Metamorphosed

“Tell me what you think,” Rhinocindy V asked its mother. “I’m speaking about how we became such an awesome civilization, and I want it to be historically accurate."  

#

Helena was nervous despite the sabre-tooth tigers forming a seal around the last two humans, her and Jackson, in the entire area. The cats protected the humans with fierce, raw prowess. None of the other animals could get close to the two of them. Despite the seal, the animals crept closer and closer to them. The inevitable outcome of the animals overtaking them revealed itself to Helena like an epiphany. 

She gave Jackson a look, indicating she was running. Helena dashed across the elephants' backs. Swift as the wind, she brushed against the tree branches ahead of her after caressing their backs as she went and then, fearlessly, leapt into the air.

Her choice to leap into a Wobefoolagains Air meant that she would end up in the domain of another creature, but she wouldn't be able to secure her safety any better than what it was from where she leapt.

#

Jackson thought I shouldn't move too quickly after Helena because some other animals are attracted to fast movement, and I don’t want to become an hors d'oeuvre. I'll wait a good fifteen minutes before I look around. And when he did, the sight of animals near the sabre tooths seal overwhelmed him. 

“Wow, there's a lot of animals!” he exclaimed. “In every direction, no less!”

Scatters of animals of varying lengths, shapes, and sizes. As Jackson ran off the elephants’ backsides, he was sure one of those animals wouldn’t be far behind and feared he'd be caught at any moment. 

Jackson ran. He muttered, "Hustle!" as his instinct to flee took over his feet. He mounts his sabre-tooth tiger at the end of his run when near the tree. He views everything else as insignificant now. He feels temporarily safe in his one location, on the back of his sabre-tooth; he knows he must forego as he jumps into the unknown domain of a Wobefoolagains Air Leap. 

Wobefoolagains Air is the air involved when someone takes a blind leap of faith into the air, not knowing where they might end up. In the world where Helena and Jackson come from, many Wobefoolagains Air moments can take humans into many different domains—where other creatures known as invasive species—live. 

The danger was that one never knew which domain they’d leap into. Woobefoolagains Air, while more common than the house fly, was less common than a third strike of lightning in the same place. 

Jackson, inside his mind, kept repeating quintessentially fast, “You sure this is the right thing to do, Jackson? You sure?” Until the last moment, his ass touched the backside of his sabre-tooth’s until there was no more time for him to think. 

A rush of air hit him, but before he could advance into another domain, Helena’s arms were outstretched, looking for his to grab onto. He quickly responded kindly, extending his arms to hold Helena's and pull her back into this domain. The two collapsed onto the ground. The sabre tooth instinctively created the sabre tooth seal around them. 

#

The animals awakened as the crimson sphere emerged from the horizon. The temperature remained high from yesterday’s blistering heat while the sun rose for a more brilliant and radiant day. 

The haze made the pathways and landscape appear soft or sw-haz-ay-ing in the distance. A loud crack of thunder boomed through the air. Heavy rain followed—with a mix of cyclonic rain and torrential downpours—falling in huge puddles everywhere. As it finished, the animals gathered around the watering hole. There was enough water for each animal, which had all been heavily watered and well bathed. 

“Do you believe those sabre-tooth tigers? Protecting the dumbest of us all, like that—the two-foot upright walkers? It’s astounding.” Rhinocindy asserted.

“Those damn walkers possess no discernible advantage over the rest of us at performing any task effortlessly; in fact, they try harder than the rest of us and get nowhere in comparison to us," Rhinocheryl said.

"No. Check them out. Damn submissive sabres!" Rhinocindy said, "Nobody can stand those idiotic two-legged upright walkers." 

“They could be our downfall one day.” Rhinocheryl chuckled.

"I think those sabre-tooth tigers are foolish. Those two-legged upright walkers are going by way of the dodo bird around here," Stripe Zebra said. "And soon enough, they will be left alone out here without their guardian sabre-tooths to keep us at bay."

“Permitting those two-legged upright walkers to ride them was a bad idea. Honestly, how far will it go? Soon, they'll be putting leashes on those sabre-tooths and confining them like pets,” Rhinocheryl interjected as she sharpened her horn on the boulder in the hole.

