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I woke by the lake.
It was early dawn. Crickets were chirping in the bushes surrounding the quiet lake, and golden rays of ever-fading sunlight glistened over the waters' surface. The air was humid. I looked out over the water, when a loud, short roar reached my ears. There was another Giganotosaurus, like me, crouched across the lake.
I crept towards the waters edge, crawling slowly along the shore, and it copied my movements. It was smaller, but still an adult. I swam across the lake and gave a threatening call, and it ran when I came towards it. I didn't really want to attack. We played a game of cat and mouse, each apex creeping closer when one's back was turned. I chased it around the lake. It had nerve, and despite it getting close several times, I never made a counter advance.
Some time passed, and I had taken up a facade, walking away slowly to try and bait it towards me. I didn't feel like testing my strength, but I had decided I would kill if that's what I had to do to get the hunting grounds. I was pretending not to notice it creep towards me when a diabloceratops came to drink from the calm water. It was small, meek, built to blend in. It spotted me and ran for the treeline. I chased it on impulse. Maybe I wasn't hungry, but the thrill of the chase had consumed me. I focused on the red speckles amidst the black in it's scales, ensuring I didn't lose it in the still dim light of morning. It was slow, and kept jerking ahead with short bouts of speed, but seemed to be losing stamina. Yet I couldn't catch up to it.
It ran through a clearing, staying just out of reach, until we came upon the other twin lake, the northern of the two. I could tell the giga was following me, and I uttered a rallying call to try and get it's help, hoping it could run through the trees and cut it off. But it stayed behind me and remained no help at all.
Coming around the strange, hulking boxes that smelled of heat and acrid metal, I saw a maiasaurus and gallimimus resting by the water, that the dibble had unwisely led us carnivores to. I stopped and started to creep forward, as the dibble began frantically giving an alarm call. My gaze was set on the helpless-looking maia, when movement at its feet caught my eye. Three hatchlings, chirping and bouncing uneasily about on either side of it. I paused, swiveling my gaze to look at the other giga, who was standing with uncertainty behind me. It was uncertain because it hadn't determined whether or not I was friendly, not because it was having reservations.
What is this feeling? It was not something I was familiar with. It was a strong urge to do the opposite of what I'd always done. I became indecisive, lost my resolve, and I felt like my feet were stuck in the mud. My indecision allowed the maia and her hatchlings to start to cut across the corner of the lake and flee for the woods, but the galli and dibble stayed put. I knew what I was doing was wrong, the actions I was already planning to act on, moments before I carried them out.
I turned on the giga. It had moved to the side of the lake, crouching and watching me, and I gave a threatening call again, to which it immediately responded with the same. It was on. I cast a glance back at my witnesses; the weak, the defenseless. It was their destiny to die, and I was defying my part in that destiny. But, if I were to not act, the order would still fall into place naturally, because my predatory doppelganger would fulfil it even without me. But somehow I felt a connection to those that existed to run, to hide. To sleep with one eye open. To be swift and cunning, intense, and divine in their gifts.
I could not take that away. My gift may be only to take, to rip with sharp edges and run with long strokes of power, but I did not have to use it merely because I could. And I did not have to allow another with my gifts to abuse them.
I charged the giga, and it advanced with equal speed. Arms curled, heads lowered with maws wide, I took on my own kind and fought with ferocity I'd never called on before. Teeth raked across scales, steps thundered as I challenged the order. My desperation grew as I started to bleed heavily. My foe was a reflection of myself, and the things I despised, and it only strengthened my resolve. A well-aimed clamp to the fleshy throat of my opponent was enough to end the skirmish, and I lowered myself to the ground alongside it before I released my hold.
I very nearly lost my battle. There was no remorse for a lost member of my family, my species, however we may have been connected. The body beside me was nothing, only a part of the earth now reclaimed. No trace of the being that once had occupied it. My jaws hung open in exertion, a blatant display of the toll the battle had taken on my body. I dipped my head, pointedly ignoring my prey, when small but quick footsteps approached. Blunt and painful horns rammed into me, and I gave a roar of dismay, struggling to my feet and trying to face the small herbivore that was now fearlessly attacking. It's red crest popped out at me, contrasted by it's black primary scales, and the color filled my vision. Red upon red, tides of augury, the anger of the order broken. The blood that was spilled unjustly.
I was weakening, stumbling, as my torn legs failed to support me. I feebly tried to fight back, but the creature stayed just out of reach when I turned on it, and I could feel my life slipping away with every moment that I bled. Every time I tried to run, it chased, and when I tried to turn on it, it danced away from me. It was a test of endurance, a matter of time, to see if I could outlast the consequences of my betrayal.
I knew from the moment I made my choice that I was not going to live to see another day, not in the way I had suddenly learned to see. It simply was not allowed to happen.
I cast one last desperate look towards the treeline, and when I stumbled, my legs crumpling under my weight, every part of me trying to stay upright as long as possible, I was struck by the irony of it all.
What a cruel, cruel twist of fate.
And then my body succumbed to the earth, like my forsaken brother, the blood spilled unjustly.