Chapter 8

Owen didn't even manage to make it through breakfast before the first disaster struck, the lights in the dining hall flickering once, twice, and then going out completely. As so many people brought their phones or tablets with them when they ate, the dining area didn't plunge into complete blackness, as there was light radiating out from the scattered devices.

There was silence for a few seconds, everyone somewhat stunned. Then, when the lights didn't immediately flicker back on, people started chattering. Amongst the voices, Owen could hear the staticky sounds of a radio, and he could vaguely remember having seen Cam in there when he'd arrived.

Fishing around in his pocket, Owen pulled out his own phone, turning on the flashlight, so he could help light up the room, and then abandoning his breakfast as he searched out Cam. Stopping beside the guard, he just waited quietly, listening to the radio chatter. Cam gave him a quick nod, but didn't say anything.

"Anyone know where Jefferson is?" a voice asked through the radio. "We'll need him to take a look at the generators."

"He's not going to be able to solve it," someone else responded.

"Why not?" the first voice asked.

"Well, unless he can uncrush metal…" the second one answered. "A tree fell on it."

"Wait," Owen couldn't help himself, grabbing the radio from Cam and hitting the talk button. "Are you saying there's no power anywhere?"

"Owen?" Austin asked, joining the conversation. Owen knew that Austin was probably already over in the security office, as the man liked to get an early start on his days and the storm likely would've motivated an even earlier start than normal.

"Yeah, it's me," he said. "I'm with Cam in the dining hall. If we don't have any power, that means the raptors…" he trailed off at that, his gaze swinging towards the windows, although it was too dark from the storm to actually see anything outside.

"Fuck."

"My thoughts exactly," Owen agreed. "Can someone meet me at the paddock?"

"Cam, can you go with Owen?" Austin requested. "And Zhao and Kahn, can you meet them there?"

"Yep," Cam answered, grabbing a piece of toast off his plate as he stood up.

There were a couple more affirmatives shared through the radio. Owen didn't wait though, leaving the radio with Cam and heading back for his seat so he could grab his jacket. He also copied Cam's lead, and grabbed a piece of bacon, stuffing it in his mouth, before also grabbing his toast. Seconds later, they were heading out the door, once again battling the wind and rain.

o-o-o

Ever since she'd woken up, Claire had been waiting for the power to go out. It was a common occurrence in storms this bad, and so she had teams on high alert, ready to act the moment it happened.

When it finally did, it was the hotel that was hit first. While technically one of the "safer" places to lose power (there were no wild animals that could suddenly escape), it was also the one that brought forward the most complaints. However, because she'd been so prepared, they had the power back on within minutes. The only thing that had taken a bit of time was that one of the elevators had decided to not immediately come back online, and so they'd had to reset it. No one had been in any danger during that, and it was a freight elevator, so the people who had been trapped had been housekeeping, not any guests.

The next power outage happened at the Visitor Centre, but it hadn't even opened for the day, and it was also quickly taken care of. From that point forward, it sort of felt like they were playing a game of whack-a-mole, as every time they'd get one station back online, another one (or two) would go out.

Claire wasn't complaining though. This was the type of environment she excelled in. Managing resources, prioritizing needs, sending out orders. The fast pace and high pressure didn't bother her. It just kept her on her toes, the morning going by in a blur.

The only time it had actually felt kind of difficult was when the power outage had finally hit Control, most of their screens going black, making the already dark room nearly pitch-black. However, the main screen had a battery backup, and so it didn't go down with everything else, providing a bit of light in the room, allowing everyone to fumble around for phones or flashlights. But, even that wasn't really necessary, as less than a minute later the generators kicked in, turning the lights back on.

However, while they were technically back up and running, they now only had access to the most consequential systems. The generators were not designed to power everything, and so workstations that were considered more "superfluous" remained off. Still, that didn't stop anyone from being able to work.

As storms were a relatively frequent occurrence on Nublar, everyone had a secondary job role they shifted to. And for many people in Control, that meant getting on phones and radios. Their jobs were to gather information and to coordinate the distribution of resources as needed. To work collectively as a single "brain" that powered the whole park.

