2. Safe Gestures

Magim awoke from a nightmare into another nightmare. When he slept, he dreamt he was being chased by those ghosts they called Fleshfeasters. He had such a hard time imagining them, that they sometimes looked like clouds with eyes, but like plants with sharp claws at other times.

Then he awoke and saw the entire jungle was gone. And with that, his food and cover.

His stomach rumbled, his body almost refusing to work until he had eaten, as hey lay on a warm stone under the sun. As bearded dragon, he could flatten himself like a leaf and run hard—but that wouldn’t help him now. He felt ill. His mouth was dry and hard, as if somebody had tried putting a stone into it. His front paws were barely able to carry him.

His front paws looked very different than last night. The skin was covered in wounds and bulges, which made it red, purple and green. He’d never seen this before—which made it worse. It hurt and worsened with each movement.

Alright. What’s the first step to becoming strong? Food. He rose up and walked away from the empty plains, as he did every day, for tens of years now.

Years in which nothing happened. Nothing good, nothing bad. It was always step one: repeat step one forever. Would this still be fun once he reached the ripe age of a million years old? With such weird front paws he might not even make that.

After walking half a day he found a clearing with edible plants, but they were guarded.

Not really, dear reader. Animals couldn’t build fences yet and certainly no locks, but most planteaters didn’t even realized other creatures existed. Forefrogs had always been more aggressive though: if they thought you were about to eat THEIR plants, they’d push you out of the way.

Magim filled his longs, collected his courage, and stepped forward.

A lizard immediately pushed him away as he stumbled past him. He didn’t hesitate and burst through the Forefrogs to a tasty plant. Well, he thought, that’s step two to becoming strong: take all you can get.

“Go away!” a frog yelled. The lizard didn’t understand. Why did Magim understand? Bearded dragons had always been better at imitating or understanding other animals.

The lizard turned around and nipped at even more leaves. He was quite a bit larger then Magim and the frogs. But he was also clumsy and walked past the plants several times before he finally grabbed one.

The frogs pushed him around. A third frog tried to quickly pull all plants out of his reach.

“Also mine!”

“You not us.”

The lizard’s mouth fell open. “I also here.”

The frogs froze. The lizard had weird teeth. Triangular, long, much sharper. It didn’t help him eat leaves, that was for sure, because it took an eternity before he swallowed one leaf.

Most animals didn’t even have teeth. They just swallowed food directly or broke it into tiny bites beforehand. But if an animal did have teeth, Magim had only seen small square stubs.

“You not us. You weird. Weird teeth.”

“You weird head.”

Magim snuck closer and tried to eat leaves on the other side, unseen. His mouth almost caught the first bite when the frogs noticed him too. Paws pushed him backward. He couldn’t stop it with his weak, sick front paws that hurt more and more.

“You sure not us.”

“Yes! Yes I am like you!” Magim looked at how the frogs stood. They leaned more on their hind paws. They moved with leaps instead of steps, and their fingers held thick webs that made any paw movement difficult. That had to feel like you were always bound.

Magim imitated them. Hij tried the same posture, the same slow way of grabbing things, the same lack of paw movement. The frogs seemed unsure how to react. They looked at each other, then Magin, then each other.

“You us?”

Magim also tried to copy their words. It was hard to remember the difference sometimes, between his own language and that of other animals. “I like you. Share plants.”

The frogs now let Magim be and pushed the lizard away with more force. He stood still, angry and tail raised, but said nothing.

Magim also tried to imitate that posture, to calm the lizard, but stopped halfway. Those paws were big and his claws were sharp. And was he still chewing on the same leaf? That had to be step three: at some point, you had to swallow the food.

“What animal are you?” Magim asked.

“Name Higgis. I like you. Plants—” The frogs shook their heads and pushed Higgis away definitively, after which they ate the final leaves. There was little food. Magim could understand.

“Can help!” Higgis said. “Carry heavy things. Protect. Big and strong.”

He wanted to stretch his size by standing on his hind paws, but lost his balance and rolled over the floor. The frogs laughed at him.

“You funny. Can help entertain.”

The frog tapped Higgis’ nose. He playfully nipped at it, but missed completely. Magim suspected something was wrong with his eyes. He was funny—but could be much more.

“He with me,” Magim quickly said. He showed his sick skin and hoped it was convincing. “Carries me, can move bad now.”

Higgis looked at him for a while. Then he smiled and hopped alongside. “Yes! Yes, true.”

Magim tried to eat well, but even that hurt thanks to his dry mouth. The frogs could have the rest. He turned around and tried it again with a shrub nearby that held softer, smaller leaves.

Behind him, it sounded as if a hundred animals suddenly feasted on the remaining plant food. Higgis had to slow down! Or his noise might give them away to those … Fleshfeasters. He was reluctant to add a step four to the plan: make sure you don’t become someone else’s food.

If you believed the rumors, of course. Animals who ate other animals? What else would they come up with? That their planet was round? That not everyone had immortality? Right, sure.

Believing, however, was easier when you saw it with your own eyes.

After five bites, Magim had removed enough leaves to reveal what lay inside this shrub. He felt something he didn’t even know he could feel. As if it was locked inside his head, for a thousand years, and only freed now.

He saw a skeleton of an animal, small as a baby, missing half of its pieces. Fragments of its egg were scattered around like snowflakes. Magim knew of no illness that made you lose half your body. The more he studied his own red, burst skin—on both front paws—the less certain he was of that. He didn’t just have to eat well, he had to find help! Someone to heal him.

The noises behind him suddenly ceased.

He turned around and saw an empty clearing. Without Forefrogs, without Higgis, even without insects. Or maybe—the frogs lay on the ground, dead, or whatever was left of them. Oh, I hope they didn’t hurt sweet Higgis, was Magim’s first thought.

His second thought was to run away from the growls at his back.