■ I saw a Jackalope
(OP) Champion: USA (East) - March 13th, 2018
I saw a jackalope, a lot of them. And they were mean little bastards. Are all the altered animals out there going to be like this?
Champion: USA (West) - March 13th, 2018
Pics or it didn’t happen
Champion: Zimbabwe - March 13th, 2018
What is a jackalope?
Champion: Britain - March 13th, 2018
As much as I hate to agree with your Western counterpart he is right. You need pictures to gain progress in your
As for your question, I found most of mine in a docile state so far. I even found a Unicorn calf, or at least a calf with a bone protrusion that looks like a horn, and it was completely fine despite some depictions in myth. So I do not believe they are all naturally aggressive.
I hope that helps.
@ Zimbabwe, They are antlered hare of the eastern US cryptozoology
Champion: USA (Central) - March 13th, 2018
OMG! Jackalopes are real? You have to get those pictures! … When they aren’t trying to kill you. I’m not finding many critters out my way, some plants but no animals. I think I might have to go out of state to find anything. Maybe I could find a chupacabra or something.
Sidenote - East! West! We NEED to start a chat group here! I’ll ask Nav how to do it!
From there the thread descended and went off track. Most of the comments that followed were all about chat rooms and which ones should be made, eventually. From geographic region to the Champion’s desired ‘build’ to the most inane things like cooking. The Admin, of course, quickly arrived to get things back on track. And, as with every other appearance, they were incredibly vague when answering questions.
Still, Hiro largely got what he wanted as the comments and replies came rolling in. While the
It was mostly Google.
They put in ‘weird plants’ or ‘strange animals’ near them and followed where the tabloids and social media pointed them. Simple, to the point, and, most importantly, it worked. It also showed a pattern beyond methods, namely where most of the animals were found.
Looking through the various pictures in the
That was exactly why you had to review the files first. They gave you a solid baseline to build up from and reveal things that others might have been trying to hide. In this case, a little research told Hiro exactly where he needed to start, and where to deploy his personal advantage.
The phone barely rang once before a familiar voice picked up.
“Hector Hierro.” His father answered as quickly as always, so quickly that he never bothered to check the caller ID. “Who is this?”
“Hey Dad, it's Hiro. Do you got a minute?”
“For you? I can make several. What’s going on bud?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? But how did he word it so that his dad didn't think he was crazy?
"Uh, the thing is-" Hiro started off to a great start. At least the words were coming out of his mouth. "I ran into some pretty aggressive rabbits on the way out of town yesterday and-"
"Rabbits?" His father interrupted, "Do you mean hare? Are you okay? Where did you see them?"
"Uh," Hiro was taken aback for a moment, surprised by his father's sudden intensity, but he answered easily enough. He had marked down the rough location before he had hit the forums, it was the closest to a sure find he had after all. Still, "Is everything okay Dad?"
There was a beat of silence on the other side, then a sigh.
"Not really." He said, Hiro could just imagine his dad messing his hair as he always did when he was frustrated. “Things have been pretty busy here for the last couple of months.”
Hiro could imagine. He had seen what people doing surface level searches could find in a day. The one of a bull calf with a hand shaped hoof was going to stick with him for a while. So, what his father, an officer for Animal Control, who worked in the field daily must have seen had to be disturbing, to say the least. And Hiro wanted to know all about it.
“You want to talk about it?”
There was another pause followed by a regretful yet hopeful tone that slammed Hiro in the gut. “I’d love to but I can’t right now. How about tonight? We could pop some beers and talk? Like old times?”
The words made Hiro’s insides squirm. Talks, real ones, with his parents hadn’t gone well lately but they used to. Especially with his dad. He had his first beer on the back porch with him. His dad laughed as Hiro choked on the disgusting taste and tried to give him sage advice between guffaws. Or what he thought of as sage advice. He would do that several times with Hiro over the years, pulling him aside for serious talks, trying to guide his son the best he could. Laughing and enjoying peaceful moments.
