An Illustration for Terrible Lizard

An Illustration for "Terrible Lizard"

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A short story: Terrible Lizard

~A Short Story~

Terrible Lizard

There are not many out there who acknowledge the fact that we are not supposed to be here. People in the bygone days believed that we occupy a special place in God’s handicraft, the cosmos, which was made by Him in His leisure, which He just thought of making after an eternity of doing nothing. That might not be true, because existing on a mote in the boundlessness of space and time, we are anything but special.  We neither know why we are here, nor what will become of us at the day’s end. Yet we are fortunate enough to be able to ask those same questions, and confusing ourselves in the process. Putting this in another way, let’s just say we are fortuitous to exist— we meaning us, humans. Millions, rather billions of years of evolution and coincidences have paved way for us to become masters of our biosphere— not of Earth, obviously, as the Earth doesn’t care what we do with things on it; whatever we do ultimately decides whether our DNA survives or not— countless species have lived, been deemed unfit for survival amidst terrene agents, and thus dwindled gradually into oblivion; in the abysmal depths of prehistoric epochs dwell the ghosts of a smorgasbord of life forms never to be revived. But, if the survival of the fittest gene is in the premise of a species’ immunity against earthly antagonists, nature has not been exactly fair.

It all began when interferometers on Earth detected gravitational waves once again; significantly more noticeable this time than when they were discovered way back in 2017. After that, there was the appearance of an unidentified, otherworldly object, which was tough to make out from the black background of space. An amateur astronomer from China had at first caught it through her telescope, while gazing at the Moon. She had reported looking at a seemingly distorted portion of the sky, with some misshapen luminous blotches around a spot, including the curved image of a pinwheel galaxy where none had ever been observed before. It was soon trending news, with all sorts of conjectures and speculations popping up, including those of aliens, black holes and what-not creating gravitational oddities. Among those who came across the news in the hours that followed (considering the speed of those kinds of news which sound like juicy, gingery rumour), were those who took the whole business to be a hoax, those who thought that the end was nigh (who were a handful only) and those who believed nonetheless reluctantly, on finding no other explanation. Finally, scientists from NASA said it could be the first direct evidence of an Einstein-Rosen bridge warping spacetime, since a black hole so close by would suck the moon right in, while subjecting the Earth to extreme tidal forces; and as for a matter of aliens, they could not trash the idea either. They were practically celebrating and calling it a providence, as atheistic as scientists probably are, that humanity even had the chance to behold such an object— an entity known to science-fiction nerds as a wormhole.

Scientists all over the world instinctively prepared themselves to study it, and to extract every last bit of information they could glean out of it. It was just when they had trained their instruments onto the enchanted piece of sky (after they had gone as far as to surmise its likeness to a wormhole, which was only a mathematical result of the theory of relativity so far), when the thing disappeared. It disappeared just like that, without a trace. The sky was smooth, dark and uninteresting as ever before, like nothing out of the ordinary had ever occurred. It was there in the sky for two days, and on the third, it was gone. It was then that the world suffered a while from unavailable satellite signal, which disrupted communication for a few hours all over the Earth simultaneously. Some people found it really uncomfortable when they tried to connect the event with the glitch in the sky. Notwithstanding, nothing occurred that would pose a lasting harm, and humans continued going about their business—mind you, nobody forgot about it. Looking at mind boggling videos on the internet that talk about impending doom or extraterrestrial invasion is one thing, and having the whole scientific community talk about a peculiarity up above in the world so high, right next to the Moon as an addition, is definitely nothing forgettable.