Still, Claire had barely missed a step when the power had gone out, continuing to bark out orders about what she was seeing and what was needed. They were lucky and the park wasn't near capacity, but it was still high, with almost 18,000 visitors. And those 18,000 still needed to be fed and wanted to be entertained. Which meant that most operations needed to continue as normal.

In previous years, they had tried to keep some of the outdoor attractions open, in hopes to disperse the crowds a bit (versus having 18,000 people try to cram into the visitor center all at once), but it didn't work. The attractions would be so sparsely attended that it just wasn't worth having personnel out there, when those personnel could be better utilized in busier areas. And, thankfully, not everyone loved huge crowds, and so there was always a fair number who chose to hang out in their hotel rooms, waiting for the storm to pass.

In fact, while things were hectic, Claire had been feeling pretty positive all day, as things were going relatively smoothly. Yes, they were busy. Yes, power kept going out all over. But there hadn't been any unexpected or catastrophic outages.

Of course, the moment she thought that, was the moment one finally happened.

"Uh oh," Lowery said softly, and the only reason Claire heard it, was because she had been standing just behind him.

"What?" she asked, mostly out of curiosity, not expecting it to really be anything. Lowery was known for exaggerating.

"We just lost power to the monorail," Lowery informed her.

"So?" That wasn't a big deal.

"Look where train 3 is," he told her, pointing at the map on the big screen. She followed his gaze, quickly skimming over the map until she realized what he'd seen.

"Shit."

o-o-o

When Owen had shown up at the raptor paddock, the raptors hadn't been visible, not that the driving rain and overwhelming darkness was helping. The most noticeable impact of the power outage there was that the perimeter lights that were triggered by lack of ambient light were no longer on, the place darker than normal. But, aside from that, there wasn't anything else for the raptors to have necessarily picked up on, although Owen was positive they would know that something was going on.

He hadn't fed them breakfast yet, so he started by pulling that food out and then carrying it up. Normally, he'd take their breakfast into the smaller area (while they remained locked out in the bigger section), and set it out before letting them in. But, with no power, the gates were locked. There was a manual override, but it wasn't worth it, not when it wasn't actually an emergency to get within. And since he wasn't positive where they were, he couldn't be sure he'd end up closing them in the larger area (they kept the gate between the two sections open when the raptors were not training).

Once he was ready, he used two fingers to let out a loud whistle and then waited. And then he whistled again. But, the raptors still didn't appear. When Kahn and Zhao had showed up, they'd brought high powered flashlights with them, and Owen took the one he was offered and started walking the perimeter, shining the light down into the paddock, trying to locate his wayward raptors.

While he wasn't worried at their lack of response, he wasn't exactly not worried, either. Sure, the raptors weren't as bothered by rain as he was, but that didn't mean they loved huge storms. He'd work with them in the rain, but that was usually during light showers, not a heavy storm like this. But, some days the raptors just weren't keen on getting started, even if the first action of the day was food.

What did eat at him, was knowing that he couldn't just pull up their locations on a map. Not with all the power down. Even though the trackers were powered by the raptor's body heat, the receivers had no power to collect the information. It all just meant that Owen was very keen to at least get an eye on them, even if they wanted to stay huddled down in their jungle area.

It took two trips around the catwalk before Owen finally spotted them, Blue making an appearance. He found her at the back of the paddock, near the outer fence, but he wasn't thinking about that when he first saw her. Mostly just glad to have finally laid eyes on one.

"Blue!" he shouted down. "Good to see you. I've got breakfast. Where are your sisters? Are you all hungry?"

There was some movement in the growth around her, and then Charlie poked her head out.

"Hi, Charlie," Owen greeted the raptor. "Did you hear me mention breakfast?"

At that, Charlie walked out farther, her head tilted to the side. Owen grinned. Charlie could always be counted on to come for food.

"I've got it over in the other area," Owen told them. "Where's Echo? We can all go get it."

He shone his flashlight down into the paddock, running it over the trees and other jungle growth beside the raptors, trying to catch a glimpse of the third one.

"C'mon, Echo," he called. "We need you too."

He almost didn't hear the sound at first, as the sound of the rain bouncing off the catwalk had been swallowing all else, but then he caught it. Not quite a metal clang, but still, something odd, something unexpected. His brow furrowed, he leaned farther over the railing, searching for the third raptor, but he still didn't see her.

