Welcome to Gaia! ::

We all know what is happening on Dr. Moreau's secret facility. Well, several years have now passed, and the rest of the world does as well. After a devestating raid by the U.S. government on the now-infamous island, the Moreau Scandal (as it came to be called) has caused massive repurcussions. Out of the 100+ people that were taken to the island, only about 40 are known to have survived.

The Feral Labs Corporation filed for bankruptcy after the myriad of lawsuits. Most of its assets went to the surviving islanders and the government. The facilities on the island were burned to the ground, and all of Dr. Moreau's research has been destroyed. It is once again a mystery how the red-headed demon was able to do this to people...and how to change them back.

As a result, the survivors like to keep to themselves. The largest group pooled their money together to buy a large tract of Texas informally called The Ranch. Other survivors are spread throughout the world, the more high-profile ones writing books and doing the talk-show circuit.

This is the story of what happens after, once the island finally is discovered by the world. It is the story of what happened after.

Chapter One: The Ranch.....Page One
Chapter Two: Inside the Farmhouse.....Page One
Chapter Three: Talk Show Circuit.....Page One
Chapter Four: Fan Mail.....Page One
Chapter Five: Early Morning Television.....Page One
Chapter Six: Dreams.....Page One
Chapter Seven: The Farmhouse Again.....Page One
Chapter Eight: The Hunt.....Page One (special guest author Baneful)
Chapter Nine: Interview.....Page One

The living room of the old farmhouse seemed very friendly at first glance—a curve-around couch, a coffee table, a nice flat screen television hanging on the wall. If someone were to take a closer look, however, they would notice the little nuances throughout the room: the holes of varying size in the back of the couch, the piles of blankets and pillows on the floor.

On one of the piles of blankets, a large eared fox was curled up sleepily. Sophie was used to sleeping during the day—the fennec’s instincts have made the girl a perpetual night owl—and now as the sun was rising she was preparing to return to her own, comfy bungalow.

Stretching her arms out on the blankets in front of her, Sophie groggily stood up on her two legs and began to cross the room. It may be cliché, but it truly felt like she had sandbags pulling down her eyelids. Sleep was calling, and almost nothing would stop her from answering. Except, of course, the young man who walked into her as she was leaving the building.

“Oof!” Sophie, with her diminutive frame, was easily knocked back by the much larger young man. She was knocked to the floor.

When she looked up at him, Sophie could help but be afraid. It was like the man was blotting out the rising sun, an imposing figure that was impossibly tall, impossibly…cold. The air…it was the air around her was literally dropping temperature. Her fur was starting to bristle…She couldn’t help but stare.

Gaius peered over the young man’s shoulder. “Sophie? You all right?”

Sophie broke her stare and looked up at Gaius. It seemed like the temperature around her was once again rising.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, getting up. What was wrong with her? She could help but feel like there was something off with this young man, like some sort of horror film. Then again, it could have just been her instincts reacting to the larger, more threatening being. “Who is this, family?

The two of them entered the living room. The young man started to look around, like he was in some sort of museum. Now that they were in the room, the stranger didn’t look threatening at all. It must have been the fennec, Sophie concluded.

“No.” Gaius’ head followed the young man as he walked around the room. “Sophie, this is Eric Monroe. He says he has a human serum.”

Sophie thought Gaius must had made a mistake. “Wait. Say that again.”

Gaius turned his head to look at the fennec fox head on, ears pricked forward. “I don’t really trust him, but this guy says he has a human serum. I don’t know how he would get it, he’s just some reporter…”

The foxwoman was shocked. “…a human serum.”

“Yeah,” Gaius replied. “He said he’d be willing to get them for us all…as long as he got interviews from us.”

“Interviews.” To Sophie, it looked too good to be true. She glanced over to ‘Eric’—he was picking up a child’s toy from the couch and staring at it in fascination. “Bullshit. There’s no way this guy could even get access to the Island, he looks like he just graduated college.”

The young man accidentally dropped the toy on the floor. Sheepishly, he sat down.

“I know,” Gaius said, also glancing over at him. “But…he just didn’t seem like he was lying.” He paused for a moment, as if confused. “It was very weird.”

Eric was now staring at the two of them expectantly.

