The Land Behind the Mirror | ONC 2022

Chapter 6

To Alba's surprise, her words had an immediate effect on Ana. She could see her quickly pulling up her defenses, going back to the protective shell that seemed to have become her new home.

"Right, thanks, Grandma Bertha," Ana said, quickly wiping away her tears and raising to her feet. "We need to go. You shouldn't tempt fate by spending another night in the dinosaur territory. You already got yourself in a lot of trouble more than once."

"Well, excuse me if I am no expert in surviving in the land of a long time ago," Alba said indignantly.

Everything felt so overwhelming and scary that her first reaction was to lash out. Even the fact that her best friend was there by her side didn't help matters as she felt like the thread that once connected them wasn't as strong as it used to be. All that was left was a thin line of affection that didn't do much to calm her nerves.

"I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I just wanted to say that this territory is too dangerous to risk spending more than one night in it. Even with Grandma Bertha and her herd's protection," Ana quickly corrected herself.

She felt like nothing she said was quite right, and it made her annoyed with herself. However, since they hadn't seen each other for years and had met under such odd circumstances, misunderstandings were to be expected.

Not wanting to spend another night fearing for her life or sleeping on a tree, Alba got up from the ground and followed her friend. She led them towards the well-threaded path that Alba hadn't seen before. It was clear that the only reason Ana could find it was that she knew it was there.

"Grandma Bertha, would you mind escorting us to the reservation?" Ana asked, looking up at the kind-eyed dinosaur.

Of course, my dear. Terrance will never dare attack if I am with you. He knows I am tough meat, even for his sharp teeth.

Her body started vibrating, and Alba was shocked to realize that the massive dinosaur was laughing at an inside joke.

"Great, my best friend has an inside joke with dinosaurs, and here I am lamely shaking at every strange sound. Which is all the time," Alba thought bitterly.

Out loud, she decided to ask a far more intriguing question than her friend's close friendship with a brontosaurus.

"Who is Terrance?" Alba asked as they trudged through the forest and as stray branches kept trying to tangle up in her hair.

"Oh, I think you two met," Ana said slowly, carefully wording her sentence.

"I am sure I would have remembered someone with a name like that," Alba said exasperatedly.

She could see that her friend was trying not to freak her out too much, but she thought it was a vain effort and preferred to know everything she could about her current situation.

"Oh, you will remember him forever," Ana mumbled under her breath, remembering her own horrible experience with Terrance before addressing her friend. "He is the T-Rex who tried to eat you."

"Oh," Alba managed to squeak out before she fell into a deep, contemplative silence.

It never occurred to her that the thing that almost ended her life had a name, let alone that it had its own personality. To her terrified mind, it seemed like it had only one thing on its mind, her flesh. And though that might have still been true enough, it was flabbergasting to know that it was a thinking being that still chose to try and kill her.

Everything Alba thought she knew about the world she was in was shifting. It was running away from her before she could put it under one fixed label, and she didn't like that. Alba preferred the labels as they made it easy to understand things better. Although they often worked against her when she was labeled as something negative and thus avoided.

"Alba, are you okay," Ana said sometime later.

"Of course, I am just peachy. Taking a casual stroll and hoping not to get eaten," Alba said sarcastically. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you haven't said anything for quite a while. I remember when I first got here, I was so full of questions that I drove my guide insane," Ana said, smiling sadly at the memory.

"It's just difficult to process, you know? That someone would knowingly try to eat a feeling, thinking living being," Alba said, almost slipping on a rather wet patch of grass.

Ana caught her before she could fall, helping her regain her balance while Grandma Bertha could be seen nearby, her neck twisting to check up on them.

"I don't think that's very different from what people back home do," Ana said contemplatively.

"I don't understand. What do you mean by that?" Alba asked, unable to follow her friend's line of reasoning.

"Well, most of the animals are actually thinking and feeling living beings. The thing is that they don't think and feel the same way we do, so we consider their thoughts and feelings less important," Ana said more passionately than Alba had ever heard her speak. "What's worse, people in our world even kill animals for fun, and even though I am not a big fan of Terrance, you must admit that what humans do is way worse."

Alba was stunned by how reasonable Ana's logic sounded. Yet, it was so new and strange that she had to file it away for later consideration.

"I guess so," Alba said, hoping to put an end to such a serious topic.

After all, her head was still spinning from the novelty of it all. She didn't need another thing to put her mind in a ceaseless spin. It was far better to focus on more practical matters.

"By the way, what is that 'reservation' thing you are taking me to?" Alba asked, feeling like knowing what the future held might give her some time to prepare.

"It's where we humans live," Ana said simply as if that was enough of an answer to explain everything.

"What do you mean 'we humans'? Are there more people here than you and I?" Alba asked, wondering just how many people had been dragged into the strange land of days gone by.

"Ah, that's another long and complicated story, but there are humans here who belong to this world, who have always been here," Ana said.

"You mean they didn't end up here from our world?" Alba asked, her eyes going wide. "How is this possible?"

"Well, I don't really know the scientific explanations or anything, but from what I've gathered, this world evolved differently than ours. So, there are many animals, including humans, that you wouldn't expect to see after being in this part of the world," Ana said.

She was unsure which information might end up finally breaking her friend. She wished there was a way to soften the blow, which there wasn't.

"Let me get this straight," Alba said, doing her best to collect her thoughts before they could jump out of her way. "We are in a world where the evolution went wonky, so we have dinosaurs, humans, and all the other animals from every evolutionary period?"

"That's one way of saying it. I am not sure if it's from every evolutionary period, but yes, that's the gist of it," Ana said, loving how calm her friend sounded but worrying it might be the calm before the storm.

"And all animals are sentient, intelligent life forms like humans?" she asked.

"Well, maybe not exactly like humans, but yes, humans aren't the only intelligent beings on this planet," Ana confirmed cautiously.

Alba seemed to process that for a second, walking briskly beside her friend as if she could walk off all her frustrations. When that failed, she saw only one thing she could do.

"How do I get back home?" Alba asked.

"About that..." Ana said, looking everywhere but in Alba's direction.