Prologue:
The child opened their eyes, groggily rubbing the sleepy grains out of their eyes as drowsiness gradually gave way to a growing level of consciousness and awareness. Uttering a hearty yawn in a final if futile attempt of its body to retain some sleepiness, it rose to its feet, taking in its surroundings. The soothing warmness on the child's back was a firm sign that it must have terribly overslept. A brief skyward glance revealed that the Bright Circle had already moved well past its morning location, approaching its noon position with reliable determination.
"Damn, already this late?" the young kid lamented as a fleeting feeling of guilt engulfed them. Indeed, there'd be no breakfast today as lunchtime was approaching quickly already. At the prospect of food, the child felt prompted to look for something to eat, its desire soon highlighted by a nagging stomach growl. The child took note of its body's antics with a brief giggle before casting their gaze into the surrounding area.
Wait, what?
The child blinked as if double-checking whether the grains of sleep were still perturbing its vision. Finding its eyes perfectly clean and unobstructed, however, a haunting realization dawned on the tiny dinosaur.
I do not recognize this place at all!
For some moment, a silent battle was raging on their face. Excited squeals and its gaping mouth competed with worried frowns stirred by the fear of the unknown and unfamiliar. It seemed as though it had woken up in a valley the child had never been to before.
Mountains, so steep that climbing them seemed futile, were towering above the whole location, with rare vegetation somehow holding onto the bare, jagged rock. Forests were growing at the edges, and the grass beneath the child's feet was green and moist. At the valley's center, a medium-sized, gently flowing river meandered its way through the inviting landscape presented to the curious child. If they followed its path upwards, eventually, their eyes would be greeted by the vista of a splashing and cascading waterfall poring over the crooked rock, a beautiful display of Sky-Colors capturing its attention and awe for some moments.
Only after some time did they decide to look the other way. Already relatively narrow, the valley appeared to be narrowing further downstream. A massive, rocky wall eventually blocked the river, bottling the continuously pouring water into a small lake.
The child watched the water gently flowing downstream as if enticed by an invisible force. With no apparent outlet, they could only assume the existence of an underground passageway; otherwise, the valley would flood entirely sooner rather than later. Still searching for an answer to this water problem, its eyes fell on what appeared to be a small gap in the rocky walls that quickly led out of the child's sight. Could this be the entrance and exit of this mysterious location?
Seeing such a wondrous environment distracted the child momentarily from some finer details that had initially failed to register in their mind. Its hunger was already long forgotten and buried by the amount of curiosity this unknown place was sparking. Leaving such a place unexplored seemed like a terrible waste. Thus, the youngling promptly set into motion. They had hardly begun to move their feet when figures they hadn't noticed before appeared in front of their eyes.
Longnecks, hundreds of them, it seemed, could be seen lumbering through the valley at a gentle pace. Being a longneck themselves, this brought great relief to the child. After all, longnecks in such numbers also meant safety! They were all headed towards what seemed to be an exit somewhere ahead - towards the exit the child was keen on exploring anyhow.
Looks like they're all heading to the same place, guess I'll just tag along!
Hopping around happily, the child began to steer its feet in their general direction, feeling soft grass on their toes while breathing in the humid air. The scent of adventure lay in the air, luring the young longneck like a trapping tree. It hadn't occurred to the child at all that it could neither recall its family, friends, or even its name. Their adventurous spirit was tremendously stronger than any other emotion, overriding its basic needs.
Initially, the child didn't notice the oddity during its trek as it was constantly gawking awe-struck at random sights. Trees it had never seen, flowers more colorful than it could ever recall, and rocks in various shapes, too. The child took in all these visual inputs, further enhancing the experience as it traveled. However, eventually, its gaze returned to the herd of longnecks to check their positions. Surprised, the child came to a halt. Its eyes widened when it finally noticed something fundamentally different about those longnecks.
Huh? Are these longnecks… flying?
For the third time today, the child questioned its eyes, but no amount of blinking or rubbing could alter the vision it was seeing. There was no point in denying the obvious. Although a greatly obscure thing to occur, these longnecks were undoubtedly walking through the air, hovering just a little over the ground.
Since when can longnecks fly? Only flyers and some bugs can fly. Maybe I'm actually dreaming all of this right now?
The child was still perplexed and awe-struck all the same by this discovery when, suddenly, it felt a sudden force taking hold of its body, first pulling on its long tail, then on its even longer neck until it, too, was hovering a little bit above the green grass.
"Whoa!" it thought, simultaneously scared and amazed by the sudden ability. A careful kick of its leg thrust it further skyward. Experimenting with its newly acquired skill, it soon knew how to navigate and aimed for a hovering rock (since when could rocks hover in the air?) not too far away. As it leaped onto the rock, it began spinning really fast, momentarily confusing the child's head. A magnificent view greeted its eyes as soon as the rock halted again.
