Jurassic World: Return to Isla Nublar – Chapter 13: The Island of Forgotten Dreams

A/N: Welcome back readers. This week, Grant and the others will continue their journey further inland into Isla Nublar – the Island of Forgotten Dreams. Remember Taylor Simmons, the little girl who accidentally slipped into one of Lexico's cargo crates a couple of chapters ago? Well, she'll be coming up again pretty soon. Enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.

After climbing into the same vehicles they were in before, Dr. Alan Grant and the team made steady progress away from the coast of Isla Nublar. The jungles around them looked pretty much the same as they headed inland.

Levine peered out the window of the first jeep to look at the local flora. He snapped a photo. "It's beautiful, isn't it? I can't wait to get studying the dinosaur-life."

"Yeah," Tim agreed. "There's apparently much diversity on this island. Lots of different species of dinosaurs have survived over the last two decades. The environment looks untouched. Do you suppose like in Malcolm's second Jurassic Park-related book the island's ecology is not as healthy as it looks at first glance."

Grant grinned. Isla Sorna, the island in Malcolm's book, The Lost World, was much different from the real state of the island. In real life, Isla Sorna's ecosystem was healthy and could support itself easily. But in Malcolm's book, Malcolm portrayed the island as on the verge of extinction, thanks to a disease caused by prions. Grant didn't think there would be any prion-infected dinosaurs because InGen was actually smart enough to not feed their dinosaurs food that could be infected with prions.

"Don't you remember?" Levine asked Tim. "With Malcolm, everything is chaos! Chaos this, chaos that! Of course the dinosaurs had to be on the verge of extinction in his book – he wanted something chaotic. Even though the whole prion-related disease incident never really happened (which is why the dinosaurs are still alive on both Sorna and Nublar), Malcolm insisted it had to go in his book."

"Yeah, I remember debating over that with him," Grant recalled. "Since it was his book, he won the argument."

Then Captain Ryan's voice emitted from the intercom saying, "Where exactly are we going, Grant?"

Grant gently rubbed his chin. "Well, I guess there's no better place to start our expedition than the place where it all began for us – the Visitor Center."

"And where is that?"

"Uh . . ." Grant paused. He wasn't sure exactly where the Visitor Center would be located. He thought back to the map he saw when they were at the docks. Drat! I should have taken that map with me. Let's see, if we started our adventure at the North Dock, which we did, I think the main road just goes south and should head back to the Visitor Center . . .

"I think we're on what used to be one of Nublar's main roads," Grant theorized. "If we follow this road, it should take us to the Visitor Center."

"You sure?"

"I said I think."

"Well, if you turn out to be wrong, we've got the equipment to camp out. Lex was telling me earlier that the Visitor Center might be a good place to set up camp depending on the condition of the building."

Grant agreed, "Yeah, after we check the building's condition. But anything could have happened to the building in terms of condition within 20 years."

Half an hour later, Grant and the others noticed a large gate in front of the road. Yes, this was the road that would lead them to the Visitor Center.

"Hey Grant!" Kailey yelled from her jeep via the intercom. "Where are the dinosaurs?"

"Well, this isn't just some random theme park safari-like ride they have at Disney World. This is a real expedition and the animals are busy doing their own thing. The animals are out here, but smaller ones are hiding from view, larger herbivores are probably in more open areas and, thank goodness for us, the carnivores appear to be hunting prey elsewhere."

"So when do you think we'll run into the Visitor Center?"

"It should be . . ." Grant paused as the road they were on exited the jungle. Before them was a large clearing (not nearly as large as the one they saw the dinosaurs in earlier, but still large). Grant, Levine and Tim gasped at what they saw – to their left was a medium-sized pond with palm trees growing around it and to the right was a large building. The building's exterior appeared to be concrete with the front lined with tinted glass windows (many of which were cracked and/or broken) separated by columns, and three rotundas, whose domes were given the appearance of a thatched roofing. The portion of the roof surrounding the rotunda domes was lined with a balustrade. A stairway led up to the two tall doors of the entrance, surrounded by overgrown plants and what was once a working fountain on either side. Where a door frame once stood was a large gaping hole that looked as if it had been made by a large animal bursting through the doors. Almost as Grant had remembered it, this was the legendary Visitor Center!

