Who the fuck even cares about chips if they couldn't be eaten.
Marshall S. Grant wanted a relaxing, sweet life, not a promotion in a warzone.
The more he tried to look incompetent, the more he got promoted. In the end, with a golden oak leaf on his chest, he had to enter the frontlines in the bloodiest battle yet. The battle of Penghu Islands was crucial, as it was an enemy stronghold. The pre-operative AI estimated a loss of nearly 30,000.
BANG!
He was one of those 30,000.
Yes, he died there.
Headshotted, embarrassing, he knew it as well.
Fuck you! All of you! Making it sound easy… fuck this!
He cursed his ancestors as he dropped dead. Cursing them for giving him the illusion that being a soldier was badass. Sure, those bastards probably felt that since they were high-ranking fat-asses. In contrast, he was the guy with the boots on the ground.
####
Nightmare fuel—A word that Marshall never pondered on. But now, he found himself living it, or rather standing right inside it. He remembered being shot in the head, but there he was now, standing perfectly fine without a single piece of cloth on his body.
"Where am I?"
Breathing felt different. Taking a tinge bit more effort to inhale and exhale. The plants around him all looked unfamiliar, the trees were insanely massive. The sky was very clean, and the noises around him were those he had never heard in his entire life.
"Grrrrrrrr~"
It was then that he heard something. So low, yet so deafening. It was less audible and had more vibrations. He felt his skin wrinkle with goosebumps from the sound. His heart suddenly started pounding hard, and his entire, naked body started sweating.
"Huff~"
He felt loud exhales from his rear. He wanted to look but his feet were frozen. He never wanted to go to war but that didn't mean he was unfit. The army had carved his decently tall, six-foot body neatly, his blonde hair was trimmed well, but he maintained a short beard. Surely, whatever was behind him would love to taste his juicy body.
What is it? Where am I?
Gathering some courage, Marshall only moved his neck to look behind. He could feel his heartbeat in his chest. Every passing second was frightening.
"Grrrrr~"
I'm fucked!
All he saw was a gigantic head, larger than his whole body. It was leathery, scaly, with sharp, furious eyes, and teeth as long as his hand.
A-A fucking T-Rex? Is this a T-Rex?
"WRAAA!"
He died—Instantly. The animal's bite tore off his entire head in one go.
####
"Ha?!"
"Grrrrrrrr~"
He remembered dying. He remembered getting eaten by the large beast.
But there he was again, standing in the same spot he'd appeared before. Naked, clean, and once again, witness to that low rumbling growl from behind him.
But something felt different this time.
Where's the sweat? I don't feel scared at all.
Before, the fear rose from his very being. As if it were a natural reaction of his body. A sort of instinct. But this time, he felt different. Instead of fear, he felt challenged. Enraged. As if his might was being questioned.
What might? I'm a fucking pebble to it.
But this time, he turned around without fear and looked at the large thing. It looked like a T-Rex, but at the same time, different. Its spine was too protruded behind its head. Its jaws were bloody as if it had just eaten something.
"WRAAA!"
"Shut your damn mouth!"
Marshall didn't know what came over. He reacted by punching towards the large maw of the beast. It felt like a natural reaction from him.
BAM!
"Graaaaaa!"
WHAT?!
Marshall stood shocked. He looked at his fist and then at the broken teeth of the beast as it cried and recoiled.
I did that?
His instincts told him to continue. And he did. He rushed forward toward the creature and continued to punch at its body. He wasn't tall so he punched its massive legs.
Squelch!
Red blood gushed out of the dinosaur's legs.
"It's working!"
Marshall attacked with full confidence. He mainly punched, but when the dinosaur tried to hit him back with its tail, he instinctively bit into it.
Squelch!
Shockingly, his jaw easily tore through the dinosaur's flesh and bit off an entire chunk of the flesh.
What happened to me? This is insane!
Thud!
Thud!
