"We continued to deliberate the situation all night. It was the longest night of my life... but I stood strong against their questions. I kept pushing the thought that the creatures on top of the ancient tree were the enemies. I knew that I had to do it. And it worked... it worked better than I would have ever imagined."
The ancient paused and seemed to sigh as if I was watching a video recording of her thoughts, the image of her just before she died appeared into my mind once more.
"Here is a lesson for you, child. Every creature... everything that has reached sentience, can think and can have some sort of emotion, albeit anger, sadness or something more complex like melancholy tend to shift blame towards others. And I knew this. I blamed myself for the losses of my brothers and sisters. I blamed myself if members of our family due to hunger. I blame myself if we ever lose a battle. So child, wouldn't it be convenient if we could shift the blame onto something else? And that was what I did."
The world appeared before me once more as I floated in the air above the plains. Numerous shells glistened in the sunlight as thousands possibly even a million snails gathered together. In a moment, they thousands of them dispersed in all directions like ants marching in lines. Although they were slow, they all had a look of determination on their faces as they spread out.
"I believe in both karma and balance, child. What you put in is what you get. You work hard and you get stronger. Nothing comes for free. Before my time, I'm sure the ancestors of those creatures that lived atop the ancient tree also fought hard for their positions. However, that was all in the past. Growing up with everything given to them, they thought they were the kings of the world." She said and paused to take a breath.
"But with time, they got more and more reckless. Their actions were not thought through at all. Those creatures that recklessly assaulted the citizens of the meadows, those same creatures that dine on the fruits of the ancient tree wastefully had already sown the seeds to their own demise. Like a latent virus, thoughts of vengeance and jealousy plagued the minds of every creature. We were all affected in some way and when the time came, our cause and our message spread like wildfire through the reserve."
Soon, I was shown various scenes. Groups of snails banded together as they travelled through the landscape. If they met another group of creatures, they would spread the message of their cause. Like a church... no more like a cult... the movement grew. What started as a group of only snails grew into thousands of species, both big and small. Thousands of different species joined the cause as they group up at the base of the tree.
"But they found out. Those on the trees. Messages spread fast, but rumours spread faster. As more and more creature joined our cause, so did the attacks of the creatures atop the tree. Showing their superior upbringing, they skirmished small groups of travelling creatures, decimating them in the process."
The scene changed again. Large creatures dove from the skies and attacked small groups stationed on the ground and atop the roots of the ancient tree. Larger more robust creatures snapped large branches and hurled them at the creatures below as those that didn't move in time were squished into a pulpy mess. It looked like these battles were all one-sided. The citizens of the meadows taking losses left and right.
"They attacked at night." The ancient snail continued as I was brought above a group of creatures that were resting near a pond. I could hear the croaks of frogs and something else... screeches. Screeches were bellowed from somewhere in the nights' sky, but I couldn't their sources.
Roar.
A sudden roar, not from a creature but from a fire as a blaze appeared out of nowhere. Camouflaged by the night sky dark creatures swarmed the skies and spewed fires below. Running in the chaos, those small furred creatures screamed as they ran away as quickly as they could. Set ablaze some were lucky and some were not. Those that made it to the pond survived with burns and charred skin. Others burned alive, a gruesome death.
"Similar scenes manifested daily, thousands of lives were lost. Their intention was to scare us off to show us how powerful they were. But such an act of cowardness only fueled the hatred within us as we carried our dead and offered them to others as food. Not only us, those that survived, those that were taken and the families of the innocent all vowed to take revenge."
"And through the chaos came order."
The scene changed once more. Lines of different creatures were now stations close to each other. Different beasts of different sizes began to work together.
"From fear and their attacks, we banded together. Covered our weaknesses with each other's strengths... And as they continued to attack us, we honed our teamwork and defended. But we didn't attack them back. We were smarter than that."
...