I woke in pain.
Not the kind of pain you'd expect from stubbing your toe, or jamming a finger. More like pain from the worst hangover imaginable. My head felt like it was split open, and I groaned aloud, my eyes squeezed shut against the pulsing ache, as twin spikes jammed their way through my temples. Or at least that's how it felt.
I was dimly aware that I was on my back. The surface I was laid on was gritty, digging uncomfortably into my back. Bright light lit my eyes behind closed lids, and even that bit of brightness seemed to intensify the pain in my skull. I responded by squeezing my eyes shut tighter, and gripping my head in both hands, letting out another groan.
After laying there for what felt like hours, but was likely only a few minutes, I realized that the ache was dimming. The spinning feeling was slowly subsiding, and I finally opted to test my luck against the bright light.
Opening my eyes slowly, I squinted against the light, which I realized was a mid day sun hanging in the sky. I tilted my head to the side, and was met with the view of water, gently splashing against a sandy shoreline. That explained the uncomfortable feeling on my back, though not how I got here. In fact...
My mind raced as I tried to think of how I ended up here. Jumbled memories provided no answer, and I realized I couldn't remember the last few days, didn't remember anything that would shed light on my location. I didn't even live near any large bodies of water.
The confusion and shock allowed me to temporarily forget the pain in my head, and I sat up slowly, my eyes gazing around. I was on a beach, with a seemingly endless stretch of water going towards the horizon. Maybe 20 feet of sand gave way to trees, wild looking things covered in vines and moss, with scattered boulders giving the forest floor a jagged, uneven look. More of the dark grey rocks were haphazardly spread around the beach.
Looking the other way, I could see that I was actually at the mouth of a river, with another bank across the way. The water flowed outward into the ocean from more forested area, the trees giving way to the inevitable flow.
I shook my head, trying to process everything, idly scratching at an itch on my left arm. My fingers felt an unfamiliar feeling, and I glanced down, before freezing in shock.
Attached to my arm, dug into the flesh, was a diamond shaped piece of metal, inter spaced with glowing orange designs, centering around a small diamond shaped gem of the same color and glow. I stared stupidly at the foreign object, panic initially wanting me to tear it from my skin, but reason prevented me from doing anything drastic.
I inspected the device closer, and the more I looked, the more confused I got. The skin around it looked recently healed, as if the device had been cut into me, then allowed to heal over the span of weeks. I poked around it, and while the skin was slightly more sensitive than usual, it wasn't painful. The device itself looked like a dull grey steel, the orange color of the gem staying consistent regardless of the angle I looked at it from. I clasped a head over it, and finally stood myself up. My head was clearing, the pain dulling substantially.
Finally managing to put thoughts together, I tried to reach into my pocket to pull out my phone. Again, panic and surprise hit me, when I realized I wasn't wearing pants. Or underwear. Or a shirt. Looking down, I realized I was stark naked. Even my watch and wedding ring was gone, along with the chain necklace I habitually wore. I idly brushed sand from my back and legs, trying desperately not to let panic overwhelm me. I took a few slow, deep breaths, and tried to think through how this could have happened. Luckily, the temperature was balmy, a slight breeze tickling my skin, and the sand beneath my toes was soft enough that it wasn't painful standing there.
I was pulled from my thoughts by a soft sound behind me. I turned to it, and found myself looking at a small, squat bird. It looked something like a chicken, though it's beak was rounded, it's small, beady black eyes staring at me. It made another sound, some kind of strange warbling squawk, before flapping it's stubby wings a few times. Apparently deciding I wasn't interesting enough, and continued to waddle up the beach, occasionally pecking at the ground. I stared at it as it went. I had a pretty good knowledge base for the different flora and fauna of south Texas, and this thing didn't match anything I had ever even heard of. Combined with the splitting headache and my lack of clothes, I could deduce that my situation was pretty fucked up.
A shocking development, I know.
I had time to let out a harsh breath I hadn't realized I was holding, when I heard yet another unfamiliar sound. My eyes went to the forested overgrowth, and met the gaze of something staring at me. I froze in place, my body going rigid, as I processed what I was seeing. The majority of its body was hidden in the brush, but it's head and neck were exposed. It's amber eyes would be level with my own, making it close to 6 feet tall. It's skin looked scaled, like a lizard, though tufts of feathers were inter spaced along it's neck. An elongated head furthered the lizard picture in my mind, and it's mouth was opened slightly, giving me a decent view of razor sharp teeth. It met my gaze without blinking, without moving, and I continued to mirror him as my thoughts raced along. I recognized the thing, or at least something that looked like it. I'd been exposed to the movie Jurrasic Park at an early age, and despite the impossibility of it, the damn thing looked just like the velociraptors from that movie. Which was impossible. Completely and utterly impossible.
Impossible or not, the creature finally moved, a taloned hand lifting to grip a tree branch lightly, it's body centering. I had enough time to think "oh shit" to myself, before the creature pounced, 200 pounds of scales, claws, and teeth coming right for me.
While my mind may have been stupidly staring at an obvious predator, apparently my body didn't need to check in, and it took me a second to realize I was in motion. My brain caught up to my body, and I booked it, sprinting faster than I think i'd ever managed to sprint. The creature finally made a sound, a kind of piercing screech, and took pursuit. I followed the river up, opting for open ground rather than the water. For all I knew, the thing could swim faster than me, and I'd rather not try to escape into the ocean. Sand kicked up as my legs pumped, and I could hear the damn thing right behind me, could almost feel it's breath on my neck. I knew I didn't have long before it could catch me, but I'd be damned if I was going to lay down and die without making it work for it's meal.
