-2000- — Crocodile

K’tharr understood one thing. This thing was in his river. And it was trying to make the world go quiet.

But somewhere, in a timeline that would never exist, a team of scientists stared at a blank screen and whispered: “What happened to Unit 7?” crocodile -2000-

K’tharr rose from the river an hour later, mud dripping from his snout. The fog was gone. The tadpoles wiggled. The fish swam. And in his ancient, aching gut, he felt something new: a small, hard knot of wrongness. A piece of the future, digesting. K’tharr understood one thing

The fog reached K’tharr’s tail. A cold, wrong feeling shot up his spine. It wasn't pain. It was erasure. He felt his memories—the taste of a wildebeest calf, the heat of a sun from a thousand summers—flicker and die. But somewhere, in a timeline that would never