Okay, so I went to see if idkwhattoname77 updated his story, and I saw a screenshot with the beginning of the last chapter! The guy reads my story! And not only that, he gave it a SHOUTOUT! This is the best thing that has happened to me since I started writing fanfics.
idkwhattoname77: Thank you so much man. A lot of respect to you. Keep up the updates, can't wait for the next chapter. I love your idea of taking a break and working on another story, especially if it's a sequel to your current story. As long as you keep updating your stories, I am all for it. I started reading The Six Campers and The Soldier a few days ago, I've been binge reading, and it is AMAZING! Good suggestion.
C. Stark22: Thanks for letting me know. I'll do my best to keep this from happening.
Lightningscar: As always, thank you for your feedback, and for your help. I appreciate it. I'll defiantly take it all into consideration when I make my final decision.
As always, have a good day, stay home, stay safe.
Unfortunately, Kenji's luck wasn't so good during his watch. He ended up falling asleep. He was on his back where he was last night. He felt someone shake his leg. "Kenji. Get up. We've got a long day." Kenji saw Yaz and Ben heading down. He sat up.
"Ugh. Damn it!" he exclaimed.
Yaz knew what he was upset about. "Don't be so hard on yourself. I don't think you're used to staying up late. You'll get there though."
Kenji sighed and got up. He and Sammy got ready to do their morning scouting. Instead of looking for people and watching for any rescue, the scouting trips were now about finding wood. Yaz and Ben stayed behind, and Ben and Kenji would go on the second trip with Bumpy later.
About an hour after Kenji and Sammy left, Ben told Yaz, "I'll be back in a bit."
As he was leaving, Yaz turned him around. "Where are you going?"
Ben explained, "We need wood for the boat, but the wood we found won't be enough. I'm going to look around the perimeter of the base, and see which trees we should cut in order to have enough to build and repair the boat."
Yasmina thought for a second. "I'll come with you." She slid down the slide before Ben.
He followed her and said, "Isn't your ankle hurting? Even walking around the base could hurt it worse than it already is."
"It will be fine." Yaz told him. "Besides, even if it hurts worse and takes longer to heal, it means I have less work to do."
Ben looked at her shocked. "I would NEVER have taken YOU as someone who enjoyed slacking off Fadoula."
Yaz chuckles. "It's not slacking off it's really an injury." After a while of looking at the trees and doing some debating of how much wood they would need, Yasmina says, "I never got the chance to say I'm sorry."
"For what?" Ben asks.
"For just giving up and assuming you were dead." Yaz explains. "Looking for you should have been the first thing we did when found out that we had missed the boats. We just didn't think because we were only concerned about ourselves."
Ben interrupts her. "You have nothing to be sorry about. In fact, I'm happy with how things have turned out. I'm no longer Scared-And-Puking-About-Everything-Ben. I'm Fearless Ben now. So if anything, I should be thanking you guys. It forced me to finally do something with my life." The two smile at each other for a minute.
They continue talking and planning the deforestation. They were learning about what life was like for each other. Ben's mom was apparently Mr. Masrani's lawyer. That's how he was able to get into camp. Yaz was also raised by a single mother. She started running just for fun when she was little, but it eventually became a coping mechanism, and her favorite past time. Ben lived in New York, and Yasmina grew up in Arizona. She had been all over the country competing in every invitational event and medaled in every. Single. One.
They finally got back to the camp, and saw that they still had a few hours before Kenji and Sammy got back. They filled the rest of the time talking. Yasmina was so confused. The only person she was able to confide in was with her mother and Sammy. And even then, it took her a lot longer to start trusting Sammy again after they were stranded. So, why was she suddenly so interested in him? I mean, yeah, he grew an inch or two, and he is definitely not that skinny kid who threw up over every little thing. But he's like, 13? That would be so weird for me to suddenly like a middle schooler.
After a minute, she finally asked, "How did you survive? I feel bad that we saw you, hugged it out, and put you to work. We haven't actually asked you how you survived even though we told you our story."
Ben waited for a second, and then started.
