The jungle here wasn't much different from the jungle back there. Both were jam-packed full of deadly species, and both were alien to him.
Steve staggered through the forest, sweat dripping down his face and dampening every garment on his body. He had been walking around in search of the Visitor's Centre for a while now. He hadn't encountered any predators, which struck him as strange, and only made him even more uneasy. Surely the remnants of any luck he had would run dry soon, and he would probably stumble into the den of a Tyrannosaur or some other large and ravenous beast.
Despite the lack of monstrosities, he had seen several plant-eaters, though from a distance, that had had long pompadour like features jutting out of the backs of their skulls, and a duck billed snout, drinking down by the river side. Then there had also been quite a few small bipedal and generic looking lizards, of a dark blue colour, and slightly thicker limbed than those pesky Compies. Steve shuddered; he had remembered how badly Herman had been bitten by the tiny but lethal Compsognathus pack.
Fortunately, these slightly bigger creatures appeared to be totally harmless, and kept a wary distance. According to a faded plaque, a sight which made him long for civilisation, he learnt that they were Segisaurs, a carnivorous species of no more than a metre in length. It appeared that he was in their paddock, or so he guessed judging by their dense abundance.
Discovering their meat-eating capacity made him even more cautious, despite their distancing themselves, and he quickened the pace. Anything that ate meat on this island was something he wished to keep well away from.
Hopefully, and soon, the Visitor's Centre would appear, before anything else did. The island couldn't be that big after all; something that both relieved and worried him at the same time. Pressing on, he hoped for the best.
Ethan was hopelessly lost. He thought he had been travelling north, but now he wasn't so sure. Increasingly he became more and more paranoid, jumping at the slightest noise from the undergrowth.
He had a right to be anxious though. Trekking through a dense and unfamiliar environment, with pessimism clouded over you, wasn't a good example of the best of days.
To make it even worse, if that was possible, he felt that he had been going round in circles. In fact, he could swear that he had gone past the same area before, judging by a rather familiar looking fallen tree.
Such an occurrence made him feel very, very, dispirited.
It was long before the first interaction with the forest occurred. He was clueless to his exact location on the island, his knowledge being limited to merely "somewhere where I don't want to be". He felt it could be right in the centre, or just a hundred metres from the coast. Though since he was still alive, he didn't assume he was too far in. He remembered hearing that predators preferred the interior over the island's perimeter. And what's more, the sound of waves tumbling against the shore could be heard. Or at least, Ethan thought he could hear them. If they were there, then it was quite obvious. He really hadn't got that far.
The next moment his ears picked up something altogether different to the sound of waves, a noise that made him forget about where he was altogether. It was definitely a sound uttered by some kind of creature, and one he couldn't see, yet. Playful yelps sounded out from behind a sheet of foliage. Hesitating, Ethan took a few steps forward, so he could peer and see what it was.
They were beautiful creatures, taller than a man, and covered in yellowish/green skin. Some were decorated with leopard like spots, whereas others appeared relatively plain. Most notable was a pair of ornate crests atop their heads; again they varied, in pattern as well as in size. The decorations of those were even more dazzling than the skin markings on some of the bipedal animals. Ethan watched from cover. He came to the conclusion that it was probably a male and female difference. And then, that this gathering was a family, like a herd, or a pack. Another thing he noticed was that there appeared to be variants of the animals. There were slender beasts, with an elongated skull, and there were shorter versions, greener lizards, with stubbier snouts. He could see sharp teeth in both "species" mouths and so decided it best not to discriminate.
All the fear and exhaustion seemed to leave his body, and he once again remembered his purpose for having come on the expedition. To learn, and to study what was a once in a life time chance to see something that only a few other human beings had ever seen before. Or ever will he finished that thought almost triumphantly.
They longer creatures appeared to have rather delicate jaws, deeming them likely scavengers. With no carcass in sight, he imagined that they would be passive enough. If there was no kill to guard, then they should have no motive to attack, and in fact, would probably most likely ignore his presence. That is what animals tended to do anyhow, and Ethan knew this. He majored in zoology, after all.
Another feature he noticed was the dexterous fore-limbs. He pondered over why such a creature would require dexterity. Another glance revealed that they possessed opposable thumbs. The discovery made his heart leap in excitement. Such a thing to be found on a reptilian creature, he thought anyway, was certainly worth getting excited about. For a short while, he no longer envied anyone back home. In fact, he pretty much pitied them for missing out.