It was days since the spotting of the ostensible wormhole, and its unexplained, subsequent disappearance, and there was no eerie occurrence afterward, at least none that was bare to detection. By this time, scientists had had sleepless nights trying to conclude something credible and rational, from what was brought to their notice by a random woman who was awed looking up into the heavens through her cheap telescope. The enthusiasm of the common folks gradually died down, more and more resorting to the ‘hoax’-explanation—the phenomenal craze was reduced till it stood on the threshold of insignificance in a few days. In the meanwhile, however, the Moon was noticed to be rotating in a funny way—meaning, with a new period of rotation. While the Moon has for aeons been facing the Earth with just one of its hemispheres; never having naturally revealed its ‘dark side’ to Earthlings—it had now begun to turn relative to the viewers on Earth. This was something which was entirely eerie. The sapient apes on Earth were out of all clues, and frantically searching for explanations, they could find them only in supernatural, vague ones—which actually did better at spooking them out even more. And of course, scientists, relentlessly curious by profession, were as unyielding as ever.

*****

High up beyond the atmosphere of the Earth over a particular spot on the ground, in a geosynchronous orbit, a communication satellite was contentedly busy in its job. Floating dumbly in the vacuous void, it was falling toward the Earth always, yet the planet’s curvature and its own tangential velocity prevented it from ever reaching the ground—the ground always curved away before the natty piece of technology was pulled all the way to the surface by gravity. Destined to be part of the many pieces of space debris in the satellite graveyard that enveloped the planet, it was too dim-witted to ever feel morose about such a realisation, and thus carried on with falling.

As if its official consent would really matter, nature behaved awkwardly in a sneaky way, a few kilometres away from it. A wee little spherical thing began to take shape, or rather began to crunch up a sliver of the all encompassing darkness lit with glowing dots. A black ball it was, which grew in size, ripples breaking across it till it gave off lights from some distant part of the universe. The electrical power coursing through the satellite’s machinery was abruptly shut off. In the meantime, the sphere finally gained a stable size, grim and menacing. The satellite bobbed once or twice in the void—which was not natural. Then, the sphere’s surface rippled all the more, and a tiny, bluish white spot of light appeared on one side, moving across it and expanding, its image severely distorted like the image of a light bulb on the edge of a patch of dry surface on wet, black marble. The mote of light grew till it had the shape of an exotic piece of intelligent design. Then it emerged in all its glory.

The spaceship broke the surface of the sphere like a reptilian newborn rending open its eggshell with its snout, to be born into the world. The petrifying monstrosity of its build oozed an inexorable ambience into the surrounding space, and with a certain ego and the powerful, unmistakable pride of a galactic conqueror, it slowly sailed forth. It was bigger than the International Space Station, or even the R.M.S. Titanic; passing through the axis of two humongous coaxial rotating rings was a tube, where lights periodically blinked on and went off at different places. The Ship swam through the void, propelled by an invisible force, and sinisterly came ever closer to the ignorant Earth. Once close enough, it decelerated to a stop, blithely ignoring the gravity of the immense mass of the planet right ahead. A ring of glowing gaseous matter appeared around a junction of the tube and diffused into space, and a paraboloid capsule at the leading end of the tube gently jerked loose from the junction, and quite predictably, sped toward the Earth, effulgent propellant flickering at its rear end. Some more cylindrical portions separated from the Ship and dived into the atmosphere of the Earth, following suit. Our satellite never came back online— it continued to orbit the Earth, now useless— the newest addition to the expansive space junkyard.  

The modules from outer space descended quickly, and with each passing layer of the aerial shroud of the Earth, they heated up. The particles of the entire columns of air between each one of them and the ground could not move away in time, and as the same columns were compressed, they heated the objects compressing them. Like angels kicked out of Heaven for bad conduct, they came tearing through the sky, now glowing bolides. The descent continued for some time. In a flash, one of them exploded in a mighty spectacle.

Pieces rained down from the destroyed capsule, and a clump of black smoke hung suspended in the sky for a while. The other duo of survivors detachedly kept falling, as if such an “accident” was expected. They fell freely for quite a spell, and by this time they had moved rather far apart from each other. Then one of them let loose a piece of fabric, and then two more, which fluttered and unfurled into objects closely resembling parachutes. With a jerk, its freefall slowed down—but the remaining one kept falling, disintegrating bit by bit, and suddenly a formidably large piece separated from it, and the wasted capsule, or what was left of it, exploded with a smaller blast.

