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

Chris shakes his head “Your weird you know that Luke.”

“Yeah don’t gotta tell me about it.” Luke keeps struggling to keep his antlers balanced.

As Luke and Chris walk through the hallways they notice the large amounts of grass and plants covering the tiled floor. Luke's eyes spot a large patch of small white mushrooms near the elevator. He then goes to sniff at it and then chomps them down.

“LUKE WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, MUSHROOMS ARE POISONOUS!” screams Chris.

Luke gives Chris a questionable look as he continues to munch on the half-eaten mushroom *MUNCH* It’s.. *MUNCH* delicious you know. *CHEW* .. tastes like chicken.”

“Jeez, Luke you always put your mouth before

life or anything for that matter,” Chris says staring at Luke.

Luke looks back at Chris with now a large clump of grass in his mouth “Let's get a move on Luke…” says Chris

As Chris looks at the elevator he begins to raise his small arms to activate the button. Nothing had happened. Chris clicks the button again but yet no sound or life is coming from the elevator.“Welp it looks like we're gonna have to go down the stairs, come on Luke.”

“Alrighty, I'll race you there.” Luke starts to prance towards the emergency door as he knocks on the metal door, sending a vibrating tingle to his entire body and falls.

“Luke, are you ok?” asks Chris.

“Yeah I don’t think I can open this door, you mind helping me out?” Luke replies.

“Don’t worry I got this, I saw this trick from a movie.” Chris begins to grip the doorknob of the door and loses grip again, he tries harder to turn the doorknob, he then pushes against the metal door with his head. The door creaks and opens up to the inside of the building as the two boys hop down the stairs. As they reach the bottom of the floor they find a troubling view of the building.

“Oh no.. the main lobby is blocked by rocks, we are going to have to venture into the garage.” Chris says. “I don't like the garage though, it's dark, it's big and it was always filled with homeless people.” Luke says.

“Come on Luke, it’s ok we got this. Plus I bet we can scare off any big strangers that might want to take us.” Chris stares at the antlers of his friend.

Chris and Luke continue downwards to the garage of the building, the stairwells get darker until everything looks like shadows. The walls merge into the darkness of the floor.

“I can barely see anything down there, can you Luke?” Chris asks, squinting his eyes trying to look around the garage.

Luke glances around the room spotting some kind of door. “My sight is perfectly fine, a little greyish but I see a large opening for the both of us so we can go through. Luke guides Chris through the darkness and notices that no one was around. Only plants, and broken down cars. He did hear whispers, of some kind animal sound coming from the cars.

“Chris I don’t think we're alone..” Luke whispers trying to figure out what kind of animal he hears.

“Let’s just hurry up and maybe it won't be so bad.” Chris responds quickly as he does not feel comfortable not being able to hear what his friend hears.

They both begin to walk faster through the dark garage and the whispers begin to grow louder but the sounds are coming from on top of their heads.

Luke finds the light source he was leading Chris to. “Chris I see a small light coming off from the other side, let's just bolt for it.”

Chris begins to walk slowly, lifting his slender legs high as he does not want to step on things he can not see. “I don’t know Luke. I feel like there is a lot of …. people...or a lot of things are in here.”

They both started to move faster until they heard a fluttering noise coming towards their direction. Chris stays silently as Luke starts to pant through his nose heavily. The small fluttering creature begins to flutter around the two of them and then lands on Luke’s antlers.

The creature then crawled up to the face of Luke and turned its head giving a small squeak. Luke gives a large high pitch cry as he starts to charge to the door and loud high pitched squeaks start to consume the garage as the two boys prepare to dash away.

“I TOLD YOU THERE WAS SOMETHING IN HERE” “YOU DON’T GOTTA TELL ME CHRIS YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE BATS” Luke shouts.

The light from the opening was getting closer now and as they reached it both leap into the outside world landing on the ground. Behind them they watch a colony of bats fly out quickly. One small bat flutters slowly, teetering around and looking back at Luke. The bat flashes its vampiric teeth and a hiss then quickly goes to join its colony. The two look at the outside world, and are in awe of how nature has taken over the city. Most of the signs on buildings are blurred out, with many cars looking like large hairy caterpillars. Trees were no longer caged as they have torn up the concrete sidewalks with their roots. Bountiful amounts of animals are watching, speaking, and breathing all over the city. The city is alive, not with humans but with animals. Thick vines have consumed the tallest of towers making them compressed and more suitable for destruction. Most of the floral vegetation started to bloom around the cracks of the sidewalk

“Wow.. it looks so...weird up close,” Luke observes.

“You got that right buddy it seems like we're in a really large zoo.” Chris nods in agreement.

“Ok Luke I’m hungry and I’m tired can we find someplace to eat?” Chris asked

“Hey, we can go to that fast food joint down the block, it should have some food in there,” Luke asks.

“Sure what can hurt if we loot some of their patties,” Chris says.

