When you gotta eat, you gotta eat.
And the Glossalite race was a race of eaters. Xagral the Ravenous fancied himself a king, but after he ate most of his subjects, there wasn’t much of a kingdom left. He was on the march to expand the borders of his empire yet again, in search of something satiating. It had been decades since he’d seen another Glossalite, which was for the best. The others usually picked a small planet to rule and were satisfied with the local food, but not Xagral. He wanted to taste all the planets!
The little blue marble popped up on Xagral’s radar, and he licked the console to redirect his ship to the fertile food source. He knew from the broadcast signals that the locals used to call their planet ‘Earth.’ The Glossalites had avoided the planet, first because the dominant land mammals were natural predators to tongue beasts, and then later because everything tasted like metal and nuclear waste. But the humans had blown themselves to smithereens a few decades ago, and now the toxic taste was starting to lift. If he moved in now, he could make sure he was the apex predator.
With a few more licks of the console, he moved his ship into a stable orbit and scanned the planet below. The cockroaches had survived the nuclear holocaust. Xagral wasn’t surprised. The cockroach existed on seventy-two conquered planets, and was delicious on all but three. There were a few other small creatures on the ground. The planet was ripe for conquest!
And so he landed. He opened the door. He tasted the air.
As soon as he stepped into the sunlight, a giant, winged creature swooped out of the air and grabbed him by the shoulders. It was delightful to tour his kingdom from the air, but as a career eater, Xagral knew this thing meant to eat him.
So he looped his giant tongue around its neck and ate it first.
~FIN~
Special thanks to today’s contributing artist, Abigail Mesarch.
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