Pain. Confusion. Rage.
Naruto's eyes shot open, bloodshot and trembling as primal anger coursed through his veins. His body shot up, eliciting a few surprised yelps around and behind him. His body whirling around with a few sickening cracks, he stared at the single most dangerous person in the group.
"W-Wait! I can explain!" Sammy stammered, her heart beating faster than a hummingbird's.
"Explain what? That you destroyed our only way to get help and lied about it?" Brooklynn snapped. If she was disturbed and terrified at how Naruto was wordlessly walking up to Sammy with blood running down his temple, she didn't say it, her own fury overriding any sense of self preservation.
"You. Mantah Corp. With them."
Naruto's hisses sounded eerily prehistoric, his eyes belonging to a wounded, but angry beast that wanted nothing but blood. His trembling fingers slowly took out his knife, making Sammy whimper as she tried to merge into the damaged car behind her.
"Woah woah woah, I get that she's a corporate spy, but there's no need to ki-"
"YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEM!" he roared as he unfurled his knife, the steel metal gleaming dangerously in the afternoon sun.
"Easy, Naruto." Jessica stepped in front of the blond, who just stared down at the young woman who kept her eyes shakingly onto his. "You're angry and you're in a shit ton of pain, but this isn't who you are. Just…give it a minute, please?"
His teeth ground together hard enough to crack against each other - the sound like claws on chalkboard, but he finally fell onto his knees, exhaustion finally taking over.
"...Okayyy…" Kenji let out an audible gulp. "So does anyone wanna explain his hate-boner for Mantah Corp?"
"...Before Jurassic World opened," Jessica suddenly began, glancing at the fallen blond, "there was…an attack. Have any of you guys heard of it?"
They all nodded grimly at this, and Darius's eyes widened.
"Wait, so Mantah Corp did hire those mercenaries?" he realized.
"Yeah, but they could never prove it, since all the said mercenaries died after a few of the dinosaurs got loose in the process and they lawyered-up real good so the case basically died on arrival. A lot of good people died during the attack, including his parents, leaving Masrani and Dr. Wu to look after him. At this point, those two, Dave, Roxie, and the dinosaurs are the only things he trusts or counts on."
Everyone then looked back at the broken blond on the ground, who, for the first time since they first met him, looked so…weak. Gone was the cheerful hunk of a blond that just wanted to make some friends, replaced by a young man who had suffered far more than what his smile suggested.
"I-I…" Sammy herself was tearing up, her knees giving out as the weight of her crimes suddenly felt a lot heavier. "I'm so sorry…"
"..." Naruto said nothing as he slowly stood up. Sammy made a half-hearted effort to try to move away, but for whatever reason, she stopped. She closed her eyes, accepting her fate as the young man slowly staggered over to him.
Breathing heavily, Naruto's bloodshot eyes looked down at the young farmer girl. He paused as he saw her trembling form. He could smell something off of her. Tears. Mucus. And…blood. Blood slowly pooling from her lips as her teeth sank down onto it.
Naruto said nothing as he raised his knife.
"Naruto-!"
SCHINK!
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...?"
Sammy slowly opened her eyes to see that Naruto was walking away. Her eyes slowly going up, she saw his knife planted just above her and into the car.
"Oh fuck me…" Sammy breathed as she fell onto her rear. Kenji ran up to her as the rest of the gang either joined him, shuffled awkwardly in place, or went after Naruto.
…
"Dude, should you even be walking right now?" Kenji finally asked Naruto. After the rather heartstopping confrontation, and Jess with Yaz's help giving Naruto some first aid by removing several shards of the van's windshield that were lodged in him, they had resumed walking to their destination, seeing as how their van was too broken to be usable. It looked fixable enough, but they didn't have the time, nor equipment to attempt to do so, so they had to resume their journey on foot. "I mean, I'm no doctor but I'm pretty sure you just had a concussion."
"He did, and not to mention the several puncture wounds from the glass," Jessica confirmed with a grim nod.
"I heal quickly," Naruto said slowly. "Besides, no choice."
No one else spoke a word after that. What else was there to say? Everything that was to be said was said, and it left everyone in a rather bitter and somber mood. Brooklynn was back in the spotlight for snooping around in Dr. Wu's office (reopening old wounds regarding trust for their leader), Sammy was evidently guilty of stealing and accidentally destroying the pinkette's phone (their only reliable way of communication) as well as spying for Mantah Corp (the company responsible for Naruto's parents being mercilessly slaughtered, and to top it all off, Sammy actually had a semi-decent reason for being the spy. As it would turn out, her parents owed a lot of money and Sammy took the initiative to try to save her family from the shady loan sharks.
