Earth was young when my eyes first opened.

I’ve seen it all. The wind and the rain were made of fire when I was a youngster and lava erupted all around me. Then there was ice, frigid ice, that didn’t stay for quite as long and melted before I sensed the first mortal life forms.

Bacteria. They grew fiercer, forever trying to make me sick.

Before I knew it there were oceans teeming with life that could almost compete with me in beauty and strangeness. They swam with me fearfully for those first million years or so.

Finally, the earth and sky had creatures. Dinosaurs looked somewhat like me, but they lacked wings. Pterodactyls were more similar in habits, but they couldn’t compete with my extreme robustness and with the fact that I’d lived through several billion years of loneliness.

Then things were all fire and ashes again. My friends were gone. There were many years of silence and loneliness until I felt a small prick on my foot. Gazing down sharply, there was a mammal. They were like me, too, in the sense that they kept themselves warm. In a brief decision, I decided to let him live.

Ten million years later, things were getting back to the way they were again.

Mammals seemed strange compared to dinosaurs and sea creatures. Giving birth to live young and being much more diverse in appearance was one of these that made me so interested in their survival.

Twenty million years later, I found myself watching a small creature with a pointed face and peculiar appendages sticking out of its paws as it waved at me from a tree. Whatever it was, it held no particular interest for me. It didn’t seem to have the tools for survival.

That strange creature evolved over time to stand up on two, long feet. There were several species, and all of them seemed vulnerable without claws, fangs or wings. I have all three and then there were these weird creatures with none. I lost much sleep over them.

I realized that they could create things like that to survive.

One day, I flew over them as they stalked a deer. How’s this going to work? The deer has antlers and they have a stick!

It only just worked. With those pointed sticks, they killed the deer and ate its meat, cheering like maniacs to each other. I was disgusted. They could eat roots and berries, but they instead murder an innocent doe. Not only that, but she was young yet! Only idiotic beasts killed off the young; elderly ones and injured ones were no use other than food.

They needed to learn.

As time went on, these sticks were their claws. One species emerged out of the melee of the up-walkers. They were Homo sapiens, the man. I no longer lost sleep for them. Now I was losing sleep over worrying about whether they’d come and kill me in the night.

Time went on. Man formed tribes, which became cities and became countries not long after that. There were only a few thousand years in there. Sadly enough, they stole my animal friends and made them do man’s bidding. I’d had enough when the Roman Empire went and killed off the aurochs, one of the creatures who had styled themselves after me. Their reasons were for entertainment.

I would make them pay.

Eventually, Western Europe was on top. Guess who was the hunter now? Those humans! One day, some English knights tried to sneak up on me and kill me. I took out my resentment on them. Dumb move on my behalf. For the next five hundred years, I’ve been trying to hide out until their time’s come to pass.

Meanwhile, I studied their belongings. They now had teeth, too; they were armed with triangular blades of all sizes that looked just like fangs. Eventually, they invented wings. Not ones that they could flap and fly with, but they were large machines with rotating peaces and roaring engines that allowed them to fly.

Humans are just like dinosaurs. Someday, they’ll be extinct and only a memory. My kind has become stronger again, so much more powerful. I’m no longer the only one. We, with our own teeth, claws and wings, will destroy these humans who have invented their own. They’re taking up our space, destroying our world, hurting our mortal animal friends.

It’s time to make things the way they were without up-walkers interfering...