I feel as though my fins will start to freeze, just as the water above me soon will. Winter has always been hard to survive, but I’ve always made it out ok. Actually, I’ve never even gotten sick or hurt before. When winter comes every year, I’m the only one in the pond to survive, but as long as I stay alive, none of it really matters.

As I grew, I found it to be easiest to hide somewhere in the pond during winter, and it was a new way for me to stay warm. I started growing a coat around my body, and on the coat, grew another layer of something I began to call “fur.”
These changes continued and when fifty- thousand years had passed, I was no longer just a little fish. I had grown arms and legs, and lost my fins and gils. My gils were the last to go. For the first time in my life, I was going to leave the pond.

When I stepped outside, my fur was very wet, but the sun quickly dried it off. I felt like I had been born anew. It was so great to finally leave that cramped-up pond. I was so free outside that I could even jump from tree to tree, vine to vine, and there were many different foods and fruits to choose from. I got a real craving for a fruit I called bananas. I found a new habitat to stay in called ‘the jungle’. The jungle was perfect with all different shaped and sized trees and bananas everywhere. This was the good life right here...

After a while of swinging in trees, I started to feel cold. Winter had come, so I had to find some type of shelter. So I started to look around when I found this really nice cave surrounded by rock. I stayed in through the bad weather. After a while, I started to stay there year-around. Years in the cave passed by very fast...

Fifteen-thousand years later...

By this time, I had lost almost all of my fur and my feet had changed my shape totally. I found a large and heavy wooden stick to give me an edge in fighting for food. My back was still curved, but lots of things had changed since thirty-thousand years ago. I had an easier time walking around with these newly-shaped feet, and I could move my legs much faster. My hands had changed a bit too, they grew different kinds of fingers from before, and they moved quicker in different sorts of ways. I used this skill for my own, personal hobbies, and other personal needs.

