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Chapter Text

The rapid rise and fall of his chest was all he could hear. His hands scrabbled at his leg only to be batted away over and over. Two large hands wrapped around his head. He tensed, waiting for the claws that would pierce his skull.

"Owen. Owen."

He shivered at his name. Or. No. He was shivering before. He was still shivering. Because.

"Open your eyes. Look at me."

Owen blinked his eyes open.

"Good." Barry pat the side of his head. He let go and reached for...

The blood drained from his face and right out onto the gravel. His leg. That thing. It had. It's teeth. His leg was—

His brain supplied the mental image of him being yanked out of the truck and dangling from one leg from a giant's mouth. It was surreal. One step removed, an out of body experience. He could see himself screaming as one long tooth sheared through the meat of his leg.

Barry grabbed his head and pulled it up. "Don't look at it. Eyes on me. Focus on me. Keep breathing."

Owen nodded as he sucked in a breath. He didn't look. Eyes on Barry. Focus.

"Good. Slow. Steady." Barry's hands moved over Owen's leg. He wrapped bandages tight around the shredded skin. "You're an idiot, you know. A very lucky idiot."

"Y-y-yeah." Owen wouldn't argue. Not now. He breathed and tried not to listen to the blood rushing in his ears. Gunfire rang out somewhere deeper in the restricted area. The T. rex roared. Thank god it was only the T. rex.

His eyes flicked down to his leg. His chest started heaving again.

"No." Barry grabbed his head and made him look up again. "Don't look at it. You need to focus." He threw his jacket over Owen's legs. He looked down at Owen's lap then at the wreckage of the truck. He wiped his hand over his face then grimaced at the blood he'd smeared across his cheek.

"You're not going to be able to stand on that," he said, using his sleeve to wipe the blood off his face. "No running either."

Owen let out a hysterical laugh. He'd had his leg ripped open by a...a monster. He was lucky to even have legs.

"I'm going to go get the jeep," Barry told him. He passed Owen a gun. "Don't move. And don't shoot unless you have to."

"Yeah. Okay." Owen cradled the gun in his arms. "What was that thing?"

"Don't know," Barry said, standing up. "Some of the other handlers heard there was a new animal coming in. It must have gotten out."

"Must've." Owen had never heard of anything in the works that looked like that.

Barry crouched down and grabbed Owen's shoulder. "I'll be back."

Owen's fingers tightened on the gun. He plastered a smile on. "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

Barry squeezed his shoulder and gave him the same grim smile then took off running. Owen watched him disappear around the corner. The crunch of gravel under Barry's feet quickly disappeared after. Then it was just Owen and the chirping crickets sitting in a heavy silence that was just begging to be broken. He cleared his throat and even the crickets stopped.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." Now he was alone with a chewed up leg and sitting in a puddle of his own blood while there was a monster on the loose. And all he had was— he looked down. A tranq gun. The raptor tranq gun. It wouldn't do shit if that thing came back. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

His heart was doing weird acrobatics in his chest. He might be panicking. But only a little bit. Which was entirely reasonable if you asked him. No amount of Jurassic World employee orientation, higher education, or navy training prepared a person for getting chewed on by a literal monster.

Another burst of gunfire was followed by screams and a roar that sounded like a really big and really angry tiger shredding metal with its teeth. That was not the T. rex. It roared again. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. It was definitely not the T. rex.

The gunfire stopped. The screaming and roaring did not.

Maybe he should get out of the puddle of blood. It wasn't like Barry was going to give him shit for crawling over to the wrecked truck instead of lying around like a rare steak.

He threw the jacket off his legs and turned to ease himself down onto his stomach. He ignored the gut punch of searing pain that shot up from his leg. He tossed the gun ahead of him – still within arm's reach – then dragged himself forward. Slow and steady. Just like Barry had said.

The screaming stopped. The boom of giant footsteps echoed eerily off the walls that lined the employee roads. The monster-thing roared again. It sounded a hell of a lot closer.

Fast and steady it was.