Owen continued to move his flashlight about, trying to figure out what he was hearing. It was as he passed it over Blue and Charlie, that he happened to catch Blue looking off to the side, before she swung her gaze back to him. Huh. That was odd. Owen pointed the flashlight over where Blue had been looking, carefully scanning the area.

He almost missed Echo at first, the raptor having frozen like a statue when the light hit her, and with the darkness and rain making everything glistening, she wasn't immediately noticeable. Except then she blinked, and the light reflecting off her eye caught Owen's attention. Echo was standing at the back fence.

"There you are, Echo," Owen exclaimed, initially relieved to have found the third raptor. While her location was a little odd, he didn't think much about it at first. And then, when he did, he swung the flashlight until it pointed out into the surrounding jungle, trying to see what may have caught Echo's attention. "Did you see something? Is something out there?" he asked, although he wasn't noticing anything himself.

As he searched the foliage, he heard the sound again, the weird almost metal clang, and he immediately looked back at Echo. This time, he caught her mid act, her head and neck stretched between the metal bars as she reached for the exterior fence. It was her claws hitting the metal bar that was making the sound.

"Echo!" Owen shouted, caught by surprise. She immediately pulled back. "What are you doing?"

And then, even as he was asking and watching her, he heard the sound again. What the hell? Echo hadn't moved. It wasn't her. He looked about frantically, and saw that Blue and Charlie had both approached the fence now, and Blue was copying what Echo had been doing, sticking her head through and reaching for the exterior fencing. The exterior fencing that should be electrified, but no longer was since they had no power.

Fuck.

"Hey, Blue!" Owen reprimanded. "Don't do that. You don't want to get shocked."

He tried to act like what they were doing was dangerous to them. Except because they had never touched the fence before, nor had they actually interacted with any electrical fencing before, that he didn't have the right words to explain it to them.

"C'mon, girls, let's go get breakfast." Desperately, he hoped he could distract them. Charlie, who hadn't reached through the fence, looked up hopefully again at the mention of food, but the other two just both poked their heads back through. "No, Echo, Blue. Don't do that." Crap, crap, crap was all he could think. He looked around frantically for one of the guards, finally spotting Cam.

"Cam!" Owen shouted, getting the guard's attention. At Owen's shout, he also got the raptors attention, the three of them looking up, watching as Cam approached Owen. "They're testing the fences," Owen said, trying to keep his voice low. "We can't let them realize the power is off."

"Do you think they can break out?" Cam asked, his own eyes widening.

"More, I don't want to find out," Owen said. "I need help getting them distracted. I want to get them into the smaller area, and then we can close this area off. Charlie'll come, she's hungry. But the other two are too curious."

"What can we do?"

What could they do? Owen hadn't figured that out yet.

He pushed a frustrated hand through his sopping wet hair.

"I'm going to keep trying to get them to come. I need you ready to close the gate if I do. And you're going to need help to do the manual override."

Cam nodded, lifting his radio and calling for Khan to head to the gate.

Owen returned his focus back down into the paddock. Echo and Blue had used his distraction and were back trying to reach through the fencing. So far, thankfully, they couldn't quite reach the outer fence. But, Owen knew it was more likely a matter of time before they did, than a question of if they would.

o-o-o

It was approaching lunchtime before Claire got a brief respite, things having somewhat settled down into more regular chaos. The monorail had ended up stuck over the lagoon, which had caused a bunch of initial panic (not great to be in a metal box in the middle of a thunderstorm in the first place, but even worse to be, in a way, dangling over a hungry Mosasaur). However, the driver had been able to keep everyone calm, and power had been restored within half an hour. In the meantime, those stuck had actually ended up getting a free mosasaur show (there wasn't actually a show being put on, but they did still have to feed her and Claire had wanted her attention kept away from the monorail).

The rest of the kinks of the morning had also been generally worked out, and overall their responses were running even more smoothly. Stepping back from her station between Lowery and Vivian, Claire took a moment to pull out her phone and check her messages. She'd been feeling it vibrate all morning, but hadn't had time to look. She knew anything super urgent would get to her, as everyone knew where to find her, so she hadn't been concerned. But, now she just wanted to see what else had been going on.

