6. Into the trees

Mami regretted asking Cosmo to drop her off at a treetop. The plan was to learn climbing, to move safely above the dinosaurs. But she couldn’t climb at all. After sitting still for an hour, she slid down the tree trunk to walk on the familiar earth.

Above her, Cosmo pretended to slow down the asteroid. When the trees were a bit further apart, she could see how Darus stood on a hill in the distance, pretending he wanted to break the asteroid into pieces. Groups gathered around him. Creatures who watched in wonder as this great wolf god demonstrated his powers.

Creatures who wanted to know if they had to start running right now or not.

And then she didn’t see the asteroid anymore. Did they stop it after all? Or is it just behind a tree?

She wanted to shout it from the treetops. The dinosaurs will be gone soon! Finally we can live!

As expected, however, the plan with the gods had to remain a secret. And the closer the asteroid came, the more she understood that it would destroy more than just dinosaurs upon impact.

She followed the fork of The Longneck into a river that small animals called The Wing, but dinosaurs called The Spine. Of course, the dinosaurs never looked up. Because if you did look up, you would see why it’s called the Wing: on most days, a gigantic flying creature passed overhead.

Safety was therefore not the main reason the Gosti lived here. No, the wingbeats of the creature were so strong, it could throw leaves, stones, even water into the air, until a whirlwind formed as thick and impenetrable as a dense fog. No one standing on the outside could look inside the Ghost Den—and the Gosti liked that.

But they also couldn’t do the reverse: look outside from the inside.

Mami stepped through this gray mist. I’ll say an asteroid is coming, and I’ll help them flee, and then … then I’ll be part of the group again.

The first group of Gosti nibbled on a pile of nuts. They squatted, their smaller front legs curled around strong hind legs. Two big beige eyes were nearly invisible in beige fur. At first, they only had eyes for their food, but when Mami appeared, they dropped all of it.

“An asteroid is coming! We have to flee!”

“With you, I suppose?”

“Um … yes?” She stepped closer, but the frontmost Gosti stuck out a paw and hissed. Dozens of Gosti came towards the sound.

“The Gosti who drops a dino on top of Small Ones? Who then climbs onto his back and merrily goes along?”

“That was an accident.”

“We can’t afford accidents.”

They threw a nut at her. Soon the rest joined in throwing nuts, some laughing as if it was a game in which Mami voluntarily took part.

“But the asteroid is real. Believe me.” Nuts hit her everywhere. She jumped backwards and grabbed a branch to bat away the nuts.

“Either you’re stupid and clumsy, or you’re working with the dinosaurs. Either way, we don’t want you here.”

“But …”

She got a lump in her throat. She didn’t even feel the nuts anymore when she turned around and shuffled away. My family is gone. My kind doesn’t want me. Where can I go?

Behind her, the Gosti picked up their food again and continued nibbling. The creature flew by overhead and thickened the mist, until her whole world was gray and she lost her sense of direction.

Until she realized she hadn’t heard any wingbeats. And there’s only one other creature that can kick up this much dust.

She sprinted back to the middle of Ghost Den.

“Dinosaur! Dinosaur!”

“Please, Mami, just go away,” said an irritated Gosti.

Their protests died when everyone toppled over due to the trembling earth.

A gray foot smashed three trees on her left. Sharp teeth flew over her head, but not low enough to grab anyone. The apelike creatures ran away without looking out for each other, without looking back. She heard screaming behind her and knew some hadn’t gotten away in time.

Two youngsters stayed behind, left of Mami. The next foot threw a shadow over them. No! No more Gosti lost.

Her sprint soon turned into a roll through piles of leaves. The foot came down. Mami grabbed the youngsters and rolled through.

The ground rumbled, but Mami couldn’t get away and rolled up the tree trunk. She placed the youngsters on a branch just in time; she herself fell back down helplessly.

The leaves broke her fall. But she also felt something else: the sticky fingers of a Gosti pushing her aside. Their mother.

“Children! Children! Fall into my arms!”

Mami jumped up. “No. We have to get into the tree. We have to get into the tree!”

“You can get into the tree with your strange ideas.”

The dinosaur had already passed their tree. You could never forget their tail, however. The wind around Mami already whistled. She roughly grabbed the mother by her fur and pulled herself up on the first few branches.

Not a heartbeat later, a dino tail cleansed the entire floor of the Ghost Den and flung Gosti into the air as if they were mere grains of sand.

The mother hugged her children and studied Mami with intense eyes. Then she shouted at the Gosti still fleeing from the dinosaur: “Climb the trees! Get up high!”

They looked around, saw her on a high branch, and immediately tried it themselves. The dinosaur lashed his tail in all directions, dove down with his teeth, stomped his feet, but no longer got hold of any Gosti. They all sat in trees, places he couldn’t easily reach.

“Those dinosaurs don’t even see us from their height,” the mother mumbled.

Mami nodded. She remembered her conversation with Donte, which briefly elicited a smile and then a tear. “If we climb trees and move around, we could … herd-merge with some dinosaurs.”

“What?”

The Gosti were clearly uncomfortable on the branches. They immediately let jumped down again and found each other in the middle of the destroyed Ghost Den.

Mami stayed up high, alone.

“What an idea! You saved us all,” they said to the mother of the two youngsters.

“No, it was … her idea.”

She pointed up, but Mami had already turned her back.

Without fear, she jumped from branch to branch, for that’s what was needed to get away from this place. Her front legs hurt tremendously—not used to supporting her body weight this much—but she kept going.

She didn’t belong here. Donte, an annoying dinosaur, had been nicer to her than her own kind. Yet she was the one who convinced the gods to just destroy them all.

She climbed to the highest point of the tallest tree. Her tired legs received some rest.

From up here, she saw the asteroid again. Partially at first, like how you usually don’t see the full moon, then completely, noticing it was already quite big. Our world turns. That rock was never gone, it was in our own shadow half a day ago.

Cosmo and Darus still kept up the charade, but many of the creatures slowly lost confidence and sprinted away in groups. One more day, at most.

Everything was going exactly as planned. And she had never felt so horrible.

She cried there, at the highest point of the forest, where she could see everything and the magical moonlight illuminated her, until she made the decision. I have to run to the gods and say they should stop the asteroid after all. Maybe it’s not too late yet.