June 1st, 2011

Maisie threw herself on the floor, face down, bum stuck up in the air. She wailed into the carpet.

"Maisie Anne Lockwood," Iris said in growing irritation, "if you do not pick yourself up this instant, you will go straight to your room!"

"I vanna fee Dakk!" she shouted into the carpet, her words muffled by the fuzz.

"Young lady!" snapped the nanny angrily, grabbing hold of the child and sitting her up so that she could glare into the girl's pouting face. "You will use the Queen's English properly, do you understand? Now sit up and speak clearly."

"I want to see Jack!"

Iris' jaw set, her lips pressed into a hard line. "Jack-this, Jack-that!" she muttered. "I am sick of it. There will be no seeing that… beast. You heard your Grandfather, no visits until Friday!"

The little girl tried very hard not to cry, and instead settled for screaming as she threw herself back to the floor. For the past few months, it had been like this. Maisie had thought that when Grandpa had agreed to let her visit Jack properly without having to sneak around, she would be able to see him as much as she liked. But no. Grandpa insisted she could only see him on Friday and Saturday afternoons, and even then, it was only for half an hour, with Jack chained up and her safely behind a sheet of thick glass. They weren't allowed to get near each other, and that nasty Mr Lisle was always there with Jack to zap him with the electric-pole if he misbehaved, along with a fat security man with Maisie. Grandpa was scared in case Jack got free, if he would hurt Maisie by accident. But she knew he wouldn't. They were best friends.

Or at least, they were supposed to be! Because they couldn't play properly, both she and Jack were getting very mad at the situation. Maisie had started to be naughty during her medicine visits, to try and let everyone know she wouldn't be a good girl if they wouldn't let her see Jack. She didn't understand a lot of what the grown-ups said, but she was still a smart girl – her Grandpa always told her so. They didn't know she had some idea of what this medicine was. She didn't know everything about it, but she knew that Jack was somehow involved in order to make her medicine work. But if they wouldn't let her see him, then she wouldn't let them take it. Dr Moroe had been quite rough last time, holding Maisie down to make sure she took the needle properly. Maisie was beginning to dread her medicine visits more and more lately.

"I want to!" Maisie screeched.

"Enough!" Iris finally shouted over her. "I won't listen to this anymore. You are going to your room and you can explain this vile behaviour to your Granfather at dinner."

Maisie felt Iris' bone-thin fingers grab hold of her arms and hoist her up. The girl flailed and screamed louder in an unholy tantrum. When her wriggling didn't help release her from Iris' hold, she let her limbs go limp, her sockets turning to jelly. A dead weight was a little more difficult for Iris to carry, but the nanny still managed to drag her up to her room. Dumping the squealing girl on her bed, Iris then marched out the room and slammed the door shut behind her. Maisie threw the nearest teddy bear – Mr Floppy – at the door, and screamed.


The Indoraptor screamed.

This was unacceptable.

For days beyond what he could count, they'd teased him with the idea of belonging. They'd dangled Sister in front of his nose like bait, but always kept her out of reach. Whenever they saw each other it was behind a sheet of glass he could barely scratch. And he was always on the end of a chain that pinched his throat, the vile most-hated orange-haired human on the other end. He couldn't touch sister, couldn't smell her scent, or be sure they were kept together. And whenever they were apart, this hated-human put him through torture. He would try to get him to do things: walk over there, climb that, stay put. All it did was confuse and irritate the Indoraptor. This human had no authority over him, and he would not accept any attempt to usurp his own control over himself. But all he got in return for his defiance was a nasty prod from the spark-stick. The prod, the hated-human called it. The Indoraptor was beginning to wonder which one of them he despised more.

He wanted Sister. He wanted the comfort of something familiar, something he could wrap his brain around, something he knew wasn't a threat. Yet all they did was keep her away and when they did allow him to see her, they wouldn't let him touch her. Completely unacceptable! He needed her. His thoughts always grew calm with her, he could be Jack again when she was here. He wasn't Jack without her.

He let loose another indignant screech and thrashed his tail and side against the bars of his cage. As if someone had heard him, the door to his den opened. Much to his disgust, the hated-human strutted in. The chain was grasped in his hand. It confused the Indoraptor. His internal clock told him he wasn't scheduled to see Sister for another few days. Something didn't smell right about this.