After plummeting for a long while, the sea rushed up to the second capsule, and it splashed into the waves. A hiss was produced as water turned to steam from the heat. The other piece was nowhere in sight—perhaps it had landed on solid land. Yes, there was land within a few kilometres. It was the Indian Ocean—the Bay of Bengal, precisely—and this place was abundant in islands.

In the distance, a group of fishermen were rowing a boat. They were not the regular kind of fishermen, though. Falling under the administration of the Republic of India, the region was a Union Territory, a sovereign area under Indian protection. More interestingly, these waters, and few of the many islands sprinkled over here and there, had barely even received wind from the civilised world for a very, very long time; practically never, in history. That made the fishermen a group of Sentinelese, a primitive people indigenous of the Andamans, who had never in effect been touched by civilisation, and thus had never developed past a Paleolithic stage. They were some of the few living relics of prehistory, like a window opening into the ages past.

Just like any other day, they were out to arrange for food, hunt fish— turtles, if fortunate enough. It was all usual for them, striving to make ends meet, making sure that their community survived for another day. This was until they saw stars shooting down from the sky. Awestruck, they watched, till one of the shooting stars noisily splashed into the water, and their awe instantly morphed into uncontainable curiosity. They rowed over to the fallen angel, and saw an object which they almost certainly attributed to the gods. The material had melted and cooled at places, producing small, wave-like textures that gave a strange, unearthly aspect to the object. One of the men rose, and tried to poke it with a spear, and they heard a metallic ring when it made contact. They were not ready for a hatch silently sliding back, and a black rod emerging with a smooth, mechanical hum, which stared at the brown hominids motionlessly. They talked in their vernacular tongue. “This one is quite interesting”, one probably said. “But it is not food”, said another. A yellow tinged white light glared from the tip of the rod, startling the men. The light remained on for a few moments, and moved like a searchlight as the rod itself moved—the cone of light was initially over the fishermen, and then made a 360°, probably scanning a panoramic view of the environment, feeding the information to... whoever was inside.

Suddenly, there was a brief whistle, and a “PHISHSHSS!” as gases were exchanged across a newly made crack on the surface of the craft. Levers worked, gears turned and a quiet, high pitched sound issued forth into the air. The men saw the crack widen; a doorway was opening. With ignorant stupor they watched on till the process reached completion. Hesitantly, they peered inside. What they saw blew their sodding wits.   

There was a vivid display screen, two wheels and a load of a complicated working of tubes, switches, panels, buttons, flaps and wires. The inside was lit by an unsettling blue-white glow. However, what surprised them the most (by far) was sitting amidst this mess— the form of a humanoid creature. From neck down, it was covered in a black, baggy suit. It had four limbs; two legs and two arms— each of the hands were concealed inside a leathery gauntlet up to the knuckles, which exposed four fingers; four indeed, with an opposable thumb and an unusually long index finger that gradually thinned towards a pointed tip. The face was absurdly shaped; like a lizard, or a reptile, but without any muzzle jutting out; and behind its head and down its neck, feathers of various colours bristled and moved stiffly in alarm. It had two bowl shaped craters above its jowls on each side—perhaps auditory organs. On either side of a pair of gaping slits in the middle of its face, which were perhaps its nostrils, two yellow eyes with flaming red pupils darted about in what could be comprehended as fear, panic or nervousness. And the face! The expression was so relatable, like a hapless kid’s, who was troubled by a bully. On its arm, the creature wore a weapon with the basic shape of a trapezoidal cannon, which had rounded edges and a series of yellow lights along the sides. The being had pointed it towards the Sentinelese, and was clumsily bracing itself with the free arm from any potentially hazardous blow from them.