Arguably, that last part was the reason why she was still breathing, since the subject of parents and family was the blond's soft spot.
Naruto grunted as he stumbled on his feet, falling onto his hands and knees.
"Woah, you okay-?"
"Everyone, shut it."
Everyone froze at this. The blond Uzumaki didn't move from his spot as he moved his head around.
"...GET TO THE SIDE!" he suddenly yelled, and bolted to the left. Before anyone could ask why, loud, thunderous footsteps shook the earth, and they turned back to see the Indominus Rex roaring at them.
"Oh my god!" Ben screamed as he dove for the bushes, with Bumpy and the others following suit. They shut their eyes, waiting for the rows of sharp teeth to close down onto their fragile bodies.
But it never came.
*POWPOWPOWPOWPOW!*
It was then that they realized something even louder behind the Indominus. Turning to look, they gazed in wonder as a blue helicopter kept in pursuit of the hybrid predator, firing at the dinosaur with a hastily mounted minigun manned by a security officer in an effort to put it down.
"Masrani's helicopter!" Kenji nearly laughed in joy. "That's his call sign on the tail!"
Naruto gazed up, and light seemed to return to his eyes as he realized that he was right. However his hope turned to terror when he realized in just what direction the hybrid was heading.
"No, not that way!" he yelled pointlessly as the group suddenly heard a loud crash.
"What was that?" Brooklynn asked, wondering what the crash was.
"Yeah! Kick its butt Masrani! We're saved, yeah baby!" Kenji cheers as the group continues to watch the helicopter hovering in the air near a very large dome shaped building. Their excitement quickly turned into horror as something began flying out of the large domed building which was soon followed by many more somethings flying out as well. The flying dinosaurs quickly began assaulting the helicopter, and they watched helplessly as the chopper began to smoke, spiraling downwards into the dome with a-
*BOOM!*
"NO!" Naruto screamed as he reached out, watching Masrani's helicopter along with its pilot meet their doom. He immediately began running towards the pteranodon pen-
"NO!" It was Jessica who stopped him, embracing him from a backward hug.
"Let go!" he yelled as he tried to free himself from her grasp, but she used all the strength she had to hold him down.
"He's gone, Naruto!" Yasmina added, joining Jessica in trying to stop him from running towards the pteranodon dome. "There's nothing we can do!"
Naruto said nothing, but he stopped trying to run towards his godfather's grave.
"Guys…We need to go NOW!" Darius yells as they witness the swarm of Pteranodons flying their way. "We need to take cover, we are sitting ducks out here!" he added urgently as the swarm grew dangerously closer to their direction.
"The Kayak River!" Kenji gasped, seizing the tablet from Brooklynns hands. "The entrance is near here. It goes underground, beneath the ridge. If we follow it, it'll take us right to the main park."
"Then that's where we need to be. Come on!"
Everyone began running towards their new direction. Everyone but Naruto, who just stared at the smoking dome.
"Naruto!"
It was Yasmina, who went back for him.
"Come on, we need to go!"
He said nothing, staring off into the distance where his godfather met his untimely death.
"Please!" she tugged on his hand harder. "Your godfather wouldn't want you to die like this!"
This seemed to snap him out of it as he turned to look at her. For a moment, she wondered if he was going to strike her for mentioning Masrani, but he slowly nodded, and joined her.
…
The group ran as fast as they could, all the while keeping their eyes in the sky. A few of the pteranodons had spotted them, and decided to try their best to capture their new snack, diving down to try and catch them with their clawed feet or stab them with their long sharp beaks. Luckily however, all the attacks missed mainly due to the campers dodging just in time.
They had a few close calls, especially since Bumpy was stubbornly refusing to run with them, so Darius and Ben had to carry him for a while until Naruto took over.
"Made it!" Ben yelped as he all but dove through the doorway.
*SCREEECH!*
Just before Yasmina could close the door shut, one pteranodon barreled through. The group yelled as the large, flying dinosaur quickly recovered from the crash landing, and hissed at them. It spread its large wings into the air, and dove at them, its spear-like beak aimed at their flesh-
*SCLNK!*
The bird-like creature screeched as Naruto tackled it midfight. It bled profusely as his knife penetrated its slender body.
