The Clark base remained the same… Or did it?

  Now, there is beautiful artistry painted all over the walls of every building. The paintings are beautiful and absolutely stunning, with images of tigers, dire wolves, mammoths, and other beings endemic here, like zebras or giraffes.

  The snowy land shows a mammoth nearby, which silently eats from the pine trees’ leaves before it. They can be heard trumpeting their trunks, creating loud and booming squeals that echo throughout the land.

  Billy looks into her telescope to shoot from her sniping blaster rifle, staring at the oldest of the group.

  Billy shoots at it as it falls to the ground, dead. The loud bang echoed in the chambers of the valley. The Mammoths screech and spot her in the nearby shrubs, and begin marching toward her.

  Billy’s eyes widened as she stood up and began climbing one of the pine trees beside her.

  The Mammoth screeches its trumpet and whips the pine tree, only for Beatle to land before the creature, looming 16 feet tall.

  The Mammoth squealed at him, and he roared back, screeching at the Mammoth as the Mammoth roared and whips its trunk at Beatle. The Mammoths began charging, but Beatle just stood there, unamused and not even injured by the attacks.

  One Mammoth loses its tusks upon impact, as Beatle gently puts its tusks back.

  The Mammoth angrily trumpets at Beatle, but Beatle sighs and takes a slab of meat from the Mammoth, before snapping his fingers, as the Mammoth regenerates and returns to life.

  The Mammoth bows and leaves along with its herd.

  Beatle places the slab of meat in the trunk of the pine tree that Billy climbed.

  Billy smiles nervously. “Hey, Dad…”

  Beatle squinted the lenses of his goggles while placing his fists on his hips. “Billy. We HAVE food back in the Hotel…”

  “Dad! We ALWAYS EAT veggies, chicken, beef, or pork! I WAMMA HUNT MAMMOTH!!!”

  “Mammoths are very intelligent beings. Eating them is the equivalent of eating an eight-year-old child.”

  “But their steak tastes amazing!”

  “I know. But YOU CAN’T just go out hunting by yourself!” Beatle carries her up and gently places her down. “I have given you longevity to live forever and NOT to waste the life I gave you!”

  “But-!”

  “Billy!”

  Billy bowed her head. “Okay…”

  Later… They returned to the Airport…

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Any luck?”

  “Still can’t contact Sabbath,” said Beatle. “But I’ve reached a signal. No sound, however.”

  “Oof,” said Billy. “Any theories on what happeneduh?”

  “What likely happened is far worse than what I want to have happened. I’d rather not think about it.”

  “Same old, same old, then, huh?” She walked on tiptoes.

  “Mhm,” said Beatle.

  “Can we have Filipino food tonight?” asked Billy.

  “I wanted Taiwanese,” said Beatle.

  Billy scoffs. “Dad! C’mon!”

  Beatle chuckles. “Fine… Let’s eat.Matam-Ih.”

  “Ha!” spoke the voice in both their heads.

  “Hey, Grandpa!” smiled Billy.

  “Hello, my child,” said the voice. “Patience is a virtue, Beatle…”

  “Yeah, Dad!” she smirked. “Patience is a virtue!” she laughed.

  Beatle rolled his eyes and entered one of the restaurants,

  In Matam-Ih, they are served delectable grilled crickets and ostrich steak, farmed primarily by the Drones in the distance as Beatle and Billy are given ostrich and the mammoth they harvested from earlier, now cooked into fine marinade, some kamote fries, a fertilized duck egg, and sticky rice with ice cream. Curiously, the restaurant seems to have been upscaled to include large beings such as Beatle himself.

  They happily both ate silently, with Beatle mostly eating rice and ostrich steak.

  That evening, they returned to the Marriott hotel and she slept in her own room while Beatle slept in the other, proceeding to place an HDMI cable into his laptop while using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

  He read from his monitor and typed gleefully into his billions of notes he had written over the years in a website called “The Librarium”. He opens a file known as “Mammoth” and places what he has learned so far. Other details include the fact that Mammoths can pray and practice burying the dead. He also notes that there are indeed a species of sea platypi and komodo dragons that had migrated to Luzon very recently in the next file.

  Beatle then opens up a drawer beneath the television, revealing a printer that prints them into books.

  That midnight, he began stocking up the physical copies of his research and books, placing them in towering shelves all over the rooms.

  In the dining hall, Beatle walks inside and begins eating some sashimi, a midnight snack, an old bad habit of his he had been doing for years since he was younger. He ate happily, slurping up the heavily cleaned salmon and tuna sashimi. He just slurps them up one by one, even taking in loads amounts of wasabi before feeling the burn in his nose and sneezing after. He throws the wasabi away, adjusting the level of spice in the next batch of sashimi he eats.

  Listening to Starman in the radio, he reaches the hotel’s former penthouse turned greenhouse, a beautiful garden with various plants that he allowed to survive within the facility away from the harsh snows: Strawberries, Oranges, Lemons, Watermelon, Dayap, Calamansi, and even herbs such as Basil, Bayleaves, Oregano, Mint, Peppermint, Coriander, and many other vegetables such as radishes, turnips, sigarilyas, corn, peanuts, and basically everything from the Bahay Kubo children’s folk song. The vegetables, fruits, and herbs are very plentiful, all of which he grew by himself and with Billy. He picks the avocado off its stem and opens it up, biting into its sweet, buttery flesh. He throws the rotten ones filled with maggots and caterpillars into his composts, where many bugs emerge from.

  He smiles, seeing that the various ants he had captured over the years have grown to such a massive population, and feeds them some rotten leftovers.

  “I… almost forgot what this feels like…” spoke the voice in his head. “I created this world… All of it… And other worlds like this across the stars… I chose this world… And in the end, I lost all hope. Thank you, dear child, for reminding me what this feels like…”

  “Change your mind yet?”

  “I’ll… withhold my demands for now. Just for now.”

  Beatle gives a soft smile. “Is this why you wanted me to raise the child? Going off course of the plan here, Father.”

  “Well… I did miss being Human.”