“You think they will still be fresh even? I know chips and candy have a long shelf life but I'm not so sure about meat. Plus are you gonna eat it raw!” Luke asks shockingly.

“Well coming from the guy who just ate mushrooms off an elevator, then yeah. Maybe the rules are different now.” Chris responds to Luke.

“Hmm, it is kinda weird that I have a craving for veggies and other plants like foods. I’m not sure if it is because I am a deer, but I am gonna miss some tasty meat.” Luke says with a frown on his face.

“Well you said it yourself Luke it tasted like chicken. Plus you get to eat potatoes constantly right?” Chris says to Luke.

“OH YES! I’M COMING FOR THOSE TASTY TATERS!” Luke shouts in excitement.

“HAHA YOU GET MEAT AND I GET POTATOES. HOW DOES IT FEEL YOU LOSER MEATASAUR!” Luke playfully mocks Chris.

“How would you feel if I ate you instead?” Chris says to Luke as he looks back seriously. “Just kidding buddy. I won’t harm no veggiesaur erh- I mean herbivore.” He gives Luke a wink.

“Alrighty, let us go get some food now!” Luke says as he skips on the concrete.

Chris watches as he notices how gracefully Luke jumps with his legs. The two of them set off to walk down their city, their unfamiliar New York City. Each building and storefront no longer looks the same, but they continue to go. As they ventured off they did procrastinate a little bit. Two adventurous and curious boys can’t deny something awesome is around them so instead of wading down towards the restaurant they walk off to familiar stores they once knew. They saw that their favorite video game arcade has now only machines with dirty screens and no one to play them. They then continued as they saw a little kangaroo hopping around. Chris was about to blurt out hello to it, although Luke was a bit hesitant to talk with strangers. Chris looked a little disappointed and gave a small-large sigh but he walked off as he tripped. He wasn’t exactly used to walking with an ingrown toenail that can easily slash things. Luke laughs at his failing to stand up but, he too also feels weird in this new body, without arms, and that he feels he is crawling most of the time. A lot of their time was wandering through the neighborhood that Luke once lived in. Luke had a tree that they both liked to sit by and talk about life or have some snacks. The tree was much smaller than the last time they saw it a couple weeks ago. Both are relieved that they still have their tree to rely on.

Luke walked up to the tree and poked the bark of the tree with his horns. “You know Chris, it's not in bad shape “ Luke then glances at Chris as he seems a bit down. “Cheer up bud, I know everything is weird right now but there is surely a way to solve this problem alright.” He says trying to comfort him.

“I know Luke, it's just...look around you. There is no one here, and I don’t know how to feel if everyone-'' Chris was choked on words with a scary thought he imagined.

“They couldn’t have died Chris. I mean look if you were able to talk to a crow and find me, it seems we have a weird conundrum in our society.” Luke explains.

“I get what you mean, I’m just really hungry right now. May we please now get back to the restaurant near my place.” Chris says with a gloomy tone

“Alrighty let us go, but I ain’t moving until I see a smile on that face.” Luke looks sternly at Chris, while his face fills with sadness. “Chris you remember that time you had that crush on Julia and you gave her that gift?” Luke asks Chris.

“Wait how did you know about that?” Chris looks up with his scales glowing red around his face.

“*OHOH*” Luke loudly laughs to himself. “You know what happens when you act sheepish and get caught by me” Luke winks at Chris with a large grin on his face.

“Luke no…” Chris says.

Luke started to create an awkward smile as he started to chant. “Bah- bah bah” Luke chanted louder.

“Luke this isn't gonna work,” Chris says to Luke, starting to smile.

“Bahhhhhh Luke continued to chant louder with his antlers bobbing up and down. Luke then tapped his feet towards the ground in a rhythm. Chris looks at this stupid dance and begins to show teeth with his large smile emerging.

“Bahhhhhhh COME ON JOIN ME!” Luke says to Chris.

Chris gave in as he too started to chant. “Bah.. bah…. bahhhhhhh!” Chris chanted. They both butted heads as they laughed it off. “Ow, that actually hurt though,” Chris says.

“Don’t worry Chris, life's not all deer and skittles” Luke snickers as he winks at Chris.

“Oh..c'mon dude..that's not even funny..” Chris says as he watches Luke laughing at his stupid pun.

“Your one crazy dude you know that Luke” Chris complimented. Both of them walk away from the neighborhood and make their way toward the road to the restaurant. They decide to take a shortcut down an alleyway that would lead to the back of the restaurant.

“Are you sure that's a good idea, Luke? I don’t want to find any more animals there.” Chris says walking slowly toward the alley.

*PFFT* You still think that there are more animals here, I mean come on there has to be some humans around.” Luke replies.

“Are you sure we’ve been walking for the last 20 minutes, and have you noticed that not one single person...a human being around? This is New York City… Where are the people? Where are the humans? There's like I don't know a bazillion people that walk around the block.” Chris says looking around.“Luke just goes around the street then if you’re a baby about it.” Chris replies pointing toward the street with his snout.

Luke lifts his head