There used to be a time on this planet when you could get away with a lot more. As the gaps in the map filled in and science took a firmer hold, it was like a magnifying glass was being held up to every corner of the globe. Before the age of advanced technology where information flies around in wires and waves, there was a species thriving quietly between cypress trees on shallow water.

This species was burned under the hot eye of inquiry looking through the magnifying glass.

Things used to be easy. Easier when there were more of us. What we needed or wanted we took. From our land we took water and sun and that was easy. From the people we took their children. That was not.


A voice hangs in the air. She hisses like water hitting burning metal and carries an accent with an undertone that is reminiscent of Native American one would hear in old western movies.


We did not change but they did. We could not change; we were rooted deep in tradition like the trees that clung to the melting ground around us. Fear was what we ruled them under when we lost the advantage of numbers. When the fear was gone our ownership followed. We were never smarter and were only bound together for the harvest. I think my kind evolved in solitude. How so many of us came together, I can only wonder. Even the oldest, who had legs as thick as trunks and could move them just as much, did not know how our strange pact had held together for so long.

It was almost a shame that we did not carry sentiment or kind feelings for one another, because when the livestock rebelled, the oldest and weak were the first to be cannibalized and they took their ancient secrets with them into the dirt. The strong turned on the slow and small until the select few that were not maimed and eaten turned and fled from each other. They wandered until their legs were as thick as trunks and the animals in them withered under a diet of only water and sun.

We did not need each other and when the rest were gone I did not miss them.

I could not miss them when I was too slow to escape their hunger. I could not miss them when I was left as a husk with a head planted in the ground.





Bits of this old history remained in lore as stories to tell children at night to keep them well behaved and in bed. No respectable citizen would believe that books telling of belligerent beasts that fit small children in their gape were anything but fiction. When children and infants go missing on humid nights in the spring and summer, it is more rational to turn on their own species or accredit it to a strange accident.

Through a symbiotic miracle, plant and animal tissue live and work together seamlessly. Modified plant tissue grows from a core of mostly animal viscera.

Each organism carries some characteristic traits from a specific native plant that fuses with the soft delicate egg planted in the ground through a form of double fertilization.



After the rebellion, hunger drove the species to turn to cannibalism to supplement the animal cells in their bodies with protein and other nutrients. This decision was not made democratically within the group, but by an initially small group who would pick off weaker individuals that would wander out of sight of others. Once their husks started to be discovered by the rest, the tenuous alliance of the monsters was shed for the anarchy that had been waiting.

The later attacks were driven by increasing hunger and desperation and so often only bones and feet were left after being meticulously picked over. Bell was one of the first to be ambushed and she was not found again once starvation drove the remaining beasts to scavenging. Although her core was almost completely hallowed out, the majority of the upper chest cavity containing the heart and lungs were relatively unscathed. Her skull containing her brain was also unharmed.

This fragile mesh of tissue in her body was shielded and altered by the surrounding plant stem-cells and after months of something so close to death that air and blood ceased to circulate, a particularly temperate and fecund spring brought back the beating of her heart.

I still live in the swamp. It has become mainly a tourist attraction now, but the passing tourists are just a minor nuisance. The trash they leave behind is the worst though. I am also a 'tourist' of their home land. I have gone to the city many times, it is a vast heck hole where everything goes incomprehensibly fast and lights burn into my retinas. Oh and the lights, they are so fake. Like a lie. The air there is unclean and the people do not respect each other or me. I remember when my people were respected. It was a better time.

And I will admit I am not the smartest creature ever to be born of the Earth, in fact far from it. But I do have amazing common sense and perception to compensate, as most less-evolved creatures do. I do not, however, give off the same sensation as normal people do.

When I go to the city I may look like everyone else while I am clearly not. People turn and stare, with out fully knowing why. I try to divert their attention. I try to walk faster, hide in allies, duck around trees. I blend in physically, but I stand out so much. It is a strange thing to explain.

Another thing of interest would be the fact I can also mold myself into a biped. Obviously I do not go to a hugely inhabited place looking like a plant monster. That would be ignorant. I would be led to guess my changing has something to do with my plant-like composition as well, but I am not really sure. It is just something I do. I would rather not have to change my form, but I need to in order to fulfill my need of children's flesh. It is a morbid addiction that can't seem to be cured. But I don't want to be cured. Have you ever tasted children?

I only need to feed every few months, but I think it is still too often. I have to go through a lot of trouble to get a child to consume. Do not worry, I do not kill children. I dig up fresh graves instead. I am to slow to catch even a child. So I guess living next to such a large city has an upside; there is no shortage of the newly deceased. I can smell them all the time. It is wonderful. But I will digress.

Name: Belligerence
Alias: Bell
Species: Krawk
Gender: Female
Height: 4'2"
Weight: 650 lbs

Even beasts such as I can have emotional bonds. Mine happens to be with a small nimmo, scarcely the size of the palm of your hand. Ours is a mother son relationship. Dumpul seems to be a juvenile, but I am not exactly sure of his age. And though he seldom speaks to me I know he thanks me for my company. He normally stays on my back or in a cypress tree with a small baby sock he filled with moss. I do not tell him many things in fear of ruining his innocence. He knows nothing of the small sock's origin. My intention is for him to never find out.