Hey, readers! I just wanted to let you know that I'm sort of running dry on ideas for this fic right now, so if you have any ideas, please tell me!
Thank youz!
It all happened so fast.
The crashing of bushes first made Calvin glance up from feeding his fire, and his eyes widened as he saw a yellowish-green shape hurtling towards him. Time slowed down as his reflexes, honed by years of Hobbes pouncing on him, responded.
His heart pounded. His muscles tensed, and then he frantically threw himself to one side. Time sped up again and for a second, he thought that he was clear of the attacker's trajectory, before it brutally clipped his clavicle bone and knocked him onto the sand.
"Ungh!"
He landed on his back, bewildered, his head swimming. Out of the corner of his left eye, he saw the shape land, kicking up sand and sticks before turning on a dime to face him. And as he got a better look at the thing that had ambushed him, his blood froze.
Reptilian. Tail. Bipedal. Sharp teeth. Hunter. Frill. All of these things his mind picked up in an instant, and Calvin's breath hitched as he realized that he was looking at a dinosaur! A Dilophosaurus!
He froze, his mind short-circuited, and let out a small gasp as the creature extended its neck frill and prepared to spit a glob of acid at him. He could see the vile, green-black poison gather in the dilophosaur's throat, and a feeling of despair shivered through his already paralyzed body.
Then, suddenly, a growl rang through the air, and a familiar orange blur flew past his vision, smashing into the dilophosaurus and bringing them both down onto the ground. Shocked, he didn't even acknowledge the deadly spit that had barely missed him, and witnessed a showdown of primal carnage few had ever been privileged to see.
The orange and green bodies rolled across the sand, clawing, biting, kicking, and snapping furiously in an attempt to gain an advantage over the other. screeches and growls sounded from both of them, and suddenly, the orange feline form struck with snakelike speed, teeth crunching into the dilophosaur's neck.
The reptile let loose a horrible wailing screech, and redoubled its efforts to break free of the tiger's death grip, clawing and kicking with it's three-toed feet. But its attempts were in vain, and soon the large cat's one-thousand-and-fifty pounds per square inch bite force splintered the creature's spine into thousands of tiny shards. Uttering one last pitiful gurgle, the dilophosaurus passed away, and it became still.
For a while, neither Calvin nor Hobbes spoke a single word, both struggling to relax their breath and uncoil their muscles.
A strange feeling of pure bliss suddenly washed over Calvin, and his breathing finally relaxed, becoming as deep as the sparkling blue sea in front of him. His ears picked up the distinct sounds of seagulls crying out in the distance, and the cool, calming sounds of the beach seemed to connect with his soul, putting it- and him- at complete ease.
Somehow, he felt more alive than he had in years.
Looking over at Hobbes, he saw that the tiger had yet to fully catch his breath, but didn't care. He ran over, and wrapped his arms around his best friend. After a few seconds, Hobbes smiled and returned the favor, hugging him with tears of relief in his eyes. For a long while, the two friends embraced.
After a few more minutes, they let go of each other, and both of them could already see the other's questions forming in his mind.
Anxious to break the silence, Calvin pointed towards his dwindling campfire and asked, "Do you wanna talk over there?"
Hobbes' first question was, "Why are you wearing underwear?"
"Wow, Hobbes. What a great starter question. We just barely survived an encounter with a Dilophosaurus, have no idea where we are, how we got here, or who or what brought us here, and you ask why I'm dressed in nothing but undergarments," Calvin deadpanned, miffed.
The tiger snickered, despite the current situation.
"As for your question," the boy continued with annoyance, "I don't know why I am wearing underwear. In fact, I don't know where we are."
"Oh," Hobbes mumbled his face downcast. "I was hoping that you knew."
"Well, I don't. In fact, I hoped you knew." he said, and sighed. "Hey, toss some branches on that fire, will ya? That fire's like you alone in the grocery store in the seafood section."
"I, uhh..." Hobbes stopped, deciding how to say it. "I... can't."
"What? Why not?" Calvin asked, puzzled.
"Well, you see… I… uh, I lost my opposable thumbs. I can't grab anything."
Calvin didn't say anything for a little while, confused.
"Show me your paws," he finally told the tiger, who obliged, and extended them for Calvin to see. He grabbed one of the paws, and examined it closely.
"That's weird," he muttered, and sat back down. Noticing the the fire was still dwindling he tossed a couple of branches and sticks on and smiled as the flames rose again. looking at Hobbes, he asked, "Is there anything else that you can't do anymore?"
"I also can't stand up on my hind legs anymore," Hobbes revealed. "I tried, but I just fell over!"
"Hmm... well, at least you can still talk!" Calvin pointed out. "That's good!"
Hobbes sullenly nodded, and suddenly noticed that a strange, green glow was emanating from Calvin's wrist.
What is that?
"What…what is that thing in your wrist?" he asked. Calvin looked at his wrist, looked at him, and said, "Quite frankly, I have no idea... when I try to pry it off, it just shocks me with this green electricity, so I can't take it off at all."
Still fiddling with it, he started tapping it, and apparently, that action was the implant's, "Open sesame," because it activated, suddenly displaying a variety of things on a blue hologram that expanded from it's diamond-shaped center. The sudden activation spooked both Calvin and Hobbes, causing Hobbes to jump back in fright and Calvin to shake his wrist furiously. The holograms stayed, moving along with his arm movements .
