Chapter Text
A sound from the cluster of cages startles her.
There is a lot of noise around her—humans and dinosaurs yelling, cages and the floating vessel clanking, the mountain rumbling ever louder. This one sound among them is not something she expected to hear. She looks around her as much as she can without moving too much.
No one is missing.
Of course, that isn't entirely true. They have lost so many, trying to escape the humans and be careful not to give them reason to believe there are any more raptors to seek out. They hid so well that most of the island became an unknown territory to them in return, for years and years. When they realized the humans had really, finally left, the mountain woke up and their troubles weren't over yet after all. It has been a long time since any of them have felt safe enough to nest and add new members to the pack, and their numbers have only dwindled.
She hears the sound again, louder this time. Every raptor she knows of having still been on the island is with her, but there is one more somewhere in those cages, calling out in distress.
Has the raptor been on the island with them the whole time after the humans left, and their paths never crossed? They have stuck to their tiny territory, and to their way of life as skulking shadows. Perhaps an entire other pack turned up on the island at some point, without them knowing about it.
They don't question where the raptor came from. Humans brought their parents to the island in a floating vessel like this one. It's how they know sneaking aboard is a way out of their increasingly less livable home now.
The raptor sounds hurt. The pack huffs restlessly as they survey their surroundings for a route to go to the lone raptor's aid, but find none that won't get them noticed. They barely have room to move at all without disturbing the large membrane they have crawled under. They're in a darkened corner under a raised walkway, unlikely to be in the humans' way. The membrane is the kind humans have put on some of the cages, though, and there's no guarantee it'll stay discarded in their corner. It's not a good hiding place, but it's the best they could find.
She wonders what has happened to the raptor. The destruction caused by the mountain is an easy guess, but the humans' presence makes her suspicious of their involvement. If they have hurt the raptor, why haven't they finished the job already? She knows full well how deadly humans can be when they want to be, weak and edible though they seem.
She remembers humans killing her packmates, but she also remembers humans gently holding her in their then-large hands and cleaning and feeding her when she hatched. Humans are strange. They have caged but not killed the other dinosaurs, too—even the giant jaws is here. Perhaps the humans are actually helping the raptor.
She isn't sure why that would be true, but she hopes it is, and if she gets the chance she will find out. She also remembers humans leaving her soon after she was out of the egg.
As the sun sets outside, Survivor begins her sleepless night of waiting and keeping careful watch for the moment the vessel arrives at another shore, and for a chance for them to get out without being caught—without being noticed, too, if all goes well. At her side, where she can always be found, Squeak is just as alert, as they analyze the humans' behavior, and shield between and behind them their children and their pack, knowing that for their sake they can't take too many avoidable risks. They don't know yet what they will do if they are found out before they can get out, because they don't know yet what the humans will do if that happens. The lone raptor being alive to make noise with the humans around gives them hope.
If they can, they will take the raptor with them when they escape. If they can't, Survivor hopes the raptor will find a way to safety anyway, and perhaps even to her pack, somewhere out there in the place they are going to.
She is twenty-five years old. She doesn't know she is the oldest a creature of her kind has lived to be since the last time Velociraptors disappeared from the world, but she is alive, and so is what's left of her family, and now she knows there are even raptors still alive that haven't grown up with her family. She is going to do what she can to make sure her kind stays in the world for a long time still.
At the other side of the cargo hold, Blue does her part by clinging to life as a bullet is pulled out of her side and her bleeding stanched, comforted by the touch of a pair of human hands that she was once small enough to be held in.
Now they all wait to see what comes next, and continue clinging to life.