"Die."
He slammed his knife into its body, making it squeal again.
"Die."
It fluttered its large wings helplessly, and his assaults just grew more manic.
"DIE!" he yelled furiously, slashing his knife down on the mortally wounded flying reptile's neck with such force that he severed the creature's head from its body in a shower of blood. The pteranodon gave out one last gasping gurgling sound from its severed head as it died while its body continued to twitch and spasm for several seconds as it leaked blood everywhere.
Naruto's slashes and stabs finally stopped, his breathing ragged and heavy. His teeth clenched together so hard that they could've sworn they heard them crack.
"Dude…overkill much?" Kenji bravely said at last.
"I just watched my godfather die, piss off," Naruto spat, before turning back to his kill. Adjusting his knife, he quickly skinned and tore apart the dinosaur. Ignoring the group's groans and protests of disgust, he collected his meat, and then after removing the flying reptile's lower jaw, he gave the rest of the head a brutal stomp, crushing its skull and brain matter like stepping on a ketchup packet.
He reached for his spear, before he remembered that it was now a nasty splinter for the Indominus.
"Anyone got their spears?" he sighed. They all looked around, and they realized that they left it back in the van. "...goddammit. Really hope this doesn't come to bite us in the ass, though since the kayak river is a straight shot to the main park, we should be fine." Naruto sighed.
Pulling out some of the fresh pteranodon meat, he held some out towards the group. "Want some?" he offered, making them shake their heads. "Fine, suit yourself."
He said nothing as he gnawed on his meal, walking away from the group. The gang looked at Naruto, then the remains of the pteranodon, and then back at Naruto, before they resumed walking.
…
They made it to the kayaks in silence, not wanting to speak to one another, much less Naruto especially after what they had just witnessed him do, though, given what he just saw, they couldn't really blame him.
They made it to the boats in silence, the atmosphere making it feel like a funeral procession. Nobody wanted to say a word, their eyes darting from him to his new, bloody trophy. Thankfully, the silence was over, as they had just entered the water ride.
As instructed by the overhead speakers of the kayak ride, they had to go in pairs of two for each of the boats. Everyone admittedly rushed to choose anyone but Naruto, who was covered in blood and grease of the pteranodon meat.
Darius offered a match of rock-paper-scissors on who would have to sit next to the blond, but they already rushed for their boats, and he quickly abandoned that idea as well.
In the end, Jess was the one that sat with Naruto. She gulped, her eyes darting everywhere but his own as they made their way down the river.
…
Kenji was the first one to start talking again.
He began ranting something about how he was going to sue the park, before giving 50% of the lawsuit money to them as compensation for the shitty experience. He also dubbed his and Sammy's kayak "the Cool Kids Kayak", or the "CKK" for short, making Darius snort loudly at this.
"Hey, the cave's getting bigger," Brooklynn pointed out. "And…brighter?"
Indeed it was. The group found themselves kayaking closer to the tunnel's exit, which was glowing a beautiful blend of blue, pink, and green.
A gentle waterfall flowed to their left, which glowed white from the bioluminescent light that rained down from above and all sides. The rocks were peppered with glowing, pink rocks that perfectly mimicked a Japanese garden of sakura flowers.
Even Sammy, who was as silent as a grave from the weight of her crimes, couldn't help but marvel at the mystical beauty of the river.
"Even with all the glowy stuff here, it's still pretty dark in here," Kenji noted. Sammy nervously pointed to his face, and it took him a moment to realize that he had put his sunglasses back on.
"I could have used my phone as a flashlight if Sammy hadn't broken it," Brooklynn spat. "Of course, if we had my phone, we wouldn't be here at all."
"Hey, easy, Superstar," Kenji protested upon seeing Sammy shrink visibly in front of him.
"What? Taking her side all of a sudden?" the pink-haired girl glared daggers at him. "Did she bribe you with that nasty body of hers-"
"Hey, enough!" Kenji snapped. "Look, I get it. She messed up. I'm not denying that. But like what blondie over there said, nothing's going to change that, so can we forget about it for a second and just enjoy the fact that we're all alive together?!"
The cave grew silent as all eyes fell on Kenji. As he calmed his breath, he looked around at his group, before he jerked his head away, suddenly growing interested in the magical scenery.
"Besides, getting mad isn't helping anything. It just makes more people mad, you know?" Keni says before once more turning his attention forward.
