As he exited the shack, Tristan couldn't help but grimace when the light fell upon his eyes.

For the entire week since his return, Tristan had been unofficially banned from any keeper duties - Nigel wanted him to take a break and het his nerves in order before he got back to work. By no means did the cofounder of the park expect this to be enough time for all of Tristan's issues to be sorted out - whatever he had seen was not going to leave him. Even with professional help, there was a good chance this experience would affect him for the rest of his life. Getting help, though, was going to be a necessity. Nigel's plan was to gradually ease the boy into this - only once he wasn't feeling too strongly about his experiences would he make the request.

Besides, having him work with the animals would relax Tristan a bit, and make him less confrontational toward the subject.

That didn't mean the first task had to be too difficult, though. Thus, Tristan had been tasked with a rather simple task: helping return some of the escaped animals - not everyone had gone home after the battle with the predators. Many herbivores, in particular, had decided they liked certain plants that weren't in their exhibits. As such, Tristan and a few others had been tasked with helping return these animals to their homes, as well as documenting which plants they liked eating, so that the staff could modify the feeding schedules to ensure every creature was able to eat food it enjoyed.

Right now, he could already see five different herbivore species that were all milling about, enjoying their freedom. Most interested in the grazing were a group of Teleoceras, who had spread out on the open plains to feast upon the available grass. Many fed side by side with Cotylorhynchus, with the caseids focusing on bushes and shrubs to avoid unnecessary fighting with the rhinos. Browsing was divided between Hypacrosaurus and Moropus, with the chaolicotheres feeding on the shorter trees and the hadrosaurs feeding on the taller ones. The very highest browsing was only accessible by a quintet of Haplocanthosaurus, whose long necks afforded a greater reach than the rest of the herbivores. With food so plentiful, the leaf eaters were more than willing to share.

Immediately, Tristan noted that the hadrosaurs were primarily eating spruce, which were among the most common plants in this part of the park. The tundra regions provided the park with many cold weather plants and habitats, perfect for housing the denizens of the Arctic and Antarctic. There were even a few exhibits here for polar bears and penguins, since the future was looking extremely dicey for them.

The distant bellow of a deer turned Tristan's attention further north. There, a Megaloceros was rutting against the a nearby tree. The rescue of these ice age stags had interrupted their breeding cycles, and only recently had they gone into rut once more. Now, the antlered beasts were readying for a chance to compete for mates once more, and likely to fight any that got in their way.

With Tristan so entranced by the sight before him, he almost ended up missing the bear. It was only when the creature walked right in front of him that he realized it had been there at all. Yet this did not matter to the Arctodus - she merely trudged on, searching for food. That alone raised alarm bells in Tristan's mind - a short faced bear would only ignore prey for two reasons: either it could not catch these animals (or at least doubted it would be able to catch them), or there was food nearby. And if the bear was free, well, that was a problem in and of itself.

Thus, without hesitation, Tristan began to follow the bear, which was trudging its way up a small hill. At the summit, ravens were circling, having found whatever the bear was looking for.

When at last he reached the summit, Tristan saw what the bear wanted: resting on the hilltop was a pair of carcasses, one of which the bear immediately moved to devour. Tristan, however, could only stare on in surprise, for these carcasses were oddities for...well, many reasons. For one, these were clearly bovid carcasses - creatures that did not enjoy weather this could. Most would want a furrier breed than the one these creatures belonged to if they lived in a cold land.

The second oddity was that these creatures appeared to be water buffalo. Normally, this wouldn't be an oddity - though not used significantly in North America, water buffalo were numerous in South America, and the local tribe had purchased a herd several generations prior to add additional meat to their diets. None of the herd, however, had been reported as going missing.

The final oddity, however, was a smoking gun of sorts: based off appearances, these corpses belong to wild water buffalo. Such animals were extremely unlikely to be found in the park because wild water buffalo were an endangered species. The park had considered rescuing some or accepting a wild herd from conservationists to breed and create a safeguard against extinction, but so far, no offers had been made. So where did these ones come from? And how had they died?

Before Tristan could answer that question, a new predator appeared on the scene - a pack of dire wolves. The park's pack had been one of the creatures to break out, and now they were looking over the unoccupied carcass with glee. Oddly, though, when they saw a set of footprints in the mixture of mud and snow that topped this hill, they immediately got uncomfortable. At first, Tristan could not tell why, so he walked around to get a better look...and blanched in shock.

The footprints before him were very familiar: two toes on one set of limbs, three toes on another.

As the other keepers called to him in concern, Tristan fumbled for his radio - the rest of hte park needed to know about this.

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