Rated: Fiction M for adult themes, references to childhood abuse, sexual assault, drug use, and language
Language: English
Genre: Drama/Adventure
Author's Note: This is a 21st-century reboot of Valley of the Dinosaurs, so things like laptops, cell phones, and the Internet will be seen here.
Disclaimer: Hanna-Barbera owns all Valley of the Dinosaurs characters; I own this story and the original characters therein. I'm not making any money off any of this.
Chapter 1
Katie Butler awoke with a start and looked around her upstairs room. Instead of the stone walls of a cave, she saw lavender-painted plaster that was beginning to crack in the corners. An antique oak dresser with a jewelry box and a bottle of her Aunt Mary's perfume on it, and a mirror above it, sat in one corner, and a desk from sometime in the mid-twentieth century in another. Above the desk were wooden shelves lined with books on archaeology and cultural anthropology. And on it, a laptop was closed.
She'd been dreaming, yet again, of the Valley of the Dinosaurs. A cave her family had shared with another. A cookfire, where the spoils of that day's hunt roasted on a spit, or a woman with long blonde hair stirred a pot filled with roots.
She missed Gara, the strong, caring mother of the cave-dwelling family, who knew so much about healing, and about the flora and fauna of the valley. She missed Gorok, the patriarch of the family, stern and skeptical of her own family's modern tools and techniques. She missed Tana, her brother Greg's constant companion–even if she and Greg did often get into trouble.
But most of all, she missed Lok. Her first, and only, love.
She'd gone on dates in her year at NYU, but never more than one or two with the same guy. She never wanted to get too serious with any of them.
There'd been Jeff, whom she'd gone with on a study date, only to find that he expected something more from her in exchange for class notes. Scott, the pickup artist who'd tried to spike her drink at a party and groped her–and probably would have done other things to her if her cousin Adam hadn't seen what he was doing and offered to drive her home. Brad, with whom she'd had one coffee date, and nothing else in common. Steve, the "good Catholic boy" her devout paternal grandparents had introduced her to.
But none of them were Lok: sometimes infuriating, but other times patient and encouraging. Always stoic and courageous. Honest, kind, and forgiving. Handsome, but somehow innocent and unaware of it.
Of course there were no mirrors in the Valley of the Dinosaurs, unless you looked into a pool of still water. Soon, still water would be the only mirror Katie would have.
For today, she had a plane to catch.