Brooklynn's scowl didn't fade as her glare lowered onto the gentle water below them.
"Look, just…put yourself in her shoes for a second. Can you think of anything else you could say that'll make her feel any worse than she already does?" Darius asked from behind her.
Brooklynn didn't look up, but Darius saw her frown lessening just a bit as she took his surprising words of wisdom into thought.
"...You wanna know the funniest part about all of this?"
Everyone slowly looked up at Sammy.
"I'm the only one to blame here."
"What do you mean?" Kenji raised an eyebrow. "Didn't your family send you here?"
"They thought about it, sure, but in the end, they didn't want me to go. They'd rather that we go out of business than work with those goons. I was the one that took the job. I mean, I couldn't just let years of my family's hard work go down the gutter just like that when it looked like there was a way out, you know. Heck, they didn't even know what I had done until I was already on the boat to the island." Sammy confessed.
Her knuckles turned bone-white as her fingers curled around her oar.
"A fat good it did, huh? I shook hands with the Devil, and all I got to show for it was putting my friends in danger," the cowgirl said miserably.
"That's not fair, Sammy. There is no way you could have known the Indominus would break out and everything would go to hell. Besides, like you said, the phone broke when we fell from the zipline, so it was an accident!" Kenji says trying to comfort the texan.
"Maybe, but I still spied and stole the phone." The two of them fell back into silence, leaving Kenji speechless as he didn't know how to help her out of her funk.
Before he could think of anything else, Yasmina's voice cut through the silence.
"Ben! Would you please put down that overgrown turtle and paddle?!"
"I think Bumpy's seasick," Ben replied as he stroked his friend's back.
"And I think you need to paddle!"
"Oh no. I think we need to prepare for dino-vomit!" Ben started scooching as far as he could.
"Hey guys, heads up!" Jessica suddenly pointed forward. They all looked to see something large moving leisurely on the riversides.
"Are those-"
"Parasaurolophus," Jessica nodded. "Genetically bioengineered by Dr. Wu to glow like the algae they eat."
"Wicked~" Darius breathed, reaching his arm out to try to touch one closeby.
"Careful. While they are herbivores, they do sometimes bite just to mess with you. I've seen it happen before." Darius quickly retracted his hand, much to Jessica's amusement.
The magical moment was spoiled by Bumpy's squealing and her two companions' argument. As Ben tried to calm his friend down, Bumpy nearly fell out of the boat trying to squeal at the Parasaurs. The two herbivores looked at one another, before they suddenly entered the water, their glowing, cranial crests nearly breaching the water surface like shark fins.
The group let out a collective yelp as they popped their heads out of the water, splashing them a little. Kenji wound up whacking one lightly in the snout with his paddle, much to its annoyance. This resulted in the large herbivores becoming agitated and bumping into the kayaks for several moments, nearly causing the campers to be knocked out of them. However the Parasaurolphus suddenly stopped and looked further down the cave for a moment before letting out a loud bellow and heading back the way the campers came from.
"That was-"
"-intense," Jessica breathed, before she let out a weak chuckle.
"Hey, you guys still there?" Kenji shouted. They looked around, and noticed how much harder it got to see each other all of a sudden.
"Yeah, here!" Ben squeaked from somewhere in the darkness. Using the sound of their kayaks splashing noisily, it didn't take them long to figure out where each of them were. The little encounter with the Parasaurolophus didn't send them that far from each other, and besides, the river wasn't that wide.
"Um, Kenji?" Sammy asked nervously. "If we stopped paddling, why are we still moving forward?"
"...paddle." Everyone blinked as they realized that their blond friend had suddenly spoken after so long.
"What was that?" Jessica asked.
"Fucking paddle, everyone! Paddle in the other direction!"
The group finally realized where their current was taking them. A large, ominous ring of light laid there at one of the exits, with water falling down god-knows-where. Letting out a small scream, they quickly began to paddle for their lives as they desperately tried to move back to the right.
Naruto gritted his teeth as his muscles burned, trying to steer his boat away from the powerful current. It was slow, but it was beginning to show promise as his boat was slowly returning back to the original point of exit.
"Wait!" Jessica stopped him. "The others!"
He paused as he finally remembered the others. He turned to look, and his heart sank as he saw the first boat fall into the dark abyss.
