I'm still working on pending comms, but I recently watched this argentinian series that reminded me of one of my favorite types of apocalypses in fiction.
So in a form of display of my free will, I drew something.
"Whenever I leave the shelter in the early morning, I take one of the dogs with me. They're better at detecting danger than an old lady like me could be..."
"When Dolly started barking, I took out the old pistol that I always carry on my belt. I really hope it's just another bear..."
HORROR GIRLFRIEND PRELIMS MATCH TWO: Mutant Bear (Annihilation) vs. Yellow (Malevolent)
choose.
Mutant Bear
Yellow
Voting ended onJun 23, 2025
PROPAGANDA FOR MUTANT BEAR:
“If you only care about looks: sickass monster design! Truely harrowing! [...] Personality: a real go getter but knows when to ask for help:)[...] Final reason they should be everyone's horror girlfriend: arguably a fantastic metaphor for how the dead are remembered and/or the process of integrating the parts and emotions of others into ourselves. Mutant Bear reminds us we are changed by our encounters with others and we always carry them with us. And I think anyone who encounters Mutant Bear will be forever changed.”
PROPAGANDA FOR YELLOW:
“If you look up "wet cat" in a dictionary, you'll find a picture of them. [...]They're a (former) eldritch god now eldritch shadow with amnesia and enough audacity to kill a person”
This character came from a dream that was unusually vivid and narratively cohesive for me. Thus, this dream has stuck with me, even though it happened several years ago. That does not mean I remember it perfectly however, and so I have filled in the narrative below so that it is the most cohesive it can be while retaining the original feel and general idea of the dream. I understand it is a long story, so I have added a TLDR.
TLDR: Mutant Bear is a genetically modified bear that was used for public entertainment/sport. When I (in the dream) interacted with him, he proved himself to be very dangerous and killed several people, but once he was removed from the dangerous situation, he was calmer. Mutant Bear was deeply abused, and while I never got the chance to see him heal during the dream (I was captured while Mutant Bear escaped into the wilderness) I firmly believe that he is innocent, and was acting only out of fear. The most important part is that he is free now.
The Long Version:
This bear came from a dream in which an entertainment company exploited him for profit. Essentially, this bear was modified as a cub to be more dangerous (faster, stronger, with an amazing sense of hearing) and was placed in a puzzle-filled arena to be hunted down by players seeking to win cash prizes for catching him. This game was a new fad, and everyone was competing to be the first team to win without being killed by Mutant Bear. Think an escape room with a little wilderness survival thrown into the mix
In this dream, I was sent into the arena undercover as a player. My real objective was to win the game and abscond with Mutant Bear so the animal cruelty protection organization I was employed by could help him. We had good information that Mutant Bear was being mistreated, underfed, and otherwise abused because (surprise!) the entertainment company had no idea how to take care of animals or, if they did, they didn’t care about exploiting Mutant Bear to drive bigger profits.
I joined up with a team consisting of a horde of rambunctious young men, a scientist who specialized in ursinology, and a rich woman sponsoring the venture. None of them paid me much attention.
The massive arena was designed as a sprawling winter forest with various aboveground and underground structures in which clues and resources were hidden. We moved through many of these, having several close encounters with Mutant Bear along the way. Once, a supply run gone wrong landed me crouched under a bush, Mutant Bear just three feet away and approaching. But as my rapid heartbeat drummed in my skull, a bird taking off distracted him and gave me the opportunity to sneak away with all my limbs, but not my nerves.
From what I saw, Mutant Bear was a mountain; taller than a pickup truck, with snow resting on his matted, shifting fur and the enormous bone spikes protruding down his back. His eyes, however, were very dark and very sad.
It wasn’t until we neared the conclusion of the game when things went wrong. We were walking along an elevated metal catwalk that led out of an industrial complex we had just left. It was there that we had acquired the last tool needed for the trap we intended to set up based off a blueprint we found towards the beginning of the game. If we managed to make it to the necessary location in the woods and set up the trap, we could catch the bear and win the game. Victory was just within reach.
The gamemasters must have known we were nearing the end, or maybe it was just bad luck, but from our elevated position we could see the bear approaching. If we’d all remained calm and quiet, everything might have been okay. But, the young men in our group decided they were bored and decided to spice things up. They pushed the scientist off the catwalk, and hollering and hooting to get the bears attention. It worked. The bear approached, enraged at the noise, and killed the ursinologist.
But even that wasn’t enough. The group just wouldn’t shut up; they were enjoying themselves too much. They thought they were immortal, laughing at the scientist’s demise and taunting the bear. Mutant Bear became even more agitated by the chants and stomping feet, and it worked itself up into a fury, pacing beneath us. They thought it was fun, they thought they were safe, they thought we were too high up for Mutant Bear to do anything.
That all came to an end when Mutant Bear made a vertical leap that I wouldn’t have thought possible from such a large animal. Time seemed to slow down as he propelled himself upward and snapped off the head of the poor soul who happened to be leaning over the railing. Everyone went dead quiet for a second, and then everything became madness.
Our group dissolved into fistfighting, screaming, running, trying to throw one another over; full blown panic. And beneath all of us, Mutant Bear was losing his mind too, roaring and slamming himself against the support beams, trying to knock the catwalk over. I was backing away from it all when I noticed the open backpack of the man who had died lying on the metal. Inside of it was the tools we needed to build the trap. I crawled my way over, grabbed as much as I could, and then took off at a run down the catwalk. No one noticed me leaving.
