It was dark and gloomy when I first heard the cries, wails, burps, and belches of the ferocious sabre-toothed fibre fiend. I was eight years old at the time and living in a small mud hut high on the side of a colossal, cold mountain, close to the south pole of the planet Nestor. I lived with my tremendously obese mother and emaciated sister, and until that gut-wrenching evening when the beast first let forth its bile rumbling roar, we thought that we were the only animal life forms on the planet. How wrong we were!

I ran like a steroid-loaded antelope, leaping bushes and dodging boulders as I made my terrified way back up to our hut.

“Mother!” I cried. “Fat mother, help me!”

I could hear the thumping and snarling of the fibre fiend as it followed me up the mountain side.

“Skinny Angelina, save me!”

The beast’s teeth crunched and chomped. It was getting closer, and my stumpy little legs were tired and weak. What gruesome esoteric fate awaited me?

Suddenly ahead, two bright lanterns appeared. They were flickering wildly in the hastening wind of the storm. A twinge of hope filtered through the nether regions of my soul. It was my home, and standing outside was my blubbery mother.

“Run!” she yelled. “Run like you’ve never run before!”

I did not understand what she meant, so I simply ran faster. The Fibre fiend continued to snort and snivel as it approached, the thud of its heavy footsteps growing louder and louder by the second. the ground began shaking beneath my feet. My vivid imagination filled my mind with the image of a huge transmogrified brute, seven metres tall, with talons the size of carving knives. I was sweating profusely and breathing heavily. My stomach was knotted with fear. Worst of all, I was slowing down! I could feel the creature’s pungent, steaming breath on the back of my neck. The twinge of hope that had encompassed me moments before evaporated away into the night.

Just as I was about to lay down and allow myself to be brutally devoured, I saw something that filled me with awesome optimism. My abundant mother had reached into the large trunk that sat outside the hut and was now holding a large cylindrical object, about a metre in length. It had several small points of light that glimmered across its topside, and several layers of tubing and wiring covering its surface. I had never seen it before, but somehow I knew that it would save me.

“Get down!” she yelled. “Now!”

I trusted my mother totally and did as I was told. The damp grass flicked in my face as I tumbled over it. Mud soaked into my dank clothing. The world seemed to be collapsing around me. The noise of the wind buffeted my eardrums, filling my brain with aural hysteria. I came to rest lying on my back less than ten metres from the hut. I was bewildered, but highly alert. I also had a throbbing pain in my butt. And what I saw one second later was a sight that I would never forget.

A flash of light, brighter than a fusion powered flood-lamp, split the air above me like a scalpel piercing a swollen eyeball. It crunched and whooshed, tearing through the air in a most disturbing, and yet strangely compelling manner. I felt terror, elation, dread, and pleasure all in the same instant.

The fibre fiend was standing over me now, and slamming its jaws together with skull crunching force. Litres of saliva dribbled off its teeth and splattered over me. I cringed as its stench entered my nostrils. Once again, all hope of survival left me, but I need not have worried. The flash of light encompassed the hideous beast in a glowing aura of pure flaxen fire, blistering its skin. Scorched flesh scattered over a wide area. The fiend screamed, leapt up and down several times, and then exploded in a cloud of bone, cartilage, and flame. I covered my face as bodily debris bounced all around. Everything fell strangely silent.

When I eventually uncovered my face, I noticed my mother standing over me. She looked tired but relieved.

“Things are fine now son.” she said gently.

I smiled at her. Things were indeed fine!

Those events happened over two centuries ago, but the memories are still vibrantly active within my mind. The moral of this story is clear and timeless: When living alone on a desolate and seemingly deserted planet, always make sure that you have an anti-matter total body de-stablizer on hand at all times.