"...You sure?" he asked her, wanting it to be her choice and not force her into going down the tunnel. If she chose to break off from the others he would make sure she was safe before jumping into the water after the main group given how they were the ones in potential danger as who knows where that tube would lead them whereas Jess would end up right near main street if she went down the right way. She bit her lip, but nodded, her ponytail dancing in the dark. He's seen this look before. She once gave Dr. Wu the same answer when someone had to transport a critically-wounded Triceratops infant to the medbay while the others had to distract the adults. She was the one that volunteered to distract the adults while he pulled the infant to safety. The experience left her rattled, since she nearly got impaled by their deadly horns, but she came out alright.
"...Okay then, here we go." He loosened his arms, and allowed the current to drag them back to the unnatural waterfall. Taking a deep breath, he tried hard to not look at the black hole as it pulled them into its mouth. Their fall was swift, and he heard screaming.
Dave and Roxie were cursing up a storm. They didn't know how or when, but to make a long story short, there were multiple containment breaches, and casualties have already been reported. Word of mass evacuation was already spreading like wildfire, but for them, they only had one thing in mind.
"We need to gather the children!" Roxie said. "Can you please lend us a vehicle?"
"Sorry, ma'am, but our priority is evacuation and containment. They'll have to wait in the camp until further instructions." a park worker said before he walked off to attend to something else in the chaotic situation
But they knew better. Merely minutes after that disappointing answer, their radio crackled, and, much to their horror, the campers were forced to run after the Indominus destroyed their camp. Last they heard from them, they were on their way to the main park before something cut them off.
They didn't hear from them again afterwards, and that's when desperation settled in.
"Dammit, David what are we going to do? The kids need us," Roxie growled in frustration.
"I honestly don't know, Rox. This is so out of our paygrade," Dave said somberly. He had run out of energy and the will to try to keep his energetic, upbeat self, the situation draining him of everything he had.
"Roxie, David? What are you two doing here?" They both spun around to see Dr. Alison Miles, Dr. Wu's assistant and a close friend to the two counselors, who stood there looking quite frazzled.
"We need a vehicle to pick up the children, but no one's letting us use their trucks, and ours is still undergoing repairs!" Dave said all in one breathe.
"Oh. Then let's take mine." Dr. Alison pulled out her keys with a smile.
"A-Are you serious?" Roxie breathed.
"C'mon, no time to waste. Let's go!"
Shaking their heads, they quickly followed Dr. Alison to the garage.
"Why are you helping us?" Roxie asked. "Aren't you breaking several protocols?"
"Unlike the others, I know just how fast and viscous the Indominus is. Not to mention how much it hates Naruto in particular," the doctor replied. "That, and if Dr. Wu found out that I sat around with my thumb up my ass while his grand-nephew was running for his life, he'd definitely fire me at best." She shuddered upon thinking of what else he would do to her if she was indirectly responsible for his death.
The trio made their way down to the garage. Alison took her key out, but then ducked in a hurry. As the other two quickly followed suit, a couple of guards had burst into the area.
"Crap! What the hell is security doing down here with everything that's going on?" Roxie hissed, seeing them blocking the garage exit.
"Stopping people from doing exactly what we are trying to do?" Dave says with a shrug.
Alison bit her lip, chewing on it as she frantically thought of a way to get them to leave. Her eyes lit up, then closed, and she took a deep breath.
"Here." Roxie blinked as Alison shoved something into her hand. "Bye."
Before they could utter a single word, she took off.
"Hey! You two!"
The guards ran up to her. Whether they were going to apprehend her or whether they were there to take orders, they didn't know.
"Allie, you genius," Roxie sighed as she opened her hands, revealing a key. Wasting no more time, she opened the truck, silently got into it with Dave getting in the passenger side, and ignited the engine just as the guards and Dr. Alison left the building.
Naruto might've let out a yelp as they were hit by a burst of light. The kayak lurched uncontrollably, and if not for his iron-grip, he would've lost his paddle somewhere in the darkness and the water.
He cursed under his breath as his eyes adjusted to the blinding light. Blinking spots out of his eyes, he cursed again as he quickly realized just where they landed.
"You've got to be fucking with me."
"You said it," Jessica hissed, her teeth chattering. "We're in the goddamn Mosasaur pen."
Everyone quickly stiffened up as something large moved underneath the water, making their tiny boats rock a little as it passed underneath them.
"I assume the Mosasaurus is some kind of giant fish dinosaur that's going to try to eat us?" Ben whimpered.
"Right on," Jessica confirmed. She let out a strangled yelp as they heard something splash.
"Naruto?"