Each party stared at the other unblinkingly, petrified. A while passed. The creature suddenly seemed to come back to its senses, though unnoticeably so, and with utmost caution, intended not to alert the inhabitants of this alien world, it reached for a button, smoothly and ever so slowly. Then one of the uncivilised men made a bad move.

He yelled madly and thrust his spear towards the being’s torso. Before the blade could penetrate the clothing donned by the extraterrestrial, the latter, possibly out of reflex, activated some switch which did a horrific deed. A handful of projectiles zipped out of the weapon that it had in its tense grip, and with wet, crunching sounds, tore into the attacker’s bare chest and belly. The poor man did not have time to voice the sudden pain, as instantaneously, while still lodged, the pellets burst violently. Bits of bone, organs and blood spilled out of his shredded, perforated trunk, more out of his back than his front; perhaps the pellets were deliberately designed so.  The man was dead before he hit the deck of the boat.

Terrified, the four living souls looked upon their comrade, who lay ripped open, and then looked at the beastly extraterrestrial and its wicked weapon. The creature almost expressed repentance, and mouthed something hardly audible, in frequencies high enough to be just around the ultrasonic limit of their ears. In all, they heard chirps, which made them panic all the more. The creature pressed a button which it had originally intended to, and the display screen came to life. It turned to the screen. A painful grimace appeared on its face all of a sudden, as its body heaved. It soothingly rubbed its scaly, plated throat, then scratched it and finally clawed desperately at it, its ‘nostrils’ alternately flaring up and closing; it looked like being suffocated. Its condition worsened, it seemed, before it squawked like a bird and pressed a button on the gauntlet— and a Sentinelese seized the moment.

The man, with boiling blood in his throbbing temples and revenge on his mind, drove his spear between the eyes of the creature— it sank deep with a gut-wrenching ‘CRACK!’ and a jet of red liquid exited one of its nostrils. Immediately the creature contorted its face, and slowly relaxed, as its arms fell limply by its side. The man did not stop at that. Screaming wildly, he pulled the spear out, slimy red coils sticking to the blade, and stabbed the creature’s body repeatedly. Each of his stabs that could tear through the tough fabric worn by the being, made the same red fluid spew out.

Their job was done. They perhaps had found the hunt for the day— except, this one had taken a life. The Sentinelese proceeded to load their boat with the carcass. The whole incident was witnessed by the strong breeze and the waves of the Indian Ocean. The men presently prepared to row back to the shore.

               Wandoor, located to the south of the South Andaman Island, is just another seaside town, except it stands thirty-six kilometres east of the publicly restricted North Sentinel Island. Arriving from Port Blair—the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands— tourists like to visit this place for the white sanded beaches hugging the cyan-blue Indian Ocean under a cheery blue summer sky and for other site seeing. One fine afternoon, a carcass washed up on the cheerful shore.

The locals were freaked out by the form of it, and tourists smelled adventure. It looked horribly real and organic, yet so unnaturally engineered by nature that the first glimpse could just not, in one’s mind, conjure up any image of fauna ever to have walked upon the Earth. The carcass had no sign of rotting, or any marks of a fatal wound. It was impeccably fresh— as if it could have, at any unpredictable instant, been up and walking. What was interesting was hardly the shape of the deceased creature, but the fact that it wore clothes; clothes as in a baggy, one-piece black suit, with  a leathery gauntlet covering the hand and one-third of one arm, exposing strange fingers. Simian instincts kicked in, and people slowly began to gather enough courage as to poke with sticks at what appeared as a remnant of a tail-like appendage, then turn the body over (it lay face first) to look at the visage clearly. Then authorities came to know of the strange encounter, and finally decided to take the matter in their hand.

The carcass came in possession of the police, who in turn decided to hand it over to the National Institute of Ocean Technology in Port Blair, practically one of the few nearby places that could make sense out of it. The driver, of the truck which carried the package from Wandoor to the capital city via road, had later reported to have heard faint chirps and scarcely audible, high pitched squeaks coming from the carriage.

