Animalia by Cristian Johnson (free novels to read txt) 📕

“Monroe seems to enjoy Chris's company, doesn't he?” Sam said with a puzzled look as he continued to think about something.

“He is quite an interesting fellow…” The leader says.

Sam rushed his face back to the leader as he rarely ever heard his voice speak to him. He only speaks to Monroe in private and barely to Sam at all.

“I want you to call them back over here, and make sure Chris is here with me alone.” The leader turned his head towards Sam.

“Yes sir. On it.” Sam ran out of the cave and towards the river.

“Boss needs to see you Chris,” Sam says.

Chris and Monroe look at each other puzzled why the leader wanted to see Chris alone. Chris walks up back to the cave as he sees the leader standing by the edge. He walks up to the leader as the leaders look back at Chris in the eye.

“You know why I brought you up here?” The leader speaks.

“No, not really. I saw you at the meeting a couple of days ago. Is that why you brought me up here.” Chris says.

“I brought you up here, well more of Monroe to bring you here is to tell you about what's been happening. We are dinosaurs, and there are a lot more of us. We are rare, and the others are just as scared because we are different and more powerful. I didn’t want you to fall from a fight or lose you to those...animals, but we are here now and you are now safe.” The leader says.

“Monroe did tell me about that...I didn’t know there were many others in this area. Does that make Reggie something that we are?” Chris asks.

The leader’s face twitched for a second. “What do you mean Reggie is one of us?” The leader says.

“Well he is a mammoth I believe. Not many elephants grow to the size of what he is plus he has thick fur all around his body.” Chris said.

“I once knew Reggie, a very good friend of mine, but that friendship is now but shrouded in mystery and glib.” The leader says.

Chris then asks “So what's your name, if you don’t mind telling me.” “My name is…. “

The leader becomes still for a second as he tries to think of a fake name. He is not ready to tell Chris everything yet. “Name is Chuck”

“Nice to meet you Chuck,” Chris said.

The two of them look out at the nice day outside. Sam then runs into the cave painting with something in his mouth.

“HELP! UM UM, ITS A RABBIT!!! AND I THINK SHE'S HURT!!” Sam shouts as he drops the rabbit on the ground.

Chapter 8: Pardus

It was time that our lone hero Emma has been found since her disappearance from feeling upset by her brothers' death. What has happened to her? Did a mutant mutilate her? Did Cole find her and attacked her? We are here with Sam finding Emma and now we can only wait if she is either dead or alive.

“EMMA!” Chris yells then rushes to the body, she was still breathing but could see her fur was dirty and battered with a couple of bruises on her legs.

“She’s strong for a little critter. I don’t think she is going to be dying today Chris.” Chuck said.

“Do you guys have a place where we can rest her?!” Chris says, still worried.

“We have a doctor who is a friend of ours. Sam, I want you to take Emma to Claudia and hope she can help her.

“I’m coming too. I can’t let anything happen to her, it was my fault she was not with the rest of the animals. It was my fault she ran away. ” Chris says.

Chris follows Sam as they rush towards the exit of the cave and take a trail upwards and see broken trees stripped of bark, and many of the shoots of leaves are gone from their home. They walk up to see a beautiful site of flowers and a large burrow with grass growing on top. Sam drops Emma gently in front of the burrow. “So where's Claudia?” Chris asks out of anxiety.

“Oh….yeah she’s known not to move from her spot, probably because she's really big,” Sam says.

“Claudia, my friend's buddy is hurt, can you please help her?” Sam says as he lies down in submission whimpering. With a bear-like body, a large creamy furred figure with three thick curved nails. approaches from the burrow and looks down at Emma.

“Is that a large polar bear????” Chris whispers to Sam.

“Well..not exactly, I believe from research... I mean erh- some books told me that she is a Meg-...megath-....hmm what was it?” Sam says to Chris.

“I believe it is pronounced Megatherium Sam.” Claudia gives a hearty smile to both of them. ”Hmmm, quite a beautiful sweetheart you have here. She doesn’t seem to have broken any bones nor suffer any internal bleeding. “ Claudia mumbled.

“Thank you for helping out my friend,” Chris says. Claudia gently grabbed Emma with her large claws as she laid her in the flower bed next to her.

“Just some rest and some herbs for her to eat will make her bruises go away,” Claudia mumbled again.

Claudia looks at Chris and asks.“Do you know what happened to your friend?”

“I made her upset….and then she ran away. I have not seen her since then till now. I thought she wanted some time alone.” Chris responds then looks at Sam, “By the way Sam where did you find her?”