"Paddle slowly, but steadily. Do not try to splash or move too quickly, otherwise we'll definitely be dead," he spoke as quietly as he could. "Make sure to split up too. Schooling won't work on her, since she can easily gulp all of us at once if she tries."
"W-Wait!" Ben yelled/whispered, but the others quickly began paddling as fast as they could without splashing up a storm.
"Paddle, Ben, or die like sitting ducks!" Yasmina hissed, and he quickly complied, whimpering like an infant dinosaur with each stroke.
Just then, the water quivered, before a muffled bellow shook the giant pool.
"It's after us! Paddle faster!" Naruto yelled.
The group let out a scream as they didn't hesitate to go as fast as they could. Their arms burned as they used their paddles to dig through the water while praying that the leviathan below was far enough from them.
"This is not how Kenji wanted to go out!" Kenji cried out as he paddled for his life.
"This isn't on my to-do list either!" Yasmina screamed back. She promised herself that if they ever made it out of here alive, she'll either never go kayaking again or will double her training.
"I'm so sorry."
Yasmina turned her head to briefly look at Sammy, who seemed to be muttering something under her breath as she paddled for her life alongside Kenji. From what little she could hear, she appeared to be muttering a prayer. As if God could save them now.
"C'mon! We need to go faster!"
Yasmina turned her head again, and her heart sank as she saw just how far behind Brooklynn and Darius were. Suddenly, she remembered a dark joke she overheard from her classmates about what to do if being chased by a shark. The "correct" answer was that you didn't need to outswim the shark - you just needed to be faster than the guy behind you.
She always found that joke to be rather distasteful, and it certainly wasn't helping now. Two of the three least athletic of them all were on the same boat, which only made sense to why they were lagging behind.
Her heart raced as her mind froze. A part of her wanted to just look forward and keep going; to block out their screams and pleas for help as they were dragged under, the boatandtheirbonescrunchingundertheleviathan'steethasitgulpedthemdown-*
"No." Yasmina whispered to herself, shaking those thoughts from her mind.
Without warning, she lifted her paddle from her side and sank it into her left, resuming her paddling. Their boat began moving to the right, something Ben quickly noticed.
"W-What are you doing?!" Ben shrieked.
"Whatever you do, don't stop paddling!" she told him, and before he could ask, she leapt off the boat, climbing onto the nearest support beam.
Quickly planting herself into position, her eyes widened as the titanic creature began breaching the surface, its large, scaly back cutting through the top of the simulated ocean.
And it was getting close to Brooklynn and Darius! she nearly screamed.
*CLANG!* *CLANG!* *CLANG!*
"HEY!" Yasmina screamed as she pounded her paddle into the metal beam. "HEY! OVER HERE!"
Her heart sank as the aquatic horror kept barreling towards her friends. No, no, no, no!
"HEY! I'M OVER HERE!" she screamed again, hitting the pillar harder and faster.
The massive torpedo sped towards the rowboat. Just as Yasmina was about to let out a cry of despair, the gargantuan beast stopped, its massive jaws just meters away from its meal. It stood still in the water for a moment, before it turned around.
Yasmina let out a sigh of relief as her plan worked. Brooklynn and Darius were safe!
"Yes! Here!" Yasmina nearly laughed as she continued banging onto the pillar. It wasn't until the prehistoric leviathan was halfway towards her that she realized something.
"...Fuck, I really didn't think this through," she paled as the titanic beast was heading towards her.
"GRAB THE CHAIN!" a loud voice cried out.
Yasmina whipped her head around and finally noticed the feeding chain for the Mosasaur being lifted up. Without hesitation, she discarded the paddle before leaping onto the hook, which had just risen out of the water. Holding onto dear life, she let out a loud grunt as she struggled to shimmy up the metal cable.
Twice, she thought she would slip, the seawater and the sweat on her palms threatening to slide her straight into the watery grave, but she somehow found the strength to defy physics as she continued to hug onto her literal lifeline.
Too slow. The damn thing was just too fucking slow!
"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!" Yasmina muttered/screamed as she tried to rock the feeding mechanism, glancing down at the water she saw the massive shadow of the mosasaur getting closer and closer to her before it suddenly dived down.
Shit, shit, shit, shit! She nearly screamed out loud as she saw the creature's shrinking silhouette quickly return to its gargantuan size. Using every ounce of core strength she had left in her tank, she tucked her legs into her chest as she desperately tried to climb even higher.