"Is that it?" Levine asked in wonderment.

Grant nodded. He had Tim turn the intercom back on and he told Captain Ryan, "Let's park them over there and take a good look at this place."

"It's just as I remember it!" Dr. Sorkin exclaimed once the four vehicles had been parked and everyone had just gotten out. "Although of course it wasn't so run down."

Lex scanned the building with her eyes. It's run down alright! she thought. There are plenty of cracks and holes in the windows, vines growing all over the building and I'm sure plenty of dinosaurs could get in.

Turning to Ryan, Lex said, "I want this area squared off. I don't want any predators catching us by surprise."

Ryan nodded. "Alright, men! You heard the lady! Get to it!" The other five soldiers obediently closed ranks around Grant and the others, cocking their guns in case something decided to come out and attack. Looking at his gun, he grinned smugly. He told himself, No dinosaurs attacking us without a fight!

That was when a high-pitched chattering sound came from the overgrown foliage around the clearing. Kailey took a deep breath and told herself, "Don't worry, only birds, just like last time . . ."

But they weren't birds – five small reptiles exited the jungle, came into view and began looking curiously at the group from a few meters away. They were about the size of chickens and stood five feet long (most of that length was made up of their tails) and about a foot high. They had large heads, long necks, strong and clawed forearms, stood on their back legs and had a thick tail held behind them for balance. They had green skin with dark vertical stripes on their backs and tails. They made high-pitched chirping sounds to each other as they kept their distance from the humans.

"Aw! They're so cute!" Kailey exclaimed as she snapped a picture.

Lex grinned. "Bet you don't know what they are, Timmy!" she joked.

"Of course I do," her brother answered proudly, "they're called–"

"Compsognathus longipes," Levine interjected, "found by Dr. Oberndorfer in the 1850's."

"Hey! I was going to say that!"

Dr. Grant knelt down on one knee to get a better look at the dinosaurs. One Compsognathus ran up to Grant and stopped no more than two meters away. The others followed its lead and were soon standing behind the first one. "A lot of people – even scientists such as Dr. Robert Burke – misclassified these guys as Compsognathus triassicus in the past."

"Compo-what? What did you say they were?" Captain Ryan asked in a confused tone.

"Compsognathus," Dr. Sorkin corrected him. "These dinosaurs are some of my personal favorites. They remind me of the chickens we used to have on our farm growing up in Arkansas."

"You never told me you lived on a farm," Levine noted.

Dr. Sorkin nodded. "Well, I did. Back when I was growing up, my siblings and I would play with the chickens all the time. So when InGen had cloned Compsognathus, it was a bit of a flashback for me . . . except I didn't play with the Compsognathus. Don't be fooled by the small stature of these dinosaurs; several people made the same mistake and either didn't live to tell about it or were seriously injured."

"You say their dangerous?" Ryan asked, eager to use his gun.

"Only if you're injured AND alone," the scientist assured him. "And there have to be more than a dozen of them to do any real harm to you. If you're with a group and/or your not injured, these dinosaurs are pretty harmless. They normally eat insects and other small animals."

One Compsognathus (presumably the leader of the pack), bobbed his head up and down as he looked curiously at the humans. He made a loud chirp. Levine grinned. "Aw! I just want to grab them and give them a big hug. I'd love to have one of those as a pet, but I don't think Lexico would let me do that."

"That would be very correct," Lex told him.

Suddenly, a large dragonfly zoomed by the compies and the little dinosaurs chirped excitedly. They dashed after the insect and into another part of the clearing. More Compsognathus, alerted by all the commotion, were also making their presence known and exited the forest. But they completely ignored the humans and went about their business. Grant stood up and chortled.

"Well, let's inside shall we?" Grant announced.

"What do you want us to do," Ryan asked, "concerning the vehicles?"

"Just have a few of your men stay here by the vehicles and the rest of you can come in with us."

Grant led the rest of the group (which was surrounded by the six Lexico soldiers) up the stairs into the Visitor Center. The central rotunda had a dome partially lined with glass (once again, many of the windows were cracked and/or broken), and had a high ceiling that once housed a pair of full-sized skeletal replicas of dinosaurs. There was also a second floor. The floor of the Visitor Center was an absolute mess. Below where the two dinosaur skeletons once stood was a mess of jumbled up bones and among them were the broken pieces of the staircase that used to lead to upstairs.