That initial suspicion was what led him to try and avoid the chain, to snap and scratch at the rough hands that tried to hook it around his neck. The hated-human shouted and got him with the prod, and he cried out in pain. Eventually, they pricked him with the darts from the guns. The first two only made him a little dizzy; it was always the third one that had his head swim and his body go limp.

When he awoke, the world was tipping back and forth, and sounds made his head feel like it was splintering. He hated waking up after the darts. His body didn't feel like his own, he felt nauseous and it took a while for the numbness in his limbs to completely go away. The hated-human must know all this, for putting him to sleep seemed like his go-to option whenever the Indoraptor put up even a little resistance to transportation. Maybe he liked to see him suffer – just one more act to repay in full once the day of retribution finally came.

The Indoraptor tried to lift his head, tried to orientate himself, to stand. He felt the tug on the chain around his neck, and it was enough to unbalance him. He flopped to the ground again. Breathing to try and control his rolling stomach, he attempted to focus his eyes. He was chained to the wall, a large arching roof stretched far over him. Twenty feet away he could see large double doors, and through the crack in them he could smell the heady scents of so many different things. It made his head spin in a different kind of way. Along the walls and all across the room were large square metal boxes on wheels. He knew their sounds – their roars and snarls were aggravating to his sensitive ears.

Creaky hinges squealed as a door opened. Bright light bloomed in one corner of the room, just beside the big doors. The Indoraptor tilted his head, even if the light stung his eyes a little. He heard footsteps coming closer and tensed. But the footsteps were too light to belong to the hated-human. He scented the air and caught a whiff of something familiar. Could it be –

Her head popped around the side of one of the metal boxes on wheels. She beamed at him, the fur on top of her head moulded differently today – it stuck out the back of her head on either side like a pair of horns. It confused him, but that was overshadowed by his excitement to see her. He chirped loudly, trilling the closer she got. Sister knelt in front of him and cautiously held out her hands.

Ignoring her fingers, he pressed his head into her stomach. He sniffed. She did not smell like him, her coverings smelled bitter and sharp to the point it hurt his nose. If she didn't smell like him, she didn't smell like pack, which meant others wouldn't be able to tell she was his. His sister, his companion, his-his-HIS! Rubbing his chin and jaws along any part of her he could reach, he pressed his scent onto her through the glands on his face. Sister giggled and squirmed, but one of his hands wrapped around her leg and held her still. If she wanted to behave like a hatchling, he would treat her like one.

"Missed you too, Jack," she said in a quiet voice. She must know of how he hated loud noises, how it hurt his ears. That was why he purred happily at her sweet voice being so nice and quiet. "Iris wanted me to play outside, but I saw Mr Lisle come out. You can't tell no one. This is our secret."

She pulled out a bunch of keys that chimed together a little too shrilly for his liking. But he knew the look of them. In his short life he'd come to recognise what small freedoms looked like. Jack tried to bite at them excitedly, but Sister moved them out of his reach.

"Mr Lisle left them on the wall outside – he's getting a coffee." She chattered mindlessly in her lisping voice. Jack ignored her words, focused only on the key as she bent to try and unlock the chain around his neck. "So, I did think we could go outside and play together! Would that be good? I does think so."

A loud CLICK, and then the chain went slack around his neck and slid off. Tentatively, Jack stood up, as if fearing another set of chains would spring from the ground to trap him once again. But there was no hinderance to his movements. He shook his body from nose to tail, chirping loudly with his excitement. Finally, freedom. Sister bared her teeth at him. At first he was taken aback, before he recognised the light in her eyes, and realised she was not being aggressive or challenging him for his authority. She was smiling. He tilted his head at her, curious at her expression of happiness. Could he do the same?

Before he could learn more, she was bounding away back across the large room, an excited spring in her step. Jack eagerly followed her. With his long and gangly back-legs, his stride was rather awkward and misshapen. He loped on all fours in a jarring roll rather than jogging on two feet. He always felt unbalanced on two feet, like his head would face-plant the floor. Sister was stood by a door, a bright light shining underneath it, the scents he'd gotten a taste of earlier now stronger. Was she leading him to the outside? Were they going to runaway from this place? He wiggled excitedly – what a clever sister she was! Yes, they would escape this torment and then they would find a den and hunting grounds of their own.

"Come on!" she whispered as her little hands gripped a piece of metal sticking out the door. Jack watched intently as she pulled it downwards until it pointed towards the floor. There was an ever so soft click, and then the door swung open. Bright light flooded Jack's vision. He hissed and took a step back, trying to rub at his eyes to get rid of the sting. He heard Sister's voice through the doorway. "Quick, Jack! I does know where we can play!"