*CRASH!*
*ROOOOOAAAR!*
An earth-shattering roar that nearly stopped her heart erupted from below in an explosion of water, a large pair of teeth and muscle sprouting from the watery grave. Yasmina screamed as she saw it growing closer, its foul breath already reaching her nose.
This is it! She thought in despair. I'm sorry, everyone!
She shut her eyes as half of her body made it past its mighty jaws.
*SNAP!*
Yasmina let out a scream- which abruptly stopped. For a split second, everyone shut their eyes tightly as they assumed the worst. But then the metallic *TWANG!* opened their eyes, and they realized that the Mosasaurus had missed! Its mighty jaws missed Yasmina by an inch, instead holding onto the metal cable.
Unfortunately, their moment of relief was short lived, as apparently it wasn't strong enough to stay stiff and holding under the weight of the dinosaur's hunger. The metal cables snapped, and Yasmina let out yet another yell as she went swinging towards the group.
Her area of safety quickly closing in, she wasted no time letting go, not wanting to be brought back to the aquatic hell.
"I got you!" Naruto shouted as he dashed towards her growing shadow.
*SLAM!* *CRUNCH!*
"AAAH!" the two of them cried out. The blonde had successfully caught the girl, but for all of his unnatural strength, even he wasn't immune to Newton's Laws of Motion. The minute her slender but well sculpted body fell onto his, he immediately fell like a sock puppet, their bodies slamming against the concrete stadium.
The group's eyes widened as their bodies made a rather scary noise.
"Naruto! / Yasmina!" the group shouted as they ran towards them.
The two of them were huffing, groaning in pain as they rolled off of each other. Jessica Harding immediately went to work, analyzing their pain and damage through vision and touch.
"What's wrong? Did they break something?" Sammy asked frantically.
"Sort of. Naruto dislocated his right shoulder while Yasmina here has a sprained ankle. Both I can patch up, but fast is going to be an issue for both of them."
She quickly shed her brown buttoned shirt, throwing it onto the ground. Stomping on it, she grabbed it with both hands and tore it apart with a mighty tug. Ripping it to pieces in record time, she quickly shoved a piece into Naruto's mouth.
"This is gonna hurt," she warned, before she slammed her hands against the opposite sides of his shoulder.
A muffled yell erupted from his gagged mouth, tears pooling from his eyes as his bones shifted. Everyone looked away as Naruto squirmed and shook in place, trying so hard not to lash out at everyone close to him.
"FFFCK! FFFCK! FFFCK!" Naruto's canines clenched down onto the improvised gag, his screams leaking out.
"Sorry, sorry, sorrysorrysorrysorry," Jessica muttered. "Again!"
With a small yell, she slammed her hands again, and a loud "CRUNCH!" echoed like a gunshot through the empty stadium. Naruto's muffled, mangled scream reminded them a little too much of a dying beast, making some gag as the dry heaves threatened to make them empty their stomachs.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Jessica punched herself in the head as her teeth chattered. "Fuck! Why isn't it working?"
"F-Fucking stop!" Naruto screamed/groaned as he spat out the makeshift gag. "Just…Just make me a sling for my fucking arm or something!"
"R-Right, sorry," Jessica bit her lip as she used about a half of her old jacket to gingerly hang up his arm. He tried to keep a neutral face, but his winces and the sound of teeth scraping against teeth made her look away.
Finally finished with the impromptu cast, she quickly turned towards Yasmina, who looked a little nervous after viewing Naruto's crude treatment.
Nobody said anything as Jessica did her best to patch up Yasmina as much as she could. After a few minutes of awkward (but relatively blessed) silence, Yasmina's foot was patched up.
"H-How is it?" Jessica asked after taking a shaky breath.
Yasmina, with the help of Sammy and Kenji, slowly rose to her feet, and gingerly put weight onto her left foot.
"Shit!" Yasmina cursed, and Jessica hung her head.
"No no no no, y-you did good!" Yasmina quickly added, shaking her hands a little. "I-It just still hurts, but it's a little better now, thanks!"
Jessica just said nothing as she slowly looked back up.
"We…We need to keep moving," she finally said. "Hopefully by the end of the day we'll find a real nurse to help look you over."
She slowly turned and began walking, her hands in her pockets as she stared at the concrete floor.
"...The silence hurts more than my shoulder," Naruto grunted lamely, before he shuffled off after her.
"Hey, guys?" Ben suddenly piped up. Everyone paused as they looked at him.