Dr. Sorkin frowned when she looked at her surroundings. "Gosh," she started, "this place has been really messed up. I never was able to see it when the dinosaurs faced-off in here."

"You didn't see the fight's outcome, right Grant?" Levine asked.

"No, I wasn't here," Grant said. "Ellie, Lex, Tim and I were right here when the raptors surrounded us." He went to the center of the rotunda and gestured to where he and the others stood. Then Tim spoke up.

"One raptor came through that entrance and the other followed us from the control room and we used the mounted dinosaur skeletons to get down off of the second floor of this room. And then when the raptors had us surrounded . . . oh boy! Let me tell you! It was absolutely terrifying. I was positive the dinosaurs were going to get us."

Lex giggled. "You're telling me! Remember when I screamed when I saw the second Velociraptor?"

"Yeah! I do! And remember when Dr. Grant told me to leap off of the skeleton and I fell on the cold, hard floor? I had a bruise on my rear for weeks! And after we were cornered the T. rex came and snapped up a raptor."

"Thank goodness for that," Grant said. He remembered the moment very vividly when the raptors, the dinosaurs he himself had been studying, were about to attack him and the others when the T. rex killed one of them with her immense jaws. The other raptor had apparently felt the T. rex was a serious threat and attacked the larger dinosaur, ensuing in a fight. Grant and the others left before they could witness the T. rex win, but they heard its roar from outside the building and Gerry and Jess Harding's account of two dead raptors in the Visitor Center and a run-in with the T. rex made it clear who won the fight!

"Why did Malcolm leave that part out of his book?" Kailey asked. "That's my favorite part of the story."

Levine grinned. "Malcolm always had a thing for creative license."

Everyone stood silently for a moment as they scanned the large room with their eyes. Lex's eyes went to the long moldy banner that lay flattened on the floor. Kailey approached her and read the words that ran across the banner, "'When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth'. I wish I had been here to see Jurassic Park when it was in operation. I would have loved it. I wouldn't have loved the possibility of being dino-food, but other than that I'd love it!"

Lex nodded. "Yeah. It was fun until they broke out."

"Say, where are the raptor carcasses," Ryan puzzled aloud.

"Animals don't just wait around on the ground when they die," Dr. Sorkin explained. "They either decompose or are eaten. It's been twenty years since the raptors died, and most of their remains were probably eaten by the T. rex. Any leftover bits were eaten by scavengers."

Levine looked up and walked past the mounds of bones from the two dinosaur replica skeletons, followed by Tim. He walked into a hall and came to another section of the Visitor Center with knocked over tables and chairs scattered all over the room and a knocked-over buffet area. Ah! I remember this, Tim thought, this is the Cretaceous Cafe where Dr. Grant dropped us off when he went to go get help after I was electrocuted.

"Hey, Lex!" he called. "Remember this restaurant?"

Lex, Dr. Sorkin, Kailey and a soldier hurried to the scene. Lex sighed. "Well, it still looks like a restaurant," she said. "I don't think I'd want to eat here though."

"Guys! Keep in mind this building is the perfect place for carnivores to hide," Grant told them from the main rotunda. "Don't go too far."

"Don't worry, Grant, we're just in the Cretaceous Cafe."

In a flash, Grant and the remaining soldiers joined the others in the Cretaceous Cafe. Grant shook his head in awe. "I'll tell ya, this place sure would need a lot of repairs before it's ready to be used."

"This restaurant was going to be called Les Gigantes," Dr. Sorkin said. "But they decided to name it the Cretaceous Cafe at the last minute. That's why that name was still on the brochures."

"I can see why," Levine pointed out. "That's much easier to pronounce than 'Less Giganotees'."

"It's Les Gigantes."

"Oh, whatever."

"I think the kitchen's in this direction," Tim told the others. Everyone followed his lead as the young paleontologist rushed into the room he believed to be the kitchen. It turned out his hunch was right – like the rest of the building, the kitchen was much like he, Lex and Dr. Sorkin remembered it but was in a great state of disrepair.