Hiro missed it.
And now he was tainting those moments with manipulation. Because of his curiosity, he would take advantage of his father’s exhaustion. It was almost enough to make him reject the offer.
He didn’t.
“Yeah Dad, I’d like that.” He answered, the sting of personal disgust sharpening with each word.
The feeling stabbed deepened when his father chipperly, happily, responded. “Great! Look, it’s been great hearing from you bud but I gotta go. See you tonight!”
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Hiro didn’t put his phone down when the phone ended. His face screwed up, his mind unable to let go of what he had just done. At how happy his dad sounded.
There was a lot to unpack there. And he was certainly not going to give himself enough time to unpack it. Instead, he pulled up the tabs he left open. Tabloid websites and Twitter feeds, the local Facebook and Reddit pages. Information at its rawest, uploaded by the masses.
If there was something strange going on in Steelsworth he was going to find it… He just had to make sure he took a picture of it this time.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Steelsworth had a number of hiking trails and paths. Most were glorified bike paths littered with dog shit but they were nice enough. Little trails carved into what was left of the county's forest, nature walks without the natural parks.
Along one of these paths, there was a swampy little area where a little pond lay. Its murky waters were overgrown with algae, reeds, and lilypads. The sight of it stirred up a sense of nostalgia in Hiro's chest. He used to come here all the time when he was a kid, when he could… When friends invited him along… dragged him along.
Anyway, they used to catch frogs there. They'd skip rocks across the surface and scare off the ducks. Where they would stare at and jar fireflies. All those ridiculous things kids did.
He figured all that life in a contained area, not owned by anyone but maybe the State, would be the best place to start. The local Twitter even said a few things about 'unique' sightings along the tra,il so Hiro was sure he was on the right track. He would try the rest of the forums later, after narrowing things down more and talking to his dad.
Though, he wished he had brought something better than his Walmart Adidas. Not that he owned any other shoes.
The grass squished under his feet, the ground muddy from the overflow and runoff of the pond. The frogs and crickets were singing their songs, beating out the bird calls, and holding little care for the approaching human. Desensitization was a hell of a thing.
Hiro, of course, had his phone in hand and opened up to his camera. If things went south like they did the last time he was at least going to have a picture before he had to book it.
Though Hiro didn't need to worry about that here. The animals of the pond, on a whole, seemed to be a hell of a lot more temperate than the jackalope. The British Champion was right and, honestly, nothing seemed that abnormal. Not even the frogs.
"Hmmm." Hiro hummed, squinting his eyes as he gave one of the plump amphibians a second look.
Slick skinned and croaking they looked about the same to him. And that was his clue. They looked the same. Everything else looked smaller yet these frogs still seemed about the size of his hand. And at the age of twenty two he'd like to think grew a bit over the last decade.
He hummed again, standing at the edge of the pond. Eventually, grudgingly, he let out a sigh and started to remove his shoes and socks. "This is going to suck." He said, rolling up his pant legs and trudging into the cold murky water. He sent up a quick prayer as he felt the water lick at his jackalope scratches.
He was slow in his approach, rippling the water barely more than a duck as he closed in on his target. The frog stared up at him, abnormally calm as it regarded him with a mighty croak.
Hiro carefully raised his phone with one hand, thumb at the ready, as he lowered his other. A size comparison, just to be sure, for both his peace of mind and to make sure the picture counted. He even managed to take a couple before his phone rang.
The sound, as close as it was, spooked the poor frog. It let out something close to a shriek as it plunged into the water. Accompanying its departure was a splash of pond water that went right up Hiro's nose.
Sputtering he answered the phone.
"Hello?" He asked, already knowing and dreading the caller.
"Hero-boy! Where are you at my man?" His manager asked.
"I took the day off, sir. I called and had to leave a message but I did let you know. " Hiro had, in fact, called three times. Before and after opening, but no one picked up. "I needed a personal day."