As she scanned over the messages, she was surprised to discover there weren't any messages from Owen. While they didn't text a ton back and forth over the day, they usually sent a text here and there, and with the storm, she'd thought he'd probably be cooped up inside after feeding his raptors and have some time to waste. Actually, another thought crossed her mind, as she stared at her text message history with him.

In an instant, she was back between Lowery and Vivian. "Have we heard anything from Sorna?" she asked.

"Where?" Vivian turned to look at her, caught off guard.

"Sorna," Claire repeated. "Have we heard from them? How are they doing with the storm? How badly have they been hit?"

"Oh, um," Vivian looked back at her screen. "I haven't seen anything. I mean, I know there were conversations earlier…"

"How much earlier?" Claire asked. "When's the last time we heard from them?"

"Do you think something's wrong?" Lowery asked. "Surely they'd have reached out if they were having problems."

"This storm is worse than we were expecting," Claire simply said, trying to keep concern out of her voice. "While everything is probably fine, they don't have the same resources we do."

"Looks like we haven't heard from them since early this morning," Vivian said, looking up from her search. "Last call said they had a generator issue and to expect their contact to be less frequent while they fixed it."

"That seems long, doesn't it?" Claire asked, peering at Vivian's screen. The note from the call was over four hours earlier. "Surely they should've reached out again by now."

"Not necessarily," Vivian said. "We usually only hear from them a couple of times a day. But, I can call them."

Claire waited as Vivian tapped a few buttons on her keyboard, initiating the call.

"Huh, that's odd," Vivian said, a frown appearing. "It's saying the customer can't be reached."

"Well, if their main power is out," Lowery started, before shaking his head, cutting himself off. "No, the phone lines should be powered by their back-up generators. Try the radio?"

"Yeah, I'm trying that," Vivian agreed, having already changed screens. "Nublar for Sorna, can you hear me?" she spoke into her headset, her frown deepening. "Sorna, this is Nublar calling." There was another pause, as she waited for a response. "I'm not getting anything," she finally said, turning to look at Claire.

"They should be getting that, shouldn't they?" Claire asked.

"They should, but we've got one more option," Lowery answered. "They've got a SAT phone, too."

"Right," Vivian said. "Let me find the contact info for that."

It took a couple minutes to sort out the number, but soon they were waiting as it rang. This time, Claire had grabbed a headset so she could listen in.

"Hello?"

"This is Vivian from Control at Nublar," Vivian stated. "We're calling because we haven't had any contact since an earlier message about your power situation. We wanted to confirm that everything is okay."

"Austin here. We forgot about the SAT phone in all the chaos. A tree landed on our power station, so things have been a bit crazy. We still don't have our power back up and running."

"What about your back-up generators?" Claire spoke up, interrupting Austin. "Were you able to get them back on line?"

"We only managed to get one working, and we had to redirect it to the lab. And it's barely working. We've suffered major damages here," Austin said. "We still haven't had a chance to do a full assessment of what needs fixing. Not with the storm still raging."

"Wait, but that means…" Claire trailed off, the implications of them not having power hitting her. "The raptors?"

o-o-o

In the end, it was Kathy who had made it possible for them to move the raptors. Not that Owen wanted to admit that, but he knew it was true. She'd shown up on the catwalk while he had still been struggling to get the raptors' attention, to get them to focus on him long enough to even consider moving away from the back fence.

Kathy had never actually been out to the paddock before (at least, not while Owen was there), and so he definitely hadn't expected to turn around and see her when he'd heard boots on the catwalk.

But there she was, wearing a yellow rain jacket, the hood pulled up over her head, and rubber boots on her feet. Her presence was the first thing that distracted the raptors. Well, maybe not first, they had probably mostly looked up because they were surprised that Owen had suddenly stopped badgering them. But the moment they had laid their eyes on her, they had frozen in place.

Kathy had also frozen in response. There had been a long moment while the raptors looked at her, and she looked at them, before she had asked, not as shakily as he'd expected, "Why are they looking at me like that?"