Levine went over to a stove and flicked the knob to make it ignite . . . nothing happened. "Oh well, I guess no one will be cooking anytime soon!"

"I want to see something," Lex said as she gestured toward a room otherwise known as a walk-in freezer. The door to the freezer was still closed, so maybe the raptor died inside? "Remember when we locked the raptor in here, Tim?"

"And you did lock it, right?"

"Yes, I wonder if the raptor's still inside . . ." Everyone watched with interest as Lex walked over slowly toward the freezer door . . . she grabbed the handle and the door opened with ease – it wasn't even shut, just lightly closed as if the door had been opened in the past and slid back into an almost closed position, but it didn't close all the way. The freezer was completely void of animal corpses. "That rascal! It must have banged the freezer door until it opened. So one of the raptors we were surrounded by in the main area of the Visitor Center might have been the one we locked in the freezer. I was always wondering if it managed to get out. That raptor was a trip!"

"They're very intelligent animals," Dr. Sorkin agreed. "In fact, most dinosaurs are much more intelligent than we give them credit for. I mean, they had nowhere near the amount of intelligence humans have, but as animals go, they weren't dummies. Predatory dinosaurs are the smartest of the dinosaurs because they have to outsmart their prey."

"While we're on the subject," Ryan interrupted, "what should we be looking for in terms of dangerous creatures."

"Well . . ." Dr. Sorkin paused. "InGen cloned quite a few different species of predatory dinosaurs because I'm sure they knew that they would be the most popular once the park opened. But we've got predators of all shapes and sizes on this island, as of when I was last here. I have no idea if dinosaur species have gone extinct since we left the park, but–"

"But what types of dinosaurs should we be on prepared for?"

"Like I said, there were many different species originally cloned that lived on the island as of 20 years ago. The largest one is undoubtedly Tyrannosaurus rex. As we all know, they've got famously short arms but with tyrannosaurs, it's all about the bite. They have a top recorded speed of around 32 mph and are ferocious predators. They also–"

"Next, please."

"There's also the intelligent Velociraptor. These dinosaurs are probably some of the most dangerous dinosaurs on the island. They're pack hunters and even have problem-solving intelligence. Those two dinosaur species are probably the species we should mostly be worried about. There are numerous others such as Herrerasaurus, the venom-spitting Dilophosaurus, Compsognathus aren't a threat unless you're injured and alone, and there's–"

"Alright, I think I've heard enough. So basically we need to be looking for large, medium and small carnivores."

"That's what I said."

". . . when I got there, I was too late to play my part in the baseball game," a soldier we'll dub soldier #1 said. He and the other soldier were obediently waiting by the vehicles, half-heartedly watching the flock of over a dozen Compsognathus hunting insects nearby.

"Pity," the soldier we'll dub soldier #2 said. "Was the coach upset?"

"Oh yeah, he was so–"

"SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE!" came a loud cry. The soldiers cocked their guns and looked around the clearing.

"Did you hear that?" soldier #2 asked.

"Yeah, yeah I did. Not sure where it came from . . . think there's someone else on the island?"

"IS ANYBODY THERE?!"

Soldier #1 frowned. "There it is again. I think it's coming from Jeep-03."

Quickly, the two soldiers opened the trunk and found out that the voice was coming from a cargo crate – a large crate, but not too large for two men to pick up. They took the crate out of the trunk, opened it up and gasped at what they saw: a young girl, no more than 11 years old and she was lying in the crate amid large black garbage bags. She was wearing a baseball cap, a camouflage-colored jacket, a pink shirt and had short brown hair.

"About time someone got me out of there," the girl said as the two men helped her out.

A/N: Having finally reached Isla Nublar, what do you think of this chapter? In this chapter, I wanted to reveal what became of the Visitor Center that was left behind 20 years ago when InGen evacuated. I don't know about you, but I've always believed that the raptor that Lex and Tim locked in the freezer found a way out and was one of the raptors that got killed by the Tyrannosaurus at the end of the movie. I really greatly enjoyed writing about state of the Visitor Center itself in this chapter; seeing its state of disrepair and the leftover evidence of the escapades that happened here at the end of the first Jurassic Park movie and in the first episode of Jurassic Park: The Game. Anyways, be prepared for another run-in with carnivorous reptiles because that's in the next chapter! See you then!