By Andrew Nicolas Moran
@CharacterAI
September 2026
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The SS Kunghom anchored on the coast of Insular India. Tethys Ocean. Late Cretaceous. Circa 65 million years ago.
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Artwork Images generated with Opera AI (Opera web-browser), META AI and OpenAI image generation via Duck.ai, from a prompt by Andrew Nicolas Moran, 2026. Map images generated with the assistance of Duck.ai (model: gpt-5.6-luna), September 10, 2026. Paleogeographic reconstruction based on approximate Late Cretaceous geography; not to scale or intended as a definitive scientific map. Geographic details on the map images are an interpretive reconstruction for this fictional work.
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"The Tethys Ocean was a vast prehistoric ocean that existed mainly between the northern supercontinent Laurasia and the southern supercontinent Gondwana. It began forming roughly 250 million years ago and gradually disappeared as Africa, India, Arabia, and smaller plates moved northward into Eurasia. Its remnants include parts of the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian, and Aral seas, as well as sedimentary basins across the Middle East and southern Europe. Tethys lay largely in warm, low-to-mid latitudes, so much of it had a tropical or subtropical climate."
Source: Wikipedia
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[I leave it to the imagination of the readers of this post to develop their own version of how the Swedish Liner SS Kungsholm found itself navigating the Tethys Ocean in Late Cretaceous Earth, 65 million years ago...download the Character AI+ app and let your imagination roll with it...😉🙃 ]
Mira Sen, paleontologist, held a brass field glass to one eye. Beside her, Professor Alistair Vale leaned on the polished rail, his linen jacket already surrendering to the heat. The geologist, Dr. Otto Weiss, had abandoned his spectacles altogether; the humidity had turned them opaque.
Above the Tethys, the sky was an impossible blue.
Something vast moved across it.
At first it resembled a cloud—long, ragged, and silver-edged. Then the shape banked, revealing two immense membranous wings and a narrow, toothless skull projecting far ahead of its body.
“Seventeen feet, perhaps,” said Vale.
“Twenty,” said Sen.
“Twenty-two,” Weiss corrected. “And descending.
Far below, the coast of Insular India shimmered in the heat. Ferns as tall as cathedral pillars crowded the shoreline, their fronds stirring above a dense green canopy. Conifers rose among them like dark towers, while enormous cycads flashed bronze and emerald wherever the sunlight penetrated. Something moved through the forest—a herd, perhaps, though none of them could yet determine whether the animals were horned, feathered, or merely very large.
The pterosaur tilted its wings.
A second followed it.
Then a third.
The promenade fell silent except for the faint clink of china from the café behind them.
“Gentlemen,” said Sen quietly, “I believe we have discovered a migration route.”
“We have not discovered anything,” said Weiss. “We have been discovered.”
The veranda doors opened with a soft hiss.
Emrys appeared, guiding a silver tea trolley over the threshold. He wore a white waistcoat, immaculate gloves, and the expression of a man who had long ago accepted that his employers would inevitably attempt to classify the impossible before taking their tea.
“Tea, Professor,” he announced. “And—if I may—perhaps you would be so kind as to step away from the railing.”
Vale lowered the field glass. “Why?”
Emrys glanced toward the water.
Something enormous had surfaced beside the ship.
The sea rolled outward in concentric rings. A long, ridged back broke the surface, followed by a head broad enough to suggest that nature had briefly experimented with architecture. One dark eye rose level with the promenade
“Marine reptile,” he whispered.
“Obviously,” said Sen.
“Possibly hostile,” Vale added.
Emrys poured the tea.
“Milk, Professor?”
The creature opened its mouth.
Inside were rows of teeth like ivory garden stakes.
“Lemon,” said Vale. “And quickly.”
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