Second Chapter - Tragedy
"This morning," a journalist said on Channel 4 news, "an incident struck the sinkhole vicinity as what appeared to be an Ankylosauria emerged and violently attacked the workers, soldiers, and police who were guarding the deadly entrance. A woman was believed to have been violently struck by the animal. Authorities have ramped up security measures, all houses near the sinkhole have been told to stay indoors and to not go out unless absolutely necessary. Paramedics arrived swiftly on the scene to tend to the woman who suffered severe injuries, fighting for her life."
I woke up and overheard the news channel talk about an Ankylosauria aggressively making its way outside of the lost world. How did that even happen? If it was the same Ankylosauria that was attacking Manny, Diego, Ellie, Crash and Eddie in Ice Age 3, surely the weight of the animal would have collapsed that bridge? evidently not.
I sat up and watched the television as the situation seemed to build up overnight about the sinkhole. A woman was actually injured by that Ankylosauria? that'd be a nightmare, but also incredibly painful. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever be able to anticipate such a life ending fate like that, and I genuinely pray that her family receive comfort and all the support in the world.
My mum took my 14 year old brother to his high school every morning, I'd always emerge from my slumber about five minutes after she left the house to do the school run, make my breakfast, then grab a shower. On my days off I'd just hang about within the realms of social media, but today, on this day off of mine, I'd like to go ahead and visit the sinkhole even though lockdown-like rules have been implemented upon our street.
Obviously I'm very sorry for the family who most likely lost their relative to the Ankylosauria and the incident made me conclude that the best way of approaching the sinkhole was to be respectful, obedient with the police, and aware of my own safety. Going into the dinosaur world was probably out of the question now.
A whole half hour later and I was set for the day. I was all showered up, I had shiny teeth from brushing them and I've styled my hair and now I'm ready. I wasn't too sure what to expect given the rules imposed upon my street, but I was determined to go out to see the sinkhole anyways. It at least got me out of the house early in the morning.
I barely stepped outside the house before I noticed something strange. Two police officers in their green jackets stood only about two meters outside the front door of the house. My mum's car wasn't on the driveway, to be expected, because she was at the school dropping my younger brother off.
"Hi mate, where're you going?" the officers asked me.
"I'm just going for a walk, for a bit of exercise, that's all," I replied, not knowing if it was a good idea to tell the police what I was actually planning.
"Just be careful, we'd advise you to stay indoors after last night especially. Stay clear of all the paramedics and all the tape, you'll be escorted depending on where you're off to," the officers replied.
"Okay. How mad is it to think there's actual dinosaurs below us right now?" I gently replied.
"Surreal isn't it? but like I say, there's been an incident and some of these roads are closed off. The area near the sinkhole is closed off to the public, so be aware."
At that moment the only reply would be a polite nod to acknowledge their reply, which I did.
What a surreal situation. For a moment my life felt like I was back in lockdown during Coronavirus!
Tons of police cars were parked all around my street, helicopters were roaring in the skies with their propellers and their flashing white lights weren't noticeable now because of the morning sky. Not a single 'normal' member of the public could be seen, it was stranded of ordinary folk except for emergency workers and police officers.
The sinkhole was actually in a nearby field just a couple of minutes down my street, it was a medium sized field. Sometimes school kids would use it to play games of football, but that clearly wasn't going to be the case now in light of the emergence of the sinkhole.
Suddenly my phone was buzzing with notifications. I raised it out of the pocket of my shorts and looked at the front screen.
Are you okay Nathan? call me if you need to talk xxx
And then there was another text:
I'm so sorry...we're all thinking about you at this time, let us know if you need anything bud.
And yet another message was received, consecutively after the first two.
Hi Nathan, we've just heard the news...we're really sorry and we're wishing our prayers and thoughts to your whole family. Take as much time off as you need xx
That last one came from my manager at work. What the hell was going on? all of these out of context text messages I was getting on my phone prompted me to make a quicker pace towards the field where all the police tape was...all the helicopters were flying over, where all the paramedics were intertwined in groups, and journalists cramped.
I reached the plains of the field, well, what used to be the plains of the field anyways. Every part of the grass was roamed upon by police, soldiers, journalists with their live cameras as well as paramedics with plenty of ambulances congregated on the pavements. I could hear vast collections of voices being mumbled in the air as the police tape was firmly put across the front of the open field from the police cars positioned to deliberately create the barrier.
The text messages were crawling in my head as I moved closer. I noticed as I got closer to the scene some of the cars were completely annihilated...stepped on almost, equivalent to the destruction an angry elephant would be capable of delivering. The dinosaur must have rampaged quite far out because some of the houses were half collapsed nearby too, the ones closest to the open plains of the field.
"EXCUSE ME, KEEP A STEP BACK!" an officer called to me as he noticed my presence.
He gently grabbed me by the shoulder and escorted me back. As I was being gently escorted well away from the gathering of hundreds of journalists and doctors and soldiers guarding the sinkhole, I tried my best to keep a look at what was in front of the congregated journalists and police tape ahead.
"I need to see that...can I see it?" I asked the officer, who was then swiftly guided by a soldier to escort me safely off the vicinity.
"Go back inside mate, this is a closed off area to the public and everyone has been instructed to stay inside unless absolutely required," the officer insisted.
