Tales from the Cryptid Zoo

Don’t Feed the Beasts is the chronicle of a peculiar zoo that houses cryptids instead of regular animals. Narrated from the perspective of Zookeeper Gertrude, follow along as she unravels the stories behind these legends and learns that in a place where the supernatural has become mundane, nothing is as it seems.

You can also follow along a few other places if you’d like to hear the audio version (or if you just happen to really like these places)

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Great question!

The most important thing is to remain calm. Find a comfortable position to meditate in, as you will likely be lost anywhere from one day to all of eternity. If possible, reach a deep enough state of zen that you float above the trees so our zookeepers can easily spot you.

Out on my daily walk with the bear dogs, they managed to find themselves a dead, frozen bird... dear zoogoer, I screamed, they lunged and tousled and tangled until one of them wrangled it away and went running. I said, "Drop it, drop ittt!" as if that was ever going to work.

Did you even get the crow she sent you last week? Have you been checking your window? You’ve gotta check your window, how else is Sylvester supposed to get in? Did you want him to open the window himself? Obviously not.

There is an ominous aura to the air and shadows blacker than should be possible spilling from the gate. Yet, despite this, you do not feel afraid.

You feel welcomed, actually, as if the zoo has peered into your heart and seen all the hurt and pain you pretend you do not hold and said, “It’s okay. Hand it to me for a little while and go visit the fresno nightcrawlers. You can carry it again when you’re ready, but not just yet.”

Yeah, just any door apparently, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason. I would, as always, recommend operating under the assumption that the zoo knows better than you do about when it’s time to pay a visit, and ensure you have a crisp tenner in your pocket every time you go through a door in case you find yourself needing to pay the entrance fee.

Well, if by that you meant to ask, “Did you hack into the AZA database and add the zoo into the registry?” then yes!

Actually, now that I think about it, the vending machine gave a zoogoer a tooth, so that was kinda weird. I don’t know who or what the tooth belonged too, but the kind zoogoer turned it in to the lost and found, so if it’s yours, come get it.

Also, there was a green mist coming out of the fridge in the staff breakroom. That turned out to just be the sandwich I forgot in there last week though, soo...

Oh, and someone gave the fresno nightcrawlers their handheld gaming console and now they won’t give it back. They won’t even let me catch them, and believe me, I tried. I think we’re just going to have to wait until they get tired of it.

*tap tap tap*

Is this thing—fzzt—on? Ah, there it is! Hello, zoogoer, and welcome to the river sprite enclosure. If you are not currently near the river sprite enclosure, that's alright, neither am I! Although I do wonder how you're listening to this, that's probably none of my business.

To begin our tour, please look straight head and attempt to locate the river. This should be easy enough. If you're lucky, the river sprites are out right now. If not, you can get a little closer to the fence and stick your upper body as far over it as possible without falling in.

If you still aren't seeing them, take a look to your left, and you should find a small cave at the bottom of the river. It's shallow, and the river sprites do a great job and keeping the water clear and beautiful, so I'm going to assume you see this. The sprites are probably hiding in there! If not, then they’re watching you from somewhere else entirely.

River sprites are a subspecies of water sprites that live primarily in rivers, but occasionally in sink plumbing. River sprites may appear to be composed entirely of water, but really their bodies are actually gelatinous, kind of like a jellyfish with opinions.

Much like a butterfly's wings, you should never touch a river sprite, because then they'll be crying to me for the next week about how you got human grease on them and how gross it felt. I don't really have time for that.

Their diet consists of mostly aquatic plants and occasional bugs, but I do give them marshmallows sometimes and that seems to go over well.