The rat scampered through the brush, occasionally stopping to avoid the notice of birds of prey flying overhead. In the distance, the hoofbeats of bison could be heard - many species had disappeared since the vanishing of mankind, but these creatures, once on the brink of extinction, had managed to survive, and now once again roamed the American Plains in great numbers. With the reversal of the human caused global warming, a new ice age had begun, causing the grassland to expand, and the bison had expanded with him.

Of course, threats still plagued these giant herbivore - wolves had grown more common and larger in the absence of man, while coyotes had exploded in numbers with their main enemies now gone. Both plagued the resurgent buffalo, with wolves targeting the living and coyotes devouring the dead. Yet these losses hardly put a dent in the great grazers' numbers. In time, they, like all species, would die out, but that would be in the far future, and not a concern for today.

None of this mattered to the desert rat, though - it needed to find more food for its nest. The last of the seeds had been devoured, and more would need to be found before the rest of the stores were depleted. Thus, many rats had left the nest to seek out additional seeds, with some unlikely to ever return.

One group had passed by the strange cave where dead snakes spit out blue sparks. Another had reached a water hole and was trying to collect seeds from a prickly pair. This rat belonged to a third group that had split off to recover fruit from a group of Joshua trees - a species that had only barely managed to bounce back enough to survive the return of the cold. The trees had been decimated by the warming of the world, as their primary method of seed dispersal had disappeared when humans had first arrived in the Americas. Now, however, they were common enough to be an appetizing meal for any hungry herbivore/omnivore that could be found.

In fact, the rat had just found a particularly appetizing fruit. Yet that was not what held its attention. Instead, the rodent was staring at two creatures it had never seen before. One resembled a cross between a reptile and a bird. As for the other, the only thing that the rat could tell was that it was a mammal.

The reptile-bird thing looked at the mammal in confusion, but the mammal seemed to be lost in thought. The rat watched them for a short moment longer, before snatching a fruit and heading back home. There would be another time to watch this duo.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Tristan...wasn't sure what to do right now.

If he had been sent back into the past, he would not be in this situation - the park had clearly defined protocols for what to do if you were trapped in the past. These ranged from how to survive in each possible part of the time you might have ended up in, to more morbid topics, such as how to ensure one's corpse would be completely destroyed so as to avoid allowing unsavory figures to learn about time travel through thoroughly out of place human skeletons.

All of these involved being stuck in the past, though, and Tristan was stuck in the future. Who knows what lived out here. For all he knew, bat monsters could have overtaken the Earth, and fought with giant insects for food.

What if he got stuck here until he died?

…...Screw it, he was going to survive this!

...But how was he supposed to feed Terence?

...Wait, where was Terence going?

XXXXXXXXXXX

"You guys seen Tristan?" asked a worried Sean. Elise was nearby, working with a group of trilobites to help clean a sickly Zoneat. The creature had been covered in parasites, and was in desperate need of their removal.

"No," replied Alice. "We saw him heading down to the portal maintenance area, but we never heard back from him, and he hasn't shown up anywhere else."

"You sure he might not just be trying to help with the portal?"

"Just because he's interested in the machine and capable of fixing it doesn't mean he will. Plus the place is still infested with racoons."

"Did you ask anyone over there if they saw him?"

"Vicky, Ramos, and Lin all told me they hadn't seen him."

"...Should I sound the alarm?" asked Elise, the thalattosuchian having just slipped free of her grip and vanished into the depths, while its cleaners retreated into a tide pool.

"..Yeah, now you should."

XXXXXXXXXXX

Tristan had expected to see many odd creatures in this world - descendants of species that had been extremely tiny in his time, now colossal from a lack of competition.

Instead, he found himself looking at the corpse of an American Bison. An actual, modern bison.

Apparently some things didn't die out so easily.

Said bison was a very old individual, who had walked far away from the herd. He was already on the ground by the time the duo approached him, and Tristan was pretty sure he'd keeled over when they were half way to him. Now, the slowly cooling corpse rested within biting distance from Terence, who was looking back and forth between Tristan and the body.

Sighing, Tristan pulled a knife out of his pack. Time to prepare some meat.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

It had taken a while, but the rat had returned to its nest. The other groups had not had much luck searching for food, but the fruit he had acquired would help tide them off. Still, they would need to find more food eventually - there was only so long the fruit would last.

Now free to sate its curiosity, the rat headed to the communal play room and zeroed in on the object that most interested it: the rock from the cave with the sparking snakes.

The rock looked...different from most - it had strange surfaces, was far smoother than most other rocks, and some parts of it would rotate at odd times. Also, a part of its back had fallen off.

The rat really liked to try and hit that part to see if it would go back in. But so far it had not.

Well, maybe he could change that.

Circling around the rock until he was right behind the loose part, the rat took a few steps back, then charged forward. With a surprising amount of force, it slammed into the loose piece, sending it forward...right into where it had been knocked loose.

And this time, it stayed in.

The right felt a sense of pride in its achievement, only to shift awkwardly as the rock began to shake. Strange noises came from it as well - whirring and spinning sounds like nothing the rat had ever heard.

And then there were the other noises...

XXXXXXXXX

"STARTUP INITIATED. BEGINNING DIAGNOSTICS."

"CAMERA: ONLINE."

"PROPULSION: ONLINE."

"TRANSMITTER: ONLINE."

"DIAGNOSTICS COMPLETE. RESUMING OBSERVATION PROGRAMMING."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

AN: Looks like that rat found something...interesting.

Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!