*****

Dr. Ayas Alam beheld the stupefying shape of the carcass found at the Wandoor coast. No believable explanation dawned on him. “When was it found, they said?” he asked his colleague. The colleague was a Bengali called Dr. Jagadish Barui, and was some nine to ten years younger to Dr. Alam; the former possibly was a descendant of one of the (eventually freed) prisoners of the Cellular Jail from the days of the British Raj. “Yesterday; sometime around late noon. It was discovered by locals. Or a tourist, maybe”, replied Barui.

“Where do we even begin?” Dr. Alam sighed. Barui was waiting for this moment, it seemed. “Oh, Dr. Alam, we do have some… apparent clues.” The senior scientist glanced at him quizzically. “Sorry that I didn’t tell you. Coast Guards on patrol found a craft-sort-of thing… something resembling… well, a vehicle, abandoned in open sea—a few klicks east of the North Sentinel Island.”

“What are you saying! Have they been collected? Brought back… I mean?” Dr. Alam said, fascinated. “Brought back—yes. And they have also been transported here. And…”

“And…?” Dr. Alam nudged him to continue. “There was a bunch of some things resembling parachutes, floating on the ocean. Except the fabric did not resemble nylon. Or anything man-made. Tests are ongoing, in one of our labs. There were some pieces perhaps from another... craft... over the—”

Barui’s voice trailed off.

Dr. Alam had been looking at the floor for the last few moments, and looked up— to find a statue of Barui, in flesh and blood. The statue gulped hard, and managed to say, “Did you... d-did you see that?” his terrified gape was riveted on the table behind Dr. Alam. He unquestioningly turned to the table. “What? See what?” he could not make out anything weird.

“The body... didn’t you see?” Dr. Alam plucked out a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped up cold sweat broken across his forehead. “What do you mean?” He turned to face Barui, and it was clear that the former was trying to conceal a feeling of some uncanny air, rising and swirling in the room.

“Look! Now!” Barui urgently bluttered out, and at the same moment, grasped his senior by his shoulders and swung him around. Both of them saw it—the hand. The corpse’s left hand was raised, and the fingers twitched. Its mouth subtly opened, and they heard what could be described as a whispered, hoarse chirp. Its eyes were partially open, glazed. It turned its head towards the marine scientists and pointed towards a water bottle across the room.

The men stood paralysed. It was alive all along. It was alive; right under their noses, and they had never doubted its deadness. The animal squeaked helplessly. Dr. Alam’s benevolence won over his paralysis, and thinking the creature wanted water, he reached to it the bottle. The being snatched it from his hand and sprang down from the table. It desperately tried to reach the water inside; it bit at the cap, tried to break it with brute force and finally twisted it—to its own success. At first it sniffed at the clear liquid, tasted the drops adhered to the neck of the bottle (the scientists observed it had a tongue), took a moment to decide, and downed it thirstily.

“Is that an alien? Like, from outer space?” Dr. Jagadish Barui finally uttered. Dr. Alam looked at him, and then at the extraterrestrial. He tried to communicate, waving his hand, and jabbing his index finger into the air above him once or twice, meaning to gesture at the sky. The creature finished with the water, and stared at the human. It seemed amused.

“Are you from space? Some other solar system?” Barui tried his luck at making himself understood to the ‘alien’. In reply, it made complicated avian sounds from its throat, almost like a well developed language.

“How could it have come from another solar system? It’s so... earthly— so terrestrial”, Dr. Alam pointed out to Barui. “Well, do you really think it is of Earth?” Barui was naturally unconvinced, “Meaning; we live on this planet, and we have never come across a reptilian humanoid as sapient as this one. Plus, it is wearing clothes.” As they conversed, the reptilian humanoid was perhaps contriving a devious ploy, they thought suddenly. They looked at it, and they observed it to be doing something with the gauntlet it wore.

