The Devils Are In the Shadows
A/N: This chapter goes a little back in time to show that there were more than dinos than just the Dilophosaurs that escaped from Isla Nublar. This is the expansion of the 'dinosaurs being invasive species' idea first back in the very first chapter. However, dinosaurs are not the only prehistoric animals to have escaped in this one and the next chapter.
The Beach...some days after Torchwick's meeting with Dodgson and Nedry...ten days before the Isla Nublar inspection...
Marty Guitierrez sat on the beach and watched the morning sun rise higher into the sky until the waters of the bay became beautifully blue and tan orange underneath it, and its rays kissed the fronds of the leaves of a palm tree. He was sitting in the mangroves near to the beach of Espianola on the northwestern side of Vacuo facing the Baja Sea. As best he could, he figured out that he was sitting very close to the exact spot where the Valean girl had been, three days ago. The most recent case he worked on was about the Bowmans; the daughter of Paul and Deidre Bowman, Cathy Bowman was bitten by what appeared to be a pack of small ravenous bipedal non-Grimm lizards according to the report written by Dr. Giovanni when the family rushed her to the hospital to get her treated for her wounds. Signs of the attack were her left foot and part of her right arm being bloodied, covered in multitudes of small bites with each the size of a thumbprint. And there were flecks of sticky foam on her arm, like a foamy saliva. Symptoms included the following that was described in detail by the father and mother, and what Dr. Giovanni had witnessed with his own diagnosis:
Right arm and left leg bloated with red skin.
The points of inflamed skin were at where the bites were located.
Thankfully, the girl managed to get the treatment quick before it had turned worse. Cathy recovered fine, much to her parents' relief. During that time before Cathy was allowed to go back out of the hospital with the doctors doing a final checkup on her, Guitierrez tried to get to the bottom of what had bitten her. Way back earlier, he had called a medical officer in Amayan, who confirmed that a local Vacuoan mother, whose dead baby had been given the same small bites that had plagued Cathy Bowman, it was a lizard that had done it. At the time, he believed it was a Basilicus amoratus, a common species of basilisk lizard around these parts.
Going off from fresh from his earlier investigation, he asked what the family had seen. They told him the same attributes of the small lizards like the local Vacuoan mother. Cathy even drew the picture of one of the animals that attacked her. It looked similar to a basilisk, but had several features that differentiate it from a basilisk such as longer legs, three toes instead of five, bird-like behavior, and a slender pointed head supported by a thin curved long neck raised high. At that point, he was no longer sure if it was really a basilisk that harmed Cathy, not with how she's not the girl who would lie to get attention even if it meant harm to herself. Her parents were not hiding anything either.
Right now, Guitierrez was reflecting on what he had seen in his various investigations; many of them had been back and forth between Vacuo and Vale. The more he thought about it, the more it dawned onto him that he was stumbling onto something much bigger than he could imagine, but he didn't know what exactly. He kept encountering eyewitness accounts that consistently speak of mysterious reptiles that have attacked children in secluded parts of the forests. The casualties have grown bigger with the recent attack on one of the Huntress students within the grounds of Beacon Academy in Vale. Not only that but the mystery reptiles have grown bigger in size as he saw the Beacon specimens. They were wildly different than the small ones he heard of in Vacuo.
Yet they also probably came from Emerald Forest and the wilderness beyond. Within the vicinity of where the smaller lizards have also been reported stalking young children wandering astray from isolated villages. Such startling patterns were leading him to confront that there could be more than one new species of reptiles lurking about. After all, the Grimm didn't allow much deeper expeditions into the wilderness where, as far as Huntsmen were concerned, they were ruled by Alpha Grimm that make it too dangerous to do so even with very experienced Hunters. This would allow previously unknown species to remain undetected.
Similar cases of larger mysterious reptiles have been popping out in Mistral as well. The most infamous of them was the murder of Headmaster Ironwood's daughter in Dang Nan village. Dr. Sapphire Xhen, his ex-girlfriend, was now covering that front, but since they were still good friends, she would keep him in contact with the latest discoveries so far and vice versa.
