CHAPTER 343
Seth was alone. He stared at the gun in front of his face as he lay curled on the dirt. When the footsteps of the raptors were gone, and it was just him, the soft sounds of the forest, and the content chattering of the compsognathus feasting near by he reached for the pistol.
His hand pushed through the dirt, and then he drug it towards him. Lifting it just a little off the ground Seth tilted the weapon just enough so he could read the inscription.
"He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
Seth sat up and pondered the words with the gun resting in his lap. He looked around the forest, then he stood up, the pistol hanging off his palm. His eyes settled on what remained of Reuben as the compsognathus swarm continued to strip him away bit by bit.
"He who makes a beast out of himself," Seth said it aloud. He stared at the gun, and then he looked off in the direction of the far end of the enclosure.
His thoughts were disrupted when there was a shriek from above. A pteranodon came darting through an opening in the canopy with its wings tucked tight. As it entered the space beneath the tree tops it opened its arms and billowed its membranes. The creature came down with a rough landing near Reuben's corpse and immediately started pecking away the compsognathus to get at the meat below. It shrieked and hissed between nipping and flapping its wings. Before long another pteranodon dove down through the trees to join it, and then they were biting and flapping at each other to get a taste of the carcass. Seth observed this frenzy of food chain dynamics and raw survival instinct as it played out, and it only became more volatile.
Seth repeated the first half of the inscription aloud once more, "he who makes a beast out of himself…"
Seth wasn't sure why, but his fear melted away, and he developed a growing sense of empowerment.
He repeated the inscription again like a mantra, "he who makes a beast out of himself!"
He had a mission. He wanted to survive. He could feel it like a hardwired instinct. He was going to survive no matter what the cost.
His grip on the pistol in his hand became firm, and he flipped the weapon in his palm so he no longer held the handle, but the barrel instead. Seth raised the gun to his shoulder and wielded the butt of the firearm like a hammer. He only had one bullet, and he wasn't about to waste it. Seth took a few practice swings in the air. In the midst of getting a feel for how to use the weapon in this manner he caught another pterosaur lurking in on the ground. It had landed near by and now it was crawling forward from the forest shadows on its lanky arms, drawn in by the smell of blood. As it saw the other two pteranodons however, it turned its beak to Seth and started clicking and hissing its long hard jaws at him. With weapon in hand Seth stepped toward the pterosaur.
"Be the beast," he said.