Ecology was the subject that held great appeal for Bath. Not because he wanted to learn about already-published findings, but because he wanted to fix the field’s many shortcomings.

So, the day before classes started, he walked into the Department of Ecology and asked about research opportunities.

“Um,” a receptionist glanced at her computer. “Do you know the name of the professor you want to see?”

Know the name of the professor?

“I just want to see any professor doing research.”

“Well, I think you need to decide on a professor first and then—” Bath sighed and started walking towards a row of office doors behind the receptionist, who made absolutely no move to stop him.

Bath knocked on the first door he came to—locked, vacant. He went down the row to his left, finally reaching an occupied office a few doors down. “Dr. Posner” was the name printed on the door’s plaque.

“Come in,” called out an elderly man’s voice. Bath entered and quickly snaked into a chair.

“Hello, I'm Bath. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Posner.”

“So what brings you to my office?”

“I wanted to ask you about your research. Can you explain it to me?”

The man sat up straight and pressed down his wrinkling shirt. “Certainly,” he smiled.

“I'm researching the effects of climate change on populations of animals near the poles, particularly migratory pattern changes in reindeer and wolves.”

Bath considered this for a moment. “Are you interested in studying how animals during the last ice age also had their migratory patterns changed, to draw parallels and predict further shifts in patterns?”

The man gave him a blank look. “And how would you study the migratory patterns of animals back then?”

Bath gave the man a grin. “Are you interested?”

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Bath went to several other professors in Ecology, all of whom didn’t show much interest in any of his myriad suggestions to study the past as a means of predicting future ecological behavior. Bath assumed this was because they didn’t believe the behavior of species more than ten-thousand years in the past was easily studied, and didn’t want to broach the subject with a mere undergraduate student.

So, annoyed, he moved on to the Department of Paleontology. Since his goal wasn’t more than transmitting his knowledge of the ancient natural world to human records, he didn’t think that finding a professor would be difficult.

The third paleontology professor he went to was a woman by the name of Dr. Scranton. Even before he knocked on the door, the woman called for him to come in.

“I've heard you pounding on the door to every other professor in this department,” she remarked with a wry grin. “What are you here for?”

“I'm looking to do research,” Bath said flatly, “Except nobody in this department actually wants to do interesting research.”

The woman’s eyebrows arched up. “Oh really? You don’t think that the reasons behind the Permian Extinction are worth researching?”

Bath’s eyes gleamed, then narrowed. “Is that your research?”

“Yes.’

He nodded. “We should work together, then,” Bath said, unintentionally forceful. He knew Lisa would have swatted him for his lack of human composure, but after so much annoyance over the past few hours, he couldn’t bring himself to care about appearances.

“And why would I work with you?” she asked incredulously. “You'd be working under me if you came to work with me.”

Bath waved his hand dismissively. “Working with you, under you, it’s all the same. I simply want to expose the truth of what happened all those years ago.”

“Don’t we all?” she mused. She played with a pen on her desk, her mouth quirked into a smile. “Alright, fine. I'll take you under my wing. I need a drudge.”

Bath’s smile was genuine, lighting up his entire face. “Great!”

But he really hadn’t thought his plan through. Sure, he wanted to tell the woman all he knew and write up a paper about the real reasons for the Permian Extinction and then send it off to be published, but...he didn’t actually have any evidence. He could say all he wanted, and nobody would believe him.

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“Wait, let me try to understand this. Actually understand this.” Lisa was pacing in the courtyard by the bench where Bath was reclining. “You're trying to do research on the Permian Extinction...why?”

“Because I remember it?”

"I thought you said your memory was terrible back in the day?”

Bath flinched. “It was,” he acknowledged, “but the extinction took place over millions of years. I couldn’t just forget that long a period of time. Besides, I played a rather...personal role it."

“What happened?”

Bath sighed. “There were a series of massive volcanic eruptions. These eruptions...they destroyed everything. Blackened the sky, ruined the water.”

“Wait,” Lisa paused, thinking. “I've definitely heard about this. We learned this in senior year biology. This isn’t a new theory, Bath. It was the Siberian something or other.”

“The Siberian Traps,” Bath corrected.

“So you do know that the research exists! What do you want to add to it?”