“I think he wants a group interview, with a whole bunch of us,” Gaius said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I was going to see if any of the others would be up for it. Would you do it?”

An interview…of course. It was too good to be true. Sophie hadn’t been very comfortable around people (well, normal people) since she returned to the mainland. “I’m…not really so sure, Gaius…”

“That’s fine,” he said. “Can you at least make sure he doesn’t go anywhere while I ask everyone else?”

Sophie looked over at the man, and then back to Gaius. There was just something off about him…“Fine. Go ahead.”

Gaius grinned with his seemingly huge mouth, turned around, and walked out the door into the prarie beyond. Now, it was only Sophie…and him.

Sighing, she walked over to sit on the couch. Sophie tried to appear friendly to the man, but inside she was exhausted, confused, and mostly scared.

She opened her mouth to speak when the young man interrupted her.

“Sophie Bell?”

Sophie stopped for a moment, shocked that the young man knew her name.

“Hello,” she replied hesitantly. Sleep would have to wait a little longer.

Q: Yo, I hear that you don’t do your own drawings anymore. Thats so fake man, way to sell out. I used to like SnoCone.

A: Yes, it is true. Unfortunately, I’ve had some problems with my hands the last few years, and SnoCone has been so popular that I haven’t been able to keep up. Luckily, ZOOMTV has hired a great team of cartoonists for me so I can keep making SnoCone for you all! M.G.

It had been the usual nightmare, the one that he had been having for years: the jungle ablaze with chemical fire (what Vietnam would have looked like, if he had been alive during that time) and it seemed like a whole plethora of creatures, natural and man-made, were dodging bullets as they fled down the jungle paths. Marshall would always wake up smelling burning wood, fur, flesh.

Once he woke up from one of these nightmares, the penguin could rarely fall back asleep. Most times Marshall just wasted time with early morning television or on the internet. This morning, however, he was feeling particularly productive—Marshall was answering some fan mail.

Q: when is there gonna be a snocone MOVIE !11!?

A: Dreamworks Animation is actually working on one now. You can see the trailer here. M.G.

Although Feral had taken his hands and ability to draw, he was able to use part of his settlement to buy back his beloved SnoCone. The likenesses, the television show, the characters, the newspaper-comic…as well as the original website. The critics said that SnoCone had experienced a renaissance, a second wing, the best since ZoomTV originally “bought” it from him.

Of course, Marshall really didn’t go into the reason why he had “sold” it in the first place. Or how he bought it back. Or why he didn’t try to draw the comic himself anymore.

Q: Where were you those few years? Why did you sell?

A:

Marshall stared at the screen, the blue glow bathing his penguin face and extra-large keyboard.

Q: Where were you those few years? Why did you sell?

A:

There was a knock on the door.

Marshall got up from his computer desk and waddled (that was the best sort of walking he could possibly do nowadays) to the wooden door. The islanders, diurnal and nocturnal alike, were generally good about sleeping hours and being courteous about that sort of thing…unless there was something up.

“Gaius!” he asked when he opened the door, giving a strange beaked grin.

The pegasus didn’t return the smile. “Hey Marshall. D’you mind heading up to the farmhouse?”

Q: Where were you those few years?

A:

Marshall’s grin faded. Something was wrong. He knew it.

The two of them were in one of the many clearings in the jungle, alone, watching the sun go down and listening to the gunshots in the distance. In the village, all hell was breaking loose, but out here, in the jungle…it was almost peaceful, relaxing, safer, like some island vacation.

However, this wasn’t any island. There were no vacation, there was so such thing as peace, relaxation. This island was hell, and now it was being brought into the world in a baptism of bullets and blood.

And, of course, the illusion of safety appears when you forget about some of the dangers.

“What was that?” Chana asked, lifting her head up from the furry chest of Stewart Young and looking towards the jungle edge. She got the feeling that she was being…watched. A predator.

Stewart got up, wiped the grass off of him, and then slowly walked to the jungle edge, Chana standing in the center, the sounds of gunshots like distant fireworks.

She felt something whiz past her ear—an insect was her first thought, but when the trees above Chana’s head shook almost instantly, she knew. A stray bullet. The stray bullet.

