Henry leaves the safety of his house. He carries an automatic rifle with him, slung over his shoulder. The green woods around him lets through golden-green light. It's mid-summer. That means Shark breeding season. That also means the Centaurs are gonna be all over the place. Darn Centaurs.

Henry walks through the woods down a route he has never taken before. Sharks and Centaurs are both smart. They can follow a trail. It doesn't help that Sharks can 'swim' through the air though. It just makes them faster than him. And Centaurs.

Henry makes it to a brick building with a large boulder over the only door. There are no windows on the ground floor but there are several with metal shutters on the top two floors. Henry picks up a rock and throws it at the metal shutters creating a loud ding sound that echoes along the inside of the building. He looks around at the surrounding wood and trees uneasily. Centaurs could be around. And Sharks. The shutters open up and a beefy green fellow leans his head out of the window, looking around.

"What'd'ya want?" He growls squinting in the light.

"Trade, I have horse meat in my bag here," Henry calls up to him patting the bag slung across his back.

"Centaur?" The beast, an Orch, asks narrowing its eyes.

"I said horse, didn't I?" The Orch growls.

"If it has naything to do with a Centaur I'll gut you and give you to them myself, I don't want nothing to do with those creatures and you know it." He closes the shutters swiftly before Henry can respond. Several seconds later the boulder begins to move and stops just far enough so that Henry can squeeze through. A growl comes from inside. Henry goes in.

The inside is musty and dark without windows and electricity. Things no one can afford in the jungle. The larger cities that have protection from Sharks and Centaurs have electricity. But they tend not to let anyone in.

"Where's the meat?" Henry hands the bag over. The Orch sniffs it and opens it, peeking in. Then sets it roughly on the table behind him.

"I'd say a hundred credits, that stuff ain't easy to get ya know. 'Specially with them Centaurs." Henry says with a low chuckle.

"'Bout that," The Orch growls immediatly putting Henry on edge, "I've made a deal for their protec-" Before he can finish Henry has put two bullets through his thick gut and is searching the room for other targets. Two Centaurs appear with plasma weapons.

Henry awakens hanging from his legs and blood rushing to his head. Suddenly he's on the ground and sees a green shark flying towards him over the dirt land of the Centaurian arena. He dizzingly lifts the energy sword at his feet and slashes at the beast cutting off its lower jaw but not before it sinks its upper teeth into the back of his neck killing him instantly.

Todd lay awake, staring up at the roof of the tent, watching the interplay of moonbeams and clouds on the fabric in an effort to distract himself from his growing sense of dread. He listened to the sounds of sleep that came from the other three boys in the tent, but even that didn't help. Stepping cat-like over bodies that shifted in the uncertain light, he made his way over to the tent door. The unzipping was shockingly loud in the silent night, so he wasn't surprised when he heard someone stir from sleep behind him.

"...whazzat?" one of his friends muttered sleepily. Todd couldn't tell who it was.

"It's Todd. I'm... I'm going to the bathroom. Go back to sleep."

"Oh. Okay." Whoever it was seemed to settle back down, but when Todd turned around to zip the tent back up, Daryl stood by the entrance, rubbing his eyes.

"What?" Todd asked.

Daryl smiled sheepishly. "I kinda got to go too. Didn't realize until you said."

Todd frowned. "I actually don't have to go. I just said it so you'd go back to sleep."

"Oh." Daryl bit his lip, but then grinned at him. "Well, I still need to go. So let's go."

Todd had forgotten his flashlight, but Daryl had remembered his, so that was all right. They were a fifteen minute walk from the bathroom facility in the campground. Todd could only manage five of those minutes in silence.

"So, did you think Michael's story was true? I'm kinda scared." he asked.

"What, that there's a bat-shark on this campground that flies around eating people? Like for real? And that people actually call a bark? That's so dumb! Monsters are supposed to be scary, but that's, like, the least scary thing possible!" Daryl laughed. "God, you're such a wimp!"

Todd punched his shoulder. "You're a wimp!" He turned, and stalked away into the darkness.

Daryl called after him, "Hey! Todd! I'm sorry, man! Come back!"

But Todd was gone. Daryl shrugged and left, figuring Todd could find his way back.

But he never did.

The next day, they found a scrap of Todd's pajamas by a tree. They were stained with blood. Daryl was inconsolable, and vowed that one day, he would find the bark that did this to his friend.

Twenty years later, he fulfilled that promise. He became a sexy vigilante bark hunter, and, after a fierce battle with the bark, which turned out to not just be a single bark but a whole colony of barks, with a bark queen at the center that controlled the hive mind, he found out that Todd, who was actually his secret half-brother, had actually been turned into a bark by a notorious witch that lived in the caverns deep below the bark compounds, so Daryl killed her too. And then fell in love with her sexy daughter, who had somehow escaped her mother for unclear reasons.