“I want to clarify that the entity responsible for the Permian extinction was no other than myself. Maybe it’ll serve as a warning...”

Lisa’s eyes narrowed. “So what, you made the Siberian Traps erupt?” She looked at him in silence for a moment. “How?”

Bath shrugged. “Because the Traps were there, and I was there.” Bath looked toward the sun. “I was massive enough to make the Earth move before me. When I walked, the ground shook. When I stomped across the surface of ancient Siberia...the Traps erupted.”

“In the end, I suppose it was for the best,” he said quietly. “That was the first time I changed the evolutionary path of Earth. If I hadn’t ushered in that apocalypse, humans almost certainly wouldn’t have arisen, and you wouldn’t have been born.”

Lisa was suddenly quiet. “What was it like? Living through the Permian Extinction?”

Bath gave her a sad look. “Terrible. I thought that perhaps this whole planet was going to die and leave me trapped on a barren corpse-world.”

Lisa gave him a look. “That sounds pretty poetic, considering that your intelligence back then was so limited.”

“I obviously didn’t understand speech, or words, back then. I did, on the other hand, have the crushing sense of despair that I discussed. Creatures even back then could feel despair...very few of them, but some, the most highly evolved predators of the time, like some of the ocean fish with skeletons. The despair of being locked in the jaws of a greater predator—that was what I felt.”

Lisa sat down on the grass of the courtyard. “So what would you even publish? Giant evil monster caused Siberian Trap eruptions, brought about Permian Extinction? And moreover, where are you going to find the evidence to make that claim?”

Bath looked at Lisa, then smiled, showing teeth. “Lisa, what if you took a photograph of what I looked like back then? Then I could say that I photoshopped it to match a giant skeleton I found in Siberia.”

“That literally sounds like the stupidest plan I've ever heard of.” Lisa laughed. “You've never even officially been to Russia! How would you ever make that kind of claim? Any kind of fact-checking on you would fall through!” Lisa still wasn’t through chewing him out. “Besides! Making a photoshop image based on a skeleton is one thing, but from what I understand, the creature you have in mind probably has an exoskeleton, since as I recall terrestrial organisms back then were all insects. And that exoskeleton would need to be photographed itself, in the rock, aged and petrified, not just ‘photoshopped’ into reality.”

Bath frowned. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“Yeah,” Lisa snapped. “Don’t even try to do this kind of research in the first place! There’s no point to it.”

“There’s a point in exposing the truth,” he growled. “My goal, here, is to show that an individual organism can have the power to usher in an age of calamity. In the end, I want to use this to prove how nature isn’t as robust as humans believe, that humans can truly ruin nature for millions of years with their carelessness.”

Lisa frowned. “I don’t think this is going to work. Sorry.”

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Two days later, he came over to Lisa and presented her a photo.

“How the actual flying fuck...” she gaped, “did you do this?”

“I crystallized myself in obsidian, then resized myself. And voila, the imprint of a monster on rock.”

Lisa looked horrified. “You let magma pour over you?”

“Insects don’t really feel pain,” he said dismissively. “I just stayed very, very still. And kept my Center of being out of the actual magma itself, so I could easily reform myself outside of the obsidian.”

“But...that’s not how that works! Like, you can’t just dip yourself in magma, let yourself cool, and expect your body to be intact!”

Bath grinned devilishly. “Don’t question my capabilities.”

“But anyways,” she sniffed, “you only have one photo, not the obsidian itself. Even if you brought the obsidian with you, which I know is impossible since you said this form of yours was enormous...even if you could justify how you rose an enormous hunk of black rock out from the seafloor, you wouldn’t be able to justify how new the obsidian is. They will isotope date the rock, you know."

“I'm sure they will, and I'm sure they’ll consider it a mystery. They’ll probably assume isotope dating is failing because the rock was so close to the lower crust for such a long period of time without somehow being recycled into the mantle.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure!” Lisa grumbled. “But fine, whatever. You seem absolutely dead-set on this ridiculousness.” Then she smiled. “You at least have to let me in on the fun.”

“You already rejected the offer to be my photographer,” Bath said in mock bluster. “And now you want in on my plans?”

Lisa smiled innocently. “Please?”

Bath gave her a lopsided grin. “I can’t say no. I'm going to put you to work, mind you.”