1. Unsusplainable

Feria looked like someone who saw empty dirt plains where she expected an overgrown forest. For that was exactly what had happened.

Hadn’t she been here only months ago? And all trees were still alive? After several steps, the pink fox noticed eaten leaves, flowers with crooked stalks, and shells from peeled nuts.

The culprits weren’t far. A group of animals moved towards the Nightriver. Few of them could walk on four legs yet. The others still swam, or slithered clumsily across the beach, and you could never forget the insects—an explosion of insects buzzing in Feria’s ears.

She called it a group because they had high numbers. Not because it was a herd or the same species. All walked their own path, alone, searching for a plant that survived. They often didn’t even notice someone else was close.

Why would they? They weren’t able to communicate yet. And the faster you found your next plant, the more likely it hadn’t been eaten yet.

This was unsustainable. Every few months? An entire forest eaten away? Eeris, Goddess of Nature, already worked day and night to add new plants. Feria, as Goddess of Animals, now had to do her part.

She quickly reached the slow-moving group. Only two animals looked up, with languid uninterested eyes. Besides her, three little Forefrogs played and pushed each other into the water. They’d stay in the nest together for a short while, then leave on their own too.

They were frogs, dear reader, before frogs existed. Their body was longer and their hind paws identical tot heir front paws, as if they actually wanted to be horses. But one property was surely at their advantage: size. You can keep a frog in your hand now, but these frogs grow to be as tall as some trees.

“I have a godly request,” Feria said formally. She could make herself understood to all animals, even if they couldn’t respond. “Would it be possible to eat less? Or less quickly?”

Nobody responded. A few lizards shrugged. Bearded Dragons always seemed intelligent to her, but this looked more like shrugging off a few annoying insects.

“We must eat all day, or we won’t survive.”

Feria didn’t know who said it. She found it hard to believe. These animals did nothing all day, only growing fatter! She knew herbivores had to put effort into digesting all their plant food, but to chew on leaves all day?

She needed Eeris, who had spontaneously vanished again. Probably ran after a butterfly, or discovered a new species of tree, like a little child.

She needed her Hespryhound. To hug, yes, but also to intimidate these animals into listening. But, well, her pet had also vanished. For all they knew, he had eaten that entire forest, that’s how large her little puppy had become. It made her smile, which lost her the animal’s attention.

She needed somebody to help her. Or the entire planet would be barren again! Stripped of all food! And then? Would animals jump back into the waters? After millions of years they could finally walk on land and breathe, and then the land just … runs out?

All three of the Forefrogs fell into the water. The group trudged onwards, but Feria waited, and waited, and waited.

She ran to the shoreline and looked down.

Not a single frog came back up, for they had all disappeared.

“Help! Did anybody see the playing frogs?” she yelled over her shoulder. “They disappeared!”

Hundreds of eyes look at her unblinking. Two bearded dragons whispered among each other. The message was quickly picked up. Animals could not understand each other, but that wasn’t needed if you heard the emotion in this message. They started looking around, more and more nervous, as if to explore every corner of this place. Their voices grew louder. Feria heard … panic?

Until the largest bearded dragon screamed: “Fleshfeasters!”

All animals ran in different directions, with more stumbles than successful exits. That’s what you get, Feria though, if you never practice running hard. It was a mean thought, but Feria knew it would be needed to save these jungles. A small group stood behind Feria, wanting her protection, but the others had run away.

The sun set. No frogs came back up, but she did notice shadows in the water. Larger than those frogs. Faster, deeper, more agile. Heart in her throat, she stepped back, away from shore. The animals followed eagerly. Fly after fly was fetched out of the air by the nervous bearded dragons, but the luminous fireflies were left alone.

“Fleshfeasters?” Feria mumbled, her voice hoarse.

She’d heard of them. Rumors, fairy tales, stories from animals who didn’t have all their ducks in a row. Since Hanah added her Soulsplitter to this world, animals didn’t die of old age anymore. As long as you didn’t get ill or wounded, you could live forever. That didn’t prevent, of course, that your mind wasn’t as sharp anymore after a hundred years.

