A day and a few hours had passed since she and Littlefoot met their new companions and Cera just couldn't understand the events of what had happened this day. She was just lying down in the caves which had a nearby waterfall, sobbing it all out. How did everything seem to fall apart? She looked back on this morning and these last few hours.

It all happened this morning. Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike had narrowly escaped the Sharptooth, who had happened to have found and attacked their resting spot. Ever since then, Cera's issues with Littlefoot grew tense. "Nobody's safe with you," she spat at him. She hadn't meant any of that, to be honest. She hated when her warning had been ignored. One way or the other, she thought, things would have to show themselves eventually.

A few moments after that, when the children found that what might have been the Great Valley was just a circled landscape, Cera had had enough. When she decided that she was going take the easier route alone, Littlefoot tried to correct her to what his late mother had told him, hours before her unfortunate fate. "Then, she was a stupid longneck too." Cera didn't mean that, either. She was just angry with Littlefoot for not listening to her yesterday.

Cera's comment, however, made Littlefoot attack her in a blind rage, which started a fight between the two. Even though he was no match for Cera because he didn't have her fighting experience, she really had to give him credit for pick a scuffle with her.

When Cera started leaving Littlefoot after the fight, even if she had won a physical victory, the words he had shouted at her have dealt several blows into her heart: "We never wanted you with us anyway!" It was like Littlefoot had shown his true feelings towards her or something. Did she really deserve this? To be rejected? Hated? Shown without compassion? However, she used her pride to hide these true facial expressions, as if nothing had happened.

A few hours later, as Ducky, Petrie, and Spike started following Cera for the easiest, less exhausting way, it turned out to be dangerous because of the volcanic activity and the tar pits nearby. Things got worse in a few details: one, when Spike's usually inescapable hunger for nearby food got him and Ducky separated from the others; two, when Cera jumped over a tar pit with Petrie on her back, to which the force of the leap made Petrie slip and, because of his inability to fly, fall into the tar below. The problem was that she didn't even notice what had happened. Why she was unable to sense this, it was hard to say.

By the time Cera realized the others were gone when she arrived at the caves, she panicked. She didn't know how to solve this unfortunate turn of events. When she made up her mind to go back and look for the others, a trio of Pachycephalosaurus, known as "domeheads," saw a chance for target practice and ambushed her. Cera ran for dear life, as the domeheads began toying with her in an aggressive manner. She cried for help, but it seemed that her calls wouldn't be heard for miles.

Then, it happened. The domeheads had Cera trapped and just when they were about to continue their sadistic exercise, what they had seen made them retreat out of the caves for good. Cera, however, never saw the dark, mysteriously horrifying creature before. It was as tall as those domeheads and looked slimy all around. At that moment, a thought came into her head. Was this creature the host of which Mako Loanshark had told her to expect? The host that would take her into the future? Was the time right? It was too terrifying for her to ask that creature about it. She started crying out for her companions, even if she thought it was becoming useless.

At last, the realization came to her. It wasn't actually a monster. Under all that was revealed to be tar was Ducky, Spike, and Petrie, and… Littlefoot? She was glad to see them all in one piece, but Littlefoot's presence was really a surprise to Cera. She didn't expect him to come to her rescue. After all their arguments, did he just come up with this tar monster idea to save her? Was he willing to make amend with her?

Then, what Cera heard made her believe that she got all her hopes up. They were laughing at her. Laughing. So this was Littlefoot's plan all along? To make her feel humiliated by scaring her? To take revenge for all her arrogant ways? Her heart was dealing more blows than it could take. Did the others find out about her encounter with Mako? No, she thought, that was impossible. She never even spoke a word of this to anyone. But whatever she may think, she knew that she had gone too far.

Once again, she left, too proud to admit that she gone the wrong way or to show her hurt feelings. She went down near the waterfall, which muffled the sound of her sobbing from the ears of her companions. This time, she was all alone.

"What's come over me?" Cera whimpered to herself. "Why was I so stupid? Well… I guess this is how I'm gonna live." Then, she went into a dreamless, tormented sleep.

However, that was all about to change. As the moon stood in the middle of the night sky, which stood for midnight, Cera woke up as the sound of the rushing waterfall fell silent. This was a bit odd for something like that to happen.

"Well," said Cera, "at least I could get a better beauty sleep." But before she could lie down, a familiar voice had blown through her like wind.

"When the time is right…"

"Mako?" Cera was so taken aback by this, that she couldn't speak another word.

In an instant, everything went black, like the day before in the previous cave, only much blacker. And a stream of violet mist hovered around Cera's feet. It had some sort of power that made her feel good. Yet, as she realized what that power held, she turned away from it. She didn't like this. Not one bit. The mist was filled with fear. Then, fear went into anger. Anger into hate. Hate into… suffering.

Suddenly, Cera's heart skipped a heartbeat as she heard something that sounded like… breathing. But it wasn't like any breathing she had ever listened to. It was hard. Heavy. Labored. Forced. Quite unnatural. And it was coming right from behind her. There was no denying that whatever was making that breathing was standing before her, so she turned around and prepared for the worst.

Slowly, but surely, Cera nervously looked up and saw, two feet from her, the darkest, strangest, most terrifying image she had ever experienced in her life.

The figure, while in a violet aura the mist that set him from the darkness, was covered in some sort of black armor from top to bottom, donning long boots made from strong armor, gloves made with a unique iron, a belt with three boxes around its front, a floor-length heavy cape, a hermetic collar around his neck, and a shiny, metal fish-faced, short snout mask covering his face, with a helmet coupled on top to hide the rest of the head. On his chest was a breath repertory control panel, which directed the being's breathing to the mask so it could pass through, but Cera wasn't aware of this. Hanging on the figure's belt was some type of tool and so far as she was concerned, Cera didn't bother to ask about it.

"Cera Jessica Parker Threehorn, I would presume…" the haunting image spoke in a very low, but steady voice. Cera was surprised to see that the "mouth" of the mask wasn't moving, but what she didn't realize was that the voice was coming from inside the mask.

Shivering, Cera backed up a tiny bit and tried to speak calmly. "Are… are you the guy that Mako told me to see?"

"Yes," the specter replied and with that, he walked to the nearest cave wall, still speaking, "And now we must move on. The future awaits you."

"But… but… how can anyone find a way into the future?" Cera asked, still a little shaken from what was to come. "That can't really happen! I-i-it's impossible!"

The dark figure stopped next to the wall, still facing it, and turned his head towards Cera for a few seconds. "And who, pray tell me, gave you this unproven drivel?"

What's "drivel?" Cera sniffed indignantly. "My father, if you must know," she answered, proudly.

"Then, he is an ignorant, arrogant, pompous, overly critical, and stupid threehorn as well."

"Hey!" said Cera, furiously. "You can't just talk like that about my…"

She stopped, remembering her recent comment on Littlefoot and his mother. Regret began dragging her back down in her place.

"There are times when the truth can be painful," the specter put in. "I can only hope that you will remember and accept that… child."

Cera, with the specter's words weighing her down, said nothing and nodded.

The specter unhooked his tool, pressed his gloved thumb on a button and, to Cera's surprise, a blade of red light emitted from the tool's emitter. Then, he drove the blade into the wall, carved a large circle of three meter wide and two meters high down to the ground, and deactivated the weapon.

Cera realized that not only this figure was a spirit of the future. He was the future.

Then suddenly, another surprise came to her as light shined in the circle. The specter stepped inside it and turned to Cera.

"Come with me," he said, without the slightest sound of command in his voice.

Cera, no longer feeling uncertain, complied and followed the specter to whatever lay ahead. Well, she thought, here goes nothing.