#

The massive cats, tigresses and their lions let out a giant roar, informing the other animals their time at the waterhole had ended. While the cats moved in, the other animals sought shade. The sabre-toothed cats drank to their hearts' content. 

The other two-legged upright walkers had all been “attacked, eaten, and/or disappeared,” perhaps through Wobefoolagains Air into different domains or by the animals' paws outside the sabre-toothed tigers' seal. Helena and Jackson were not linked romantically yet. 

But encircled by their sabre-toothed tigers’ seal, they finally relaxed, splashed and danced freely about. The other animals recognized the mating dance when they saw it.  However, Helena and Jackson had not explored any kind of romantic relationship since Helena had been Jackson’s best friend’s romantic partner. Jackson didn’t believe moving in on Helena was a proper relationship for him to pursue. 

The two-legged upright walkers—humans, a mix of chimpanzees and monkeys, in the other animals’ estimation—loved being in the water and making all sorts of noises as they splashed around. Their insane behaviours toward the different animals—in little doses—had the animals draw collectively closer to the sabre-tooth tiger seal over their time at the water hole until all that remained between them and the two humans, Helena and Jackson, was a skinny amount of space left before the animals were on the heels of the sabre-toothed ones.  

#

Jackson snapped his hands on the water's surface, opening their eyes to the gravity of their situation—his and Helena's. A single fumble in the water hole caused a pivotal moment in their existence. Each knew something was afoot, and expedient attention was needed to address the matter.

Helena's pupils widened, and her eyes grew large. Her keen gaze fixed on Jackson. She gave him a look as she moved her eyes to the sabre-tooth seal around them.  Finally, it sank into him how close the other animals came while he and Helena bathed and refreshed.  

Instead of serenity like so many days before, Jackson filled with terror as he looked over the horizon. What have we here? There simply weren't enough “us” anymore, Jackson thought. He grasped the meaning of Helena's expression before she ran and made her Wobefoolagains Air leap. 

With the speed of light, Helena guided the path from her sabre-tooth’s back to the rhinoceros' and then elephants' backs. At the end of their backs, she knew cruising by the tree with many leaves would leave her vulnerable to the other animals.  

It’s how she knew at the end of the last elephant’s back she must head past the tree branch and into the open air to escape this sticky dilemma. Nothing short of a Wobefoolagains Air leap would do, and she hoped Jackson would follow, but regardless, she went—because she was a doer. Her back flew into the air, and suddenly, she disappeared while Jackson watched. 

#

Jackson immediately realized he must accompany her shortly afterward, or he faced the prospect of being separated from her across domains. 

He didn’t hold out for encountering an inner dilemma while heading on the same journey Helena did. He instinctively rose to pursue her and surveyed the water hole's surrounding area. He landed on his sabre-tooth and felt a false sense of safety—on its back—none of the other animals missed a beat as Jackson rode on the back of his sabre-toothed tiger.  He followed Helena's path, stepped off the rhinoceroses' backs, and quickly switched to the elephants. When the elephants squawked, Jackson nearly fell over in his attempt to move past them. 

“What am I doing? He thought.  I’m giving up a lot if I follow Helena. And for what? We’ll never be more than just friends. Everyone else I know has temporarily lost me, but they’ll permanently be lost to me now that I’m following her. 

Assured in doing what Helena had done only a few seconds before. There was no way out for him because the end came quickly. As he sprung off the last elephant’s back, gravity grabbed him. Before he could plummet to the earth in a heap, Helena’s outstretched arms met his, and he embraced her, pulling her from the domain she had leapt into.  

She tumbled out of her domain with something—odd affixed to her face. 

For a split second, Jackson, stunned, fell with her. Then he looked at her—her situation, with the giant-sized creature on her face and thought. This can't be good, whatever it is. When he battled it, the monstrous sight turned its focus back to him and abandoned Helena. Jackson could see that no permanent damage had been done to Helena. He took the monstrous being that resembled a smaller version of an octopus-looking starfish.

The other curious animals were eager to get a piece of this new creature before others. Jackson stood aside and thought soon there would be plenty for many animals to eat. He knew the octopus-looking starfish, if it were anything like real starfish, would reproduce asexually. 