“Ghosts. Rumors. Gossip,” Feria confidently told the shivering group. Their location was quickly cast in shadow.

They had to move away from here.

“Nonsense,” the bearded dragon said. “There! There’s another one!”

His tail pointed; all eyes followed. Nearby, shrubs shivered and shook, as if a smaller shrub wanted to grow and break out of it, surrounded by growls. “There is nothing … there is nothing …”

“They have red eyes!” someone behind her yelled.

“Sharp teeth!”

“Eat everything and everyone!”

“Ghosts! Spirits! They don’t belong here!”

Someone nudged her side, startling her. “You’re a Goddess! Do something!”

Maybe they should TREAT me like a Goddess, she thought. But they were right. She had magic, they didn’t. She made herself tall and snuck towards the shrubs. The beast had to be large. And spikes? Did she see spikes?

A black paw suddenly reached for her. She cringed—until she recognized the paw. Her brother Darus, a huge labrador wolf, stepped from the shadows with twigs stuck in his fur. He almost seemed a porcupine; and his face betrayed equal pain.

“This is the last time I play hide and seek with these animals,” Darus grumbled. “They don’t understand. I hide, but they never actually seek, and—”

Feria jumped to him and gave him ten kisses.

“I’m happy to see you too, but—”

The group sighed from relief. Two gods, ten animals, they had to be safe. Especially because Darus was friends with everyone, even insects and plants.

Then he looked up and noticed the entire jungle on this side of the Nightriver was gone. He stroked his chin and was surely preparing some silly remark, but Feria didn’t have the patience.

“We have to find a solution. More plants. Or less creatures. Other magic. Or … or …”

“I could make a mountain range?”

“Darus, you always want to make a mountain.”

“This time it’s a great idea! Really! I make mountains and, say, animals are unable to walk to new jungles every time!”

Feria sighed. It was an idea. “Can you do little mountains? Even we can’t cross your Impossible Wall yet.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll contain myself.”

The more flies buzzed around her, the more she started swatting them away like an insane god. Even that was becoming a problem. Could a Goddess never be at peace? She pulled Darus with her, away from eavesdropping animals, but they just followed her wherever she went.

So she spoke publicly. “What do you know … of the Fleshfeasters?”

His face turned grave. “Not enough. I’ve been hearing rumors about CARN for years. Never could catch one.”

He walked away. They followed the Nightriver from a safe distance. Long ago it was named the Dayriver, the water bright and shining. Then the water suddenly turned black—and that color had never disappeared.

Eeris claimed a plant called Blacktrail caused it. Feria hoped that plant stayed in the water. The world had been hot and swampy for millions of years, causing your paws to sink into wet earth. If the entire earth turned black too, she’d be sad all day.

They reached a waterfall. At the top, the water was dark and opaque, but down below the droplets took on their original color again. Feria though the place felt odd, but couldn’t place the feeling.

Nearby lay three animal bodies, who died from a huge bite into their side. They were young and still warm. I can’t deny it, she thought, this was no natural death.

They moved to the edge to look out across the valley below.

Hundreds of animals, alive and well, ran across it. Like one huge centipede slithering away from danger, over the bottom of the Mayfill—the lake that, on this day at least, was not filled with water.

“They tried to flee by jumping into the waterfall,” Darus said. “These were too slow.”

This surely didn’t calm down the animals. They nudged her again and asked for protection, to sleep in the Throne of Tomorrow this night, if Feria didn’t know a spell that would make them really unattractive to Fleshfeasters.

They all asked the same thing, again and again, because they didn’t hear the others ask the same thing.

But Feria’s mind was elsewhere. Their largest fear since creating planteaters seemed to have become a reality: animals who weren’t satisfied and started eating other animals. And then she realized why this place felt odd.

Not a single insect buzzed in hear ears anymore.