So it was possible that he was looking at new lizard species. Then, however, he was also forced to contend with the worrisome possibility of new diseases. Reptiles could be a host of unknown viral pathogens, including several that could be transmitted to humans and most Faunus. The most serious was central saurian encephalitis, or CSE, which caused a form of sleeping sickness in humans, Faunus, and livestock. Guitierrez felt it was important to find the new lizard that attacked Cathy Bowman to test it for such diseases.
Sitting on the beach, he watched the sun rise, and sighed. Perhaps Cathy had seen the new lizard, and perhaps not. Certainly Guitierrez had not. He had taken with him a bolt-action rifle, loaded the magazine with tranq darts while carrying another clip of Dust rounds, and set out into the beach with cautious optimism.
So far, no luck.
He got to his feet and walked back up the beach. Farther along, he saw the dark and white shape of a Grimm Beowolf along the edge of the mangrove swamp. He moved away, stepping out toward the water. He knew when there was one, other Beowolves would be hiding in the jungle underbrush, and they tend to gang up on a human.
But this particular Beowolf seemed to be alone, and walking about staggered, almost delirious. He noticed that this one was horribly wounded with red small marks...like it was bitten all over. He got out his binoculars and they were the very same kind of bites he had seen on Cathy Bowman!
In its paw was the lizard that matched Cathy's description. The tail drooped between through the Beowolf's fingers.
Guitierrez dropped to the ground and aimed his rifle. But just when he was about to fire, he heard rustling coming from the brushes at the jungle's edge along with a chatter of bird-like chirping sounding from there. He stopped himself from firing and he looked to the commotion hidden in the bushes. Guitierrez sweated bullets, unsure and scared of what to expect. He looked back to the Beowolf and saw the damndest thing that he thought that the growing heat and humidity was making him see things.
The Beowolf was stumbling back.
Stumbling. Back. And he swore something he also never thought would be possible. He saw fear in the Beowolf as it whimpered, terrified of whatever things were in the bushes.
Then like lightning, it happened so suddenly that Guitierrez wasn't able to comprehend what just occurred.
A rushing torrential mass of small, brown-striped green, feathery-bodied, bipedal lizards with scaly green heads, necks, and tails exploded from the ferns. In a frenzied cacophony of squeals and squeaks that reminded him of a mass of rats, the lizards swarmed onto the lone Grimm so immediate and decisive that their combined mass and momentum overwhelmed it. The Compsognathus or Compies began to continue to bite and rip through the Grimm Beowolf like a ravenous swarm of piranha with the Grimm whining and squealing painfully with its limbs writhing out of control out of desperation. The tiny dinosaurs clambered onto black fur of the Beowolf while their sharp little teeth cut through the dark flesh with their pointed snouts probing into the beast's body. Red soulless eyes of the Beowolf met the blank expressionless, birdlike eyes of the Compies. The Grimm vainly tried to claw them off of itself and even bit hard onto a couple of the diminutive theropods that got too close to its muzzle. However, even that was futile as some more of the bird-like predators boldly stuck their necks and jaws into the Beowolf's maw and bit into the Grimm's tongue, tearing the organ apart.
Guitierrez hid himself further away from the carnage behind the mangrove roots, watching the black ickor and blood stain the sandy beach with fascinated terror while he recorded the dramatic, blood-chilling horror. He covered his mouth anxiously when he saw the vicious reptiles savagely tore apart the Beowolf's mouth inside while the rest chaotically, yet systematically tore apart the canine Grimm's unholy flesh like tissue paper.
"Good Oum!" He said, muffling his voice behind his palm.
The Beowolf tried to crawl, but the writhing green mass of frenzied, hungry Compies didn't give it the courtesy to retreat as they continued to bite deeper into its flesh. Even its white bony armor and spikes were not immune to being gnawed crazily by the reptiles despite their heads and teeth not suited for that job. But the Beowolf wasn't the only one being attacked as the dead Compy that was previously in the Beowolf's paw was eaten to the bone by its own kin! It didn't matter as they numbered in multitudes with their large numbers being easily replaceable.
No longer being able to withstand such a vicious, sickening frenzy, Guitierrez was forced to vomit whatever breakfast he had and run to his car 20 yards away but not before he ended the recording at the moment the Beowolf lost the fight to the small flesh eaters on his Scroll. Once that was done, he reached for his car as it was now the only thing to keep his sanity from slipping while haunted by the expressionless eyes of the dinosaurs that held no remorse nor awareness, only cold killer instinct. Slamming the car door shut and revving the engine up to full power, he sped off, kicking up sand. He needed to get away. Just anywhere far away from the beach.
