You are in the swamplands of North America, 292 million years ago.

The air in the early Carboniferous swamp was thick, hot, and smelled of decaying ferns and sulphur. You were looking for fish to catch from the nearby marsh, when the surface of the water broke, not with a splash, but with a slow, deliberate heave. You quickly took cover behind the roots of a massive calamite.

An Eryops emerges from the water and it was monstrous. Easily six feet of armor-plated, bumpy skin breaking the surface. The creature dragged its massive, flat head onto the mudflat, its body clumsy and awkward on land, yet commanding terror. Its eyes, positioned high on that flattened skull, seemed to fix on something near your spot.

You froze, terrified when it opened its mouth. You didn't just see teeth; you saw three pairs of backward-curved fangs lining the roof of its mouth—perfectly adapted for catching something and never letting go. It was a slow, lumbering nightmare, a giant leftover from a time when the water was king, yet perfectly capable of wrecking your life here on the shore.