Chapter 2: Recovery
The young man chuckled ruefully to himself as he regained consciousness. The monotony of continually slipping in and out of consciousness was beginning to irk him. This time, he noted, was different. The pain that had been such frequent company to consciousness was greatly diminished. His body and brain felt as if they were wrapped in heavy gauze.
He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to shatter this light little dream, for a dream he thought it was. For a few precious seconds he thought he was home, in his own bed, and that it had all been one horrible nightmare.
The back of his mind argued otherwise, hiss.
He opened his eyes. The room was spartan, but hospitable. Sun shone through an open window, and he could hear the sounds of quiet civilization outside. He sat up in bed. Across the room, a small girl of perhaps six years old stood in the doorway. Upon seeing him awaken she turned and fled down the hallway. The young man took a minute to run a hand over his head. A slight headache and tangible scars reminded him of what he'd been through.
He climbed out of bed and walked over to a table on one side of the room. Someone had been kind enough to set a washbasin and some water on the tabletop. The young man splashed some water over his face and drank from cupped hands. He dried his face with a small towel and sat back on the bed to try and think.
A few moments later he heard the sounds of an argument going on down the hallway. Two male voices were conversing in rapid tones. The young man leaned back to wait.
"There is no way you are going to convince me to go talk to that creature," said the first.
"It's not a matter of convincing you. We need to find out more about him. Besides, he is a dolphinback and deserves out hospitality," replied the second.
"Hospitality? The boy is dangerous. He positively roared at me. I've heard Tyrannosaurs that weren't so vicious vocally."
"Come on Tarq," said the second voice.
"Why this is positively outrageous."
The voices approached his door, and in walked a protoceratops and an elderly gentleman. The young man eyed the two appraisingly. The elderly man was tall, despite his age, and was very well kept. He wore baggy breeches of denim blue with crimson tracing and a short-sleeved white shirt with multiple small pockets. The young protoceratops wore a vest of similar denim and red pattern. All three were silent as the young man finished studying his visitors.
"So," he sighed, "it wasn't a delusion after all."
"If you are referring to the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans then you are quite right," insisted the protoceratops.
The youth looked at the reptile but said nothing. The man pulled a chair up next to the bed.
"Allow us to introduce ourselves, I'm Silas Green, five mothers Australian, and this is my friend and colleague Tarq. One of the skybax riders saw you floating after the storm, so we sent out a search party. They found you and they brought you here. We've been keeping an eye on you while you recovered from your ordeal."
The youth stared out the window again.
"Thank you," he said.
After several moments of silence the doctor continued.
"Won't you at least tell us your name?"
The youth turned and stared the doctor in the eye. He was about to respond, but stopped. He tried again to think of an appropriate response. The back of his mind hissed.
"I don't have a name anymore," he said.
"What do you mean?" began Tarq, "Everyone has a name, don't you..."
Silas waved Tarq into silence.
"Perhaps you'd just like to tell us what happened," he suggested gently.
For a long time the young man was silent. Then he stood up, walked to the window and began his tale.
"I was your average American kid, I guess," began the youth, "Maybe a little quieter than most. My father was an ambassador for the US government, so we traveled around a lot. We were in Hong Kong for some stupid politician's convention when our car was hijacked. Some local gang apparently planned to hold us for ransom in exchange for several of their members in prison. We thought they would let us go, but..."
The boy shuddered and sobbed. He paused and took a moment to recompose himself.
"They killed him."
"I thought I was going to die too. Instead, I was sold to a research company. They still have slave trade in the orient, even if it is illegal. I got handed off to Dr. Yong Schuwang."
At the naming of the doctor the boy's face wrinkled in contempt.
"Dr. Schuwang was a nutcase if ever there was one. I was just one more experiment in a string of those whose life he ruined. He had this half-brained idea that he could muck with life itself. He was the first to ever try resurrecting dinosaurs from the dead, even before Jurassic Park and the like predicted the possibility. He thought he could play god."