"Darius, Darius, please, DON'T let go!" Ben shouted as the 2 boys felt their hands slipping. Darius struggled to hang on as the grip slipped even more. He saw the terror in Ben's eyes. Why did I ask him to do this? WHY DID I ASK HIM TO DO THIS?! At this point, the only thing keeping them locked together was their fingers. But with gravity being too strong, it wouldn't hold. At the last second, Darius was able to switch to his other hand, and grabbed Ben's wrist. They both smiled at each other as Darius pulled him up into the monorail.
SCREECH! A Pteranodon flew right into Ben, and scratches up his arm! Darius lost his hold, but tried grabbing the youngest teen again. Unfortunately, gravity was just a little bit faster. Darius had managed to squeeze Ben's arm and try to tighten his grip once again, but Ben slipped away. Darius watched as he fell and the Pteranodons flew after him. There was nothing he could have done. The monorail quickly took them away from the scene...
"AHHHHHH!" Ben screamed as the Pteranadon grabbed him and carried him away from the others. He honestly would have preferred to smash into the ground and be put out of his misery. It seemed like the Pteranadon read his mind, and suddenly dropped him. His body twists and does a 180 turn, and sees that he is about to hit the twigs and branches of a tree. He closes his eyes and feels the branch bunch slow his fall but also scratch him up.
He landed in the middle of the tree, so his fall was slowed quickly. He didn't hit any big branch, but the pain of twigs poking his body forced him to push through. It took a few minutes, but Ben finally got himself out of the sticks. He crawled his way towards a branch that looked big enough to hold his weight. He gasps for air, trying to calm himself down, but eventually he falls asleep due to exhaustion.
Ben wakes up a few hours later. He just wanted to sleep, but he kept hearing some strange alarm clock. He opened his eyes, and saw that he was in a tree. Ben gasped in fear, and clung tighter to the tree. Ben looked down when he heard the alarm clock screech again. He saw... "Bumpy!" Ben chuckled as the baby ankylosaurs jumped up and down, happy to see him awake. Ben looks down to the ground and stays frozen. He was too afraid to climb down, but at the same time too scared to stay in one place.
Ben takes a deep breath and starts the climb down. He took his blue shirt off and put it over his hands. He didn't want to cut his hands on the bark. He made his way down, Bumpy jumped at him, happy that he was now on her level. Ben leaves his shirt on the ground to pet Bumpy. After about a minute, Bumpy rubs his shin, and Ben feels like his leg is on fire. He groans and Bumpy takes a step back, confused.
The lone teen looked at his leg, and saw part of his shin bloody, and his calf punctured by a small branch. "Oh god." Ben exclaimed. He put his hand on the stick and gripped it. He was frozen and overthinking what he was about to do. "Ohhhh god." Ben was starting to get nauseous. He finally just closed his eyes, and pulled. The stick came out pretty roughly. "Gahhhohh." Ben groaned at the pain. He knew he shouldn't look, and yet he looked at the stick and it was long with blood. He passed out almost immediately.
The next time he woke up, the sun was in a different position. He checked his watch. It was past three o'clock. Ben sighed. "There is no way that the boat is still waiting for us. The others must have gotten off. Good for them." He sighed, and groaned at his leg. It looked like the bleeding stopped, but he feared that it might get infected. Ben reached for his fanny pack and realized that he took it off before climbing the monorail. He checked his pockets, and saw that his spare was still on him. It was almost out though. He didn't even want to think about what he was going to touch if he was lost in the jungle.
He debated if he should save his sanitizer for later and risk his leg getting worse, or just take care of it now and pray that he could find more later. Eventually, he decided to take care of his leg now. He didn't want his blood to attract any other predators to chew on him. The alcohol in the sanitizer burned like hell. It took everything from Ben to not scream and just whimper a lot.
The stinging finally stopped. He had used the last of his hand sanitizer to clean his leg. At this point, he honestly would have preferred to be eaten. Bumpy nudged her head onto Ben's lap, almost acting like a dog to comfort him. After a few minutes, Ben says, "You wouldn't happen to know where to find some water, would you Bumps? I'm getting kind of thirsty."