Vale's Commercial District...Nightfall
Junior Xiong was not having a good night. At least to him, it wasn't supposed to turn out like this.
It started out like any night. Get the club started, have all of his henchmen run the place, and he himself prepping the bar and cleaning the glasses to ready for potential shady customers from the criminal underground world.
In recent months thanks to a certain buxom blonde busting up the place, he had to beef up the security, despite the fact that his people guarding the gate would stand no choice against a Huntress of Yang's caliber or higher. It was better than to have none at all because then those fools would still be able to warn him who was coming or barging into the establishment, giving him more time to prepare to counterattack and teach the intruder some manners.
Except for a certain Yang Xiao Long. The last thing he wanted was for his club to be trashed once again with more than just his face bruised the next time.
This time tonight, it wasn't Yang. A henchman that was supposed to relieve one of his buddies guarding the outside entrance came back into the club, running with urgency and his face looking paler than usual.
"Damon! I thought I-" Junior stopped his sentence when he noticed his underling's face drained of color. He could practically smell the terror that was coming off of him like waves. "Wait a minute. Why are you looking like you had seen a ghost?"
Damon was nearly bereft of breath, looking not so good. Residue of a horrific smell from his mouth told Junior that something was very wrong. It was at this point, that Malachite Twins put a halt to their own conversation sitting close to their boss, noticing the situation was off.
Then the power went off, cutting off the music and the lights, effectively killing the party. It certainly got Junior's men baffled and off guard, wondering what on Remnant just happened.
"What the hell?" Junior looked around in darkness. Then the lights went flickering on and off.
"Boss! What in Oum's name had just happened?!" a mustached grunt, Frank, said exasperatedly.
"You tell me! Did any of you bozos trip up on the wiring again?!" Junior roared at his goons.
"No!"
"We didn't do anything!"
"I just come out of the bathroom when this shit happened!"
"You! Up there!" Junior pointed to bear-wearing DJ, "Did you mess with the wiring or not catch a virus in the system?!"
"I just did the wiring ten minutes ago. And my McAfee software cleaned the computers of whatever junk and bugs that were in them just a minute ago." the Bear-Wearing Grunt explained, much to Junior and the Twins' puzzlement.
"You sure?!" One of the twins, Melanie Malachite, in white frilly gothic clothes and aqua green eyelash makeup asked.
"100% legit, ma'am!" the Bear-Wearing Grunt nodded.
"That can't make sense of this." Junior shook his head in bewilderment. "Melanie!"
"Yes, boss?" Melanie said.
"Take the DJ and two men with you. I suspect the power outage may have something to do with the power box. Go check it out ASAP!"
"Will do. Let's go!" Melanie left off with two of the hat-wearing goons and the DJ exiting through the backdoor.
Then Junior turned to Damon, "Alright, son, spit it out. What had gotten you so white as a sheet of paper?"
Damon said shakily with terror coloring his tongue, "I-I-I...I-I f-found Kingsley, or...w-w-what's left of him."
Junior, Militia, Damon and a good portion of his fellow henchmen rushed into darkened area of a construction site that was on the other side of street. They followed Damon until they reached the headless body of Kingsley leaning against the large pile of long metal tubes.
Their flashlights brought light onto the corpse.
"Good Dust!" Militia swore with bile threatening to rise up to her mouth at the bloody stump of Kingsley's neck.
"What in Oum's name happened here?" A shocked Junior asked while his goons around him reacted poorly.
Damon was kneeling in front of Kingsley's dead body, crying for his killed friend.
"Damon. Damon." Damon was unresponsive. "Damon!" Still unresponsive as the man mourned for Kingsley. Damon and Kingsley were the best of friends with their bond so strong that they were inseparable since having to live out in the streets prior to their employment. Kingsley's death undoubtedly had shaken him.
"Damnit!" Junior stomped his shoe onto the dirt, "Who else was on guard duty?!"
Not one response.
"No one?" said a bewildered and agitated Junior. Again, only shaking of their heads this time. Snarling, he punched into a nearby construction beam. "Goddamnit!" Not caring if a construction worker the next day noticed the dent.