"And he cared nothing for his subjects."
The young man clenched his fists.
"He was in the middle of working his experiments on me when the authorities busted him. He packed me and himself onto an ancient research vessel and was fleeing the country when the storm caught up with us."
The youth frowned again.
"I hope he drowned."
His hand reached up to wipe away a lone tear from his eye. He turned to look at Silas.
"Back there I was human, and had a name. Now I don't know what I am."
The man and protoceratops looked at each other and back at the young man. The boy's scars were starting to heal, thanks to Silas's care. Yet even as he had been tending the unconscious young man, he had wondered at the existence of the lad before him.
The experiments that had been inflicted on the boy were marvels and horrors of a medical mind gone mad. A long semi-prehensile reptilian tail was grafted into his spine. From his hips down he was entirely reptilian, with massive leg muscles complete with toe claws to rival any deinonychus in the province. His legs and tail were covered in scales that shifted color from dark green to jet black.
Many other horrible tortures had been inflicted on the boy, including a resonating chamber in his throat that gave him the ability to create the saurian roar that had so frightened young Tarq at the beach. However, many of these were beyond either the knowledge of the boy, or the medical experience of Silas Green.
"I'm sorry," offered Silas, after a few moments.
"Yeah, aren't we all," replied the young man, bitterly.
After a few moments the doctor stood.
"I'll see if I can get some fresh clothes brought for you. We'll be having lunch later if you'd care to join us."
"Thank you," muttered the boy, not turning to face the man.
Young Tarq waddled over to the bed. He ventured to say something, but thought better of it and shuffled off down the hall. Silas paused for a moment in the doorway.
"I truly am sorry, my friend. Rest easy."
A while later someone came by with a change of clothes. A vest of the familiar denim and a pair of short breeches and sash had been provided. He donned vest and breeches, and tied the sash about his waist. He poured himself another drink from the basin on the table, then emerged from his room.
At the end of the hallway was an open breakfast room. Silas was conversing with Tarq and another protoceratops. Two gallimimuses were twittering away in another corner, and from an open doorway smells of a kitchen wafted enticingly through the room.
At the young man's entrance Silas Green broke off his conversation. The Doc extended a hand to the young man and led him to a place at the table. Several of the occupants in the room couldn't help but stare at the biological conundrum that now joined them. The young man tried to smile politely and proceeded to take his seat.
Several ladies, both human and saurian, came from the kitchen with burgeoning bowls of fruit and salad. The youth was watching the proceedings with half interest when he felt a tug on his pants leg. The young girl from earlier was there. She offered him a roll from a basket she carried. Moody though he was, the young man could not help but give her a small smile and accept. The girl giggled and ran back behind her mother's skirts.
Conversation was put on hold while the company had their meal, and was only resumed after several helpings had been doled out. Eventually Silas turned the conversation back to the young man.
"I've explained your story to the village elders and we're all in agreement that you should stay with us here at Sapling Grove until you are fully recovered."
"Thank you, sir, but I think I'd rather see about finding some way home."
"I'm afraid there's not one, my friend."
"What do you mean there's not one?" the young man challenged.
"We've lived here on Dinotopia for hundreds of generations. The island is surrounded by reefs that give no safe way in or out, and the storms that frequently surround us make flying out impossible, even if we had a craft stable enough to make such a long aerial trip. We're rather cut off from the rest of the world."
Silas stood up and walked over to place a hand on the young man's shoulder.
"I know you've been through a lot, but maybe here you'll be able to find some peace. Once you've seen how we people and dinosaurs live together..."
"Peace?" Exploded the young man, "What peace is there for me? I don't even know what I am! I don't want your life, I don't want your peace, and I don't want your dinosaurs. Having one monster inside my head is enough, I don't need any more to live with either. I just want to go home."
The youth slammed his fist on the table, and ran from the room. Tarq momentarily tried to stop him, but a predatory snarl sent the ceratopsian scurrying out of the way as the young man fled the room, unable to outrun his own inner storm.