It was just that though; a short while. Rustling from behind jerked him back to the full blown reality of the situation, and it was there that he came face to face with it. One of the creatures, albeit, half the size.
Relief flooded him. The quizzical creature was relatively small bearing in mind the greater size of the others, probably just a juvenile, a youth, and from the way it was wary, not a threat. It appeared, from the shape of the snout, to be one of the greener lizards.
"Well, hello", there he said, almost surreally, "You're not dangerous at all, are you?" He laughed somewhat. Had anyone else been with him, they would have done best to have been laughing at him. He had just broken one of the golden rules of survival. Never assume.
He staggered back, his belly felt ablaze with acute pain and the sensation that he was on fire. It had happened quickly. A veil of skin, something he had failed to realise the importance of, evidently a frill, had flashed up for a split second, with an almost hypnotic pattern displayed upon it, and something soft and gooey had then smashed into his chest. A little of the organic material splattered up into his face, some finding its way into his eyes. It burned, though it wasn't quite blinding. He could still see his assailant very clearly. Buckling somewhat, he gasped for oxygen. The creature had rushed him after it had spat the black mess from its mouth, and had practically knocked him off his feet. Blood rushed into his ears like a fast flowing river. He could only focus on the intense pain, never mind the gore, mixed with a substance that burned his wound even more, now running down his front. Gazing down though, he saw something that would shock him half to death. His intestines were bulging out and practically trailing down against his knees, soaking his trousers with warm fluids.
Panicking, he tried to push them back in. That grossly misinterpreted noise sounded out again, alerting him that his attacker was still very much aware of what was going on. It was the same playful squeak, though it was anything but endearing.
Feeling fear, he looked back upon the creature, which had now cocked its head expectantly, much like a dog about to receive its meal. Hell, that wasn't just coincidence either.
Despite the pain and shock, Ethan ran. Or as best he could anyhow, with his entrails hanging out. The Dilophosaur paced after him, slowly, and almost mockingly, as he stumbled around through the bushes. Those dexterous claws had done their work, and they now dripped with blood.
The environment was already beginning to darken around him, a sign that death was near after such a dramatic loss of blood. Nevertheless, he kept fighting that losing battle for survival.
Suddenly, it was all over. As he had turned to face his pursuer, he had unwittingly backed up onto a slope, which suddenly dropped down quite steeply, only feet away. His ending was inevitable. As he made his way backwards, he fell, and painfully tumbled down, getting dirt into his already fatal wound. It smarted like nothing he could imagine, and he pleaded for his end to be soon. Many men might fear death in such a situation. Thing is, when that situation comes and you are desperate, you just want the hurting to stop.
He lay unmoving at the bottom of what wasn't that large a hill. A grotesque and soaked pink rope, which was connected to him, had managed to wrap itself around a projecting tree root. The sight made him cringe. His entrails had got caught on the way down, and his guts were now spread out over three metres of ground. He stared and stared at them, unable to move his eyes elsewhere. He was shocked, terrified and in a strange way, fascinated all at the same time. He knew he was dead by now anyway, and so didn't see the point in feeling just fear anymore.
A sharp twinge in his abdomen did make him jerk around though. The creature had already begun its meal. That fascinated him as well, as he watched the beautiful crested skull, with a jaw full of sharp, yet delicate teeth, dig into his flesh. It hurt less and less after a while, and he was beginning to feel more and more detached from his body; just as well really when your being eaten alive.
He would eventually pass away, albeit not as quick as he would have liked, but nevertheless he did pass away. Now alone, the Dilophosaur enjoyed its protein rich feast, which would no doubt help it survive another week or so in the harsh ecosystem of Isla Nublar.
Ethan had let his guard down, and he had paid the ultimate price.
Steve pumped his legs as hard as he could. If he wasn't trying so desperately hard to survive at that moment, he would have marvelled at how his body had managed to keep him going. He felt that the amount of adrenaline that coursed through him could have powered a fighter jet.
Again that psychologically terrifying bubbling and hissing call shrieked out from behind him. Evidently, he had only managed to maintain a distance between him and the monster, not gained it. And that just wasn't good enough. Sooner or later, he would tire. And then he would find out whether he lived or died. It really was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One moment he had been walking at a maintained pace through the forest, his senses at full alert to make sure he wouldn't be ambushed. He'd been so sure, as well, that there hadn't been anything worth worrying about for quite a way around him.