Its fingers nimbly glided over switches on the gauntlet. The scientists watched awestruck at how human it looked in the action. It moved close to the nearest wall. What was it up to? The humans could not decide. Then a beam of light shot forth from a source on the gauntlet and struck the wall. Was it laser? Was it going to melt the wall? What for? But what the humans saw, in all their humility, they could never have imagined in their wildest dreams.

The beam expanded into an elliptical patch of light on the wall, like that of a movie projector on a screen. Then, a video played.

There was the image of a planet against a pitch black canvas. It was blue, and very familiar. It had patches of land— awkwardly shaped continents. Swirling in large clots above them were white clouds. One half of the planet was shrouded in darkness, the one facing away from its star. Then there was a single, lonely greyish ball, some distance away from the planet, suspended in the void; for some unknown reason, it convinced the humans that the planet was their home, and its satellite, their Moon. It was their planet, against the word of a prophet, possibly from a time when their species had not set foot upon it, because what they saw next confirmed it.

The scene changed. It was a scantily forested area. The distant horizon was flanked with some mountain range. Tall grass swayed in the wind. Then a huge beak appeared from nowhere (from the edge of the video) and tore out some of it in its mouth. The view moved to focus onto the bearer of the beak and— God! Barui coughed sharply. It was a dinosaur! A ceratopsian it was, to be accurate (the triple horned type, like Triceratops). Then a more bizarre view unfolded. A wetly shiny, writhing appendage appeared from the top of the elliptical video, and gently stroked the enormous frill of the ceratopsian. It perhaps belonged to the entity making the video. The humans could not believe the information that their eyes fed their brains.

The video showed more. It showed the Video-Maker, concealed in a strangely shaped, bluish green, (other than the appendages) all-covering jacket, with a black, vitreous dome in the middle, like some alien spacesuit. Some small theropods scurried in the grass. The Video-Maker picked one up, as it chirped piteously. Then the appendage appeared again to pacify it.

The view shifted altogether—now it was inside an immense—hall? Possibly, thought the humans. It was mostly lit with a strange, green halo. On one corner of the hall, there was a huge, transparent dome. And in it, there was a complete ecosystem of dinosaurs, but they appeared so distorted, as if reflections from a badly bent, twisted mirror. Then they saw the image of a planet once again. This one was clearly not the Earth, because of the scarcity of blueness on it. Brown and ochre prevailed much more than blue, and there were clouds on this one too. That was where the video ended.

Dr. Alam could not keep steady. The creature tried to explain itself and the video, with shrill, cryptic squeaks and chirps. Aliens had visited the Earth, after all. The Fermi paradox could be ditched at last; and they had come in the age of the dinosaurs. 

“Umm... Dr. Alam?” Barui said eventually. He looked at him. “So, aliens had come to Earth?”

“Apparently. And—” 

“They took a bunch of dinosaurs with them to their planet?” Barui cut in. “Why would they do that? As some form of memorabilia from Earth? Pets for their offspring? That’s ridiculous!” Dr. Alam tried to say, “Yes, but—” 

“And where is their planet anyway? It takes eras to traverse interstellar space, let alone intergalactic travel. And this—this dude, or what—some alien; it does not nearly resemble those wiggly armed, neon washed creeps from the video—”

As Barui impatiently prattled on, Dr. Alam tried to keep his cool. In the end, he interrupted by raising a hand before the junior's face, and put an index finger over his own lips darkened by his smoking. Barui seemed to understand, and calmed down. Dr. Alam slightly jabbed his chin into the air, toward the Creature's direction; Barui followed the invisible arrow the chin shot, and looked at the other side of the lab, upon the Creature.

They saw the terribly humanoid life-form, staring back at them. The small eyes stared hard, perhaps even through them. Bio-luminescent, were they? The fiery, scarlet rings that formed its irides seemed to pulse with a glow, the deep, focused, intelligent gaze stabbed at their inner core, charring their very skeletons. The scientists stood immobilised. Then the Creature, suddenly, seemed to lose interest, and turned its head away; it looked out of the half open window, up at the sky... 