On the first day of ten-thousand BC, I had been wandering around some plaines near my home when I saw a Mammoth. I walked quietly behind some bushes to hide and think of a strategy. I thought to myself, “with an animal this big, I would probably have enough food to last me around three years!” The giant mammal didn’t know yet, but it was soon going to be my food.
As I was trying to think of a plan, when a Tiger jumped out of nowhere and landed on me. I was able to kill the tiger, but when I turned around, I realized that the Mammoth looked like he had been very agitated. I guess he had heard our little skirmish, so I just had to go head on. To him, I was nothing worse than a fly. He had just swatted me over a hundred feet like it was nothing! after this, the Mammoth had retreated. I headed over to where it had been standing to retrieve my club, but it seems it was taken by the Mammoth when he had left. I had to track it down for both food, and for my club. As I had feared, this journey had taken months as I went through land after land to find this beast. I had finally caught up to it, but what I saw shocked me. The Mammoth was frozen in a huge block of ice. I didn’t even know that something that big could freeze! well anyway, I saw my club on the ground close to the middle of the glacier. I started to beat the ice away bit by bit until I was just able to grab my club and pull it out. I was thinking about whether or not I should break out the Mammoth. Yes, he would supply me with years of food, but how would I get him back to my home? I saw a small cave nearby, so I went into the cave for shelter and time to think. “how can I move this Mammoth?” I thought this over and over until dusk had come over dawn and I began to feel tired. “I’ll think of a way to transport it in the morning, but for now, I need sleep...”
The next morning, I woke up and went outside the cave for some fresh air. I felt as though it should have been colder as I walked to the exit. When I made it to the end of the cave, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. The sullen, snowy wasteland I had fallen asleep to was now a lush, green meadow. I had no idea what was going on. I walked back into the cave and thought, “maybe it’s just a dream,” but it was far from it. I stopped for a second, quickly ran back outside and saw that the Mammoth was gone! how could something that big just be up and gone in just a few hours?! There was no one around here for miles, and there’s no way someone could have taken it that fast. And what about the ice?! I was so confused... I walked back into the cave and back to where I fell asleep. “This has to be a dream...” I thought. When I reached my hard and uncomfortable bed, I noticed it was very wet. Suddenly, I thought popped into my mind that I may have frozen overnight! I was definitely frozen, and that explains everything about how much things changed. But who knows how long I’ve been out, It may have only been through the bad weather.
I headed back for my old house to see just how long I had been frozen. When I got there, it was gone. I must have been asleep for over hundreds of years by the look of what was left of the house. It was brand-new when I left it. I began to wander the lands looking for a new place to live. While I was wandering I found something which was larger than anything I had ever seen. I thought “I have a new place to stay”.
I found a whole new civilization of people just like me. I was able to make it my new home. It is called ‘Egypt’. Egypt is a huge country with Pharaoh, pyramids and large houses and temples. I work for the Pharaoh building a temple but I don’t get any money. I was working there along with almost everyone else in the country. When I started working there, they treated everyone badly enough - but now they took it to the next level. They brought in guards to whip us if we didn’t work fast enough. Not only that, but now we were forced to work for the Pharaoh about 23 hours per day and don’t have much food or sleep. I started to think that living here was a bad idea.
I decided this wasn’t the best place to live so I brought together a town meeting. When everyone had assembled I said “We’re going to sneak out of here”. A loud gasp and lots of quiet whispers ran through the crowd. “I believe we’re all in agreement that this slavery is unfair to all of us. Anyone who wishes to join me in getting out - step up”. No one moved an inch. “Come on people, show some backbone. Doesn’t anyone want to leave this place?” Someone finally spoke up and said “We all want to leave but we’ll be killed the second we try”. It seemed as if everyone agreed with him. I replied “Fine, if that’s how you feel then I’ll get out of here myself.”
I stormed out of the room and rushed to my home to come up with some type of plan. I thought to myself, “There’s got to be a way out of here.” I looked through maps, books and anything else I could find. As I was about ready to give up, looking through my last book, I had finally hit the jackpot. It was a set of tunnels underneath the city which had been abandoned thousands of years ago. I found where one started and ended and figured I would head out the following night.
As planned, I was packing my bags to leave this prison city. When I started to walk out the door, I remembered my excitement when I’d first found this place and thought I would never have that feeling again. I went into the tunnel and started to walk away from my “thought-to-be” dream city. A city I would never see again.
It’s been five hundred years since I’ve left Egypt and I’ve been on-the-road ever since, travelling in hope of finding a new and better place to live. Every now and then I run into cities - but they’re no different from the terrible Egypt that I left. I needed to keep going on. Something must be around somewhere. I was beginning to think I should just go back to living in caves when I suddenly fell over. My vision blurred. I felt what seemed to be a needle in my neck and saw a large group of people behind me. I awoke in a bed with animal-fur coverings. My head felt like it would explode in pain.
A man approached. He wore a tall hat made of bird feathers and deer pellet-skin shirt and pants. He had tan skin and was very large. He spoke to me in a different language that I had trouble understanding. But it seemed that he was trying to tell me to take medicine. I saw liquid on the table-top beside me and drank it. It was the worst thing I had ever tasted. I tried to hold back a ‘face’ but the taste was too strong. I let out a disgusted face and the man began to laugh. He laid clothing beside my bed and seemed to be anxious to leave in a hurry. I took the new clothing and started to dress but when I tried to stand, my body didn’t want to obey. I guess that dart had taken a toll on me. For days and weeks I laid in bed. Each day that man came to me and commanded that I drink the bad-tasting medicine.
One day when the man entered I was expecting the same old routine but when he told me something new, I was confused. I was trying to decipher the words. When he said the sentence again I began to understand what he was saying. I think he was telling me it was time to get out of bed. I tried to stand again and again but it was no use. He then surprised me by saying “you are able to do this”. I tried one more time. I swung my legs out of the bed, pulled my body into a sitting position and began to push up with my legs. I got to my feet, wobbled for a few seconds but finally regained my balance. I was finally standing again.
The man helped me walk slowly outside. He gave me something to lean on to balance myself as I walked. I was very excited to see the outside world again; it had been a very long time since I had walked on my own two feet. The world was just a beautiful as I had left it...