AN: This is the updated and sort of spinoff version of a story I wrote about two years ago under OpenUpMyHeart... I decided to change some things, make characters older, add new one's in, and go down a different story route altogether (It's sort of The Hardship Of a secret, only set a few years later, sort of)
Isabella is still the main character, but I've added in Kathlyn Cutter and Harold Becker; it's kind of vital to the character development further on in the story; also, I will be switching focus from Isabella to other characters for short periods.
So here's the big summary: Isabella Temple had the chance to go to Oxford, to study Engineering Science, and take a side course in Archaeology and Anthropology, but those dreams slipped away when she found herself stranded on the other side of an anomaly with no way home. Living throughout time for two and a half years has left her changed; but it's not only Isabella whose changed, the ARC she once knew and loved has been ever expanding, her family, though still missing her have moved on with their lives, her friends have gone on to prepare themselves for the world, and her sort-of-boyfriend Ryan, well, he's gone off the rails, and off the radar, dragging Isabella's younger brother Thomas with him. But the most shocking change of all, the world now knows of the ARC and what they do, and what leaves Isabella most confused, is how her return is splashed all over the news. And even though she's glad to be back, Isabella would rather face a pack of Jiangxia chaotoenisis than a bunch of journalists, hell, she'd even take a T-Rex if it meant that she wouldn't have to struggle to put the pieces of her life back together.
Warning: Foul language ahead.
Birth, Death, and the world's in between.
Prologue
Date: 1st March 2043
Employee ID: 09188
Subject: Isabella Temple – Missing
Issued By: Sir James Lester, ARC Head
The Prime Minister has called off the search for Isabella Anne Temple, daughter of Mr Connor Temple, and Mrs Abby Temple; Miss Temple disappeared through an Anomaly on January 8th 2042, see case files 509 to 521. All site teams are to focus on the containment of Anomalies and retrieval and containment of creatures.
With the revelation of the ARC and Anomalies to the general public, our focus is upon the job; any further efforts to locate Miss Temple will take place in the future as and when the Prime Minister sees fit to do so.
All employees are reminded to not reveal any information to the press unless instructed to do so by HR or another Head Employee.
Sir James Lester.
She couldn't breathe.
She'd been running for what felt like hours, gunfire blasting overhead, the roaring of the Dilophosaurs' echoing through the trees. "Run!"; someone was shouting at her from behind.
The ground felt hard beneath her feet.
And underneath her chest.
The air left her lungs as she fell, and she couldn't breathe even as she scrambled up from the dirt. Her bag almost slipped off her shoulders and she ran, rubbing at her eyes to relive the dirt.
The roaring was closer.
She ran.
Hitting into trees.
Stumbling over branches.
It was bright.
She was falling.
The air was rushing, the ground of falling up. She rolled down the dirt.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Isabella gasped awake. Her breath coming in short spurts and fogging in the cool air of the night; something had woke her up, but what?
She stood quietly and slowly, pulling the patched-worked fur-skin more securely around her shoulders, wiping her long wild hair from her eyes and tying it back again with the cloth strip she'd been using, before pulling the shoddily made hood of the fur-skin over her head.
It was made of various animal furs from over the time she'd been travelling, sewn together with painstakingly and poorly made string from animal tendons and vines, sewn with a shoddy needle-like point. But it held together non-the-less.
The boots she'd stolen were holding together fine with the hand-made laces.
Everything was holding on. Just like she was.
'tink-clunk'
'tink-clunk'
The rattle of can's.
There was no wind, there was never really much wind.
The rattle of can's!
Scrambling, Isabella grabbed her rucksack, stuff in her flask; never leaving it actually unpacked. She made her way out of the hollow underside of the tree, squeezing under the rooted entrance, pushing away the brush that covered the small opening and across the dirt and out onto the ground. 'Thank god I'm skinny' she thought to herself, brushing the earth away off of the fur.
'tink-clunk'; it was coming from the north-east of herself.
A shuffle came through the trees and undergrowth, rustling the leaves. A small 'thump thump' of a creatures steps reaching her ears, and under her feet. A therapod dinosaur, a dinosaur that walks on two feet; no snuffling means it's not a very large dinosaur, but probably a dangerous one none-the-less.
Isabella tread carefully away. Out of sound and sight of the dinosaur, ready to run if needs be; she wasn't about to let the chance of an anomaly slip away, if she could just get to it...
'SNAP!'
She broke a twig under her foot.
She stilled. Making no sound, no breath, but her heart went crazy like a humming-bird.
The dinosaur screeched and burst through the brush and branches.
A Segnosaurus. A two legged, 18 foot high green skinned dinosaur, with a long strong tail, with long front claws and very, very sharp teeth.
She ran. Taking off through the trees.
The Segnosaurus screeched from behind her and she burst through the trees and into a small clearing. And she could see it. The small beacon of hope that flits into her life every few months, gets up her hope, and then cashes it back down again.
She stepped forward.
A screech and then pain. Pain blossomed across her right side, from chest to hip, and even across her right thigh. Blood seeping through the fur-skin, and onto the ground where she had fallen.
She looked up. The Segnosaurus was above her, teeth bared and... it was swept across by another. The screeching loud and terrifying and the dirt being kicked up all over her. The pain was intense, and her own blood warmed her side by left her feeling cold at the same time.
A louder roar came this time from within the trees.
She recognised that sound.
It was the fucking Spinosaurus that had been hunting her down for the last month and a half.
"Well shit"
She looked up from the ground to the anomaly. "I'll be fucking damned if I die now"
Isabella got to her feet, "fuck" she swore. The pain radiated all across her right side, blood trickled down, but she moved. The roaring was loud, the pain excruciating, but she was getting closer, but so were the creatures. She began running; more like limping, but she moved as fast as she could, as the ground trembled.
She got closer and closer, the light got brighter and brighter.
The creatures were right behind her, but the anomaly was within arms-length.
She ran into the light.
Closed her eyes.
Opened them to see blue sky.
And then, everything was dark.
So yeah. That's the prologue to this story, Birth, Death and the world's in between.
I hope it's peaked your interest; I'll be posting Chapter one, Everything is as it was, yet everything has changed, as soon as I can, just gotta finish writing it.
Please let me know what you think of it so far anyhow, it'd be much appreciated.
MissTLou is putting the pen down on this page.