Author's notes 1: Cptn. Ryan's last moments, an addition to the scene and a twist to the ending... cos I didn't like him dying!
Author's notes 2: While this is a One Shot, the ending ties in with the start of my on-going Primeval fic, which will be coming soon.
"It was me, wasn't it?" I whisper, struggling to draw a breath into my lacerated lungs. I can hear the fight between the Gorgonopsid and the future predator; an epic battle between the two top predators of past and future. Pain laces through me as I lay against the warm sand of the Permian Earth, my life slowly ebbing away. I can see Nick heading towards me, carefully avoiding the life and death power struggle of the two killers. He kneels beside me, and his face confirms what I already knew; my wounds are fatal and I'm not getting out of this alive.
"It was me, wasn't it?" I ask again, knowing he can hear me this time and hoping for an answer. "When we were here before, I was looking at myself, wasn't I?"
"Yes, and I'm sorry," Nick tells me, his eyes filled with tears. "I wish there was something I could do..."
"My wounds are fatal Nick, even you can see that. But it's been one hell of a ride, hasn't it?"
"Yes, it has," he agrees, as a single tear runs down his face and drops into the sand beside me. He takes my hand, not wanting me to die alone here. I appreciate the gesture, it brings a modicum of comfort in my final minutes.
"After all, what other soldier can say they've shot at a Gorgonopsid, or seen a lifeguard eating Mosasaur, or hunted down a Pteranodon, or corralled a herd of Dodos?" I laugh, though the movement causing shards of pain to stab into every part of my dying body. "Who, except us few, can ever say they've seen and done so much? It would have been one hell of a story to tell the kids."
"Kids?"
"Yeah, the ones me and Lorna were gonna have," I shiver, though the sun is still burning down upon us.
"Oh god, Tom! How can we get hold of her? So I can tell her how brave you were, and that you died protecting others?" The regret in Nick's voice is touching, proving what I have suspected for sometime now. We've become friends without even realising it, and it's fitting that he's here to share my final moments of life.
"I don't know," I confess, gasping for breath now as my lungs fill with blood. "We've never met, I just know she's out there..."
"How do you know?" There's an urgency in Nick's voice, a desperation to do what he can for me as he can't save me.
"I've seen her... when we went through the anomaly the first time... she was here... and when I went through and we found the nexus, she was there then, after Steven left. She made me promise to tell no-one I'd seen her, said it would upset things if her existence was known. Every time there's been an anomaly, I've seen her, but she always made me promise to stay silent about her. She said the time would come when her existence could be known, but it wasn't yet. I always thought I'd have the chance to get to know her..." The words fall from my lips, like the blood drops dripping onto the sand from my wounds. I try to draw in another breath, but my lungs refuse to work. I know it's time, but I'm not ready to leave yet, I haven't found the answers I seek.
The cold seeps into my body, my limbs becoming numb and the pain fading as the icy hand of Death moves over me. My vision blurs, darkness creeping in around me as the last of my life slips away. Just as the darkness envelops my vision, I catch a glimpse of her, silhouetted against the sun. She moves to one side and the light catches her face, illuminating her beauty and burning her image into my mind. As the darkness takes me, her face is the comforting vision I take with me into the unknown...
The darkness fades, leaving behind a vision of the place where I died. There's a strange cast to the light, as if everything has had a little of its colour leeched away. Slowly, I look around me, seeing everything with different eyes. The crates are still here, tumbled to one side by the fight between predators. A patch of freshly disturbed soil catches my eye, the carefully piled rocks marking the graves of me and my men. I don't know why I'm here, just that I have a feeling there's something left to do yet. Without really knowing why, I walk in the direction of the anomaly; it's as if something is pulling me there, perhaps to finish whatever business I have left to complete. I can see it now, shimmering in the distance, and there's a figure directly in front of it.
Lorna!
I try to shout, but my voice makes no sound. How can I expect her to hear me when I'm dead? Is she real, or simply a figment of a tortured psyche? Or perhaps she's an angel, come to absolve me of the sins which I committed during my life? She kneels down before the glowing light of the anomaly, and holds out her hands. A small silver box is resting in her palms, and I know it will get drawn into the anomaly soon, as everything else metallic has done in the past.
"Hold on Tom, it won't be long now," she murmurs. I wonder why she's talking as if I'm still alive, surely she must have seen the graves? My grave. Suddenly, she turns her head and looks directly at me. If my heart were still beating, it would have raced with excitement at seeing those beautiful blue eyes and that wonderful smile that could rival the sun with its brilliance. "I'm going to change things Tom, everything will be back to normal soon, I promise," she tells me with an impish wink. Turning back to the anomaly, she releases her grip on the box and the magnetic field snatches it from her hands, drawing it into the anomaly. The shards of the anomaly become larger as the light becomes brighter and it begins to pulse. I don't know what was in the box, but I can only assume that its contents are responsible for the change in the anomaly. Suddenly, the light expands, enveloping Lorna before swallowing me too, and the darkness returns.
I feel warmth, which is something I wasn't feeling a moment ago. In fact, I shouldn't be feeling anything as I'm dead, yet I do suddenly feel warm. I draw in a breath and as the air enters my lungs, the pain returns. I gasp at the sudden onslaught of feeling, the pain of my wounds and the ache in my head, which wasn't there when I last experienced this moment. I try to move, but a slender hand prevents me from trying to rise and I feel a slight scratch at my neck. A moment later, the pain ebbs away, and I'm left to wonder if I'm going to die all over again. Is that to be my eternity? To relive my death over and over, forever?
"Stay still, you're badly wounded," a female voice tells me, one which I recognise immediately.
"Lorna?" says a male voice, which I immediately identify as Nick Cutter. But how does he know her name?
"Good, you've retained your memories. We have to stop the bleeding, then we have to hunt down the surviving young." The words are spoken as more of an order than a suggestion, and I can feel Nick pressing something against my chest, to stem the blood flow from the wounds the predator gave me.
"What's going on?" I whisper, wanting an explanation for why I seem to be alive again, and why Nick knows who Lorna is, and what she's doing revealing her existence now, and what she did to the anomaly to make this happen.
"I'll explain everything soon Tom, I promise. But for now, just rest. The drug I gave you should be making you sleepy by now, so let it work. I'll be here when you wake up, I promise."
I open my mouth to speak but my vocal cords don't seem to want to work. I look up at her and she smiles down at me, just as the blessed oblivion of sleep rises up and claims me...