Militia, the girl who was almost identical to her sister except for her red goth clothing and bobcut black hair with bangs, examined the damage done.
"Looked like he got literally bitten off," Militia remarked.
"Thanks for pointing out the shitty obvious, bitch! Kingsley's dead no thank you!" Damon angrily yelled.
"Damon, shut your trap!" Junior clammed him up, reprimanding the grief stricken grunt, "Or I will!"
"And that's not all." She shoned the light onto three gashes on the corpse's gut with blood leaking out profusely with intestines revealed. She then revealed a trailing set of crimson-stained footprints that clearly belonged to a beast. They looked rather like that of a large bird with the impression of three toes that were away from the corpses with each print widely spaced apart from one another. "Whatever mauled this poor dud didn't get much to feast on. Must have been spooked by Damon's flashlight."
At that, Junior asked Damon again,
"What the hell did you see, Damon? Did you get a good look at the killer?"
"All I saw was a shadow. Then it sped off into the dark, I-I don't know what that was! I tried to follow it, but it was gone!" Damon responded.
"Well, shit." Junior didn't like this. That meant whatever killed his good man was still lurking out nearby and there were frighteningly a lot of good places to hide. The killer could still be stalking his establishment unseen.
And he had to rule out any of the infamous serial killers in Vale. None of them left tracks like that, but a Grimm or a rogue unknown predator was certainly a possibility. A horrifying, bloodcurdling one at that because of the horrifying news he heard of what occurred in Dang Nan and Espaniola. The thought sent uncomfortable chills down his spine and what such an event might do to his business.
"Boss Xiong!" a distraught voice interrupted his thought process. He and Militia turned around to see the Bear-Wearing DJ that he ordered to go with Melanie to troubleshoot the power box.
"What is it? What happened to the power box?" Junior groaned, asking him.
"You're not gonna to like it," the Bear-Wearing DJ gulped hard. Junior could only groan.
"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING!" To say Junior was infuriated would be like saying a volcano was hot. If he had thought tonight couldn't get any worse, he was proven wrong sadly.
Not only was there a goon of his lying dead on the ground with a bloody hole between his shoulder blades and chest, but the power box was completely decimated with a gaping hole and all of the wiring severed. The messed up power box chaotically sparked, threatening to burn anyone getting too close.
In other words, Junior's Club lost their power and it was evident from the lights now flickering weaker than before.
And no words could accurately describe the fury boiling in Melanie.
"Somebody's definitely screwing us, probably from a mafia member hailing from Torchwick's rival!" Melanie hissed with venom in her usually seductive tone, "If he's thinking that we're just lapdogs for Roman and this will hurt him, he has another thing coming!" Melanie had her fair share of having to cater to members of Torchwick's mafia rival, and let's just say they were less than pleasant to her the last time they tried to get under her skirt.
Junior quickly corrected her with his unbridled fury still present within him, "It's definitely not the Rossos, Melanie! A minute ago, we found Kingsley, dead with his head bitten off literally. There were claw marks on him and blood covered footprints that look liked coming from giant freaking bird or a Nevermore."
"So what?" Melanie said not convinced.
"It means that any criminal scum with the brain wavelength higher than a cockroach would not be willing to go this far as in sabotaging our club. We would have gotten a death threat sent our way. Think about it, sister. What would be the gain in disrupting our business for them?" Militia said.
Melanie wanted to retort, but couldn't find any words to do so. Militia was point on in that criminals, even the most insane of them all would not dare to destroy one of the few places in town that could offer vital information to them in the underworld for a reasonable price. Mafias wouldn't attack a place like Junior's Club unless Junior decided to fully place his lot into Torchwick that could effectively place him and his small gang under crosshairs from all of the major mafias simply for Junior's potential association with Roman Torchwick.
"I thought so. Which means to say that we may have an unruly beast on our hands." Militia remarked.
"Doesn't matter what it is or who else it is! Either way, we're going to beat the shit out of it for messing with our club!" Junior brought out his club hammer. His henchmen brought out their own weapons; knives, swords, clubs, and guns. The Malachite twins unsheathed their personal weapons with Melanie having her bladed heels and Militia readying her clawed gauntlets.