"They don't get a lot of new faces around here," Owen had explained. It was true. The raptors over their whole lives had never been exposed to too many people on purpose. And even as the population on Sorna had expanded the past couple of years, those who were allowed up on the catwalk had remained limited. Owen knew the only reason security would've allowed Kathy up there was because of her status.

His first inclination had been to tell her to go away (and not all that nicely), but then Blue had returned her attention to the fence, and he'd been back to shouting down into the paddock, temporarily forgetting about Kathy. "BLUE! Get away from there."

Blue had snarled, but she'd backed up a step in response. But then Echo had moved forward.

"Echo…" Owen had growled in warning. "Come on, girls, let's go so you can have breakfast." At those words, Charlie had once again perked up. She had chittered at her sisters, trying to convince them, but they just ignored her.

"I'm just here to see if there's any extra support you need," Kathy had said, squeezing her words in between Owen's shouts into the paddock.

"From you?" Owen hadn't been able to keep the look of surprise off his face. He had also (although he wouldn't admit this to anyone) briefly wondered if he threw her into the paddock, would the raptors leave the fence to chase after her?

"Besides you, Zia, and security, the rest of us don't have a lot we can do without power," Kathy had simply pointed out.

"Not a lot you can do here either," Owen had just said, staring back down at the raptors. "They can get stubborn like this. So far, breakfast is only motivating Charlie." At his words, Charlie had immediately looked up again, dancing on the spot, hopeful. "I think I might have to go for something bigger."

"Bigger?"

"I don't like to use the pigs outside of specific training drills. We only have so many. But… it might be the only thing that moves them," Owen had explained. His brief thought about tossing Kathy in had made him realize he hadn't even thought about using live food as bait. He had patted his sides, but realized he didn't have a radio on him, and the guards were still waiting at the center gate for the raptors to finally move. "Any chance you brought a radio?" he had asked, but she hadn't.

Owen had looked back down at the raptors, wondering if it'd be okay to leave them while he went and sorted out a pig. But what if they finally managed to reach the outer fence? Just as he'd thought that, Echo had shoved her head through the bars again, and he'd had to snap at her.

"How about I go ask Cam if he can come help?" Kathy had suggested. "Or if I can get you a radio."

Owen had just shrugged in response, waving her away as he'd called down at Blue. Blue had looked up at him, then off to the side, and then over at her sisters. Owen had watched, hoping that maybe he was finally getting through to them, especially when Blue took a couple of steps away from the fence. "That's right," he'd told them. "Let's move away from the fence. If you do, I'll get you a pig to chase."

At that, Echo took a couple of steps. Or, at least, at the time he'd thought it had been because of his words. But then, as he continued to stand there, praising them, they had all turned and started to walk away from him. What the hell? However, they had been heading in the right direction, so he'd trailed after them, confused. What were they doing?

He had been (admittedly slow on the uptake) to realize what had actually happened. He didn't clue in until he (and the raptors) had caught up with Kathy at the central gate, where she was talking with Cam. There, the raptors stopped, all three gazing up at Kathy.

Owen barely managed to keep himself from actually saying the thought that was coursing through his head: Are you fucking kidding me? Instead, he'd bit his tongue, grumbled under his breath, and then had simply said, "Hey, Kathy, can you keep walking. Head towards the stairs."

She'd looked back, surprised to see that he'd followed, only to then notice the raptors were down below as well. "Are they…?" she'd asked, a slightly concerned look on her face.

"I think so," Owen had admitted. "Let's see if they'll follow you into the other half."

There had been a brief moment, where it had looked like they wouldn't, but then they had. Owen had had Cam and Kahn wait until the raptors (and Kathy) almost made it over to the stairs, before he had them start to close the gate. The raptors were fast, and having to do so manually was louder than normal and, more unfortunately, slower. So he'd wanted them to have as much time as possible, so the raptors would hopefully be unable to sprint out.

They had definitely looked torn, when they heard the gate closing, but in the end, by the time they'd made up their mind to go for the gate, it was too late, and they had been stuck. Almost immediately, the three had started to put up a fight, snarling, and shrieking at the gate. Kathy hadn't been useful at that point, their interest in her no longer superseding their frustration at being locked out of the larger area.