"Yep, time to get out of the giant come eat me sign." Owen pushed the gun ahead of him and heaved himself after it. "That's the last time I save one of those dumb-shit contractors. Probably got eaten anyway."

He pulled himself through the window of the rolled vehicle. He'd used it to ram the monster-thing as it chased down a guy in contractor overalls. The monster-thing hadn't been happy about that and had promptly smashed the shit out of the truck then tried to eat him legs first. It was just his dumb luck that someone even dumber had started yelling and shooting at it.

Another round of roaring and gunfire started up.

His stomach roiled with panic, nausea swept through him. "No. No puking. If it's over there, it's not here." He grabbed the steering wheel and pulled himself upright. There was a small explosion in the distance followed by a very angry roar that rattled the remaining glass in the windshield. His stomach threatened to heave up his breakfast. "No. Everything is fine. Just gotta wait for Barry."

Yep, everything was perfectly fine, just going a little dark and fuzzy at he edges.

He had a sneaking suspicion that he might be in shock. He'd lost a lot of blood. He glanced back over to the puddle he'd crawled from. He grimaced. Yeah, a lot of blood. "Just going to hang out here for a bit and wait for Barry. No sweat. No puking. No losing consciousness and getting eaten."

He tucked the tranq gun under his arm and pulled his bandaged leg out of a pile of broken windshield glass.

Something bumped into his back. He froze.

Nothing bit him. Or tried to drag him out of the truck and eat him alive.

He breathed deep and turned to face— the truck's radio hanging from its cord.

The radio.

He snatched the dangling radio. Backup would be really good right about now. He clicked the button. "This is Owen Grady, I'm in front of paddock— "

He frowned. There was nothing. Not even static. The radio should be going nuts with people coordinating containment and evacuations.

He clicked the button again. And again. And again. Nothing. He couldn't call out. The damn thing wouldn't even turn on. "Come on! Masrani Corp can build dinosaurs but not a goddamned truck radio!?"

He threw the radio at the dashboard. It bounced back on its cord and smacked him in the head.

"Ow!" He slapped his hand to his forehead, it only made the throbbing worse. "Fuck!"

He glared at the radio swinging from the cord.

The monster-thing roared again.

There was no gunfire in return this time.

Chapter Text

He waited.

He waited a really damn long time.

He got cold. He got colder. He stopped shivering.

He was aware enough to know that was really bad but he couldn't risk doing anything about it. He had one good leg and a tranq gun meant for raptors. He didn't stand a chance if he tried to make a run for it.

He stared at Barry's jacket, five feet and a million miles away. Why had he tossed it aside? Barry was right, he was an idiot. A cold, cold idiot. He rubbed his hands up and down his arms and tried to stay awake.

The sun slid down below the horizon, he went with it into the darkness.

---

The world flashed in and out of existence with long stretches in between, no way to tell what was real and what was half remembered. It all came and went without explanation. He breathed deep and let himself disappear into the flow of it.

Gunfire echoed off the walls as a roar no raptor could ever make rattled his teeth.

Glass crunched under feet outside. The upside down seats of the truck dipped lower. A golden yellow eye stared at him through the broken window. "Mr. Grady, I need you to come take a look at something."

A starry sky flashed overhead as ferns brushed across his face.

Wood chips and dirt scraped his cheek as he scrambled under the gate. The raptors were screaming, circling in for the kill. A pig that wasn't a pig ran past him yelling, "Shoot it!"

"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" he shouted, as human screams erupted behind him. He kept his hands up, half to stop the raptors and half to stop the humans.

Flickers of early morning light passed through leaves. The birds sang out warning calls, something big and dangerous was moving through their territory. "Look around, Owen, every living thing in this jungle is trying to murder the other."

A warm body pressed against him. He curled closer and tried not to think. It was so much easier to not have to think. Everything around him either was or it wasn't. No need to stumble into existential problems like where am I? What's going on? Am I dying?

---

The world finally stopped sliding in and out of darkness, replaced by a fire in his leg. He rolled over onto his stomach and puked.