For a moment, he panicked she might leave without him, or get too far ahead. He stumbled forward into the blinding light, jarring his hip on the doorframe where he couldn't make out his way. Smooth stone floor turned into small sharp and piercing stones under the pads of his feet. Jack shook his head vigorously to try and shake off the light that pierced right through his skull. It took several moments before he could blink his vision back. But even then, everything was too bright! He was used to the dark, to the cramped inside of the hallways and gloomy rooms. The light was always manageable to him inside. But out here, it was too much. The bright yellow ball in the sky was shining too intently, it was hurting him.

As he began to adjust, he looked around whilst trying to shield his eyes from the direct light. He tried to locate Sister… and managed to finally get a good look at his surroundings. He stood on a pebbled path, a wide clearing with huge trees not fifty feet away. Behind him was the tall stone structure that smelled of the place where he grew up, the place that smelled like Sister. It stood defiant against the landscape, unnatural and distinctly human. Around the house, the trees rose atop hills and dipped in valleys as far as the eye could see. A wind tickled at Jack's scales and brought with it a bombardment of scents.

Jack's brain was so overloaded it stuttered to a stop and he froze in mounting confusion and alarm. This outside world, it was too open, too much! Everything was so wide, he felt completely exposed. He felt too small in a world that now was far too big. All the scents he could now pick up were all trying to grab his attentions. He could smell the bark of the trees, the excrement of the animals living in the trees, the rotting berries on the forest floor, running water somewhere in the south, fumes from human vehicles, and more! It all forced itself upon him with such intensity he didn't know what to make of it. He wanted to run, he wanted to stay, he wanted to explore, he wanted to hide. He was so confused it scared him a little, and for the first time in his life, he wanted to go back to his cage.

"What you doing?"

And there it was, the little sweet voice. The voice he could remember calling him into the world. The voice that soothed his dreams and made the dark bearable. Jack's head immediately snapped up in the direction of it, and he saw Sister stood across the clearing. The quills that grew from her head shined a rich brown, like the fertile earth all around her. Her skin glowed in the sun. Perhaps the outside wasn't so bad if it made Sister look so happy from the inside out.

She was gesturing at him to come closer. "Come on! We can play before Mr Lisle comes back."

Cautiously, Jack stepped towards her; slowly at first, but as she continued to encourage him, his stride grew surer and quickened. Soon he was at her side and the pair of them walked into the woods. The shade under the trees offered relief to his eyes and the soft forest floor was preferable on his feet. The sounds he could detect, from the rustling of leaves to the chattering of feathered animals, to even the lower pitched sounds he could just about hear that came from much further away.

They came to a fallen-tree that had long since died and rotted away to nothing but a hollow log. It was stuck half way in the soil, with strings of moss and vines linking the tree to all the others around it. Jack could smell the insects and small furred prey that frequented this area. Sister could fit inside the log if she bent at the waist, but he would need to crouch to get in. She ran over to the log and scrambled up its side rather awkwardly until she sat atop it.

"We can play here!" she proclaimed. "This is my castle – but just pretend. I can be the princess and you can be the knight. That means you have to do what I say…"

He wasn't listening anymore. Jack was busy sniffing all around this place to see if it was suitable for them to make a den. He didn't like how it was so close to the house – they hadn't walked very far. That meant the other humans might find them too easily here. The log looked like a decent shelter, but the stink of rot around it told him it wouldn't last for many more years. Soon even the slightest touch would cause it to crumble. Also, both of them were still growing. Jack knew just by the smell on both of them that they were immature, not yet full grown, not adults. They would get bigger, and that meant they needed a den big enough for both of them.

It would be easy to find them something suitable, he knew he could do it. Now that his anxieties had been assured by Sister, his earlier desire to explore, to run, was burning inside him. He stared off into the trees – the fact that they seemed to go on forever still daunted him, but he couldn't suppress the want to run through them.

"Jack? Do you see something?" he heard Sister's voice right beside him. It startled him a little, he'd been so lost in his own imagination he hadn't noticed her sneak up on him.