The Bright Circle had been obscured for a while now, but just as the child set its eyes upon the sky, the fiery orb appeared behind a random Sky Puffy, shining brilliance upon the whole valley. Abruptly, without the child's consent, it began hovering towards the mysterious exit of the valley that everyone seemed to head to. But, strangely enough, the child was in the least worried. Some subconscious feeling was whispering in an alluring tone that this must be a great thing to happen. A great adventure, a new ability… what could possibly not be great about it?
It didn't occur to the child at all that the Bright Circle was hovering just above the apparent destination of all those longnecks. Gradually, the herd was pouring towards the small lake at the end of the valley, much akin to the waterway they were roughly following. Although the excitement and utter joy never quite waned during this journey, gradually, a somewhat eerie feeling began to take root in its chest, growing slowly but steadily in intensity the closer they got to the exit of the valley, growing ever more intense as the towering walls of the surrounding mountains came closer and closer with the narrowing valley as if about to embrace them, squeeze them until they could no longer breathe.
Regardless, the child hovered on. Being guided by an unknown force, there wasn't anything the kid could do to alter its speed and course. Soon, they had reached the narrow and steep passageway that led across the humongous walls of the valley. Thanks to their flying ability, ascending the challenging, heavily sloping path wasn't arduous at all, but, hardly in, the situation rapidly began to change.
Without warning, the light began to dim, the warm rays of the Bright Circle no longer bringing pleasure to the child's back. The eerie feeling spiked suddenly, finally overthrowing the call of adventure. The child dared to cast a skyward gaze as fear crept into its legs.
The Bright Circle was slowly disappearing not behind clouds but behind what they could only describe with their childlike mind as a black "ball" in the sky, absorbing almost all light and thus appearing as dark as a cloudy Night Circle-less night.
Clouds, resembling smoke much more than anything, began rapidly developing around the weakening Bright Circle, spiraling closer and closer.
What is happening!?
The child could only watch helplessly as the mysterious black orb approached the bright, familiar one. Upon contact, sparks were splattering all over the horizon. Initially, the crowd appeared mesmerized by the display. However, their awe quickly transmuted into fright as streaks of fire and pebble-sized, fiery rocks began raining down on the land, increasing in size and intensity the more these two orbs interacted.
The child panicked, but their unsatiated curiosity kept its eyes firmly directed at the frightening spectacle. Darkness gradually spread over the crowd as the Bright Circle was consumed.
After a short but ferocious battle, the Bright Circle lost completely to this mysterious black orb, going into complete hiding and turning noon into nighttime. Rocks the size of large boulders were crashing down, occasionally impacting the nearby walls and causing rockslides to ride downhill. Even now, the sky continued to blacken until only the streaks of fire could give the child a sense of orientation.
Panicked screams sprung up everywhere as the herd of longnecks began to grasp the very danger of this situation. Readily, the child tuned into the concert of ever-increasing screams mingling with the rumbling of falling rocks. Terrified by the events, terrified by the darkness that had spread over the land quickly, it closed its eyes.
However, children were too curious for their own good. They always were. This young fellow, too, couldn't quench its thirst for knowledge entirely, even at the prospect of acute danger.
If only a little bit, it opened one eye only to see the Bright Circle reappear. But something was wrong. Terribly wrong. It went too fast for the child even to realize what was happening. One moment, it saw a ball of fire approaching fast until it filled the sky. There was a brief moment of unbearable light and heat and then… nothing.
It was at this precise moment that the child screamed at the top of its lungs…
Three little longnecks harshly rose from their sleep with little warning, uttering a panicked scream as they did, heart pumping, breath going fast, legs ready to sprint at full speed, only to realize they had once again had the very same sleep story which had been bothering them for a good while. Little did they know that those were no ordinary sleep stories… and little did they know that these sleep stories would one day lead them all to the same place in a fateful twist of events...
Grunting in annoyance, Littlefoot, Ali, and Shorty slowly calmed down before they went back to sleep.
Author's note:
The first chapter of SDP has always historically being the prologue. At first, it was just a few sentences written in rather poor grammar. And now, it's a fleshed out dream with many descriptions to give a sense of what the anonymous longneck child is seeing, feeling and experiencing in this fantastical dream!
For those of you who are new to the story, here's some quick context:
Shorty's Dark Past reinterpretes the entirety of movie 10, turning a 80 minute movie into a tale that, if ever seeing completion, could easily reach the complexity and word count of some of the most established fanfictions the LBT community has brought up yet. It will be a dark tale featuring many themes such as friendship, family and romance but also frequently delves into dark topics, mental disorders and violence that occasionally goes a little graphic.
At its core, it explores Shorty's canonically unknown past, the reason why he ended up being a bully adopted by Bron and all these other things the 10th movie never bothered to explain (like why didn't they bring back Ali or Doc? _) but it is so much more complex than that. If you're new to the story, I invite you to stick around for (hopefully) regular uploads and if you're a long term follower, I hope I can make the reuploads of improved old chapters as entertaining as possible.
I'm looking forward to any reviews, thoughts and feedback you might have! I know it's been ages but if some people still care about this story, I'll try my best to make it great for you, yep yep yep! :)