"What was that?" Hobbes wondered aloud, and Calvin just looked at it. A simple stare of unknowing at first, but then it became a close scrutinizing scan as Calvin's eyes probed every square centimeter of the screen. After a while, he put a hand to his chin and said, "Okay. I think I have a theory."
"Go ahead," Hobbes nodded, all ears.
"So," he began, "do you see this side of the hologram, right here?" he asked, pointing to the left side. Hobbes crept closer to look at it, analyzing what seemed to be different grids with different objects and tools in them, and said, "Uh, huh."
Calvin nodded and said, "So here, I think is some sort of instruction guide to making stuff like tools, weapons, storage, and building parts. See? If I tap on this spear right here, it should display instructions on what I need to make one." To emphasize his point, Calvin tapped on the grid with the spear icon, and a detailed set of instructions popped up as he had predicted.
"Whoa," was all Hobbes could say. After a few more seconds, he asked, "So what's with the middle portion of the screen?"
Calvin went into further explanation. "I was getting to that. The-"
'-If you were getting to it, then why did you wait until I asked the question?" Hobbes queried.
"I did it for emphasis, stripey butt," he growled, his face the definition of annoyance.
"Anyway," he continued, "the middle side of the screen has all these bars here, see?" Calvin asked.
"Yes," Hobbes replied, looking at the bars with intense curiosity.
"Okay," Calvin said, "so what I believe this is is a display of my body and its limits. See, look at some of these bars." Hobbes did as Calvin said, studying them. The bars were labeled with things such as stamina, weight, and torpor.
"Wow," he breathed. "So this part acts like a monitor on your body?"
"Yeah, like that," Calvin nodded. So I could run around for a while, and when I check my stamina bar, it will have gone down!"
Oh, great tuna monsoons, Hobbes thought. I am so jealous.
Then, another question passed through his head, but before Hobbes could ask it, Calvin beat him to the punch. "So I think that you unlock more advanced instructions with more and more experience you gain, which is why this bar up here-" he pointed to it- "-is labeled, 'Xp.'"
"So, the more experience that you gain, the more instructions you can unlock," Hobbes said. "So, what would this thing consider as 'Gaining Xp?' And furthermore, how does it know when you do? Is this, like, some Alien device?"
"The answer to all three of those question is, 'I don't know,'" Calvin shrugged. "But I think that this thing is glowing because I can now unlock something new."
"Because you just went through the experience of surviving a Dilophosaur attack!" Hobbes realized. "That must be a way to... level up? That sounds too much like a video game to me."
"Agreed," Calvin nodded. "Let's call it something else... thanks for saving me, by the way."
"Of course," Hobbes grinned, proud of himself. "So what is the screen on the right for?"
"It's a sort of storage system, I think," Calvin said. "See, I'll show you. C'mere!" He motioned for Hobbes to come over to where he now was. Hobbes, curious, padded over to the boy, and sat down opposite of him.
"Okay, Hobbes," he muttered. "Watch… this!" He thrust out his hand out at a small rock, laying on the shore.
Nothing happened.
Hobbes looked up at Calvin, who's grin slowly disappeared. He tried again, bringing his hand closer to the rock this time. Again, nothing happened.
"Calvin," Hobbes started to say. "Maybe this is just a-"
"-Just be patient, Hobbes!" Calvin frustratedly interrupted. "I can do this."
Frowning, he tried for the third time, and this time, focused all of his energy on his wrist. Suddenly, the object in his wrist lit up, and the rock disappeared in a blue, holographic flash.
"Yes!" he shouted. "I did it! Hahaha!"
"Wait, Calvin," Hobbes stopped him. "Is the rock in your inventory?"
Calvin stopped, and walked back while opening his holographic screen. When he got to Hobbes, he practically shoved the screen in the tiger's face.
Hobbes looked at the inventory, searching for the rock, and sighed in defeat when it appeared in one of the square boxes. He looked up from the screen at Calvin, who had a wide, 'deal with it' grin on his face.
"Alright, you were correct in your theory," Hobbes admitted, raising up his paws and rolling his eyes. "I concede."
Calvin, still grinning, sat back down on the sand and turned off the device. The sun was now starting to reach the horizon, and in another hour or so it would be dark. A couple of minutes of silence passed between the two as they relaxed, with only the crackling of the fire and the sound of the waves apparent to either of them as they digested the information that they had discovered.
Finally, Calvin broke the silence, asking, "So, what now?"
"Well, I'd like to go to sleep-"
"-No surprises there-"
"-but I think that we should get rid of that carcass before something bigger smells it," he finished.
They both looked over at the Dilophosaurus, who was already attracting a dozen flies, circling around the body like miniature vultures.
"Agreed," Calvin nodded. "Don't want a Tyrannosaurus to swallow us as we're asleep."
"What about you?" Hobbes asked.
"...I don't feel like going to sleep yet," Calvin told him. "I'm gonna see what I can craft from the implant instructions. Plus, I can stand guard for any more of those Dilophosaurs."
"Sounds like a plan," Hobbes smiled. "Here, let get the Dilophosaur down to the beach."
Calvin nodded, and then, almost as an afterthought, asked, "What's our goal?"
"Pardon?" the tiger asked, having already started to walk over to the dinosaur.
"What's our goal? I mean, what are we trying to do right now, besides sleep?" Calvin elaborated.
"I'd say… that our current goal is to just... survive."
:D