The full body heave sent a wave of white hot pain through his leg. He sucked in a breath. His stomach lurched again but there was nothing else to bring up. He laid very very still, closed his eyes, and focused on breathing through the pain.

It wasn't the sharp pain of a wound, this was the blazing ache of an infection. He must have been passed out for at least a day if infection was already setting in.

Or was the monster-thing venomous?

Did he need antibiotics or antivenom? Did they even stock antivenom for whatever the hell that thing was? Barry had said it was new. Maybe they didn't know it was venomous.

He should probably get Barry to look at his leg and tell him if it looked like it was full of poison because the thought of doing that on his own was...not pleasant.

"Barry?" Owen croaked, his throat was a desert. When was the last time he'd had any water? He licked at his teeth, trying to work up some moisture but was only rewarded with the taste of stomach acid.

Right, he'd puked.

Ugh, was he lying in it? He cracked his eyes open. There was dirt floor under his cheek. The vomit was a foot away, already dry. He frowned. How long had he been lying there if it was already dry? When had he rolled away from it?

"Barry?" he tried again, his voice a raspy whisper.

He turned his head, everything spun as a sharp pain twisted in his neck. He groaned as his head dropped down, nose first to the ground. He'd never been in so much pain in his life. Aftershocks radiated from his neck, his leg was on fire, his stomach kept threatening to dry heave, his head was throbbing with pressure, and now he'd maybe broken his nose.

He laid still, face down in the dust and dirt of the floor, and rode out the worst of it. What else could he do?

---

His mind went blank as a monster out of a nightmare skidded around the corner and crashed into the wall.

A contractor screamed and ran. "Shoot it!"

The monster lurched to its feet and gave chase. It was a twisted parody of the raptors chasing down their daily pig.

Owen slammed his foot down, pedal to the floor. He rammed the truck into the thing's legs. What else could he do?

---

He groaned and squeezed his eyes tight shut. The fiery ache still burned in his leg and a dull throb of pressure wrapped around his head but he wasn't puking so that was good. It gave him a little free time to worry that maybe he had a concussion. Potentially a very serious concussion because there were frighteningly large gaps in his memory.

He'd been yanked out of a truck and dangled in the air by that monster-thing then the next he knew he was on the ground, Barry telling him to focus. He doubted he'd been gently placed on the ground. He must have been dropped from fifteen, maybe twenty feet, head first. That had concussion written all—

What if that pain in his neck was because he had broken it?

Fifteen feet straight down? Head first? People broke their necks falling off horses. He'd fallen off a monster.

He made himself focus on flexing his fingers and then the toes of his right leg. Everything was sore but it worked. He'd just have to take it on faith that his left leg wasn't paralyzed from a neck injury, no way was he moving the chewed leg more than he had to.

"Okay, probably didn't break my neck."

Owen braced himself for the pain he knew was coming then carefully turned his face out of the dirt. There was a twinge of pain in his neck, nowhere near the sharp stab from before. If that was all he'd gotten away with he'd take it.

He let out a long slow breath, giving himself a moment to enjoy not sucking in dirt with every inhale, then opened his eyes to a harsh rectangle of light. He blinked the black spots from his eyes and waited for it to come into focus. It was a door, open to the light of midday.

He squinted against the rectangle of light. "...Barry?"

No one answered.

He opened his mouth to try and muster up a yell than thought better of it. Either Barry wasn't close enough to hear him or there was a very good reason for not answering.

He did his best to check out his surroundings while sprawled on his stomach. Barry had brought him to one of the maintenance sheds and given that there was a beat up map of the valley zone tacked to the wall he'd bet that was where they were.

Why the hell were they in the valley zone?

Why wouldn't Barry take him to the docks to be evacuated? That was basic emergency protocol, someone gets mauled by one of the animals you evacuate them to the mainland for medical treatment.

He scanned the cramped interior of the shed, looking for some hint as to what was going on.

There was a table pushed up against the adjacent wall, a broom and a dust pan in the corner, and some tools locked away in a cage opposite him. Nothing to explain the monster-thing and nothing that screamed, gun capable of taking down something bigger than the T. rex.