“Doctor Alam! Might I disturb you now?” The booming voice came from the corridor. Dr. Alam tried to proceed to the door, to intercept the owner’s path and block him from seeing the alien. It was already too late, and Dr. Mehul entered. Of course, he saw it, and his reaction was not exactly pleasant, unsurprisingly. He gasped, choked on his own saliva and exclaimed “It’s alive! It’s ALIVE!”

The duo caught him, calmed him down, and kept him from going berserk. The alien squealed in fright, and then squawked threateningly. It had no weapon, or it might not have hesitated to use it. After the two scientists had explained their own account, Dr. Mehul understood. Slowly, he began to piece together what he had come to inform.

He said that the remains of the craft were being studied, when holographic, three dimensional animations were accidentally turned on inside the ‘cockpit’. “Look here, here is a video recording”, Dr. Mehul eyed the alien suspiciously while he showed the video to Jagadish Barui and Dr. Alam, from his smart-phone.

They could make out what it showed. High rising structures huddled together, hugging each other, an animated simulation of an advanced civilisation. Ugly creatures walked on the metal lined, smooth ground. Then the structures stood ruined, dilapidated, collapsing. The ugly creatures were seen flopped down in tubs; they were shrivelling up, leaving behind pools of blackish yellow fluid. “These are dying; what do you think?” asked Dr. Mehul. One of the creatures was seen with a dinosaur, a small theropod, which hopped upon the creature’s body excitedly. “So these creatures went extinct, for some reason or other. These, I mean,” Dr. Mehul said, pointing at the Video-Makers, and looked at the alien accusingly. Then an animation showed the external anatomy of the troodon-like dinosaur, which they had witnessed moments ago. The theropod’s shape changed, stepwise. The arms grew longer, the snout shortened, the skull got bigger. The tail shrank and the posture became more erect. Once again, the scientists watched in awe. “Is that simulated evolution?” asked Barui.

There was a long pause. “Most probably”, replied Dr. Alam. He sighed deeply, expelling the stupefied air from his lungs.

“These creatures had come to Earth when the dinosaurs ruled it—the land, the air, the oceans”, he talked as if in a daze, his gaze extending out of the open window. Dr. Mehul picked up the trail, “They had taken back Earthlings to their home planet, we cannot imagine why. The dinosaurs slowly replaced the Video-Makers, and evolved in a separate, Earth-like environment.”

“But how did they manage to travel from so far? Did they live in space?” Barui inquired. “Maybe. Maybe not. Remember the wormhole madness from a few weeks ago?” reminded Dr.Mehul. “Another was observed, days ago, a little radially further out from the geosynchronous orbit of Earth. And there was what appeared to be a humongous Mother Ship. Why, there was a second wave of glitch in the communication system; remember? Didn’t you see the news?”

“Okay... but—what about the dinosaurs happily adapting to the new planet? They appeared to have no difficulty at all! The new ambience should have out and out killed them; God knows what the air is composed of, even if it’s breathable. God knows if the sheets of blue were even water, whether the life forms were based on carbon molecules, or silicon, or nitrogen! It was the dinosaurs who should have gone extinct, just like they did here. And, if you ask me, they are gone for a reason. They were unworthy.”

“They might as well have been carbon based, living on a very Earthlike planet; how could you know?” said Dr. Alam. “And they were interstellar travellers, man! They could have engineered the dinosaurs’ DNA, perhaps. And that perhaps caused their Armageddon. I just can’t understand how they found the Earth—even our Solar System, for that matter—from the millions of other stars in the galaxy; or the universe, if they are not from the Milky Way. I know—their precursors on their planet had come here, and they had probably made some kind of a cosmic map, yet... Maybe they had been searching for a long time, never having been successful until now.” Now another doubt crossed Dr. Mehul’s mind; pointing towards the alien, he said, “And this being had no trouble fitting back in its original environment here? The Earth has changed a lot since their kind was here the last time.”

