Strange Land

It was a vast, unfriendly, alien world, slowly dying. The landscape consisted of nothing but gigantic black pillars, so tall it was impossible to see above them with the naked eye. These vast, dark columns totally covered this weird worlds surface, jutting defiantly out of the white, sponge-like ground.

Within this huge forest, two creatures, indigenous to these lands stumbled. Renak the male and his mate Seela, a female. Though of different sexes, initially there was no visible difference in their bizarre appearance. Both had two legs and four arms, both were covered in a hard, brown exoskeleton and both travelled by a series of leaps powered by their powerful legs.

Once this world had been densely populated by beings like these, but since the catastrophes had started many of them had perished. This had never been an easy world to perpetuate an existence but since the land quakes and the storms, living had become a very precarious luxury. The world had seemed to have gone crazy, Renak and Seela were tired, disorientated and very frightened. Recently the forests had been plagued by huge, white, powder storms which seemed to appear from nowhere. The terrible white dust having a devastating effect on Renak's people, many were blinded by it, many paralysed but most had been killed, dying a horribly prolonged and painful death. Since the dust storms most edible life forms in the forest had been destroyed and the only food left to Renak and his remaining people was a liquid which flowed just below the surface of the white, spongy ground, this Renak obtained by pushing a long protuberance which projected from the middle of his face into the ground then sucking up the life giving liquid as if through a straw. This liquid was full of vitamins and was available all through out this strange worlds surface, the only good thing left about the entire place.

The day before Seela had suffered a terrifying experience, before her very eyes she had seen her entire family wiped out . Even now she could not properly explain what had destroyed them, for several hours after the incident she had been unable to speak, but now partially recovered, she could still not say just who or what had killed them. She remembered a terribly loud noise, totally impossible to describe, then suddenly the forest all around them had begun to collapse and the great black columns had been torn out by their roots. Above her in the sky she had seen the thing, whatever it was, all her eyes could take in were huge white, pointed staves smashing through the forest, destroying everything in their path. Her own family had been crushed to a pulp by this strange, unknown phenomena. She had only escaped extermination by sheer chance. This type of disaster had never happened before and she prayed to her God it would never happen again.

In the last few days Renak and Seela had hardly seen any of their fellow creatures, they feared that most of them maybe dead. On their travels they had encountered many corpses, victims of the dust storms and quakes.

Recently the quakes had increased in number and it was no longer safe to remain in this part of the forest. Renak and his mate had decided to travel to the far side of this world, which was totally unexplored and unknown. Maybe, just maybe they could find new friends there and safety. First they would need to rest, Seela was already asleep. Renak stroked her large brown head with one of his four arms, they had both been through terrible agonies, physically and emotionally. All they had left now was each other, maybe when they got to the other side of the forest they could settle down and start up a family, with this pleasant thought in mind, Renak joined his wife in her slumbers.

'Come on Seela, it's time to move on.' said Renak, shaking his wife, gently, with all four arms. Seela woke up immediately, since the catastrophes she had become a very light sleeper.

'How long will it take to reach the other side Renak?' she said, stretching all six of her limbs with a yawn.

'I don't know' he replied 'but the sooner we set off the better'.

With that they started their long journey, with the strange jerky hops, peculiar to their kind.

Many hours passed without incident, when Renak suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.

'Listen, can you hear that rumbling?'

'Yes,' replied Seela, 'Is it another quake?'

'I don't think so,' said the trembling creature, ''it sounds different, not like the quakes, I've never heard anything like that before'

'It's getting louder Renak!' cried Seela, 'I'm frightened, are we going to die?'

'Look over there!' shouted Renak, 'It's huge, what is it?'

'It's heading right towards us Renak, what can we do?' Seela screamed in terror, her eyes wide in fear.

In front of them was the source of their horror, a huge, white, tidal wave of frothing, foaming, liquid, far taller than the forest, crushing all of the towering, black, columns down flat before its irresistible force.

'We are going to die aren't we Renak?' cried Seela,

'Yes.' he said with almost a hint of relief in his voice.

'Hold me Renak!' pleaded his wife, her whole body shaking with fear.

Just as their arms met in a final embrace the huge, white, wave smashed them high into the air, the shock killed them instantly.

'Well Rover, I bet you feel much better after having that bath, you've been scratching and biting yourself all week, though I think that powder from the vet helped.' Mrs Belforth chatted as she rubbed the dog dry with an old towel.

'Oh look! In your bath water, two little fleas, it almost looks as though they were cuddling each other when they died, how sad.'

Rover looked up at her, his eyes showing the grateful relief of at last being rid of those terrible itching things.