He had ended up getting a pig, letting it loose into their paddock with them, to finally calm them down. It had worked, and had actually been one of their longest hunts, as the pig had very quickly ended up covered in mud, making it harder to see. That said, they had still been successful, and thankfully by the time they'd devoured it, and then the rest of the food Owen had also brought out for their breakfast, they had been a bit less restless.

o-o-o

The storm was still bad, the wind still whipping about, and so the helicopters were a no-go. Same with any of their boats. Which meant that even though Claire now knew that there were issues on Sorna, there was nothing she could immediately do to help. She'd debated calling the coast guard, as they should be able to go out, but then had dismissed the thought. They didn't need rescue, they needed supplies. And additional manpower. And they also estimated that by the time the coast guard could make it to Sorna, it was quite likely that the storm would finally have died down enough that Nublar could put its own helicopter in the air.

It also didn't help that Austin wasn't entirely sure what they even needed to get everything back online. Which meant that Claire had been unable to immediately start preparing a list and gathering any supplies. In the end, she'd asked if she could talk to Kathy. She'd been expecting Austin to just hand the phone over to Kathy, sure that Kathy, just like Claire, was hanging out in the main control area, but she wasn't. To her surprise, Austin told her that Kathy was actually out at the raptors paddock. Claire had bit back a grimace at that, wondering what new rant Owen was going to have for her after this.

It had taken about 10 minutes before Kathy called them back, although it felt much shorter. As they had waited, they'd gotten a call from the hotel as a worried mom was at the front desk saying how her teen sons had gone out and hadn't come back. They had just tracked the kids down (Claire had never been more grateful for the RFID bracelets all guests wore then in moments like this) when the SAT phone had finally rang. Claire handed off the responsibility of sending out security to round up the kids and get them back to the hotel to Vivian, before she picked up the phone.

"Kathy?"

"Hi, Claire," Kathy replied. "Austin said you phoned?"

"Yeah. He told us that you've lost all power. And that you've got some major damage."

"We do," she confirmed. "We got one backup mostly working. The original one at the lab failed and we had to pull the one from the dining hall. It's not as powerful, so we're focused on keeping only the essentials going."

Claire grimaced at the news. She was once again reminded that they could never be prepared for everything.

"How are the animals doing?" Claire asked. "The raptors, both sets. Are the girls still contained? Have there been any breeches? Oh, and the Edmontosaurus eggs?"

It wasn't until she was even asking that Claire realized she had completely forgotten about the Edmontosaurus today. And yet, they'd be some of the most fragile on the island, having not even hatched yet.

"Power was prioritized to the incubators and the deep freezes," Kathy reassured her. "So far, Dr. Barnes said things are looking okay in the lab, and that the temperature never dropped more than a couple of degrees and they were able to get it back up again quickly. He doesn't expect any issues, but that's assuming we can get full power back sooner rather than later."

"And the girls?" Claire prompted again. "They are contained, right?" She suddenly had images of the raptors running wild in the compound.

"They are," Kathy confirmed. "The younger two, Olive and Grape, had been inside overnight so we've left them there. Probably a good thing their new paddock isn't quite ready. Owen was having some issues getting the older ones to follow his orders earlier, but he's now got them contained in the smaller section, as it doesn't rely on any electric fencing."

"Wait, if there's no power, do Olive and Grape… are they stuck in the dark?" Claire found herself trying to picture their nursery. She couldn't remember if she'd ever noticed windows there before. But even if there were, with the storm, would they be getting much or any light?

There was a pause before Kathy answered. "That's a good question. I'm pretty sure Zia has been in to check on them, but I also don't know when she last saw them. Most of our attention has been focused on the lab because of the power issue, and the older raptors because of the electric fencing, or well, lack of."

There were some muffled sounds, and Claire could just make out Kathy sharing her thoughts with Austin (and whoever else was around).

"Austin is going to radio out and we'll have Owen go check on them. He should be able to get free now that the raptors are re-contained."

"I'm working on organizing a helicopter that can bring aid over the moment we get an okay to fly," Claire said, redirecting the topic. "But I need a better idea of what to prioritize. Sounds like getting power up and running is clearly the top priority.

