I left on vacation for like three days and went from 300 to 400 views! And the amount of followers doubled! Thank you guys!
On a side note, Briana's owner (That feels weird to type, but I can't think of a better way to phrase it) finally made an account. You can find her at UnitedAsNerds.
I also recently received a review asking if I'd be including Camp Cretaceous in this story. And I won't be. But that doesn't mean that it might not make a appearance in a prequel I'm starting to write... ;)
For the second time in one day, a truck bounced along with Emily looking out the window, only this time, Claire was with them instead of Briana, and they weren't on a road, but driving through a meadow in the gyrosphere valley.
Owen drove the truck over a hill, stopping suddenly. The raptor trainer opened the driver's door, slinging his gun over his shoulder, "Stay in the car."
Lizzy, who was in the backseat with Emily, looked over as if to say, "Like I'm listening to that." With that, they both opened their car doors and hopped out, Emily setting her fedora on her head as she went. The paleontologist scanned the tree line for a brief moment before following Lizzy toward Owen.
Which was when she realized why Owen had gotten out in the first place.
A massive Apatosaurus was laying on its side, with huge gashes on majority of its body. Owen was kneeling by its head as it took a shuddering breath and moaned lowly. Lizzy worked her way around to crouch next to Owen while Emily approached on the other side of its head.
Reaching out, she laid a hand on the Apatosaurus' cheek, and it huffed another breath. Emily couldn't really remember being this close to any dinosaur since, well, the triceratops in 1993. She'd been in complete awe then, and she was stilled awed today. But it was bittersweet awe this time.
Claire dropped to her knees beside Emily, eyes locked on the Apatosaurus. The park operations manager slowly and hesitantly laid a hand next to Emily's. And when Emily looked over, to her surprise, Claire's eyes were watery.
It dawned on her that Claire was most likely experiencing this for the first time. Claire had likely never even been this close to a dinosaur. And when Emily looked closer at the woman beside her, she could see that Claire was awed and, well, saddened.
The paleontologist rocked back on her heels, pulling her hand away to rest it on Claire's shoulder. The younger woman looked away from the dinosaur, whom Owen was now comforting, and at Emily, looking confused. And she had every right to be, Emily hadn't exactly been overly kind in the past. But Emily gave Claire a small smile.
And to the paleontologist's surprise, Claire returned it.
The Apatosaurus in front of them moaned again. Their attention snapped back to it as it took another shuddering breath. Owen softly shushed it, stroking his hand along the length of its head.
Lizzy murmured, "It's alright."
But as the Apatosaurus lowered its head, it let the breath out and closed its eye. And it fell still, dead.
Claire sat back next to Emily, her hand dropping away from the dead dinosaur. Emily sighed, her gaze drifting away from the Apatosaurus and right to Owen, who definitely looked like he'd spotted something. And not something good.
The raptor trainer got to his feet, and Emily rose as well, Lizzy and Claire following them away from the dead Apatosaurus.
Owen slid his gun off his shoulder and back into his hands. And they all surveyed the scene laid out in front of them.
At least a dozen Apatosauruses spread out over several hills, all bearing wounds similar to the one behind Emily. And all of them dead. Claire covered her mouth with her hands.
Owen spoke first, "She didn't eat them. She's killing for sport."
Emily swore under her breath, "What they hell did they put in this thing?"
Owen stopped the truck with a lurch, and jumped out, followed by Emily and Lizzy and then Claire behind them. The utterly destroyed gyrosphere lay on its side in the center of the small clearing, whatever informative video it had was playing still, the same set of words over and over.
Owen approached the gyrosphere, putting his gun over his shoulder and drawing his knife. The raptor trainer used it to pry a large tooth out of the bent metal and passed it to Emily. "Put those paleontology skills to work and see if you can identify this, Grant."
Claire hurried past them, bending over to pick up what looked like a half-smashed cell phone, "No, no, no…." The redhead woman dropped to her knees, cradling the cell phone in her hands, her breathing panicked.
Which was about when Lizzy said, "Look! Footprints."
"They made it out," Owen grinned a little and Claire got to her feet, starting to follow the footprints.
Emily hurried after her, stopping Claire by grabbing her arm, "Stick with the group. You're no use to your nephews dead." Claire just breathlessly nodded, and they all continued following the footprints in the mud.
Emily's boots squelched in the mud as she walked, turning the Indominus tooth over in her hand. If she'd dug up a fossilized version of the tooth at a dig site, she would've classified it as Tyrannosaur. But the closer she looked, the more it reminded her of another large carnivore: Giganotosaurus.