As soon as that happened, gunfire and screaming sounded out from the very club itself as glass windows were shattered from the ensuing gunfire. Screams of confusion then quickly turned into that of horror as there came the sounds of what sounded like goons getting knocked about all over the place.
"Speak of the devil!" Junior rushed back to the entrance with his cadre following him.
Minutes later, the double doors were slammed open wide with Junior, his two female fatales, and his henchmen charging in with their weapons primed to kill. The scene in front of them shocked and angered them to the core as there were a lot of dead bodies, equipment trashed, bottles broken with wine and other beverages spilled onto the floor, and the dance floor itself having been smashed twice and stained with some blood. Junior snarled as he looked around to see his club reduced to something out of a warzone as there were holes in the walls as something of great force punctured them and a couple of chewed up limbs strewn all over.
Then the sound of flesh impacting flesh clamored from the upper level as an unfortunate hat-wearing goon was sent flying. The man screamed in his last moments before he fell at a fatal trajectory that resulted in his neck being snapped at an unnatural angle as a wet, sickening crack rang out from the impact. The rest of the remaining henchmen gasped and stumbled back from their former comrade that had the same penetrating wound through his gut.
"That's it! Whatever you are, show yourself!" Junior hollered out into the ruined dance room. "Come on!" He smashed one of the few remaining bottles with his club, hoping to startle the intruder out from hiding. "I know you are here somewhere! Show yourself so you don't have to make this any harder for yourself!"
No response other than the lights flickering and pieces of glass falling onto the floor.
"You can't hide for long! I will smoke this damned place if I have to just so I can stare at you right in the eye!" Junior ranted on and still nothing. With a clenched bearded jaw, he shouted,
"Spread out and search through the premises! Make sure the interloper does not leave my club alive tonight! GO!"
Everyone spread out.
In the private VIP room, a dark silhouetted shape; distinctively reptilian briefly illuminated its own orange eyes before it completely vanished into the shadows.
The dockyards...at the same time...
An InGen cargo ship has just docked onto the harbor recently with the ramps starting to touch onto the bay for unloading. The workers next got to work on operating the forklift vehicles and the crane to unload the cargo boxes from the upper deck first. All seemed normal, nothing unusual.
At the bottom of the hull, however, was a totally different story. Three lone crew members were lying dead on the floor of the cargo hold. All of them died in various gruesome ways. One of them had his entire face ripped off, the second taller female who was a Giraffe Faunus with knobs on her forehead and spectacled hair was bitten in the throat and her arm twisted in an awkward angle, and the shorter female had lost her fingers and had her chest caved in by something pummeling her repeatedly. All of them were lying in their pools of blood.
Four silhouetted unknown figures in the distance far away from the dock workers clambered downward flawlessly on the chain that was keeping the ship anchored to the harbor. When they touched ground, the figures landed on all fours and trekked carefully behind the darkness of the warehouses.
In the third level room of a nearby apartment building that was fifty yards away from the harbor, an older dock worker had just come home from his daytime shift. Exhausted, the man yawned as he put away his dark blue coat onto the hanger. He needed to eat dinner after a long, hard day of work of carrying heavy sacks of cocoa beans from today's shipment coming from Vacuo. Thankfully, he had some leftover Pepperoni pizza from Dominos. The older, gray-haired man grabbed them from the fridge and slid the five pieces into the oven on a metal pan. Once he closed the oven, he let them bake in the oven for 15 minutes. While waiting, he started brewing Earl Grey tea for himself.
All of the sudden, he heard a thump coming from outside, but he thought nothing of it. Probably just a bird accidentally flying into a window. He continued looking at the news from his Scroll, oblivious to the shadows that were climbing up the stairs with their hands and feet.
A young Dog Faunus couple with dog ears on their heads found the white tri-claw mark in the dark alley.
"Yep, this should be the place, Paula," said a Dog Faunus man.
"Now, where's the person-?" Paula looked around before she found a man with dark jacket suit and yellow tie waving to them. "There he is."
Up from the rooftops, something was watching them. Or rather a troop of somethings was watching the young Dog Faunus couple talk to the bouncer. One of the creatures hooted quietly to their leader, who grunted back. The bouncer allowed the couple to pass. When the couple were long gone and out of hearing distance, the leader signaled to his subordinates.