All it took was the swipe of the second-largest cat’s scratch to the creature’s back—and then another, and slowly, pieces of the creature wound up all over the vicinity of the water hole. Each morsel chewed—by many of the animals around the water hole—the cats let the pieces fall around them as they were satiated. 

The lionesses seized their bit of creature and fled the scene. While the lion and pups devoured morsel after morsel, some of the other animals neared the waterhole and gazed in astonishment at the pride's foolishness. 

Once the lions had finished their juicy feast, the hyenas cleaned the bones, which continued long into the night.

Helena and Jackson returned to their dwelling area on the back of their sabre-toothed tigers, exhausted after all the excitement. 

Helena asked, "What was that thing?" 

"Listen," Jackson remarked. “I have no idea, but it can’t be good for any of us.” 

“Nothing like it has ever been seen before," Helena confessed, "throughout my travels around this globe nor in any domain anyone has returned from.

“Yes. I agree. We need to determine what's next for you and me,” Jackson answered. 

"The force of its grip on my face, Jackson, was... well, it was so intense that I believed I was on the verge of having my eyes and teeth extracted." Helena’s expression was grave. “Do I have residual markings anywhere?” 

"None that I can see. Why did you bring it back? Why didn’t you shake it off your face first before you returned? You know the dangers of what you’ve done, surely." 

"Listen!" she remarked. "That being illuminated a seedy, otherwise dimly lit domain that, when I entered, looked no bigger than a room. Until I felt the intense covering and suckling feeling over my face, I had no idea what they were doing—which seemed as simple as luminescence at the time—oh, but Jackson, it was far more horrible than that.

“I don’t understand. You had half a minute to return to your previous domain, so why didn’t you?" 

“Time travelled quickly, and before I knew it, my only hope was for you to follow me, appear in this other domain, and save me. You accomplished precisely that for me.” Her face lit up with a grin. 

Jackson smiled as he thought. “Maybe we are destined to be together; we will go to a more suitable site in the morning. No matter how pleasant it is, we can't spend all our time in the waterhole. Remember, we're just looking for our kinfolk.” 

“Okay, Helena, understand something. We must act immediately to prevent more issues. We need to ensure the animals have killed it, and then we should depart to continue our search for our kinfolk. If any animals are interested in joining us, we should allow them to do so and leave now," Jackson remarked. 

Jackson and Helena had the animals ready and in formation to follow them after the sabre-toothed tigers by six o'clock. They purposely didn’t include any animals who had consumed the flesh of the giant, octopus-looking starfish of a creature. With its luminescence and suction cup-like qualities, an octopus-looking starfish was a dangerous combination, as Helena knew well. 

This invasive species didn’t trigger a warning, and none of the animals were alarmed except for humans and a few more intelligent animals.

The caravan took its first break at a waterhole kilometres away in the early morning hours of sunlight the following day. 

The remaining animals at the first water hole gathered around theirs simultaneously. 

The consumers who ate the enigmatic flesh metamorphosed into gigantic, octopus-looking starfish creatures in the head and appendages, but their trunks remained their own. Their outer coverings—fur, feathers, or skin—remained familiar to identify which octopus-looking starfish creatures were suitable for consumption among the animals in the hierarchy of the animal kingdom. Animals who ate the first night were eaten. Until all of the animals gathered at the water hole were infected by this invasive species, they returned respectively to their herd, gaggle, pride, journey, and crash. 

#

But the starfish-like invasive species made their mark on the world the evening Helena returned abruptly from their domain, where she would have most assuredly died in a room with only those creatures to engulf her. 

Helena’s hasty retreat and Jackson’s robust grip secured her to safety for their best outcome but not for the best overall outcome of the other species in the world. 

#

“It wasn’t the best—at the time—for any creature. But I shudder at what might have happened if Helena and Jackson had one more second to think things through and concluded they were all to be killed. Where would that have left me and you?” Rhinomom said. 

“That’s just it, mom. We’ll never know. We are half a part of them and half a part of the invasive species; technically, we don’t exist in either place. But we live everywhere, throughout both domains, unbothered.” Rhinocindy V winked and said, “Despite our horns becoming much smaller and pointier, I have no complaints. Do you?"