It had been at least a day since I've arrived on the island and met Beth. Today, we would be searching for clues about what happened. Questions filled my mind like the ocean. What caused the pterosaurs to go berserk? What caused the park to shut down? Was it more than just a technical malfunction?
The Innovation Center didn't have many answers, just saying that a "secret project" would be opening December 2015. If I'm right, this "secret project" had something to do with the chaos. Beth had told me she heard of it during her stay, but she was clueless about what it was.
An hour later, we stumbled upon some kind of control center that had an entire digital map of the park up front. There were some security camera footage too, but, like the digital map, they were barely functioning. As if fighting to resist the urge of death. "Beth, see if you can rewind some of those back to December 2015. Gotta know what happened here." I struggled with this task because of how static-like they were. After about ten unsuccessful attempts, I got something. The image looked like some sort of cage or arena.
Beth seemed to recognize the people on the feed. "I know these people." She said. "I got it in the staff sheet. That woman in white is Claire Dearing, the owner of the park. And the man next to her is Simon Masrani, a billionaire who founded Jurassic World." It looked like they were talking, so I turned up the audio.
"But she's intelligent, though?" Simon asked, looking out the glass window. Claire nodded. "For a dinosaur." Intelligent? I thought. No dinosaur I know of has an intelligence level like a Troodon.
"And that?" Simon asked, pointing to some creepy-looking cracks in the window. What dinosaur was this place holding? "It tried to break the glass." Claire responded. Simon nodded. "I like her spirit." I turned to Beth. "It's a female?" "All dinosaurs are female here. It's to prevent unauthorized breeding, from what I've been told." "Talk about your gender issues." I murmured under my breath.
The two were silent for a moment, staring out into the trees in the paddock. Then, Simon spoke up, surprised. "It's white! You never told me it was white!" Beth and I exchanged confused glances. White? Claire was silent before she spoke in a nervous tone. "Think it will scare the kids?" Simon was not fazed. "The kids? This will give the parents nightmares." "Is that… good?" "It's fantastic."
The feed continued for a few more minutes. I quickly jotted down more notes as Claire explained there was a sibling of the animal, but it was eaten. "Come on, come on, what animal?" I muttered. Simon went on, saying that there was someone who worked in the Navy before arriving here on the island. I even made sure to write down his name before the camera feed stopped: Owen Grady.
After three minutes of me catching up with information on this mystery animal, Beth fired up another camera that showed a giant pair of open doors that were starting to close. Just as they were about to shut, someone ran through, followed by a dinosaur. But this dinosaur… was nothing like I'd ever seen before. It had white scales, long, clawed arms and yellowish eyes. It wedged between the doors and stomped into view. Our eyes widened at the sight. "What…what is that thing?" Beth whispered, terrified. I only shook my head.
In the suspenseful moments that followed, the dinosaur flipped over a pickup truck, chomped down on a worker, and sniffed under a crane before exiting the scene. "It's going to wreak havoc on the park. Did ACU try to stop it?" "Uh… no. From the looks of this next file, it seems an entire squad was almost wiped out in an attempt to subdue it." I answer, checking another dossier. "Find something else."
"Got something." Beth announced. "This one's the aviary." She brought it up and a peaceful image of pterosaurs came into view. This didn't last long though, as our mystery dinosaur crashed into the dome and started roaring at the prehistoric flyers. Panicked, the pterosaurs flew off as the dinosaur roared at them again, sending them through the hole it had made. Suddenly, it dawned on me. "It's herding them. Claire wasn't kidding when she said it was intelligent."
Beth was horror-stricken, tears starting to emerge. "That thing… it's why I'm trapped here. That's what left me to die." I instantly turned to her, as if knowing her next move. "Wait… you're planning on killing it?" She wiped her cheek. "Yes. If it's still out there." "You're insane! That thing could bite your head off in a single second!" I shouted back. A crashing noise echoed in the camera, as if interrupting us, and we turned to see a helicopter wreckage in the aviary and the dinosaur leaving, having finished its job here.
While we searched for another feed, I found that Simon Masrani was in the helicopter when it crashed, killing him. Beth's nightmares about Main Street, however, had returned. After calming her down with hopes that we would leave the island alive, we also found a file about someone named Vic Hoskins, someone in charge of a Velociraptor training program that Owen had participated in. Afterward, we brought up another video which showed him, Claire, a bearded man who I assumed was Owen, and two kids, one taller than the other, in a laboratory with strange animals in cages.
"That's not a real dinosaur." One of the kids stated, pointing to a monitor with our mystery dino on it. "No, it ain't, kid." Vic confirmed. "But somebody's gotta make sure this company has a future." He gestured to the monitor. "Imagine that one, a fraction of its size. Intelligent, deadly, able to hide from the most advanced military technology. A living weapon unlike anything we've ever seen." I jotted this down. Was this man insane? Making animals living weapons?
That...that was just wrong...
"See," Hoskins continued. "millions of years of evolution… what did we learn?" Silence. "Nature is the gift…"
SNAARRRLL! Everyone, including me and Beth, jumped back as a dinosaur, a Velociraptor, slowly approached into the lab, cornering Hoskins near a wall while the other four were grouped together, a concerned look on Owen's face. "Easy… easy, boy." He stammered nervously. "Easy." The raptor crept towards him, growling. "Hey. Hey, we're on the same side, right?" Hoskins asked the reptile, as if trying to talk it out of eating him. Slowly, he held out his arm, reaching for its snout. "Easy… I'm on your side…" That was when the raptor bit down.
"I… I never knew there were raptors on the island." Beth told me as Hoskins was devoured by the Velociraptor while the other four hurried out of the room. "There should be something else." I said, starting to look for another camera. "Wait. Here's one on Main Street at night." I brought it up, and both of us were amazed as it started to play out.
Our mystery dinosaur was fighting both a Velociraptor and a T-Rex. Many boardwalk shops were utter debris as the two giants clashed. Both were covered in scrapes, scars and blood. The raptor was jumping between the two, trying to stay in the fight. After slamming its opponent into another building, the T-Rex knocked the mystery dinosaur onto the ground, close to the pool. It got up, dazed and roared at the other two, who roared back. Both of our hearts stopped as we witnessed what came next.
The Mosasaurus breached from the arena and clamped its jaws around the mystery dinosaur and dragged it down into the murky depths. That was all before the feed stopped and the security monitor blacked out, having run out of juice. Beth let out a sigh of relief. "It's dead. The monster is dead. Well, now I don't have to be trapped by it here." While I listened, I noticed one last file. "Hey! This contains more stuff about it!" Beth whirled around to me with wide eyes. "Really?"
"Yeah." I answered, turning through the folder. "It says here that this animal was…" "What? What does it say, Noah?" she asked impatiently. "This animal… was a genetically-modified hybrid." "A… a hybrid? They made an entirely new dinosaur?" I nodded. "Yes. It was made from a T-Rex base genome, but it says the rest is classified." Beth leaned close to me. "Does it have a name? Please say yes."
I didn't answer her, but I wrote down something new in my journal. The animal's name.
Indominus Rex (Untamable King)