As if on cue, the Ankylosaurs baby leads him to a river bank. Ben slid down to where Bumpy put her head down. He was very nervous because he wasn't sure what lurked out beyond the bushes. Even now, a carnivore could easily sneak up on him and make him their evening snack. Still, his thirst got the better of him. He started drinking like there was no tomorrow. He stopped for a second, and contemplated how sanitary the water- It didn't matter. He wasn't going to last long contemplating how sanitary his currently only water source was. After another few drinks, he looks up, and notices some other dinosaurs looking at him. He wasn't sure if they were meat eaters. They looked like the dinosaurs from the caves. But he wasn't remembering if they were friends or foes.
The dino grunted in his direction, and Ben slipped, falling into the water. Bumpy looked at him with confusion as he got out of the water and scrambled away from the other dinosaur. Bumpy followed him and they both stopped after a few minutes. Ben was panting and sighing heavily. He looked in the sky, and saw that the sun was going to set in a bit. "We need to find a place to hole up Bumps. It's going to get dark soon. And we all know that the jungle plus night time equals disaster."
They ran slash walked for a while. Bumpy led him to a log, and just in the nick of time. It was almost 5:30. The only problem was that it had two entrances on each end, and a small hole up top. It looked big enough to fit compys though. Ben wondered what caused the hole in the ceiling. But he quickly changed the subject, and looked around the log. It looked like some kind of fight took place between ACU. Some military grade guns were lying around the grass and dirt area. And a punch of trees looked scorched. Whatever they were fighting was big and dangerous. The only dinosaur he could think of was The Indominus Rex.
Ben saw a bunch of rocks and leaves scattered around. He took a big rock, and moved it to cover one end of the log. Taking a bunch of leaves, he covers up the hole up top. If this was going to be his shelter for a while, he would need to work on it more tomorrow. Another thing he needed to think about was food. He didn't know where the hell he was. He was going to have to find a way to Main Street. But first, it was time to go to bed. Ben crawled into the log, with Bumpy following him. Another thing he needed to think about was that she was going to get big. He didn't know when, but he figured it would be a gradual increase. She could fit in the log now, but... In a month?
Ben sighed. There was just too much to do. He had to find food, a water source, (he already did, but he would also need to find a way to store water and food. He didn't want to walk an hour and a half every day.) and to top it all off, he had to find a way to get to Main Street and call for help. Just too much. And he was already tired.
Bumpy fell asleep right away, snoring soundly. Ben on the other hand had a hard time. It was bad enough that he wasn't sleeping on a bed anymore. He was now sleeping on bark. He didn't know who was here first. For all he knew, it could have been an animal bat- SHUT UP BRAIN!
Ben was finally able to go asleep around 11. He was uncomfortable, Bumpy being the main reason, taking up his space, but at least he was asleep. Unfortunately, Island life starts earlier than the 8 o'clock camp life. Bumpy snorted awake, startling Ben in the process. He looked around and saw Bumpy leaving the log entrance. Ben followed and checked his watch. It was just before 6 A.M. Ugh. I don't know how long I'll make it.
Bumpy lead Ben to the water source. Ben saw that it was almost 7:30 when they got to the river. He was gonna have to find some way to store the water so he didn't get so thirsty on the way over to the river. After a few minutes of drinking, Bumpy lead Ben to a berry bush. Ben watched carefully what she ate, and decided if it was good enough for Bumpy, it was good enough for him.
The rest of the day was just walking around, Ben trying to find something to help him. Around 4:30, he and Bumpy ended up back at the log. He figured that if this was going to be his base, it needed to be improved. He got a bunch of little rocks and some mud to cover up the big opening in the back. That would be his wall. He did the same thing with the leaves, sticks and mud for the hole at the top. He didn't even want to know what made that. He went to bed a little easier that night. Knowing that his base, for now, was secure. He would think about gathering food and water tomorrow.
Bumpy snorted awake again, causing him to jump a little bit. He and she went back to the watering hole again, and back to some berry bushes. This time, after eating some, he grabbed a leaf, and put as many as he could carry. Afterwards, he went back to the log, and put the food in the back of the log. He then got concerned because Bumpy was trying to eat his stash. He told her, "No. This is for ME, okay? You've got the whole Island for food. Let me just make a stash." Bumpy seemed to understand because she groaned and turned around.
They went to bed again, Bumpy snorted Ben awake again, Ben gathered more berries, and kept them from Bumpy again. And again. And again. And again. And again. He didn't know how long he has been doing this. Maybe a week. Maybe two weeks. Time was funny, especially in isolation and surviving. But all he knew was that he couldn't keep this up any longer.
