Tusk

He came back wrong. They said he'd graze in peace, a living museum piece— proof we could right old wrongs. But the mammoth didn’t come back peaceful. He came back pissed. Like he remembered the trap pits, the fires, the arrows. Came back heavy with old rage packed in every stomp. We thought he'd roam in northern parks, let tourists snap their pictures. Instead, he tore down a wind farm and flattened three towns before the drones even launched. The ice in his blood froze rivers. His tusks? Ripped steel like wet cloth. His eyes weren’t kind. They were old. Like he saw through us— and found nothing worth keeping. They tried to contain him. Shot him full of tranquilizers. But his skin was tougher than our tech, and his will was older than our machines. He doesn’t run in herds. He doesn’t need to. One is enough to silence cities. Now we live underground, listening to the rumble. Not thunder. Him. Still walking. Still mad. And we know now— extinction wasn’t the tragedy. Resurrection was.