The want to take her with him was strong. But something about her smell caught his nose. The beginnings of the sickness was coming again. It wasn't enough that she would notice it in herself, but he could tell it on her scent. Over the past month or more, he'd begun to notice a pattern: that the weakness he'd sensed in her upon first meeting her, would strengthen and grow over time. It manifested itself in a sickness that made Sister a little weak and tired all the time. He knew it was graver than that, his nose told him so, but his mind couldn't comprehend the complexities of it all. It was around this time that the humans in the white coats would come and prick him with needles, and then the next time he saw her, Sister would be back to her almost-healthy self. If she was now starting to get the sickness again, she'd be a liability if he came across any trouble. He needed to keep her safe – pack must look after pack.

Pressing his head into her stomach, he pushed her back towards the log. Grunting at her, he bumped her with his nose until she ducked down, and he stuffed her inside of it. With a hiss and a stamp of his hand into the soil, he raked his long talons through the dirt. A clear order for her to stay put. He didn't know if she would obey but was prepared to assert his authority if necessary. With one last flick of his tail, he stalked off into the trees.

Slow steps first, he sniffed left and right, eyes scanning, head twitching towards the slightest sound. But all seemed calm and quiet, he was the only thing of significance here. He picked up the pace, and then, before he knew it, he was running – really running! The ground flew by underneath him, his long and lanky legs somewhat helped him to overcome the hilly terrain. He climbed over boulders, swerved around trees and skidded down the other side of banks. He leapt over fissures and followed the wind. A rush unlike anything he'd ever experienced coursed through his veins, he felt lighter than air, a euphoria that made him want to shriek to the heavens in victory. His long-awaited dream, to run, to stretch his cramped and twitching muscles, was real.

Scrambling up a steep incline, he came to the very top. Out of breath, his lungs were burning, heart bursting against his ribs, muscles shaking. He was unused to this amount of exercise. The hated-human usually only let him be chained to a pole with a length long enough to stroll in a circle. He didn't think he'd gone too far from Sister, but it was still quite a distance. The incline he perched on fell away in a sheer drop on the other side. The Indoraptor used this vantage point in order to be able to see all over the valley that was spread out below him. The sun still hurt his eyes, but he was getting used to it by now. Far below, he could see a crowd of shapes walking between the trees. They walked on all fours and the scent of them that came on the wind said they were furred herbivores. The Indoraptor's brain made the connection to prey very quickly, and his stomach rumbled at the thought of a meal, his pulse quickened at the thought of fresh blood he'd killed himself.

A loud yowl erupted behind him.

The Indoraptor squawked, jumping in the air where he was so startled. He almost fell down the other side of the drop, if not for his long claws and talons scraping into the rock. He clung to it for all he was worth, leaving white gouges in the stone as a result. Wide eyed, he looked back up at what had made such an awful noise.

It stood on all fours, tawny fur bristling with hackles raised and long tail lashing in clear aggression. The thing had curled ivory claws that sank into its own perch not six feet away from him. Its sleek body was hunched, prepared to spring. Its face was contorted as it bared four long fangs at him and hissed at him. It was taller than him, he was far longer, but this new creature was definitely taller and much more muscular. If he had the words, the Indoraptor would have known this to be a Mountain Lion, the apex predator of these parts. But he did not know, the same way he had not thought to keep himself wary of any other large predators. Lack of experience in the wild had him baffled as for what to do in this situation.

The thing was not pleased to see him. The longer it looked at him, the more aggressive it became, as if it were so confused by the alien look and smell of him that it could only respond in anger. The Indoraptor's instincts told him that if he did nothing, the situation would surely escalate into a fight. So, he did the first thing that came to mind. He made his body go cold. It felt as if his heart had shrivelled up and his veins grew heavy, as all the heat left him, and he grew as cold as all his surroundings. Hunkered down and cold, he hoped it would let the threat pass him by. No luck. The cougar roared and swiped its paw at the air in front of him. Letting the heat rush back in, the Indoraptor began to grow angry. The need to defend, to dominate, to rip and tear was slowly building within him. If the thing wanted a display, he'd give it one.

Rearing on his hind legs, he slammed his front talons into the earth. He opened his jaws wide and roared at it. The gust of wind he let loose from his lungs was powerful enough to make the cougar's fur ripple. The quills atop his head flared up, like his opponent's hackles. The cougar shrank back at the display and hissed again, tail lashing.

Growing cocky that he had it backing down, the Indoraptor could not resist the urge to maim and kill. His claws were begging to render the flesh of this adversary. He charged forward, swiping his talons at the lion. But with amazing speed, it dodged right past him. It flanked him, reared onto its back legs and smacked him around the face. The force of its paw striking his head made him dizzy, and its claws stung as they cut into the soft scales beneath his eye.