She wanted to scream out to Stewart, to not turn around at the sound, but there was less than a second—barely enough time to fill her lungs with oxygen before a massive with scraps of clothing wolf jumped out of the foliage, grabbing jaws latching onto Stewart’s throat and ripping it out, the blood splaying everywhere and his beautiful blue eyes staring at her, tearing because she had to see this.

The goat gave a death cry, a sad bah that was gurgled with blood before the mad wolf began to feast.

“STEWART!” Chana yelled out, alone. The sun was just coming up through the blinds of her bungalow. Instinctively, she touched the scar on her leg, tracing the jagged edge, ignoring the knock on her door.

“Stewart…”

Rabbit.
Rabbit twitch.
Rabbit see.
Rabbit RUN.

CHASE.
Catch Rabbit.
Kill Rabbit.

Muscles like steel snapped into action and a sharp intake of air signalled the beginning of the hunt. The moon overhead was blinding with it’s light, catching the flashing tail in front of his jaws. There was nothing except the chase, nothing except the rabbit. Open grass, sharp fresh smell of life. Snap. Crunch.

And it ended.

Caught Rabbit.

Blood seeped into his fur, warm and unpleasantly moist, reviling as always his civilised thoughts but delighting the others. He wouldn’t eat the rabbit, not now, no matter how tempting that was. He took it back to the cabin, to Bobby. As he walked, the adrenalin swept out of his system once more, instinct being replaced by thought and as always unbidden, the thoughts turned into coherent memories, the blood simply fuelled them.

Memories. They still stalked the corners of his mind, memories of that night, that horrible, insane night where everything went from paradise to hell. His memory of it was nothing more than a blur of instinct and fear, yells, screams, the scent of gunpowder, all of it. It reminded him of the past he’d thought forgotten at the time and the old cool instincts kept him alive. He’d ran, hunting in the confusion for the one person who mattered, and somehow, he’d found her.
But that was long ago, too long ago to be more than a distant haze. Life was better now, for the most part, settled into as much normalcy as was possible for it to. Things went smoothly for him, all he had to do was to stay silent and he was a very large coyote, as long as he didn’t go killing livestock or end up near a farmer, he would be safe. And he had Bobby. It felt guiltier back in the real world, knowing that her family were still around here, that her husband knew she still lived. The two emotions, jealousy and guilt vied for supremacy in him daily, a battle neither seemed capable of winning.

He just had to ignore them as best he could.

Normally he didn’t see many of the others, tending to favour the outdoors and night time, unable to handle the claustrophobia of rooms and the scents of humanity for very long, no matter how he tried to deny it, he was more animal than human now. Still, he knew what to look out for, the human part of him always socially active out here, so of course he was surprised when he saw a figure approach the entrance to the home he and Bobby shared when he actually did come indoors. Interested, he drew nearer, large ears perked with interest at this somewhat unusual turn of events. Quiet wasn’t a problem, he could move with all the stealth of a wild animal and did so, listening intently to what was said to Bobby, the dead rabbit still dangling from his jaws, dripping still warm blood onto the grass. Things were too complicated these days, if only everything was as simple as the hunt, as catching and killing to survive.

He listened as they spoke of something important going down.

Watch people.
Listen to people.
Wait.
Hope.

Sleep was bliss.

It was amazing, how the inky blackness of sleep could make the entire world seem innocent and perfect and fine. It could make someone forget about a tail, or fur, or a muzzle, or large lemur ears.

Maryke was walking down a street that she didn’t recognize in a large city—bright lights everywhere, neon and the orange glow from the halogen streetlights, red and blue flashers from a cop, the red of cars slowing down. She smiled as she walked down the sidewalk; everyone was looking at her, her perfect human beauty and body and breasts and feet and hair. She was the madam again; all were under her power.

There was a whistle, a low wolf whistle that could stereotypically heard passing construction sites. Maryke turned to the source, a man on the sidewalk opposite hidden in between the shadows of two street lights, and gave a teasing wink. Whoever it was, he was way out of the league of the madam.

Maryke continued to walk down the sidewalk, a smile on her face. Life was good.

She tasted something strange on her lip, something tinny and bitter. Maryke put a well-manicured finger to her mouth, probing for the source of the strange taste.

Her teeth…they were different.

