They Said They Could Hear the Greyridge Bear

Petra Winslow was the universally acknowledged ice queen of our research institute, and she claimed she could hear what animals were saying. When our convoy was passing through Greyridge bear territory, she suddenly called for us to stop and pointed at a bear by the roadside. "It says it's starving. Let's get out and feed it. I can hear its thoughts. Trust me, it won't hurt us." In my last life, I had refused without hesitation. "That's a Greyridge bear, not some housecat. It'll tear through you like you're made of paper." The team backed down. Later, when news broke that the bear had died, Petra publicly blamed me for it. "I told everyone that the bear was starving, and he stopped us. He's the one who killed it." The internet tore me apart, and Petra's followers stabbed me to death. When I opened my eyes again, there it was on the other side of the windshield, a skeletal Greyridge bear standing by the road. Petra's eyes glistened with tears. "The poor thing. If we don't feed it now, it'll starve to death." The others turned to me. "Come on, Petra said it's hungry, so it's hungry." "Don't chicken out on us." I pulled the car over, reached for my seatbelt, and clicked it tight. "Sure. I'm all for it. Go right ahead." Chapter 1 "I'm not getting out." I pulled the seatbelt tight and kept my hand on the buckle. Curt Brennan was the first to react. His hand came over the seat and landed hard on my right shoulder. "What are you doing? Are you actually chickening out?" The back seat went quiet for a few seconds. Petra Winslow frowned. "You don't believe me? I told you, I heard the bear. It's just hungry. It's not going to hurt anyone. What are you so afraid of?" "I'm not afraid. I just don't want to go." Petra turned to me and put on that look, the one that said she was only thinking of my well-being. "Owen, we're doing this for your own good. How are you supposed to do fieldwork if you can't get past your fears?" My own good. Right. I stared at the skeletal Greyridge bear through the windshield. In my last life, I had talked them out of it, and the bear died. Petra then made a post on social media with the caption: [That poor Greyridge bear starved to death!] The rest of the team piled on in the comments. [This is all on Owen Fielding from our team. He refused to help, and a rare Greyridge bear starved to death because of him!] Overnight, I became the target. My home address was doxxed. Protesters showed up outside my father's office with signs. When my mother went to get groceries, someone filmed her and posted the video online. The caption read: [Mother of the man who killed the Greyridge bear.] Then, someone cornered me. A cold blade sank into my stomach, and the last thing I heard was a curse screamed into my ear. "Die, you piece of shit! You killed that bear!" I pushed the memory away and looked around at their faces. There was no point arguing with people like them. Even winning would not change anything. When the bear attacked, the cowards would be the ones still breathing. I leaned back in my seat. "Yeah, I'm a coward. A total coward." Petra shifted to face the rest of the car, turning her back to the bear outside the windshield. Her voice was measured, her cadence steady, as if she were opening a public lecture. "Most animal attacks actually happen because humans approach with fear. If your legs are shaking when you walk up to it, your energy is already telling it you're a threat." A few murmurs of agreement drifted up from the back seat. Curt chewed on a cracker and frowned at me. "You hear that? The more scared you are, the more tense it gets. The more tense it gets, the more likely something goes wrong. The real danger isn't the bear. It's whatever you're putting out there when you're afraid of it." "Fear projection." Petra fed him the term. Curt pointed the bag of crackers at me and grinned like a kid who had just learned a new word. Petra changed tack, and the warmth in her voice disappeared. "Fine, don't get out. But tens of thousands of people are watching my live stream right now. If you stay in this car, you're admitting in front of all of them that you're scared." She paused. "From now on, whenever anyone in the research community mentions your name, they'll know you as the guy who was too afraid to step out of the car in the Greyridge range." Curt jabbed the cracker bag toward me. "And when the bear runs off and all of Petra's work goes to waste, that'll be on you. Just you." Travis Holt gave Curt a thumbs-up. "A wild bear doesn't need trust from humans." My voice was flat. "It just needs distance." The car went quiet for two seconds. Chapter 2 Petra closed her eyes as though she were listening to something. Her lips parted slightly, her face half-tilted toward the bear outside the window. She held the pose for about five seconds. Then, she opened her eyes and spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper but left no room for doubt. "It won't hurt anyone." She sounded like a fortune teller giving a reading. The back seat erupted. "What did I say? Petra can hear its thoughts!" "Let's go, let's go. What are we waiting for?" "The bear already said yes. If we don't get out now, that's just rude." Everyone started unbuckling their seatbelts. I did not move. Petra turned to look at me, and the patience in her eyes was gone. "What now, Owen?" She pulled her hand off the door handle and faced me. "I've been able to hear animals since I was a child. I've rescued more than I can count. This Greyridge bear's body is on the verge of shutting down. If we don't help it now, it'll die. "Do you know how many Greyridge bears are left? Around 5,000. They're nearly extinct. Even if there's some risk, we have an obligation to act." The car fell silent. Everyone looked at Petra with open admiration. "God, Petra really is something else. So beautiful and so kind to every living thing." "Seriously, she's an angel." The chatter went on. I was the only one unmoved, because I knew the truth about how the bear had died in my last life. It had not starved. It had been killed in the natural order of things, taken down by another predator. Petra sighed, turned away from me, and addressed the rest of the car. "He doesn't want to go, and I'm not going to force him. Maybe he has his own reasons that he can't talk about." Her tone was the kind you would use when humoring someone who was not well. She turned back, pulled out her phone, and pointed the camera at me. "Since you don't want to go, you'll forfeit your share of every research finding from this trip. Do you agree?" I had spent three months getting the funding approved for this expedition. I had plotted every route by hand and revised the field sampling plan four times. She had closed her eyes for five seconds, and now, she was pointing a phone at me, demanding I give up everything. I looked calmly into the lens. "I agree. But I'd like to get a few things on record first." I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket, opened the voice recorder, and set it sideways on the dashboard. "You said that you can hear that bear's thoughts. You said the bear told you it won't hurt anyone. Say it again." She stared at the waveform pulsing on the screen. The back seat went quiet. "What's that supposed to mean? You don't believe me?" Petra's eyes were turning red. "I do believe you. That's why I'm recording it, so everyone back at the institute can hear it too. Petra Winslow, on location in the Greyridge bear zone, successfully completed a telepathic dialogue with a wild Greyridge bear and confirmed zero aggressive intent. That's a research finding. You should want it on the record." Her lips pressed into a thin line. The waveform kept pulsing. "You think I'm lying." Her voice had changed. It was not anger. It was hurt. Her eyes grew redder. "I've been able to communicate with animals since I was a kid. If you don't believe me, fine, but do you really have to humiliate me like this?" "I'm not humiliating you. I'm giving you the chance to put your ability on record as evidence. If the bear doesn't end up hurting anyone, this recording is the strongest proof you'll ever have. What are you afraid of?" She said nothing. Her eyes grew redder still, but the tears did not fall. They just sat there, pooling along the rim. Then, she turned away and would not look at me. Curt suddenly shoved his face in front of the phone. He yelled straight into the microphone, spit practically hitting the receiver. "I'll say it for her. Petra talked to the bear. The bear said it won't hurt anyone. The bear said it. Go ahead and record this. Get my face too." He laughed loudly. Danny Lawson snickered beside him. "I, Curt Brennan, am voluntarily getting out of this car to feed a wild Greyridge bear. The bear won't bite. Petra confirmed it. If anything happens, it's on me. Got that? Want me to do another take for backup?" I turned my phone sideways to frame both him and Petra in the shot after pulling up the camera app. She was in the background, lips pressed into a thin line and her expression rigid. "That'll do." I pocketed the phone, satisfied. The moment Petra was out of the car, she opened the live stream on her phone and aimed the camera at the bear across the open terrain. "Can you guys see it? This is the one. This Greyridge bear just told me telepathically that it's starving. I'm going to save it now." She had been running her account, 'Petra and the Animals', for two years. It had 8,000 followers. She was not a major influencer, but she had made a small name for herself in the animal welfare community. Her usual content was videos of herself closing her eyes and 'communicating' with stray cats, with the occasional sponsored pet food post mixed in. She had been waiting for her