Waking up to a bright light shining through my eyelids my first coherent thoughts went something along the lines of, waking up sucks, I'm pretty sure it's Saturday, and I have to study for a test on Monday. Therefore the only logical course of action to take would be to curl up into my blanket to block out the bright light and try to go back to sleep. My second thought was that I have no blanket, and I need a blanket because it's cold, but I don’t want to open my eyes to find my blanket because then I’ll have to wake up. So I started reaching around with my eyes closed to try and find my blanket and noticed some odd peculiarities. For one I didn’t feel my soft bed underneath me, but rather some soft grass and dirt. Second thing is that I definitely just touched a tree, and like most people, I don’t have a tree in my bedroom.
Even with the obvious abnormalities, it was a Saturday morning, and I was tired. So after stuffing my arms into my T-shirt for warmth I promptly ignored my highly suspicious surroundings. I probably would have kept sleeping too, if it wasn’t for that god awful dinging noise that started screaming into my ear just as I started to get comfy.
Reluctantly I opened my eyes, hoping that I could stop that hellish alarm sound and fall back asleep before I fully woke up. Staring up at the flashing red screen hovering in front of my eyes I still didn’t feel awake enough to deal with whatever that was. I did wake up though when I heard one of the most iconic animal roars in history, followed by the thundering footsteps of the should be extinct prehistoric monstrosity that was charging right at me.
Jumping up to my feet even with the large distance between us I could clearly see just how much bigger the T-rex charging truly was in comparison to me. No movie could ever hope to accurately depict how terrifying this hulking monstrosity was. At least 5 times taller than me. leathery reptilian skin with a head that looked like it could swallow 3 of me whole. Giant feet that rhythmically slammed into the ground with every step shaking the ground around it. The tiny arms somehow gave the creature a slightly comedic appearance, but I couldn’t muster up the ability to laugh at the time with its bulbous head quickly getting closer to me.
Looking around for somewhere to run to, I quickly noticed that the tree that I had been sleeping next to had decided to join the T-rex in making me feel like I had been shrunk into some child’s toy set. A large trunk that was at least twice as wide as I was tall and towering beyond the clouds out of my line of sight. The rest of the forest around me looked strange in the fact that it looked like just any other normal forest. Obviously, normality isn’t going to be useful right now, because I can clearly see the T-rex crashing through trees like they are foam walls in its rush to get to me, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that running into the forest Isn’t going to help me for long.
Course of action decided I ran around the tree as quickly as I could to put the tree in between me and the multiton apex predator that for some reason thinks that I would make a good toothpick, because there is no way I could even qualify as a snack for that beast.
Running my hands along the dark bark of the tree I quickly noticed that the bark was rather rough and had plenty of gaps in between for me to grab onto. Pulling on the bark found that there was no chance I was going to be able to pull off any bark, even if I put my full body weight behind it. That means I should be able to climb it, at least theoretically. At least I hope that was true, because if not I am going to learn for myself how fast a T-rex could consume a human.
Pulling myself up I found some of my skin roughly rubbing against the bark of the tree, rather rudely informing me that my clothing had been changed during whatever sent me here, because rather than my nice comfy pajamas and slippers, I was in a plain white tee, brown shorts, and had my toes out in the air. I felt a small bit of disappointment that I would be stuck outside of my comfort clothes, but at least the lack of shoes should make it easier to climb the tree.
Scrambling up the tree I can hear as the T-rex gets closer to the tree I am climbing up. I couldn’t help but think about how cool climbing up this tree barehanded would be if it wasn’t for my terrible company. I can legitimately feel the stomps of the T-rex vibrate up the tree towards me as it finally reaches my tree. Let's look on the positive side, maybe It would miss me as I had already climbed up a good twenty feet, and it never physically saw me start climbing the tree so maybe, just maybe, it would walk right past me.
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My hopes of an easy escape were quickly erased as the big headed giant came around onto my side of the tree and came face to face with my miniscule self quickly trying to climb higher out of range of the suddenly much closer maw of teeth smiling sinisterly at me, and the strangely intelligent eyes that where glaring at me like I had just asked them if they were overcompensating for something with that humongous frame.
It quickly turned its head sideways and opened up to give me a disgustingly up close view of the inside of its mouth, before lunging at me in an attempt to swallow me whole.
I don’t know if it was some crazy attempt of the adrenaline oversaturating my bloodstream to keep me alive, or if I had thought one to many times that my nerdy computer science major self could easily go through the ninja warrior course, but I leaned back and threw myself up the tree in a last desperate attempt to escape from the certain doom that was the T-rex’s mouth. And it worked, if only for a second.
The maws of the beast closed around the tree just inches below my toes. Leaving me with all of my body intact hovering just above the razor-sharp teeth that would have ripped me apart like a dad with a strong hunting obsession and his favorite beef jerky.
Scanning the tree, I luckily found some gaps in the bark that I was able to reach up to and grab onto, swinging the rest of my body back into contact with the tree. I climb up another three-Ish feet just to be safe, and then look down at the stupid beast who thought he could get a high-quality toothpick like me for free, but I quickly realized that I might have underestimated the strangeness of the world around me when the T-rex started to grow at a rate that was clearly visible to the eye. Turning back around I quickly got back to my mad scramble up the tree, this time trying to climb up at an angle to hopefully delay the now both physics, and time defying beast beneath me. But Isn’t time also a part of physics, so it wouldn’t it just be physics defying? Thoughts for later when the same beast Isn’t trying to become the next Godzilla.
The head of the T-rex was quickly catching up to me in height as I crawled around the tree hoping that there is some limit to the magical abilities that this T-rex is currently displaying. Apparently, I'm also going to quickly get more familiar with my improvised jump-climbing tactics because the monster started lunging at me again not even a full ten seconds after the first one.
Jumping up once again I expectantly anticipate the maws of the beast to once again close against the bark of the tree, only to be disappointed to find out that the movies did not lie about the intelligence of these creatures, because instead of a bite the damn bastard went for a headbutt aimed at the tree instead of me.
The problem in this change of tactics quickly became apparent as I grabbed onto the bark of the tree in an attempt to swing back onto the tree, and the vibrations instantly traveled up my arms and through the rest of my body. It was kind of like when you swing a metal bat at something, and it reverbs back at you. The only difference is that you could let go of the bat, if I dared to let go of my life saving tree the only thing that would await me would be a quick trip through this random T-rex’s digestive system. Holding onto the tree for dear life I endured the pain racking through my body and looked down and prayed that the T-rex would still be out of reach of me. Thankfully it seemed like lady luck decided to finally give me a break because the T-rex had stopped growing, and instead stared straight at me, almost as if it was waiting for me to fall. When it noticed that I was still holding tightly onto the tree the T-rex once again reared back to charge the tree.
Deciding that nothing good is going to come from waiting here a hair's breadth away from the waiting maws of the beast I grit my teeth and once again started my climb back up the tree, ignoring the pain radiating out throughout my limbs.
I climbed… and climbed…and climbed some more. Slowly but surely getting farther and farther away from the monster waiting below me. Eventually the strikes of the T-rex started to slow down and get weaker as the distance increased, until eventually it stopped. And I was left there hanging onto a tree that seemed like it would easily break any record that I have heard of, with my limbs demanding an explanation for the torture they had just been put through, having just barely survived an encounter with an animal who should have gone extinct thousands of years ago who was able to defy the squared cube law to enlarge itself to catch little Ol me, and the only coherent thought that I could come up with was WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.