A couple of days later, he was out doing gathering some more berries. He had a nice stockpile. He was thinking of moving it somewhere else. He knew it was only a matter of time before Bumpy got to them. He decided he was going to put them in the tree. That would give him more room to store something else in the log with him. He was surprised that no predator had found him. He was feeling pretty good about himself. He didn't wander too far away from the log with or without Bumpy, so that might have been working for him.
After another day or two, he finished with his storage area. He poked a hole into the side of the tree, and placed several leaves on the bottom to keep his berries. It was a very crude hole, but all he had were rocks to use. There was probably another way to do it, but he was limited in supplies. He went to grab his berries, when he saw Bumpy in the log, and it sounded like... chewing?
"Bumpy no!" Ben yelled. It was a bit of a wrestling match between them. Bumpy still trying to eat them, and Ben just trying to save whatever he could. Finally, he got her out of the log, and saw... not a single berry. He just sat there for a second, and then just started gasping and groaned. He groaned for a long time, and then just started throwing anything he could find. He threw rocks and leaves, sticks, literally anything in any direction. When Ben started screaming like the Indominus, Bumpy panicked, and ran. She didn't know if he was going to attack her, but she didn't want to stick around and find out. Ben saw that she ran off. After a few more seconds of throwing and yelling, he said, "Yeah, go ahead! Run away!" Finally, he wore himself out. He fell asleep in the log, with no more food, no more water. But he didn't care. He was still mad at Bumpy, the situation he was in.
The next morning, he had calmed down. He woke up, expecting to see Bumpy outside, but he saw nothing. Only the mess he had made. No food, no water, and now... No Bumpy. Ben sighed, and cried his eyes out. It wasn't Bumpy's fault that Ben wasn't smart enough to create a food storage area earlier. That should have been the FIRST thing he did. THEN he should have collected food. Useless. As usual. At that moment, he wanted someone to comfort him. He was so used to someone doing everything for him, that he felt like an idiot for thinking he was going to survive this. He was alone. He was as good as dead.
"Alright, let's just take a deep breath." Ben started to think about what Darius had said when the Indominus trashed their camp. "Yeah. This sucks. But, there is no use thinking about what we don't have or what we lost. It will just distract us. We need to be as focused as possible."
Ben nodded his head at the memory. "I've competed with a torn ACL. It's Ben and Bumpy you guys should be worried about."
Ben breathed in deeply. With nobody else to rely on, he was going to have to take care of himself. He wasn't concerned about getting home yet. That would take a lot of time. For now, he wanted to prove to himself that he could survive on his own. Since he couldn't prove it to anybody else, proving it to himself was going to have to do.
Ben sighed. Alright. I need food and water. The bushes and river are better to get me from morning to evening. I need to figure out a good place to resupply. After a few minutes of thinking, he decided that since he hasn't had water, he needed to take care of that first. Once he did what he needed at the river, and ate what he could, he decided that he needed to find a way to Main Street. There, he would find food, water, and everything else he might need. He took out his map, and tried to figure out where he was. He realized that he needed to head to the center of the island. But... he didn't know where the hell he was.
He looked around, trying to find a tree that he needed to climb. Ben found one that looked pretty tall. There were a bunch of spaces for him to grab onto. He hesitated for a second, not wanting to scratch himself. Not to mention, he didn't know what kind of germs were- STOP IT! If Yaz can toughen through a bad ankle, then I can climb this tree without worrying.
With that, he began the climb. When he got high enough, he found the volcano. He looked on his map, and tried his best to determine if he was on the east side or the west side of the island. After a mini debate, he climbed back down, and decided to head in the direction he thought was west. If he hit Main Street, then he was on the east side. After walking for a few hours, he climbed another tree to see where he was now. He looked in every direction, and saw the Visitor's Center of the park. It looked to be a few miles away. He was headed the right direction.
It was too far for him to walk the rest of the way, so he spent the night in a tree. He realized he was also going to need to a coat to help keep him safe from the cold. He spent the nights in a log with a heater. Without his heater, he had nothing. Ben was determined to survive and find her. He would do his best, and hopefully find her, and she would forgive him.