The bouncer was about to light up his cigarette until he heard a loud sound around the corner in front of him.
"Who's there?" The bouncer said, pulling out his pistol as he slowly walked towards the disturbance. He rounded about the corner until he came across that a trash can had been toppled over with debris littered all over the ground.
"Must be the bloody racoons," the bouncer said in disgust. Those were the last words he uttered with the last thing he heard was a heavy, deep hoot from behind. Something strong, muscular, and very hairy wrapped around his throat, constricting his breathing.
"ACK!" the bouncer choked before a large black hand forcefully clamped his mouth shut. The bouncer flailed about, dropping his pistol as he struggled against the creature's chokehold on him. He let out as much loud of a muffled scream as he could while he tried to wrestle his way out. But the creature was too strong for him as it increased the pressure of its chokehold with its long, powerful arm pressing harder into the man's throat. The bouncer was starting to lose oxygen and he was fading with his vision becoming blurry.
Then the world went dark for him as the creature, with terrifying ease, forcefully twisted the man's head around to an unnatural angle. The neck's spine snapped like a twig. The bouncer stopped moving against its body. The man was dead.
The ape hooted quietly as it looked for a place to hide the bouncer's body. Conveniently, the larger steel trash bin was nearby so the ape lifted the bouncer onto its shoulder, carrying him. Then it threw the dead man into the bin and slammed the lid shut.
"This way please...," a White Fang regular was heard guiding the Faunus couple and several newcomers further inside the building at the end of the corridor. The apes watched at the entrance into the corridor.
The leading ape, Ajax, was a very powerful, muscular humanoid animal as he clearly had a wide, vast barrel chest that are complimented by huge broad shoulders that supported sinewy, brawny arms that were proportionally longer than his hind legs. His hands were bigger than a large man's with long sausage-like fingers that contain more than enough power to crush an Ursa's skull without trouble. His head was highly domed in appearance thanks to the large sagittal crest at the back of his head that supported large, strong jaw muscles. He had a chimp like face with small, but powerful jaws that were armed with humanlike teeth and large canine fangs that could easily rip through flesh like hot knife through butter. His skin was jet black as was his fur. He had a distinctive X-shaped scar across his nosebridge and left eye. His eyes were disturbingly crimson as they ominously glowed in the shadows the apes were hiding in. Ajax has a silver patch of fur across his back and a whitish gray beard on his chin and lower jaw, which was typical of alpha males of his species.
His flat nostrils flared and contracted as he sniffed the air. He stood up revealing his height to be 9 feet tall when standing. He has hardened eight packs of abs on his stomach. His body and limb proportions were more like a chimpanzee's than an actual mountain gorilla. This ape, his species, have the mixed attributes, both physically and behaviorally, of both chimpanzees and gorillas. The troop he was leading was comprised of younger males with their average height of at about 7 feet tall when standing.
When the Faunus were no longer in sight, Ajax hooted to his troop of twenty males to creep slowly and deliberately through the corridor. He wanted to see beyond the dimmed light around the left corner, but he couldn't let whoever they were on the other side hear them. The apes formed a single line and marched with the stealth of a ninja. They knuckle-walked carefully, listening for any sounds behind the steel walls. When Ajax reached the corner, he stopped and his troop stopped in perfect synchronization. Peeking around the corner, he saw a White Fang guard leaning against a box thirty feet away from him where he watched the newcomers, or initiates passed by him. Beyond was a large crowd of initiates and White Fang regulars gathering in front of a stage with a black cloth of the White Fang insignia.
Retreating his head back before the guard caught sight of him, Ajax used hand sign language, a skill he learned from his handler many years ago, to communicate to his closest subordinate and right-hand ape.
"Thank you all for coming! For those of you who are joining for the first time tonight, allow me to introduce a special brother-in-arms of ours!" The White Fang lieutenant announced to his people. "I can assure you! He is the key to obtaining what we have fought for so long!"
That special comrade was none other than Roman Torchwick, who had came back from his illegal, clandestine business trip to his allies operating the Torchwick Vacuo Foundation in Zimbaku, Vacuo, stepped onto the makeshift stage.