After about a miles run, too far to hear my group anymore, I reached the end of the catwalk, which also served as the ending point for the game. I climbed down the metal steps and set up the trap the best I could with the limited supplies. I had no idea if it would work, but I knew I had to try. Once everything was ready, I screamed as loud and as hard as I could. Birds from nearby trees took off in fright, but then, there was nothing. The snow was still, the only sound being my own breathing and the gentle swaying of the trees.
I felt him coming before I saw him. In ala Jurassic Park style, the ground shook, the tree boughs shed their snow from the weight of his step. As he came into view, I could see his face caked with the gore of my former teammates. I will admit, I was afraid, but I knew running would be pointless. So I stood firm, just behind the trap, and prayed that it would work.
Mutant Bear walked slowly, either knowing I wouldn’t flee or trusting he could catch me if I did. There existed an unspoken agreement between us that, if he wanted to kill me, he would and he could, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Soon he was within feet of me. Then close enough that their existed only inches between our two faces. The trap still had not gone off and I knew this was it. The metallic smell of blood was overpowering, and I waited for the moment that mine would join it.
But it was not to be. For from behind me came soaring a dart that landed squarely in Mutant Bear’s front leg. The bear roared in anger, rising up on his hind legs. I stumbled backwards into the cold snow and watched as Mutant Bear continued to thrash. His movement set off the trap which, with an industrial snap, clamped onto his leg and released a net over top of him.
He struggled halfheartedly, tangling the rope around the spikes on his back, but his energy dropped with every passing second. The tranquilizer dart, for that was what it was, worked quickly. Finally he stilled, and I dared to kneel down and rest a hand on him.
My coworker walked up from behind me (he had been the one to fire the dart I quickly realized). He explained that him and a crew from our organization had gotten into the arena by disguising themselves as veterinarians coming to do a routine check up on Mutant Bear. Just a short jaunt away was a service road, on which the team and a van to transport the bear were waiting. My coworker had just been stretching his legs and awaiting my signal when he came across me and Mutant Bear.
Now, he called the team and directed them to our location. As we waited, I regaled him with stories of everything that I had experienced in the arena. Suddenly, we heard the approach of several people. Out from the foliage came the surviving members of my group. Upon seeing the bear incapacitated, they rejoiced, proclaiming that they’d won, and they pressed the victory buzzer all players had been given to alert the game masters.
Me and my coworker were in trouble now. We had a very limited amount of time to get Mutant Bear out of there before the area was swarmed with other players and executive employees. Luckily, the professionals from my work arrived just then. They began to load up the bear, ignoring my group mates questions and insistence to keep Mutant Bear as a trophy. A quick threat by my coworker to shoot them all with bear tranquilizer insured that we got Mutant Bear safely restrained in the back of the van just as the gamemasters arrived with congratulatory smiles. Those smiles dropped when they realized what was going on. We needed to go.
I leapt into the back of the van with Mutant Bear and shut the door. The vehicle jetted off, leaving the angry shouts of our pursuers to fade behind us. The ride out was far from smooth. There were no windows in the van so I couldn’t see what was happening. Every time gunfire rattled against the outside walls, or the van jolted over rough terrain, all I could do was hold on tight and pray that the next moment would not be our last.
My prayers went unanswered. There was an ear splitting bang and the van begin to spin wildly. After a nauseating few seconds, there was the shudder of impact, and our motion came to sudden stop. Mutant Bear had woken up, but rather than being aggravated, he merely looked drowsy and confused. From outside, I could hear shouting and rapid footsteps. I had just rested a reassuring hand on Mutant Bear when the doors to the back of the van were opened by a man wearing dark, reflective sunglasses. Once he saw us inside, he grinned maliciously.
I was escorted out and into the open at gun point while a team of employees from the company went to deal with Mutant Bear. My coworkers had also been captured and we were grouped together, weapons pointed at our chests. It was now I realized how close we were to escape. Our van had crashed into a tree bordering a clearing, at the end of which, was a large exit gate set into the massive wall that surrounded the arena.
Suddenly, there came a loud roar from the van. Mutant Bear came bounding out in a fury. The gamemasters attempted to stop him, firing rounds and blocking off exits, but nothing was going to stop this bear. He took off at a run, scattering or pummeling anyone in his way. He plowed through the gate, it’s metal bending and breaking like putty, and disappeared into the woods beyond. The gamemasters sent a team after Mutant Bear, of course, but I knew they would not catch the creature. Mutant Bear was free, even if I was not.
Name those NPCs -- Jim Holloway’s cover for Polyhedron 52, March 1990, came with a contest prompt to create 2 characters for any game system. The results were announced one year later, in issue 58, March 1991. Tim Beach’s winning entry was “Katrina and Falbis,” a mutated wolf and humanoid bear for Gamma World. Second place was Merrgsh, a lesser god for AD&D 2e who leads armies of orcs in Hell with his companion mount Armmegh, offspring of Tiamat and Gruumsh. Third place was Glutton and Manslaughter, two mutant wolves for Palladium’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles setting After the Bomb.