A small human versus the apex predator of the land. The fight didn't last too long as Marshall's size was his advantage. The dinosaur had to move a lot and focus to strike him.
"Haha! I can kill you!"
With the dinosaur injured, Marshall jumped onto its back and started kicking like a child throwing a tantrum. He attacked its spine, breaking whatever bones he saw, and crushed it with his powerful hits. He couldn't care less where all his strength came from. He wasn't the one dying, and that was all that mattered.
"Wraaaaaaaa!"
Woosh!
Woosh!
The dinosaur tried to jump around, whip its long tail, and even roll on the muddy ground. But Marshall was too fast and small for it to fight.
Bam!
Writhing, and bleeding, the dinosaur slowly took its last breath. Marshall bit into its neck in the end and finished the creature rather quickly, ending its misery.
"..."
Finally, sitting on the corpse, Marshall had the time to relax and breathe.
"What… What did I just do?"
He looked at his palms and made a tight fist. He felt powerful, unnaturally so. His jaws, he felt, were so mighty he could chomp down a tree faster than a beaver.
"What's going on? Where am I?"
Sure, he knew the common stories. Dead, reborn, bla, bla. But he met no god. He met no otherworldly entity that told him what to do. He just died and popped up right there, butt-naked.
"Sixty-six million years? No, that's when the dinosaurs died from that meteor. Then… I could be anywhere before that era—Fuck! Then I'm the only human on the entire fucking planet."
He wasn't the smartest one when it came to history. But he knew the basics about evolution, dinosaurs, continental drift, and whatnot. Being stuck in the age of dinosaurs didn't sound as exciting when he was the only one there.
"Uh…" He felt a rumble in his stomach. "I feel hungry… and butt naked."
At that, he looked at the dead dinosaur with keen interest. He remembered reading somewhere that chickens were related to dinosaurs. So that begged the question—What do dinosaurs taste like?
"I guess I'm going to find out."
####
"Time… Space… Reality… It's more than a linear path. It's a prism of endless possibility, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know. I am the Watcher—And this is the first instance of this moment in all of reality. A creature never supposed to exist in this time has arrived. A being that is human yet isn't."
Big head, bald, Uatu the Watcher, stationed on the Blue Area of the Moon, watched the planet in the sector he was assigned to. He never meddled, only watched, and as of now, his pure interest froze in the current reality.
"A new apex predator has appeared on the planet. Superior in every possible way—the future now is boundless. But he is cursed to remain the lone being of his species—A curse enough to madden any."
####
"Pfooooooooo~"
Cough! Cough!
"Pfooooooooo~"
"YES! FIRE!"
Like a caveman, Marshall squatted beside a bunch of sticks he'd gathered. By grinding wood against wood he finally created a fire. It took him an hour, shameful indeed, but it was his first attempt. He had to perfect his technique. Moreover, his heightened strength wasn't easy to control. Most unsuccessful attempts were because he broke the stick he was rolling.
"Thank you! God—Wait, I came before the man who made wine, didn't I?"
"Pfoooooo~"
In any case, he blew into the sparks and soon created a large bonfire. He was sure the night in that era would be utterly catastrophic, so he focused on finding himself refuge. And what better place to rest than the fat trees right there?
But first came food.
He didn't have a knife so he used his mighty jaw to rip a piece of flesh from the dinosaur. He went for the breast. Then, he threw it on fire. He didn't give a damn about rare, medium rare, or anything. He wanted well-done, charred even. The last thing he wanted was some kind of Jurassic parasite entering his body.
While the meat was cooking, he focused on skinning the animal to create something, even a small piece, to cover his crotch. It was hard, not him, but the scales of the dinosaur. It wasn't meant for clothing, not unless processed neatly.
Should find a furry animal later.
He was confident now. If he could kill whatever T-Rex thing he fought was, he knew he was likely amongst the apex predators on land. As for the sea… it scared him.