“I found her near a pasture by the river, all she kept repeating was the name, Cole...Cole…” Sam says glancing at the ground.

“She didn’t go up to see Cole and fight him? Did she??” Chris says with a look of shock in his face. “I know she was really angry at him and only wanted him dead, but I never thought that she was going to go out of her way to attack him,” Chris mutters.

“It's best if you leave now..she won’t be waking up for a while. Now go back to you younglings.” Claudia says.

Chris and Sam nod and walk back to the Den.

Chris starts then starts talking out loud ranting about Cole. “Why I outta beat the crap out of him. He can’t just kill Emma’s brothers and then almost kill my best friend. I need to go after him.” Chris says.

“NO!...I mean no Chris...you don’t know what you're messing with. If this Cole is as bad as you say it is, then you shouldn't go out after him. He could hurt you too.” Sam says nervously.

Chris remains angry thinking how Cole almost killed Emma. His anger continues to grow then he begins to grind his teeth in his mouth. His growls soon became soft which proceeded to get louder each time he took a step. Chris looks at Sam and the garden. The emotions inside him are too much for him to handle, and control. He decides to dash off into the woods. Sam gets scared as he sees how swift Chris becomes for his thirst for vengeance.

He is rushing through woods blindly and branches continuously hit his face and body. He stops suddenly as he smells something familiar in the air. It's the smell of Cole lurking in his nostrils, that's when he decided to track him down. The sun finally sets and he continues his hunt for Cole. His purse ends up finding a sign that shows he is in a park of some sort. He notices a large building with another sigh with a map of the whole area. There he sees places for cabins and campgrounds and even the location of a pond. He looks for a paper map but finds nothing.

Chris then hears something, quickly turns his head and sees leaves rustling around a tree. He decides to move closer. He did not see anything; he heard more leaves rustling all around the tree. He was closer to the tree, he sees now it's very large with lots of leaves all over. He looks again but to his dismay nothing is there. Suddenly he can see and hear tree branches breaking and shaking. Yet nothing appears in front of him. He then catches sight of a tail in the corner of his eye. The dark black tail is smooth and moves within the trees.

It finally dawns to him who it is and Chris shouts. “COLE!!! Come out you wuss! I know you're here!”

Cole snickers, his laughter echoing throughout the tree. This makes Chris very angry hearing Coles laugh all over. Chris tries to find Cole but even though his black fur coat is obvious to see in the trees he somehow can hide himself from Chris.

“So Chris how's life buddy? Did you like the present I gave you?” Cole says laughing.

Chris continues to get angrier and shouts again. “Cole show yourself, you should have just left us alone but no you decided to be a huge jerk about it. You hurt one of my best friends. Come down here you wuss, so I can fight you.”

“Are you sure about that? I don’t want to hurt you when Luke isn’t around. He is not here to defend you and I will make you cry….Oh, wait he thinks you're a monster so may not even help you.” Cole taunts him.

“You know this entire thing that's been happening is quite interesting you know…. If you haven’t noticed already things have been quite weird. I never thought being this strong would make me overpower you so easily, imagine if I got your form eh...I think I wouldn’t have thought twice about attacking you for what you are then. I still really wish you didn't have a body of a dinosaur. Like really if you think about it I can’t dig deep into your flesh like giant animals have.” Cole says to Chris.

“So why you came here then huh...Is there any particular reason you came other than just to bully me even more?” Chris replies to Cole.

“Of course not I just want to see how much of a dumb nut you are and see if you would stay this long without even attacking me and by my superior brain power it looks like you are the real stupid one in this situation” Cole laughs at Chris.

Chris growls in anger as he looks up at him. “Speaking of which where is your dumb friend? Did he ditch you yet? Since last time I remember friends stick together. Unless… Luke is scared of you, I wouldn't blame him since he is just a deer and all while you have knives on your feet and fangs all over your mouth. If anything he would hang out with me since I’m just a sly panther with none of that freaky stuff.” Cole snickers to himself as he talks to Chris.

“No your not your just a stupid bully that has no regard for others' lives. I wish you could do something else rather than attacking me since that is just pretty whacks you know. Why am I even talking to you, why are you even still here? What do you even want from me you have your kills like you want of her sisters so just leave me alone.” Chris says to Cole.

“Well mister obvious I think you already know I do not care about anything, and I only needed them out of the picture because they took over a certain part of my home. Pests are gone then no problems and it's silent. Still a big lousy move for killing my hyena pals. I still think Luke would make a great pal with me but I can still say maybe actually this time he will be the defenseless animal as I prey on him. What a lousy form he has.” Cole replies to Chris

“You do not