But then that had all changed. Rounding a corner by a tree, he had halted immediately. At first he had been more inclined to believe he had encountered an extra terrestrial, because of the way that vicious looking reptile stood on its hind legs, and from the way it had looked at him in equal surprise, he had actually reckoned it more likely that he was meeting an intelligent being, and not some prehistoric monster from a time when the world hadn't even resembled the world. He knew about the Triassic period, the time period in which this thing was supposed to have existed, and only existed, in. All this, along with that frightening shriek which yelled out again, freaked him out more so than it might have done had it been say a Velociraptor chasing him. A raptor had lived in a recognisable world. Sure, the continents had all been different to the modern planet, and it had been covered in unfamiliar vegetation, and harboured a host of equally unfamiliar life-forms, but it would have been recognisable nonetheless. This Triassic beast in pursuit was almost an alien from another planet, on the other side of the galaxy, or even the universe. It was difficult to imagine the Earth that it would have lived on. All this made Steve's legs pump harder, despite pain and a general difficulty to keep up with the pace of his own mind, which frantically looked for ways out of this horrific situation.
Sprinting across uneven ground was almost as horrible as being chased. Steve was all too well aware that if he miscalculated, he might end up painfully sprawling to the ground. If that happened, he was also well aware that that would be it. If he fell now, he would never get back up. He fell. It had been horrendous just to think about it, let alone allow it to happen. Scraping into the ground, his knees folded beneath him, his arms darted forward reflexively. But, he managed to pick himself up again. And, with another shot of adrenaline, shot away once more. Perhaps he may have survived that stumble, but he was pretty sure that next time he wouldn't be fortunate.
Going on forever, he knew, was just not feasible. Because of this, despair now started to course through him. He didn't want to die, yet had come to expect that that was probably what was going to happen. In a sense, he had now practically come to accept it. All he had to do was stop running.
Still, horrific thoughts rushed through his mind's eye. He could practically feel the burning sensations that claws and teeth would create upon ripping into his flesh. Rather than slowing down, he maintained his speed, and braced himself for that ghastly moment. When he went down, he would go down fighting.
Barely moments later, Steve emerged into a clearing. What he now saw before him made him want to run even faster. That unmistakable building shape lay just ahead, an old asphalt track with an electric rail running down the middle snaked past the entrance. He knew exactly what that was, he'd seen it before on the early marketing that had been released for the original park. Those front doors remained closed, but they appeared to still be serviceable. If he could just reach there before the ravenous creature on his heels…
Another shriek, this time a lot closer, alerted him to the beast which had managed to close the distance between him and it quite considerably. Bursts of adrenaline propelled him to that door. He rocketed up the flight of steps that were positioned just before. In seconds he was there.
Heart racing, he slid behind the heavy partition, and into the building interior. Before the terrorising Herrarasaur could reach him, he was safe. Slamming the door, a muffled screech yelped out, the creature angry that its meal had gotten away.
He'd managed it; he'd managed to escape, again. Perhaps he was to live after all. He laughed to himself. I've done it, he thought, I've lived to tell the tale, and if I can find a means of escape via this building I will be going home after all. A bubbling hiss disturbed his thinking at that moment.
Turning slowly, he came to face the contents of the room. Two enormous skeletons lay in ruins at the centre, discarded for years. But he never quite managed to survey much else. What stood in front of him made his heart sink. I no longer have to worry, was all he thought, grimly.
For the first time, his eyes managed to get a good look at what had been his pursuers. Though bipedal, like a Raptor, it didn't look the same. The snout was chunkier, and more reminiscent to that of a larger theropod such as an Allosaur or a T-Rex. As it parted its mandibles, it bared rows of serrated and very curved teeth. To stop prey from getting away, Steve thought. Once it bit, there would be no escape. The claws, with much less emphasis, would also be able to do a lot of damage. That mouth though, was the primary tool he imagined in being his end.
As it took a step toward him, he decided that his end would be a painful and messy one. It was. He screamed at the same time as the creature shrieked its triumphant roar. Flailing his arms up instinctively, those claws clutched into his torso, and those jaws around his shoulder. Steve was dragged away at that moment, still yelling out, the strong beast yanking him down a corridor. Another Herrasaur appeared at that moment, and the last thing Steve would ever see was that gaping maw coming at him, a flash of razors surrounding a dark hole slamming down upon his face.
For minutes the two creatures fought over his now macerated body. What had been Steve's face hung off his head like a badly worn mask, as the rest of him was tugged about by both lizards, hissing and snapping at each other. Eventually the beast that had initiated the killing won, and enjoyed its feast, while the second, unaware of its role in putting the "prey" out of its misery, stalked off, in search of an easier meal.