The next morning, he made it to Main Street. When he got to the Lagoon, Ben noticed that there was something else in the pool. He squinted harder, and saw that it was the Indominus. He had started to qonder why he hasn't seen or heard from the obomination for a while. Good riddance.
Ben looked all over for any water. Finally, he found some. It was just enough to sustain him. But it wasn't going to last in the long run. He needed to grab some containers, some canned food to stash. What was he thinking? He also needed a backpack, and toilet paper. He finally found q backpack, and got to work in grabbing food. He grabbed anything and everything he could find. He grabbed some water, and some water containers that he could refill. Once everything was in his backpack, he tried to swing it on.
The bag was too heavy. Ben sighed, and emptied out some cans. He would keep all the water. Finally, he had a small stash of food to eat, water, and containers to refill on the go. He still needed a coat. He looked around for a while before he found the gift shop. He took a hoodie that he could grow into. He wanted to take at least one souvenir with him.
As he was leaving, he noticed that it was starting to get dark. He figured that he would spend the night on Main Street. But he heard loud footsteps. They got louder, like it was coming closer. Ben hid in the restaurants, trying to hide from whatever was there.
After a few seconds, a big foot came crashing down next to him. He had to bite his mouth to keep himself from screaming in fear. Finally, the T-Rex was out of sight. Ben didn't waste any time in running in the opposite direction. After a few minutes, he finally stopped running. He was by a tree, and decided that since it was going to get dark soon, he would spend the night there.
The next morning was spent going back to his log, and making it into a better base. He used the backpack to store his food in the trees, he had his water containers with him on the ground and in the log. This went on for a few weeks. He had made a spear, and was ready to start his search for Bumpy. With only two weeks with her, he learned which berries and which bugs he could eat and not eat. Whatever Bumpy ate was good enough for him.
After almost a week of searching, Ben had come across what he thought was the west side of the island. He was doing a big search of the North of the Island and found nothing. He had made it to what might have been the old gyrosphere valley. The one where he and the other campers drove behind the herd. He had to admit that was fun. Even if he was scared out of his mind.
As Ben reflected on himself, he started to question why was he so afraid of everything? What had made him so wimpy and useless for a kid who was about to start High School? Was it maybe that he was raised by women? His dad was never around, so that left him being raised by his mom, her sisters, and grandmother. This was not to say that he viewed women as inferior, quite opposite.
But is a male figure so important in a child's life that if there is not, he risks being useless to society? And if there is no constant father figure, how does a child rise up and prove that he IS useful? There had to be some other way to prove that to themselves and to others, compared to surviving for who knew how long on a dinosaur Island. Ben just sighed and kept walki- ROOOOOAR!
Ben turned his head in the direction of the sound. That sounded a lot like - RRROOOOWER! Now THAT sounded like a bigger version of Bumpy. Ben started running in the direction of the sound. As he broke through the tree line, he saw Toro, and an Ankylosaurs battling out. The Ankylo looked to be young, maybe separated from it's herd. When Ben got a clear view of it's head, he saw that her right bump was bigger than her left bump.
Toro charged again at Bumpy, and she swung her tail at her. She missed, and Toro was able to get closer, and pin her down on the ground. In a panic, Ben threw his spear at Toro. The spear hit his leg just as he was about to kill Bumpy. Toro roared in pain, and turned to see what hit her. She saw the spear, and looked in the direction where the spear was thrown. She and Bumpy saw Ben standing there. Toro roared at Ben and started to charge.
Ben realized he didn't think this through. No going back! Ben raced forward towards Toro's leg, and slid just as Toro attempted to kill him. Ben quickly grabbed his spear out of Toro's leg, and that made the carnivore even more mad. Bumpy had gotten back up, and stood behind Ben. All three of them screamed or roared before Bumpy and Ben charged.
Toro couldn't decide which to attack first, but focused on Ben since he was the closest to her. Ben ducked as Bumpy swung her tail and connected with Toro's jaw. While she was stunned for a brief moment, Ben poked her in the leg again, causing her to jump back. Ben jumped back as Toro tried to bite back at him, with Bumpy using her tail again to direct Toro's face away from Ben. The enraged female carnivore hit a couple of trees as she tried to regain her balance. Ben poked he again, sending her a message that he may be small, but he wasn't helpless.