"Thank you! Thank you!" Torchwick congratulated in spite of the Faunus crowd booing him, "Please hold your applause."
Meanwhile...
Damon was searching through the secret hallway that had the private VIP rooms on the third level. He was nervous and scared as hell walking through the now dimmed, almost dark hallways alone with shadows engulfing the Classic Renaissance paintings, making the place look haunted. His hands was shaky holding the shotgun, in fact his body was trembling. He didn't know whether it was from the grief he had lost his best friend, or the growing chilling fear that was freezing his nerves in this hallway. He tried to pull himself together, but couldn't as he knew something felt off.
Something was in this hallway, but he couldn't figure out what or why it was about this hallway that his basic instincts were yelling at him that something was watching him and he had to flee right now.
"Oum...what the hell am I doing here?" Damon heard no one to answer him. "Gods! I must be going crazy talking to myself!"
How long had he been in here?
He looked at the watch. It's only been 10 minutes, but the darkness and the heaviness of dread and horror was already screwing up his senses as it felt like hours in spite of the shotgun's flashlight he had turned on. His footsteps felt like lead as they made creaking noises on the floor that would have surely clued the intruder, who might be waiting in this very hallway, to his very presence.
Then a croaking growl that sounded like a monstrous frog rang from the darkness! Next to him!
Damon jumped out of his skin, his already frayed nerves shot up, and he quickly whipped out his shotgun, yelling,
"Hello?!" He frantically whirled his shotgun and flashlight around, trying to find whatever made that sound. "Who's here?!"
Then he caught something moving at the corner of his eye. He whirled the shotgun around to flash the light only at nothing, but the corner leading to another hallway.
"Again! Who in Oum's name is here?! Come on out!" His face was practically covered in a sheen of sweat as terror was starting to overwhelm starting with his senses.
"Come on, you shadowy bastard! Quit screwing with me and show yourself!" Then he heard another croaking growl and this time it sounded further. "Where are you?!"
Next, it was another and it was lot closer this time. His senses were now on overdrive, yet clouded by the growing sense of paranoia and darkness. "Where the f**** are you?!"
He didn't see he was pressed against the door of one of the VIP rooms until he tripped onto something and fell backwards into the dark room. He pressed onto the floor to right himself up, but it proved to be unusually warm and wet. Damon flashed the light...
And his hand was covered in blood!
Blood!
His eyes shrunk in pure horror as he then flashed onto the floor only to find out another dead body of his fellow henchman, lying on the floor with his throat decimated and his eaten with blood and bodily fluids messing up the floor and the walls.
Damon screamed with his mouth filled with bile as he was now throwing up onto the VIP floor.
He hurriedly backed out of the room, hyperventilating. But then he felt something sharp and bony ram through his stomach with his Aura shattered. Blood leaked through his mouth as he flashed onto a bony, rugose horn that was like a bull's impaling deep into his stomach, through his spine. He shakily aimed his flashlight with whatever fading strength he had as the offending figure now revealed itself to be a bull-like, lizard-like theropod with short, rounder, yet deep snout and head covered in green scales, bumps and spikes. It had a turquoise loose dewlap of skin under its neck lined with spikes. The horn the dinosaur impaled him through was its left brow horn as a pair as there was another bull-like rugose brow horn on the right side. Damon noticed that the Carnotaurus' teeth were conical and interlocking with each other from top to bottom jaws like a crocodile and the middle of a snout had a smaller rhinoceros-like nasal horn. Then he saw the dinosaur's large orange eyes that were not only bulged outwards from the side with unusual flexible, scaly eyelids, but they were moving independently of each other like a chameleon with its right eye looking towards the entrance of the VIP hallway and the left eye looking at him perfectly and accurately! And the last thing he saw was the minute presence of a bony frill and the scute-covered back of the beast lined up with iguana-like spines and crocodilian spiky, pebbly scales on its flanks.
Damon closed his eyes with his last gurgle of blood emitting from his throat.
And he died.
The Carnotaurus retracted its horn from Damon's gut, leaving a bloody hole. The man fell onto his back deader than a doornail with his shotgun beside him. Thunder resounded outside as the dinosaur placed its sharp-toed foot on Damon.
Thunder flashed as the green devil-like dinosaur let out a drumming roar with its dewlap reverberating.