Chapter 8
Snow, Hope and Sazh were finally able to come down from the tree, the Raptors had given up on them minutes ago, but they were hesitant to come down in case it was another trap, luckily it wasn't. They could see Lightning and Fang walking towards them.
"Where's Vanille ?" Fang asked angrily.
" We lost her, we thought she might have went back to help you" Hope said.
" Don't worry we'll find her, she couldn't have gone too far" said Snow trying to calm her down.
They decided to split up into two groups to search for her, Lightning and Fang went back in the direction from which they came from and Snow, Sazh and Hope searched went further into the jungle. They all agreed to meet back in the same spot before nightfall.
"Iain ?"
"Yeah"
"What exactly was that thing that attacked us ?"
"Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus, the biggest meat eater on this island"
Vanille had grown more worried about Fang and the others that creature or Spinosaurus as Iain had called was still out there and there was no way they could stand a chance against.
"Where do you think it could be now"
"It mostly stays by the river, it doesn't really leave there as long as there's prey for it to catch"
After walking for about twenty minutes they had finally reached the water truck which Iain had made a home out of. He opened a hatch on top of the tank.
"Alright in here." He said as he helped her up. When she had gone in Iain looked around to make sure there was nothing around before going in and closing the hatch.
"Alright so what are you doing here ?" Vanille then began to explain to him about everything that had happened, the purge, how they had been branded by Anima, the falCie, how they had been trying to find their focus and how they eventually ended up where they are, although she didn't mention the fact that she had been crystallized hundreds of years ago. Iain however thought that she was having him on.
"I'm sorry this is all too hard for me to believe"
"But it's the truth"
"Then that would mean that you're from another world because I have never heard of any place called Cocoon or Gran Pulse and on top of that everything else you described is just plain impossible here"
"If you don't believe me then fine, but I'm telling you it is the truth"
Iain put his hand to his head. He was still finding all this hard to believe, he found it hard to believe that dinosaurs were still alive in the present day and yet here he was stuck on an island inhabited by them. Nevertheless he still knew he had to help her, he knew that there would be safety being with other people.
"Ok I'll believe you, how many other people were with you"
"Five"
"Alright I'll help you look for them, its too dangerous to be on your own out here"
"Then why are you on your own then? "
Iain fell silent. He didn't like remembering how he had gotten stranded here in the first place. It seemed so long ago now even though it had only been three weeks.
"If you must know I'm stuck here"
"But isn't there anybody else here, surely you cant be the only person around here"
"Well I'm not the only human in this world there's billions of us, its just that here in particular there is nobody around only the dinosaurs.
"Dinosaurs ?" Vanille knew of all sorts of creatures back on Gran Pulse but never before had she heard of these creatures.
"You never heard of dinosaurs ?"
"No"
"Then I guess they don't exist from where your from." Iain laughed, never before did he ever imagine him saying something like that. "Anyway millions of years before the first humans these giant reptiles ruled this planet, after millions of years they were all wiped out by a meteor, we learnt about them from studying the fossil remains of their bones"
Vanille was fascinated by all of this. Cocoon and Pulse as far a she knew were only thousands of years old and here she was in a world that was millions even billions of years old. But there was one thing that she didn't understand.
"If these things died out millions of years ago then how come they are alive here then"
"Well years ago a company named Ingen managed to clone these creatures from DNA which they had managed to extract from blood sucking insects known as mosquitoes, these mosquitoes were stuck in a sticky substance called amber which over time hardened with the mosquito preserved inside, the reason they did all this was so they could put them in a theme park which was located on an island not too far from this one, because after all people would be amazed to see these creatures alive and in the flesh after millions of years, but before the park could even open something happened, the owner of Ingen needed to get expert approval before he could properly open it, so he invited three people to spend a weekend on the island to get their approval, while they were on the main tour the power in the park was turned off and the animals got out of their enclosures and a few people were killed, they couldn't get control of the park back so it was abandoned"
"But if the island is far away from this one then why are the dinosaurs here then ?"
"Well this is where the dinosaurs were cloned, they were bred here before being sent to the other island, a tropical storm hit the island so it had to be evacuated and the dinosaurs were set free into the wild, for years the secret about Ingen and its dinosaurs remained hidden until an expedition was led here by another person in the company to try reopen a new park but this time back on the mainland however there was another group there with a survivor from the other island which sabotaged their attempt, these groups eventually had to come together when all their equipment was destroyed only six people survived, however they didn't leave empty handed, they brought back one of the large carnivores to the mainland, but it managed to get loose and went on a rampage around the city, their secret was out, after the dinosaur was returned and people knew, the island was deemed restricted"
"But then why are you here ?"
" Three weeks ago me and a bunch of my friends decided to go on a holiday to celebrate finishing school, on the week we were going it also happened to be my birthday, my friends surprised me by hiring a plane to fly over the island, they knew I was always fascinated with dinosaurs, I knew that the whole thing was a bad idea but somehow they managed to talk me into it, anyway the plane we were in ran into technical problems and crashed on the island, we tried to get a hold of the mainland but we couldn't, there was no signal so we couldn't call for help and the radio in plane was damaged during the crash, I then learned that because this whole thing was illegal the only other person who actually knew about this was our pilot he ran this business flying people over the island he was so secretive about it not even his family or closest friends knew about it, after about four days my friends had all been killed, I was the only one left and its been like that now, even if my family is looking for they will never know where I am, I gave up any hopes I had of being rescued very quickly"
Vanille was shocked by his story, he had lost all his closest friends and had to go through this nightmarish ordeal on his own , she did the only thing she could think of, she went up to him and hugged him. Iain was completely confused by this, this girl he had only met a few hours ago was here comforting him and they barely knew each other, but then again he wanted to help her find her friends even though he hardly knew her. She finally let go after realising that that she had been hugging him for almost thirty seconds.
"I'm sorry, really I am"
"Its ok, anyway we should really get some sleep, here take this" he said handing her a blanket.
"Thanks "
"Don't mention it "
