With a heap, Goliath sat down tiredly onto his tyrant leather chair. He turned his head to the fireplace and spit out a small stream of flame to light the firewood. The crackling flames began to warm his hide. He closed his eyes and began to recline back.
The sudden scraping of rock on rock caught his attention. Immediately, he got ready for whatever was about to happen.
A boulder came rolling down the interior of his home, only stopping for a brief moment to transform into his son, Behemoth.
Behemoth leaped into Goliath's lap exhaling exhilarated noises of excitement.
The child starting speaking quicker than lightning, "Daddy! Daddy! What was it like in the hoo-min territory? I heard all about it from-"
"Now, now." Goliath cut him off, "It was very stressful day."
"Please tell me about the hoo-mins." Behemoth begged, curiosity twinkling in his many eyes.
As tired as Goliath felt, he couldn't resist it when his son gave him that innocent look.
"Okay, what do you want to know?"
"My friend Minion kept telling me that the hoo-mins can hurt just by staring at you."
"First off, they are called humans. Second, they have these things called guns that throw tiny things at you." Goliath explained.
"Did they throw things at you?"
"Yes, they all did. I think that's just how they say hi."
"But Minion said that his parents were hunted by them. He thinks they're bad."
Goliath frowned, trying to think of how to word this next, "They're... just misunderstood. They don't understand why we're trying to kick them out."
Behemoth simply blinked in response, a question coming into focus. "Why are we trying to kick them out?"
"Because the humans didn't pay for rent when they decided to stay here. They never eat what they kill and they don't give back what they take, unlike us. We nurture the land, a human will never even poo on the soil." Goliath answered.
"Maybe we should teach them to do stuff like poo."
Goliath shook his head, "No, it doesn't work. They never learn. I've tried to show one human how to do it properly, but it wouldn't listen, so I ate its legs off."
Behemoth gasped and fidgeted on his lap. Something about it seemed peculiar.
"Uh... I mean, daddy? You killed one of them?"
"Son." Goliath began, "Humans aren't like us. When they die, they come back from the sky."
"Oh ok." Behemoth said easily. A little too easily.
Goliath narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "Behemoth... what's wrong?"
Behemoth stared at him in an almost panic stricken-manner.
Suddenly, a trilling squeaky sound reverberated through their living-room. Goliath turned his head toward the source, which seemed to be coming from the rock closet.
Goliath got up much to the disagreement of his son. Walking up to it, he swatted aside the boulder that served as the closet's door. And then few thousand live canon striders came piling out, spreading onto the grassy floors of their home. It was a tumbling of legs and body parts as the striders tried to run over their fellow sisters and brethren.
"I'm so sorry Dad!" Behemoth cried out, "I only meant to bring two back home, I didn't know Harry was a girl!"
Goliath let out a frustrated breath of flame. He turned toward his son, "I thought we had this lesson before." He picked up a canon strider. "This is meat. Meat is food. We do not play with our food."
"But dad, they like me. They're my friends!"
"I thought you already had a friend. Minion was it?"
Tears were brimming in Behemoth's many eyes as he admitted, "I don't have any friends, dad. All the other monster kids call me fat and slow."
The pile of canon striders was slowly increasing as even more of the striders came tumbling out of the rock closet. The piles were now at Goliath's knees.
Goliath didn't know what to say. His son was a social outcast.
Then, the ceiling door opened up and Goliath's wife fluttered down, crushing several canon striders under her feet.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh. Hello hun." Kraken said in greeting, wrapping her tentacles around her husbano.
"R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Hello." Goliath greeted back.
She embraced her son in a quick hug as well.
"My, my. Look at all this meat. Going to eat it all and evolve big and strong?"
Behemoth nodded and then started to pretend gobbling up a few striders, but he accidentally bit one.
It cried out in pain, then out of nowhere, a pack of daisies came running out of god knows where and started eating all of the canon striders.
And then a pack of markovs came running out of a corner and began shooting lightning non-stop.
The canon striders realizing the imminent danger began to become imminently intimate with each other and reproduced like crazy. The hoard of new baby striders came forth out of thy wombs almost instantaneously. A unfathomable wall of legs and striders orgies so great the markovs all quit simultaneously, leaving only robots that would eventually got eaten by the wildlife. Then all those wildlife would get sick and die because robots aren't edible.
"Dad! What's going on?! Where am I!" Behemoth screamed in terror, the likes of which no young monster should see.
"Son!" Goliath could he heard yelling, but that was all that could be heard since the daisies were eating a lot of striders causing an obscene amount of alien vulture birds to appear.
Whatever Markovs that were still alive would be blinded for all eternity with the notification "Monster Scared Birds."
...Meanwhile... on the map weather control, a desperate voice calls out on all radio frequencies.
"Can anyone read me? I've got a huge monsoon coming this way. Without this station we can't control the stor- what in the world..." The voice cuts off followed by a heavy object pounding against a hard surface. Then another one, and another one. All throughout the message there was the ominous trilling sounds of animals.
...Meanwhile... In the middle of a heated battle between man and monster…
Four eyes stared into Hyde's face. Both were waiting for the other to make a fatal move. A move that could determine the difference between victory and defeat.
Hyde held on to his poker face as did his opponent. However he saw it, a weak spot. His left hand shot out with killing intent and he tactically moved his bishop to check the enemy king. He allowed a smile, knowing that Kraken had no way to block with another piece this time.
The Kraken's slimy tentacle reached up to scratch the spot just above its face vagina. Hyde lost his smile. He knew that only happens after it had just outsmarted him.
His opponent moved only one piece forward one square toward him. Checkmated. And it was a pawn too.
Dumbstuck, Hyde stared at the board, dismay etched on his face. "Bloody..."
"Huuuhooooululululu!"
To those who don't speak monster, the Kraken said, You owe me fifty keys now, bitch!
Hyde flipped the table holding the chessboard, now aiming his flamethrower at the four-eyed beast, "Enough diplomacy, Kraken mate. I'm going to melt your fucking face off."
It appeared like that was the end of that short term friendship, if there ever was one at all, however the sound of trills came from the air around them.
An animal flew right pass them and splat into the overturned table between them.
Caira gave a questioning stare directed at Cabot, specifically at what he had just said. It was clear that the other hunters were having similar looks of skepticism as well.
Cabot cleared his throat before confirming it again, "You heard me. The great old one said it, we will not survive, none of us will."
Cabot looked irritated, like that wasn't what he wanted to say at all.
"The great old one speaks many things to me." Cabot said. "You will all burn."
It was a good thing everyone present unanimously decided not to respond to that.
He gave up trying to talk soon, choosing instead to type everything into a text-to-speech program using Bucket's voice. Cabot wasn't particularly happy about his new situation, but it was better than hearing the nonsense that came out of his mouth.
Little did he know, this was only one of the smaller effects of anomalies that were occurring on planet Shear.