breakout moment. This Greyridge bear was it. Chapter 3 The comments started flooding in. [Can the streamer really talk to bears?] [Be careful.] [Where is this?] The viewer count jumped from a few hundred to a few thousand, then broke 10,000. Petra glanced at the screen and let the corner of her mouth curve upward. She turned the camera toward the car. The live stream had passed 30,000 viewers. She tilted her head slightly, and the lens lingered on my face for two seconds. "So, what do you guys think? This one won't get out of the car. What do we do with him?" Curt squeezed his face into the frame. "What do we do? Let the people weigh in! Petra has already confirmed it. The bear's harmless, and this guy flat-out refuses to get out. Are you telling me that's not cowardice?" The comments poured in. [Total coward.] [Who even is this guy? Stop holding Petra up.] [If you're too scared to get out, go home and cry to your mom.] [He's literally the only wimp in the whole car.] Travis held his phone up to his mouth and shouted into the live stream, "Everybody, type 'coward'! Let our boy here see what you guys think!" The word filled the screen, one after another, like a wall closing in one brick at a time. Curt threw his head back laughing. "See that? Thirty thousand people think you're a coward. Still gonna say you won't get out?" I glanced at them and repeated myself. "Yeah. I'm a coward. A total coward." The comments exploded. [He actually admitted it LMAO.] [This guy's hopeless.] [Petra, forget him. Just go already.] Petra pulled the phone back and smiled at the camera. "Whatever. To each their own." She panned the camera over Curt, Travis, Danny, and Ray Sutter. "We're going. The other guy can stay in the car and watch the live stream while we make history." She reached for the door handle. "Go ahead. I'm all for it." Petra ignored me. She climbed out with her phone raised and smoothed her hair for the camera. In the live stream, her figure moved toward the scrubland where the Greyridge bear lay not far ahead. Curt followed, stuffing the cracker bag into his pocket. Travis was behind him. Danny bent down and picked up a stick. Ray went last, a slight limp from an old leg injury slowing his pace. He looked back at me once. I mounted my phone on the dashboard holder, started recording, and opened Petra's live stream. On the screen, the five of them were getting closer to the bear. The Greyridge bear did not stand up right away. It lay there, its chest rising and falling in long, slow intervals. It looked like an animal that had gone days without food and no longer had the strength to move. The comments erupted. [It's so docile!] [Petra really did communicate with it! It's not attacking!] [What kind of superpower is this? She can even tame wild animals.] [Like, follow, and share, people. We're witnessing history!] Petra's voice came through the phone, pitched low as if she were approaching something sacred. "It told me it's hungry. It just wants something to eat. Don't be scared." She took the crackers from Curt, crouched down, and set them on the gravel less than ten feet from the bear. The comments flooded the screen. [Petra is so brave.] [This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.] [The queen of animal rescue!] Curt turned back to the camera and gave a thumbs-up. "When research papers come out of this, remember today. Our streamer took us face-to-face with a bear. Some people, though..." He shot a glance toward the car. "They're only good for sitting inside and watching the stream." Another wave of laughter filled the comments. The Greyridge bear did not eat the crackers. Its head lifted slightly. I stared at the screen. Its eyes were moving, not toward the crackers but toward the people. Its pupils tracked left to right and back again like two black glass marbles, calculating something. I typed two words into the comment box: [Run. Now.] I hit send. Curt looked down at his phone. He held the screen up to show Petra and burst out laughing. "The coward's typing 'run now' in the comments. That's hilarious. With Petra here, what could possibly go wrong..." The comments erupted. Not one at a time. All at once. The word 'run' crashed across the screen in waves. [Get out of there!] [Look at the bear's eyes!] [It's going to attack! Run!] The Greyridge bear stood up. Not slowly. Instantly. It rose to its full height and was half a body taller than the tallest person there. Its foot came down on the crackers and crushed them to dust. Petra stumbled back a step. Her phone hit the ground, and the frame went sideways from the camera pointing at the sky. Then came her scream, followed by the bear's roar. Next was the dull thud of something hitting the gravel. I took my phone off the mount, closed the live stream, and dialed emergency services. "Greyridge bear zone, Route 318 West. We need an ambulance and wildlife enforcement. Now."