"Yeah, I saw that. Not very professional, is it? Leaving a message to call out?." The man said with a click in his voice, as if his call logs didn’t show all the time Hiro had tried to call the dealership. "You're really putting us in a bind here man."
"Mr. Mclean, I called out hours ago, my shift would have just started. I won't be coming in today."
"Can I ask what was so important that you had to call out on us like this?"
Hiro paused and gave the question some actual consideration. Because what could he say without sounding crazy? That he wanted to take pictures of frogs? That only sounded slightly less insane than the truth. The truth made it sound like he joined a cyber cult, which… might not be too inaccurate and something he'd have to keep in mind.
So, instead, he said, "I needed a mental health day, sir. I've been on a walk since I called out."
"A mental health day?" He repeated as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Kid, I thought you were different from the rest of your generation. Well, whatever. We'll talk about this on your next shift. Enjoy your "mental health" day."
When the call ended Hiro could only shake his head. He had tried to give proper notice, it wasn't his fault that no one picked up, and less so when they apparently couldn't find a replacement. Why did he work there again?
Oh, right. Money.
Though he was probably, leaning towards definitely, going to be looking for a new job after that call. Had his boss always been that annoying? Well, if worse came to worst he'd still have his Poole job to fall back on.
As he submitted his first, recorded, abnormal find he very quickly found another source of income.
[You have logged your first abnormal creature!]
[You have earned 200 USD for your contributions! Find more abnormalities, or expand on existing entries, to earn more!]
Two hundred dollars? Just like that? And he could get more by going over his old entries again?
Hiro wasn't sure if the app was legal but it did make quitting all the more tempting. More so when he added the observation of "frogs of unusual size" and received fifty dollars for his troubles. Hiro briefly wondered how much the other Champions were making.
Another thing for his list of questions.
He spent another hour or so touring that old pond before moving on. There wasn't much there to his untrained eye. The fish still swam about, the flower still smelled pleasant, and the ducks were still viciously territorial. Maybe he had missed something, very likely, but he was only on his first pass of this park.
And even if he didn't find anything else there he would probably learn something worthwhile from his dad later that night.
He walked the trails more idly after that thought, more than he would care to admit. He still gave the plants and such a courtesy glance as he walked by, vaguely hoping to see another obvious change. Which, despite his experiences, he knew was easier said than done.
Hiro had seen the pattern, the other Champions likely did too, and he was fairly sure most of the creatures he was looking for couldn't even walk yet. Still, maybe he had a bit of luck still in him. For all he knew there could be some mutated flower growing along the park somewhere.
And, if he decided to think on it for more than a moment, there was no more likely place for it than the Community Garden. The Steelsworth City Council had made a big deal of it a few years ago, planting it with fanfare that had quickly died off after the election season.
It was, like the park itself, fairly small. Barely under two acres Steelsworth's main park, Liberty, had only the garden and the paths going for it. It didn't even have a playground, and it wasn't even the city's largest park, yet families were already starting to spread out on the early spring grass. The winter chill was barely gone and here they were.
Volunteers worked diligently around the park, mostly the garden, pulling out old growth and planting new… herbs? It looked like herbs.
One of the workers was tending to the city's not-so-famous fruit salad tree, one of those trees that had a different fruit growing from each grafted branch. She seemed to be in the process of grafting a new branch on, wrapping a sprouting stick in a tight wrap of plastic, and pouring a thick liquid with every go around. She stared at her work, frowning, before pulling something out of her pocket.
A crystal, about the size of a poker chip, transparent and pearl like in color. She held it up to her eye and examined the branch. Whatever she saw bloomed a smile onto her face, then she frowned again.
Hiro had been approaching, a platitude ready on his lips so he could take a look around the garden when she locked onto him. She scrutinized him under the gaze of her crystal, considering him with a frown, then she smiled again.
When she started to wave he paused, confused and hesitant as he gave a weak wave back. When the other volunteers stopped their work and followed her gaze to him he started to get worried. When they all started to stand he knew he was in trouble.