Maryke held the finger up to her face…but now it wasn’t a finger. The once carefully painted nail was curved upward grotesquely, like some kind of scythe. Fur rapidly traveled down the finger, down to her hand and arm and body beyond.

The streetlights suddenly went back. The madam gazed on in horror as she was lost once again.

She heard the gasps of the people around her, hiding in the shadows. Screams, sobbing, fear…Maryke began to run as the bullets began to fly.

It hit her in the back.

She fell into the dirt path, the sound of bullets and animal screams overtaking the island in twilight. Maryke could smell the burning of the labs further up the mountain, hear the musical beats of gunshots both nearby and far off, felt her legs give out under her and the dirt on her stomach.

Maryke fell and landed in the mud. She tried to get up, desperately and frantically, but the pain…the pain in her back was unbearable.

She felt the muscular limbs reach around her, scarred and weak but gripping as strong as they could despite all the insults that the labs had thrown at them, the soft but terrified voice saying, “it’be all righ’, love, all righ’” with his typical thick accent as he dragged her across the dirt, into the jungle and in one of the small ponds, filled with dirt and disease but so much safer than just laying on the road to die. Maryke felt the limbs leave her, untwisting and climbing out of the pond and tried to yell for him not to go but it was too late, he had already gone…

Maryke opened her eyes to the ceiling of the bungalow and to the sound of knocking on the door.

“Maryke?” the voice, the clicking beak of the penguin boy Marshall. “Can we come in?”

The lemur woman sighed, looking over the wheelchair to the door beyond.

”It’s fine,” she said. “I just woke up.”

“This place is no better than the island, you know,” Antony had said to Nita once, before she left the Ranch to go on her own. It was one of those get-togethers back when Gaius had said that they would all be one family, an awkward and forced barbeque that also served as a dinner. The two of them had moved away from the group gathered around the campfire, sitting at a picnic table under a tree and the clear prairie stars beyond it.

“Little bungalows, all alike, in a ******** pattern, a big central building…hell, there are even guards.” She finished up her cigarette and threw it in the dirt, the small light that had been illuminating the two of them vanishing into the blue night. “The only difference,” Antony continues lazily, “is that we’re doing this to ourselves.

Four years of heartbreak and hardships later, Nita was beginning to agree.

She had been spending the last few days packing her things, tidying up her bungalow, tying up some loose ends…except for one.

Nita sighed. The two of them had never really been in a relationship, or at least any romantic one, but still...she owed it to Gaius to give some sort of closure. The two of them had been through ups and downs on the island and in the times since then, dealing with family, friends, old flames and relationships, the reporters and that story Newsweek did about Lauren and all the other loyalists, the raid, the sight and sounds and half-human screams of the islanders being caught in the crossfire, the smell of the smoke, burnt wood and hair and flesh, the months of study and quarantine by scientists, poking and prodding, the memorial services and funerals, all the funerals, even the double casket at Aubrey’s, the sadness, the years of disheartening depression…

Nita wiped her eyes. She had begun to cry.

The red panda put her bags in a neat pile on the floor, just waiting to be picked up. The bags on the floor gave a sense of permanency to her decision, like they couldn’t be moved or unpacked even if she willed it. Ohio, here we come.

She turned to open the door, fully intending to go straight to Gaius’s bungalow and let him know that there was going to be an extra room available at the Ranch within the next day or so. As Nita opened the door, however, she found that her search was relatively easy—Gaius was walking up to the bungalow. With most of the other survivors behind him.

s**t.

“Nita!” the Pegasus said, voice full of surprise at the sight of her and contrasting the looks on the faces behind him. “Would you mind heading up to the farmhouse?”

Nita stared at the crowd beyond Gaius. None of them knew her plan to leave; she was hoping for as little confrontation and explanation as possible as she ventured north. In fact, she was sure that there were plenty of survivors who felt the same way she did—trapped again, no chance to leave, no chance for a normal life.

But she couldn’t do this in front of the entire Ranch. Not to Gaius. Not after everything he had done, every small little gesture and shoulder and nuzzle he provided, the sanctuary the few of them had tried to create.

Still…she hesitated.

“All right,” she said, almost reluctantly, and bypassed the crowd to go straight to the farmhouse. Nita knew she wouldn’t be able to stand their sullen, accusing faces for long.