then went still.
“Fuck. Thank you.” Jeff wheezed.
“Yeah, stop being an idiot,” Jaiden muttered, poking the dog with her stick. “I don’t go around murdering ghalgeyas for the fun of it.”
“Well, that surprises me.” Jeff muttered.
“Yep, that murderous-looking person isn’t actually a murderer. What a brilliant surprise.” Jaiden rolled her eyes.
They headed back together, partly because Jeff was convinced something was going to try to murder him again.
A few days later, Jeff was on a walk again (with Dune because he didn’t want to get jumped by a creepy death alien again) when he heard a scream.
Both of them jumped. Jeff then heard a distant Jaiden screeching, “FUCK!”
Both of them ran over to see what the ruckus was about.
Jaiden was darting back and forth, confusing a big shiny thing in front of it. The lure snapped at her, snarling in frustration when it couldn’t get to her. Jeff then saw spatters of blood, and something hiding in a bush. Jeff and Dune jumped down a slope, ran the distance over to the skirmish, and threw themselves into the fight. Dune attached himself to the lure’s face and began clawing and biting at its eyes.
Jaiden immediately darted over to the bush where the shapes were hiding. Jeff, not knowing what to do, hesitated, glanced around, saw a convenient sharp stick lying around, grabbed it, and started stabbing the lure. It bellowed in pain, still shaking its head, trying to dislodge Dune.
Finally, Dune lost his grip and went flying. The lure snarled, looking around. It looked indecisive, as if it was wondering if Jeff and the others were not to be underestimated. Finally, it snarled at Dune, who was speeding back at it, and lunged. Dune skittered back, and then threw himself onto the lure’s legs and starting mauling its toes.
“Dune! Don’t die! I’ll get one of the flyers!” Jeff yelped, speeding off. When he got to their home, the first one he saw was Scorcher. “Scorcher! Come quick! No questions! Hurry! Fast! Ack!”
Jeff sped back over, with Scorcher flapping bewilderedly behind him. As soon as Scorcher saw the lure, he flung himself into the battle, breathing bursts of fire onto the lure. The lure screamed, and fled, slipping into the nearest body of water it could find. There was a slight hissing sound as it melted into the clear blue river water.
There was rustling in the bush, and two dragon-like things popped out, followed by Jaiden. The dragon things looked very young, despite the fact they were actually huge.
“Holy shit sticks, they’re parahexilians,” Dune breathed, suddenly right next to Jeff. “As adults, their wingspan is as wide as a Boreal Warden is tall. Just standing they’re like a bit more than a third of the height of a Boreal. My point is, they’re huge. Like, massive huge. They could squish you and not notice. Like a Boreal.
Jeff suddenly recalled the time something huge had flown over his head once. It had been heading toward the oasis, after they left, probably intent on murdering the murderers. While they were huge, sigmatoxes didn’t look that much smaller, and anyway there were like five sigmas. The para was probably dead by now.
They went back home, the two paras in tow.
Chapter 9
It was night. Stars twinkled cheerfully in the night sky, while crickets (well, probably not crickets) chirped and nightly creatures screeched.
Jaiden glared up at the sky, and then down back at the pool. Everyone was asleep, in the cave. Jaiden picked up a rock and hurled at the pool, putting her anger into it. She hated it here. It was stupid, and it was dangerous, and it was thoroughly Willow-less.
She missed Willow. A lot.
Willow probably thought she was dead.
Jaiden’s form of grief was anger, She knew that her anger was probably something that hurt some creatures, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to go home, but she couldn’t. And she didn’t want Willow to come to Sonaria, because it was too dangerous and Willow would probably die, which would hurt even more.
All she could do was wish, but that was painful.
Every second she was here was more painful than the last.
A yawn from behind Jaiden made her jump. Slightly. Not noticeably, she hoped. Footsteps walked up to her.
“G’morning,” Jeff murmured sleepily, stretching.
“It’s a terrible morning. The fucking worst.” Jaiden grumbled.
“Damn. I’m hungry. Where’s the food?”
“There are ringberries over there,” Jaiden snapped, flapping her hand in the direction of the ringberry bushes.
“Thanks.” Jeff grunted, heading off in that direction.
Jaiden didn’t want to have to interact with anyone else this morning. She headed off in a random direction, the opposite way that the ringberry bushes were.