"Uh, what?"
"First of all, where is everyone?" Ben pointed out, noting just how eerily silent and empty it was. "Secondly…do we still have the tablet?"
Yasmina blinked, before she slowly put a hand behind her back. Her eyes widened.
"Rox, it's gone!" Dave suddenly cried out. "The fucking signal's gone!"
"What?" Roxie's heart hammered against her chest. "I-It's probably just a glitch. Try rebooting the system!"
"Come on, come on…" Dave pleaded as he frantically tapped his tablet's screen. "Give me something, give me something- SHIT!"
His body lurched forward as the jeep came to a sudden stop.
"Here, gimmie that." Roxie seized the tablet from his hands as she furiously tried rebooting the system herself.
The tablet beeped, and Roxie's shoulders slumped.
"It's working," Roxie said, her voice low and lifeless. "The signal just…stopped."
The two just sat there in silence, trying hard not to imagine why.
To say the situation was grim would be an understatement.
The group was tired, bruised, and injured, some much more severely than others. Yasmina could barely walk on her own, and they wound up having to give her an improvised cane made from the aquarium skimmer.
Even then, progress was slow, since Yasmina had to take it easy, else the pain in her ankle would flare up, making her cry out and stumble.
There weren't really any useful supplies in the empty stadium, not even some popcorn to munch on for energy.
Worst of all, the atmosphere was uncomfortable, with none of the group members able to speak to each other, much less even look at each other in the eyes.
Sammy made the mistake of trying to be the ice breaker, attempting to praise Yasmina for her heroism, but she just snapped at the farm girl, essentially telling her that their friendship was permanently over.
Kenji wisely stayed silent, but still stuck by Sammy's side, occasionally allowing his shoulder to graze hers gently.
Oddly enough, it was Brooklynn that finally started talking again, albeit in a hushed tone.
"You…You okay?" the pinkette asked her cautiously.
"...Naw. Not really," Sammy just shook her head.
"Right. Dumb question," Brooklynn apologized. She took a deep breath, before she continued. "I don't know her that well, but I think if you give Yaz some space, she'll come around."
Brooklynn frowned as she quickly began to rethink her words.
"...Maybe? I don't know. If I gotta be honest, IRL friendships aren't really my thing, but, uh…sounds right, yeah?"
Kenji gave her a look that meant, "Really? That's helpful."
"Wait…why are you being so nice to me?" Sammy finally asked, looking at the pinkette in cautious curiosity.
"Because…as much as I hate to admit it, Kenji's right," Brooklynn said with a small wince. Kenji's eyebrows shot up at this, but chose to not say anything about it for now.
"Ugh, god, that just feels so wrong to say."
Kenji gave her a deadpan stare that she chose not to notice.
"Look…the point is I've done my share of selfish things," Brooklynn finally let out. "I only knew what you were up to because I was also sneaking in places I shouldn't."
Her green eyes darted towards the blond's back, before they returned to Sammy's face.
"You were at least doing it for family. I was doing it to impress a bunch of angry internet randos."
Sammy's eyes slowly widened as Brooklynn suddenly seemed to glow a bit more.
"...Plus, when we get out of here, you're going to give me the exclusive on all the juicy details of you spying for Mantah Corp."
Ah, there was the Brooklynn they all knew and loved.
"'Brooklynn Unboxes a Conspiracy.' Pow pow!"
Both Kenji and Sammy looked at her with a small squint as she returned back to her own world.
"Try to tell me my videos are lame now, angry internet randos!"
"...Well, it's a step in the right direction," Kenji finally said.
"*PFT!*" Sammy let out a giggle after what seemed like forever. It was undignified, but to Kenji, it sounded like music to his ears.
"So…" Brooklynn extended her dirt-stained hand towards Sammy. "Deal?"
"...Deal." Sammy let out a warm smile as she accepted it.
*VRRRRRRRN!*
Everyone nearly leapt out of their skins as a loud, distant siren suddenly blared up.
*VRRRRRRRN!* *VRRRRRRRN!* *VRRRRRRRN!*
"...Well that doesn't sound good," Ben whimpered.
They couldn't agree more, and they all unanimously decided to walk/limp a little faster.
- End of Chapter 7 -
- (Author's Note) -
(The combined text during Yasmina's thoughts on whether to save her friends or not means that she's quickly realizing the consequences of her potential action, or the lack thereof, which makes her mind go faster and panic.)