"What do think Emily?" Lizzy interrupted Emily's train of thought.
"It just seems like Tyrannosaur at first glance, but the closer I look, the more it also looks like Giganotosaurus."
"Giga- what?" Claire looked confused.
"Giganotosaurus." Emily explained as she put the tooth in her satchel, "You don't have any here, unless Wu is hiding one somewhere. They're among the biggest of the therapods, bigger than a T-Rex and probably faster too."
"So, we don't want it to be made of that," Lizzy said as they all approached a cliff, which had a waterfall tumbling over it into a clear pool.
Emily let out a breath, "They must have jumped…"
"Brave kids." Owen was holding his gun again.
"Zach!" Claire was shouting now, her voice echoing through the jungle, "Gray!"
Owen turned to face her, shushing Claire. And Emily scanned the tree line, praying nothing had heard Claire.
"Hey!" Claire was up in Owen's face now, "I am not one of your damn animals!"
Owen just calmly continued, "Listen. Those kids are still alive. But none of us will be if you continue to scream like that."
Emily nodded, "We're trying not to draw attention to ourselves."
Claire just glanced around, almost looking like she was grasping at straws now, "So, you can, pick up their scent, right? Track their footprints?"
Emily snorted, "He was with the Navy, not the Navajo."
"So, then what should we do?" Claire was at least speaking quietly now, "What do you suggest we do?"
Owen calmly said, "You get back, I'll find them."
"No, we'll find them."
Emily turned away from the cliff, "You're wearing heels."
"Besides," Lizzy put in, "I should probably head back to the raptor paddock, in case the Indominus heads that way. I can drop you off at the control room Claire."
Claire stood there for a second, clearly thinking, "Fine. But you better find them."
"Claire," Emily stepped forward till she was standing in front of Claire, "I know better than most people what it's like to be in this sort of situation. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Trust me, we'll find them."
Claire nodded after a second, looking far more reassured.
And Owen turned to Emily as Lizzy and Claire left, "Ready Grant?"
"I've almost had a panic attack twice today and now there are two kids lost in the jungle. What the hell do you think, Grady?"
Owen shrugged, unslinging his gun, "It'll be just like taking a stroll through the woods."
Emily dryly added, "65 million years ago."
Emily jumped down off a log, nearly slipping on the leaf litter. Owen was ahead of her, gun raised as they trekked through the jungle. So far, they'd neither heard nor seen a thing to suggest they were going the right direction.
But Emily crossed hearing something off the list as the sound of a car engine reverberated through the jungle. Both she and Owen broke into a run, hurrying toward the sound.
And Emily burst from the jungle onto an old dirt road. To Emily's left it looked like it went south, toward the resort. And to her right, it led straight to an old, run down garage.
The garage of the old visitor's center.
Owen hurried into the garage, pushing aside a large bunch of hanging vines that Emily knew hadn't been there twenty years ago. But the gray and red jeep, that had been there. She stopped next to it and laid a shaking hand on the hood of the jeep.
"How'd they even get one of these started?" Owen muttered incredulously.
But Emily didn't hear him. The paleontologist murmured shakily, "I road in this jeep in '93."
Owen looked up from what looked like a sweatshirt that was laying on the floor, "Really?"
"Yeah," Emily smiled fondly, "I saw my first dinosaur from the backseat." She had been crammed between her dad and Ian and seeing that Brachiosaurus had invoked nothing but awe and excitement. No fear, no flashbacks. Just a moment of peace. Emily wished she could go back to that moment, when it had been simple, and not a complicated, terrifying mess like it was now.
Owen set his gun down, leaning it against the jeep, and snapped Emily out of her memories. He picked up a set of jumper cables from a counter at the back of the garage and frowned, glancing around the garage.
As Emily joined Owen in looking around for something they could use to jump the jeep, the ground shook, and a fine layer of dust fell from the ceiling. The jungle birds that had become background noise for the last two years fell silent. The paleontologist's body seized up. She knew that only a very, very large dinosaur could make that happen. And there was only one roaming around at the moment.
Owen dropped the jumper cables and the two of them waited in silence with bated breath, terror coursing through Emily's veins. It was silent just long enough that her muscles relaxed. But they tensed right back up as the Indominus set a foot down outside the garage, dust falling again. It rumbled lowly, the very sound making Emily's stomach churn.
The only reason Emily was able to move was because Owen grabbed her arm and drug her in front of the jeep, so they weren't just in plain sight if the Indominus decided to stick its head down. Which was a very good thing because that's exactly what it did next.