“Well, you must’ve heard, they are an omnipotent race!” Barui’s tone lingered between light sarcasm and mockery at Dr. Alam. 

“Exactly”, said Dr. Alam, “Maybe this one ingested some concoction—a chemical, or something, which accelerates evolution from many years to a few hours. That was maybe when it played the dead; getting ready, actually. I am running out of believable explanations.” 

“You really think any of this makes sense?” Barui was unconvinced. “Yeah, trying to dig out sense, we’re getting at just non-sense. Sort of”, said Dr. Mehul. 

“Never mind...", he paused to look at the incredulous junior.

"Jagadish? Do you think dinosaurs were wiped out because they were unfit? Do you not know that modern humans have lived only a fraction of the time they had? You are too early to judge; we are mere toddlers as a species compared to the archosaurs— which was not a species, though; they were what we identify as dinosaurs today. Towards the end of their glorious rule, nature’s unforgiving wrath descended upon their world all of a sudden—and their reign was reduced to minerals interred beneath the Earth’s strata.” 

The others were dumbfounded. They had forgotten about their live specimen too, perhaps. Barui finally found some words, and spent them on a sardonic hindsight, “Dr. Alam, why, you should've become a geologist... or maybe even a palaeontolongist!” Dr. Alam didn't deign to show his annoyance.

The loudest sound  at the moment was the rustling of palm leaves outside, stirred by the sea breeze. Then, Dr. Alam's lips quivered, a sombre declaration bubbled up from his innards and into his mouth. He arranged the words, and solemnly, let them flow, “Dinosaurs have come back to reclaim their world. This time, they have had a head start of a longer evolutionary history...” He paused. Prophetically, he went on, “I don’t expect it to be pleasant business—an encounter with advanced, colonial dinosaurs.” 

When he awoke from his trance, the Doctor blinked, and turned towards the Terrible Lizard; the Dinosaur. 

It was already out of the room, out through the window, and its feathers stood in rapt attention as it defiantly looked up to the Heavenly Dome, square in the face. Its companions were about to descend with all the necessary tools and equipments.

Far away, a bright streak made a fiery cut across the sky's unblemished, cerulean canvas.

A short story: Sapience's Dark Side

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An Illustration for Second Hand

An illustration to be placed at the end of "Second Hand".

This Could be One Heck of a Spoiler for the story.

If you haven't read it, you should read it now! Click here

If not, it is a request from me (the author and illustrator, of course!) to NOT scroll down.

Pretty please...? [poochie eyes]? 

A poem: Worthy of the Gene

~A Poem~
WORTHY OF THE GENE

You cannot drive my faith

In whatever way you will.

It’s stuff that springs from within;

You cannot hold it still.

I might as well be an atheist

As be remembered for good.

You can boast of being a believer

Yet deny the hungry food.

You can show off some piety

Yet house a heart of stones.

I can outright reject the Almighty

And spew goodness from my bones.

Removing from logic’s sky

Every threatening, ignorant cloud;

One can do what’s morally right

And make the heavens proud.

A cunning few take advantage

Of our acute fear of the uncertain.

Across the face of rationality

They draw blind faith’s curtain.

Thus enslaved, free thought longs

To sieve what’s false from truth.

Meanwhile, to dodge gods’ wrath,

Man decimates without ruth.

Corpses pile, one over another—

None really knowing why they died.

Conscience regrets having ever existed

And quietly weeps inside.

Ergo, do not be brainwashed—

No faith can own your soul.

No religion can dictate your freedom.

No one can set your goal.

Do not be a hypocrite—

Singing hymns is not enough.

You can never please the god you trust

If his creation you cannot love.

To prove your love for a supreme being,

To convince that you are clean—

You must first prove yourself

Worthy of the human gene.