I took a sharp corner at a pile of boulders that stood taller than a house, and my gaze landed on another impossibility. Maybe a dozen strides ahead of me, casually stomping it's way down the beach, was a gigantic turtle, the top of it's shell easily at my eye line, if not taller. The shell itself looked like dull rock, segregated into individual diamond shapes with sharp looking protrusions sticking out of the centers. It's long neck, maybe three feet long, twisted towards the sound of me running, and it's ugly face followed my motion. I didn't have time to process anything beyond that, as I sprinted past it. It's neck twisted, rolls of rough pebbled skin rolling in the motion as it watched, but otherwise did nothing.
Grasping at any idea, I juked to the side after I'd passed the enormous creature, putting it's body between me and the nightmare chasing after me, and kept sprinting. A few seconds passed, and I heard another screech from the creature, further away. I chanced a look over my shoulder to see the thing attacking the turtle, it's claws scratching uselessly on the hard shell. Two others had apparently joined the short chase at some point, and they were likewise attacking, claws and teeth flashing. I watched long enough to see the turtle stretch out it's long neck, and snap its jaws onto one of the attackers arms, and I could hear the snap of bone even as I moved. The beast let out an anguished cry, but kept attacking. I kept running.
My breathing was ragged, and sweat beaded my forehead, but I didn't stop. The river twisted a few times, both sandy banks giving way to forested areas on both sides. As the river forked, I followed the bank I was on to the left, though I could see more forested area down the right fork. Moments later, I could see an open area. Not a clearing, but easily less crowded with trees than the forest to my side. Palm trees lined small banks of sand and dirt, with streams flowing at spiderweb intervals through them. The area was about the size of a football field. At the other end, the geography rose, with hills breaking way for the river, leading to a small canyon between the two rock faces. To my left, I could see a mountain rising above the forested area. To my right, forest stretched on, giving way to smaller hills and another mountain in the distance. Boulders covered a good majority of the area, and in the center, a raised portion of earth and stone, like a natural tower, rose up maybe 40 feet, with trees and what looked like a flat surface on the top.
I didn't know many things about survival, but I figured that having the high ground when you're getting chased by impossible monsters couldn't hurt. I crossed the river at a low point, my bare feet splashing through the cold water, and booked it for the tower. A coughing bellow came from my right as I ran past, and my head snapped to the sound. Another massive beast stood there in the edge of the trees, it's eyes focused on me. It was the size of an elephant, with a huge serrated plate at the back of it's elongated head. Two long spikes, like tusks, rose from it's forehead, and a small horn like a rhinos poked from it's nose. I gaped at the creature, but didn't slow. In fact, the sight of the beast spurned my tiring legs into quicker motion, and I practically flew to my goal.
In olympic time, I hit the base of the tower, and started up a natural path in the rock and trees. It was narrow, but I was able to work my way up, twisting past small brush and shrubs. I made it half way up before the path ended, and I had to cut sharply to my left and work up the rest of the way, my legs and chest burning. By the time I made it to the top, I felt like I was going to collapse, but I quickly searched the top for signs of any other prehistoric beasts. When I didn't find anything, I quickly jetted to the tall tree standing proudly at the highest point, and quickly climbed it, pulling my tired, aching body up. The bark was rough on my bare feet, but the terror and adrenaline made me numb to it. When I felt I was far enough up, I paused and sat, trying desperately to catch my breath. The pounding of my heartbeat rang in my ears, making me partially deaf to anything else, and I had to grip a branch desperately to keep from falling. My eyes tracked the area as I caught my breath, waiting for my racing heart to slow. No more monsters popped out from behind a bush, or fell from the trees. Nothing moved on the ground below me. As far as I could hear, nothing was moving near me, and I finally relaxed slightly, leaning my head back against the trunk, though I kept my eyes tracking the hilltop.
As my body recovered, my mind raced. I fought to order my thoughts, to bring order to the chaos that my brain had become. It was impossible. The things I was seeing was impossible. I couldn't be dreaming though. A small stub of a broken branch dug painfully into my right thigh, and I shifted slightly to remove the pressure. The small pains and aches from the last few minutes told me that it couldn't be a dream. Drugs maybe? I thought through what I knew of psychedelics and hallucinogens, but that didn't fit either. Besides the loss of memory of the past few days, I had no other symptoms that would match it. My headache had vanished. My lack of clothes and the strange implant in my arm told me more than anything else. Someone, or something, had put that in my arm. Something had taken my clothes, my jewelry. There wasn't any large enough body of water within 200 miles of my home that could accommodate the ocean I'd seen. Someone had taken me here, done this to me.
My mind drifted back to the close call with monsters, and I finally admitted to myself what they were. As impossible as it was, the damn things were dinosaurs. Prehistoric creatures. I'd been a dinosaur fan as a kid, so I knew the names of a bunch of them, though I hadn't thought of them in years. But even if I hadn't been a fan of dinosaurs, I'd seen the movies. I'd recognize the popular ones anywhere. Velociraptor. Triceratops. The turtle looked familiar, though I couldn't put a name to it. The bird too looked familiar. A dodo maybe? I shook my head. As impossible as it was, obviously something didn't believe in impossible. I was currently naked, hot, thirsty, sore, tired, and seemingly abandoned in a random forest full of dinosaurs.
Oh yeah, this isn't going to be good.