The Thing

One night, when the moon was full, an Owl sat on a branch in a tree as usual. Suddenly the tree began to shake. The Owl tried to balance herself, but the shaking got worse, so she flew off of her perch, bothered and annoyed. Hovering in the sky, she looked for the source of the commotion (as did several other flying birds and insects) and her attention was drawn to the ground. There on the ground, which was usually covered in tall grass filled with arguing crickets and hopeful spiders, was something entirely unusual. There was a large circle of grass and ground which was collapsing into the shaking, quaking earth; it was sinking to form a wide, circular, crater.

And then, the shaking stopped. The Owl (and the other birds and insects) continued to flap in the air to see what would happen next. They noticed movement in…