Blindly, he lashed out with his hands. He hit something, felt his talons meet resistance before they ripped something. A feeling of wet warmth splattered his scales. The thing roared. He'd only scratched its shoulder, but the addictive feeling of wounding another creature sang its song through his body. The small victory was enough of a distraction. The cougar leapt at him claws hooking into him, its body aimed away from his arms, and it sank its teeth into his thigh.

The Indoraptor screamed! He thought the spark-sticks the hated-human zapped him with had hurt? Nothing and no one had ever wounded him like this before! The teeth pierced his young hide, into his muscle, and instantly he wanted to collapse that leg to ease the pain. He thrashed to try and buck the enemy off, twisting around and biting at the creature's tail. If he could catch hold of it, he could rip it off and throw it off him!

As the pair of them tussled and twisted for dominance over the forest floor, they churned up earth and pine-needles and caused a trail of destruction in their wake. The cougar ripped its teeth out of the dinosaur and made its way up his body. The Indoraptor instinctively knew its target, as any predator does – the neck. In response, he tucked his chin against his chest to protect the softer underside of his throat. The cougar attempted to sink its fang down on the spinal-column in his neck. CLACK! Its teeth could not penetrate the much harder overlapping scales that lined his spine from the back of his head to the tip of his tail. It yowled in pain, thwarted. With the precious moments this afforded him, the Indoraptor flipped himself onto his back, twisting to get his back feet underneath the Cougar. His sickle claws lashed out and sank into the big-cat's stomach and tore it open. With a great heave, he kicked the enemy away from him.

He didn't waste a moment. Not waiting to see if the injuries he'd inflicted were mortal or if the Cougar was even dead yet, he jumped to his feet and ran. The pain in his thigh was punctuated with each step of his loping sprint back down through the forest. He could smell the blood, both the Cougar's and his own. He'd never been hurt like that before, it frightened him, to be that powerless. On instinct, he ran from the threat and back towards what he knew to be a comfort.

But where was that? All these trees looked the same, he was in too much of a panic to heed his sense of smell or to remember the landmarks and angle of the sun from his journey up here. He wanted Sister, he wanted pack, he wanted comfort.

"JACK?!"

He skidded to a halt, spraying dirt in all directions. His wound was throbbing, his heart still refused to calm its racing beat. Head cocked to one side, he tried to listen for the sound of Sister's voice once again. Body responding in a way he didn't understand at first, he leaned back up to his full height (favouring the left leg to compensate for the pain in his right), and tilted his head towards the sky. He let loose a series of loud cough-like-barks. Instinct said it was the noise meant to alert packmates to one's location, or to call them to you.

The new sound echoed into the silence that had fallen over the forest. The Indoraptor scanned the trees, never wanting so badly as to be back inside the familiar halls and rooms that he knew and understood. And then, he heard it: "JACK!"

It had worked. Quickly, he let loose the coughing-bark again, and ran towards where he heard her voice. He kept running, even when his leg screamed at him for relief, when he was more limping than galloping, he still ran.

And then he saw her. She noticed him and smiled. But when he did not slow down, she paled. As he passed her, he snapped his jaws onto the end of her coverings and pulled her along with him. He was too small, too weak, to carry her. Instead, he dragged her to where he wanted her to go. At first she fought him, but when she realised the fear in his eyes, she followed. He had not the words to tell her. They were too small, he wanted to say, the world was too big. The outside was full of things he didn't understand yet.

He dragged her back until they were back inside the house, back inside the dark, back to the world he could comprehend. Once in the safety of the shadows, he released her and went ahead on his own. Caring not for who saw him or what was to come next, he charged down the halls, following his nose until he found the familiar scent of his den. There, he squirmed his way inside his cramped and filthy cage. Only when he was pressed against the back, curled up and alone, did he finally allow himself to breathe and relax.

No. He was not ready for the world yet. The outside was too much for him to deal with. No, he told himself, as much as it hurt his pride, he needed to wait. With time, he would grow bigger, stronger, tougher. When that day arrived, he could break free and find himself a place of solitude and safety in the outside, and he would take Sister with him. But for now, he had to stay with the devils he knew. This would be his sanctuary, to grow and develop until the time was right. This human hive, this house, was his Kingdom now.