"Yeah," Kathy agreed. "It's going to be hard for us to get a full assessment until the storm stops and we have some daylight to work with. But generators will definitely be helpful to start…"

o-o-o

Owen hadn't realized just how much of the day he'd spent out with the older raptors until Cam found him and mentioned that there were questions about Olive and Grape. Initially, Owen had felt like his heart had stopped, expecting that Cam was there to tell him that Grape had had another incident, and then feeling a rush of relief when it wasn't that. Of course, Cam then pointing out that the girls had been left mostly in the dark all day hadn't left Owen feeling all that much better.

He'd tossed a final look down at Blue, Charlie and Echo, but the three were ignoring him, before he'd turned away from the railing and headed down the steps, crossing the field towards the nursery at a light jog.

As he approached the building and pulled open the door, the pitch black hallway in front of him reminded him he should've brought one of the flashlights. Dammit. Pulling out his phone, he grimaced when he saw that the battery was already down to 40%, but he turned on the flashlight anyway. He would go see them and then track down another light, he decided.

The moment the door to the outside shut behind him, muffling the sounds of the storm behind it, Owen heard the raptors. Both of the raptors, to his relief. Although it was short lived, as they definitely weren't chittering and being playful. He quickly moved down the short hallway to their door and opened it.

The moment he did, his light entering the very dark room (there were actually two windows in there, but they were high up on the wall, long and not very tall), the raptors vocalizing turned into clear shrieks.

"Sorry, girls," he said, as he entered, keeping his light pointed mostly at the floor so as not to blind them. "How are you doing?"

He crouched down outside the fencing separating him from them, both Olive and Grape huddled close together, their claws grasping at the fencing as they both continued to squawk and shriek.

"I know, I know," he soothed. "It's been a really busy morning. And there's a crazy storm right now. Have you been listening to it?" Even though his words weren't really calming the raptors, Owen continued to talk at them, as he checked them over as much as he could. They both looked fine, to his relief. "I promise you it's actually nicer in here than it is out there."

Growling, Olive lunged at the fence, letting out a particularly impressive shriek that even stunned Grape into a moment of silence.

"You've got my attention, Olive," Owen told her. "What do you want?"

Olive started chittering madly, and Owen was at a loss to interpret her. His lack of understanding was clearly just upping Olive's frustration, and soon Grape had started joining in again. It wasn't until Grape actually backed away from the fence, that Owen finally got more clued in to the issue. She walked over to a wall and started scratching at it, almost like she was trying to climb it. When Owen finally followed her gaze upwards, it hit him. Grape was standing under the shelf where Owen would usually set their food down (or bag of treats) when he entered before he dished it out.

"Oh no, did we forget your breakfast?" Owen asked. The mention of "breakfast" had both the raptors pausing briefly before chittering again, but this time in excitement. "I bet you're really hungry," he told them. "Let me go get it right now."

Standing up, Owen moved towards the door back to the hallway, continuing to use his phone to light his path. However, as the door started to shut behind him as he left, Olive started shrieking uncontrollably, causing him to turn back in a panic. Had Grape collapsed?

But no, Grape was standing beside her sister. When Owen moved back into the room, Olive stopped, so he turned to leave again, and then Olive shrieked again.

"What now?" Owen asked. Staring between them and the door. "I know you're hungry, but I have to go get the food." Just as he said that, the flashlight on his phone suddenly died, the battery falling too low to keep it lit. Immediately Olive was shrieking.

"Oh, you don't like the dark," Owen said, finally getting it. "I don't either, Olive. But I need to go get a light. I'm sorry."

While the pained cries from Olive made him want to stay, Owen let the door close. He had the screen on his phone lit up now, but it wasn't providing nearly enough light, and so instead of heading straight for their food, he headed for the main door. He was going to need to get a flashlight first.

Sorry about the wait, but work has just been... yeah. :( And on top of that, when I started posting, I was so sure I'd have enough time to finish the story as I posted, but it hasn't worked out that way, and I've only got one more chapter ready. I think there are probably another 3-4 chapters left in the whole story, but the posting is probably going to continue to be more like every two weeks unless time magically starts to free up. In the meantime, and as always, if you're enjoying this, I'd love to hear so and have some extra motivation to keep writing.