I could overhear a name being banded around as I passed the journalists in my escorted state, being gently dragged away by both the soldier and officer by my shoulders.
"Melaine James," one journalist said in front of a camera, "is in a very critical state, the manner in which the dinosaur had trampled upon her in its rampage was so much so that paramedics aren't sure how much time she's got left."
Upon hearing that name, the realisation had hit me like a bomb.
"No, i NEED TO GET OVER THERE!" I frantically yelled to both the officer and soldier, who refused to let me go from their grip under my elbows and shoulder.
"Go back inside!" the officer once again instructed, aggressively handling me as I resisted his grip.
"WAIT NO, THAT'S MY MUM!" I yelled, to which the eyes of the journalists roamed over to me, and the soldier and officer just simply dropped their grip on me.
I rushed through the crowd of journalists and doctors, I swiftly ducked underneath the police tape and ducked down to all the paramedics who were tending to...not any woman, but my mum.
Upon the realisation of everyone that I was the son of the woman who had been dangerously attacked by that Ankylosauria, nobody had stopped me from running under the police tape and directly in front of the sinkhole where paramedics were tending to my mum on the ground. The police, soldiers, everyone, nobody stopped me. I dropped to my knees with a gasp and shine in my eyes as tears were starting to form.
My chest felt frozen like a ticking bomb, my heart practically stopped beating which caused a painful sensation as I looked at my mum in a critical state...paramedics all by her side trying to save her.
"W...what happened?!" I frantically asked, turning to the paramedics as they realized I was her son.
I remained knelt on the ground besides my mum and all the paramedics who were also knelt down.
"Ankylosauria came out of the sinkhole and went on a dangerous rampage - it got beyond the perimeters we've set up and she was in the way of it. It slammed its tail into the ground and went on the attack. We're monitoring her by the second," the paramedic leading the medical rescue replied.
My eyes widened and my mouth remained as open as a golf ball...no...there was just no way surely this was happening to me right now?
"M...mum?!" I stuttered, as my eyes continued to rise in shininess from the gradual buildup of tears.
I held my mum's hand as she remained unresponsive.
"Mum?!" I once again stuttered.
Suddenly my mum's eyes opened up and she could barely look around. She was unable to move her body but the sound of my voice must have made her subconciously awaken. At seeing her eyes meet mine the tears started falling down my cheeks.
"N...Nathan?" my mum gently whispered.
"I'm here mum..." I replied, holding her hand with both of mine.
"I..." my mum tried to say something but she wasn't able to finish it.
I held onto her hand...but as she drifted back off, the hand had collapsed out of mine and back onto her chest, completely motionless. She was gone.
"I'm so sorry..." one of the paramedics said, patting me on the back.
All of the journalists were pointing their cameras to me being knelt besides my mum as she didn't make it and her body gave out from the impact of the dinosaur.
My shoulders rapidly moved up and down as my crying intensified, my eyes becoming water balloons of tears as my mouth remained open. I was completely weightless due to the scale of emotions running rife in my body. My mum...was gone, just like that...I woke up this morning expecting to come here and visit the sinkhole...but all along the woman who suffered severe injuries from the emerging Ankylosauria was my mum. And now...I didn't have a mum anymore.
"Authorities weren't able to put down the dinosaur due to its dangerous behaviour and injuring of Melaine because it quickly returned into the sinkhole and down back into the world that's emerged from it," I overheard a journalist say to the camera.
At that, my crying face full of waterfalls of tears turned into gritted teeth...I didn't care anymore. I wanted to avenge my mum. What would my 14 year old brother do and feel about this after he finished school later today? that was my thought running rife - the news was going to devastate him as it did me.
But right now...the gritted teeth, the anger boiling up inside of me like a volcano had turned me from a crying young adult to a homicidal, revenge hungry individual who wanted to just run into the sinkhole, into the Dinosaur World, and kill absolutely anything I could see in there. Even if it meant my own death.
I stood back up, with a glared look at the sinkhole - the structure of which was a circle shape in the ground surrounded by dry earth before it descended downwards, with the perimeter slightly elevated in its terrain. It was about 10 meters in width and 10 meters in length, so it was an extremely big sinkhole.
I noticed that one of the officers left one of their batons on the ground. My gritted teeth, my tearful eyes and my lowered eyebrows in a state of glare looked upon the baton with great intent. I started sprinting, briefly leaning down to pick up the baton, before racing down towards the sinkhole, of which all the soldiers and police officers tried to stop me, and the cameras of all the journalists tried to catch it on television.
"GET BACK HERE! STOP!" the soldiers yelled as if they were conducting a bootcamp, chasing after me.
"BREAKING NEWS, AS OF THIS MOMENT THE SON OF THE INJURED MOTHER IS SPRINTING HIS WAY INTO THE CATASTROPHIC SINKHOLE!" one of the journalists quickly emitted to his live camera.
But I didn't stop. I sprinted and sprinted until I went into the sinkhole, through the darkness of it and down the earth covered passageway of the gigantic opening. I was hungry for revenge for my mum. I wanted to cause harm to all of the living things in the lost world...I didn't care.
I didn't care anymore that the lost world was actually real from Ice Age 3 - I didn't care anymore that I was about to enter the same world that Sid was abducted into in that film. I didn't even care that Buck was in there. I just wanted revenge through all forms possible.