Toro roared in pain, and moved out of the way as Bumpy's tail swung and tried to connect with her jaw for a third time. Instead, the tail connected with her ribs. Toro wasn't sure which she would have preferred. Bumpy and Ben had Toro cornered. She was being backed into a corner, with a bit of a drop behind her, and a pesky Ankylo and a prick of a two legger.
Toro was being pushed back more and more, not making her decision fast enough and fell off. Ben and Bumpy stood over. Toro had landed on a couple of boulders, and she looked to be in a lot of pain. She got up though, and looked at them. Toro snorted and decided that she had enough. She retreated into the woods, hoping she never ran into that two legger ever again.
Once she was for sure gone, Ben and Bumpy let out a cry of victory. Ben embraced Bumpy's head and said, "I'm sorry. I am so sorry I scared you away. All because I was afraid." Bumpy groaned, as if she understood what Ben was saying. The no longer small Ankylosaurs licked Ben's face, causing Ben to laugh and see thst she forgave him. Ben sayed with Bumpy for the next few days and decided that he was going to get his stuff from his base and bring it all over to where Bumpy and her friends were. Maybe he could set up base where camp used to be. Who knows how long its been since he last showered or even cared about personal hygien.
While they were walking through the woods, Ben saw what looked like smoke? After Bumpy ran off, Ben discovered early on that building a fire attracts unwanted visitors, so it couldn't have been him. He told Bumpy to wait for him as he went towards the fire to inspect it. As he got closer, he heard two people talking. A man and a woman. He got closer, and was able to hear their entire conversation.
"Relax Tiff. Are they an unexpected complication? Yes. But as long as the believe that they are going home, we've got an ace in the hole." the man said.
The woman now known as Tiff, shot back, "Well, we can't afford to jeopardize the job any longer Mitch. You know what we have to do. Remember the tourists on the Serengeti job?"
Mitch said, "But first, we see if we can get some usefulness out of them. The boss expects some results in a week." Footsteps are heard coming up behind Mitch and Tiff. A tall, and older man appears. "Hap, just the guy we wanted to see. Where are the kids?"
"Still in the bathroom yurt. But the chatty internet girl is getting suspicious. And her afro companion looks pretty quick to defend her." Hap informs them.
Brooklynn and Darius, they never made it out? Ben thinks, surprised.
Mitch says, "So those two are close? That might work out to our advantage if we can get some use out of the others. Maybe some added muscle. Relax you two. in a few days, we are all going to be set for an early retirement. We better get back before the others get suspicious."
Ben couldn't believe it. How are they still here? Wasn't Darius supposed to get everyone to the boat? What the hell happened?
With not much time to think, Ben decided that he needed to help his friends.
"And you guys lived through the rest." Ben said as he finished his tale of survival.
To her surprise, Yasmina found herself smiling and engaged with Ben and his story. "I'm going to be honest, I never would have thought that you had it in you to break through Ben. I'm proud of you."
Ben stared at her for a second. "Did you just… compliment me Fadoula?"
Yaz smiled at him. "Don't get used to it Tarzan. But you have managed to impress me, which is only something a few people have ever been able to do."
The two shared a smile before they heard Bumpy start to groan. The two teens looked down, and saw Sammy and Kenji returning. Sammy scratched Bumpy's head, and looked up. "How you two doing?"
"Good." Ben answered.
Yaz asked her, "How was patrol?"
Kenji beat Sammy to saying, "We didn't find shit! Why does Darius want us to do this anyways?"
Yaz answers, "If we aren't looking for help anymore, then at least scout how close the dinosaurs are to camp."
"I still think this a waste of time." Kenji said. "Nobody is going in patrols anymore. We need everyone to help build the boat."
"Let's take it up with Darius when he and Brooklynn get back, okay?" Yasmina says, trying to defuse the situation. Kenji groaned. Yaz tried again. "Come on up you two and grab some lunch."
As they were climbing up, Ben asked Yaz, "What's wrong with Kenji?"
Yaz sighed, shrugged, and shook her head.
And there we go. So sorry it took forever. I was busy with school, and binge reading The Six Campers and The Soldier. Hope you guys are doing good, and staying home, staying safe.