The Indominus stuck its head into the garage, parallel to the jeep. Emily's breath hitched, her heart beating in her throat as it inhaled, sniffing. She could feel her hands shaking, and her breathing increasing rapidly.
Owen turned his head, meeting her eyes. And Emily silently willed herself not to scream as the Indominus nudged the jeep, easily lifting up one set of tires off the ground. Emily's pulse was just as fast as her breathing, and she could feel adrenaline coursing through her. She turned her head away, trying to ignore the scent of blood and rotting flesh wafting over her, a scent she knew all too well. But the Indominus withdrew its head, and the chirping of jungle birds started up again.
Emily let out a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding. How it hadn't noticed them, she didn't know. She was just glad that it hadn't.
Owen reached around the side of the jeep and grabbed his rifle. Emily took off her fedora, running her hand through her hair, murmuring, "That was clos-"
The ground shook as the Indominus slammed its head through the ceiling with a deafening roar. Emily was unable to stop herself from screaming this time, the noise reverberating around the small, dilapidated garage. Ears ringing from the roar and her own scream of terror, Emily let Owen pull her out of the garage and through a door that was half open.
And it was perfect timing, because the Indominus rammed the jeep forward and into the front wall of the garage, right where Owen and Emily had been crouched. They raced down a short hallway, and Emily half registered murals painted on the wall, probably the same ones she and Tim had nerded out over twenty years ago.
Emily's hiking boot clad feet carried her out of the hallway and into a large room. Twenty-year-old scaffolding hung over head, the remnants of a banner and two skeletons littered the floor. The paleontologist realized that she was running through the main room of the old visitors' center, where she'd been twenty years ago.
She glanced over her shoulder as she ran after Owen. The staircase she'd first met Lex and Tim on now led up to vine covered balconies. She fought back a wave of nostalgia, turning her head back around in time to see Owen jump over the T-Rex skull, the very same one she'd hung from in 1993. Emily jumped over it after him, and the Indominus roared somewhere behind them.
It took them only a few seconds to get out the front door, and Emily jumped the last two steps down to the forest floor. Her feet slipped on the leaf litter again, only it sent her sprawling this time, dirt and mud spraying up.
The paleontologist rolled over, and for a split second, she was nine, running up the steps ahead of her father, excited about a weekend of vacation. Seeing the visitor's center for the first time was one of the memories that she'd never lose. And seeing it for the last time, though it had been through a painful haze, was the last thing Emily clearly remembered from that trip, that incident, that nightmare…
But the Indominus roaring again, far louder this time, had Emily scrambling to get to her feet. Owen grabbed her by the arm and helped her, the two of them taking off into the jungle again.
Emily's feet practically flew under her, her fedora still in her left hand. But after a moment, she realized that she could no longer feel the pounding footsteps of the Indominus chasing them. They'd simply vanished, only to be replaced by the sound of a helicopter overhead.
The paleontologist skidded to a halt, practically slammed her fedora onto her head and unzipped her satchel. Emily pushed a notebook to the side, then a small bottle of sunscreen that she never used, and finally found her phone at the bottom next to a pen with the words, "Jurassic Park" emblazoned on it. She'd well, stolen it off of some reception desk in 1993, and it was the only thing she still had from the original park.
Owen came back out of the jungle and stopped beside her as Emily unlocked her phone and dialed Lowery's number.
"Emily?" Lowery sounded confused.
"The Indominus is near the gyrosphere valley."
Beside her, Owen murmured, "By the aviary."
"And by the aviary," Emily added, "I don't know if that helps at all, but I heard a helicopter and-"
Lowery cut her off, "Yeah, that would be Masrani with the M135. I'll make sure he gets the info."
Owen began jogging back the way they'd come, and Emily followed him, "Masrani's flying?"
"Yeah, he insisted. But wait, are you out in the jungle?"
"Yes, I'm out in the jungle. You should probably hang up and get that information to him. I doubt the Indominus will stay put long."
"You're right. And Emily, stay safe, alright?"
"I'll do my best, Lowery."
This is a long one. But I'm really happy with it.
I got to touch on one of my favorite things about Emily and really just Jurassic Park/World as a whole. The fact that yes, the dinosaurs and the island keep really screwing people over, but they're so awe inspiring. And I love those moments where it's not scary, it's beautiful and well, peaceful.
And I imagine that Emily and Tim are still great friends, as are her and Lex.
And yes, I kicked Claire out, but she'll be back. I was originally gonna kick her out sooner, but it made more sense to have it happen at the cliff/waterfall.
Reviews really do help, so please leave one if you've got time.