And really, what was he expecting? It was one of a handful of glorified shacks the valley zone staff used to discreetly smoke weed.

He took a second look just in case he had somehow missed the tranq gun hiding behind all that nothing.

It didn't magically appear before his eyes. Barry probably had it. Why leave the tranq gun with the unconscious guy, right? What good would that do either of them?

He contemplated dragging himself to the door to see if Barry was outside but the thought alone was enough to dissuade him. A belly crawl to the door had all the promise of his leg flaring up with white hot pain and another bout of puking.

Maybe he'd lie on the floor a little longer instead.

---

He opened his eyes to complete darkness. He laid still. There was a scuffling noise outside, someone was out there.

He rolled over onto his back and then sat up. He shuffled backwards until his back was pressed up against the wall beside the door. Whoever it was out there, they hadn't seen him yet.

He leaned to the side and looked out.

Blue was staring up at the sky. Lights were moving across it. He stood up in one fluid motion and went to stand beside her. They watched the little lights move across the sky together. The sound of helicopters filled his head.

"Why are they flying so many at night?" he wondered.

Blue turned and looked at him. She opened her mouth, Barry's voice came out, "You're an idiot, you know."

Chapter Text

The dawn chorus of birds and dinosaurs woke him. He squinted into the early blue glow of just before sunrise and made out a broom in the corner. He stared blankly at the broom while he tried to wrap his aching head around whatever the fuck was going on.

What was he doing sitting on the floor of a maintenance shed? And why did everything ache like he'd been run over by a truck?

"Must have been some party," he muttered to himself. He rubbed at his face, trying to wake up, as bits and pieces of the last day filtered back in. Or had it been days? Either way, the parts that came back with excruciating clarity all featured his leg.

He looked down. His pant leg had been cut away and bandages wrapped around. The flesh above and below the bandages looked worryingly swollen. He reached around to the small of his back for his knife. He took it out and...

Should he cut the bandages off? The swelling looked bad enough to be cutting off circulation but what if his leg split open? Nobody had stitched him up. What was he going to do if he started bleeding again?

All his training had been for surviving the initial crisis; lots of this is how you don't bleed out. It all ended with, and then the professionals will take over.

The wave of exhaustion that suddenly hit him made the decision for him. There wasn't going to be any delicate knife work if he was passing out. He leaned his head back against the wall. He let his arms fall to his sides, knife still in hand. Everything felt too hot and too heavy. God, he wished he had some water.

He breathed deep then put his knife back into its sheath before he added accidental stab wound to his list of injuries.

"Okay, let's leave the leg for later." He took stock of the shed. There was nothing useful immediately accessible. There were some tools locked up in a cage but that'd take a while to break into, if at all in his state. Probably the more important thing was what was not in the shed: water and Barry.

Where the hell was Barry?

Barry wasn't the kind of professional he needed but he'd at least know where the nearest one was and how long before they got there. And he'd probably have water.

He summoned up the strength to lean around the edge of the door to look for Barry. He stuck his head out the door and froze as his heart launched itself into his throat.

In the early dawn light he could just make out one of the raptors slumped in the carport attached to the shed.

Why was there a raptor in the valley zone? Who the hell let it out? Were they all out? That was great. A giant monster-thing and raptors on the loose! It was Jurassic Park all over again.

What the hell had happened while he was passed out?

He swallowed his heart back down when the raptor didn't move.

Okay, it wasn't moving but it was still breathing. Barry must have tranqed it.

Without thinking, he rolled away from the door. The pain that ripped through him as his swollen leg scraped the floor made his body seize. His vision turned black before his head hit the floor.

—he jerked awake.

His heart hammered in his chest. He whipped his head around wildly. He relaxed. Nothing had eaten him. He was still in the maintenance shed. It was daylight. He couldn't have passed out for—

The raspy bark of a raptor sounded from the carport.

He stayed absolutely still. Maybe it didn't know he was inside. And maybe his brain could stop supplying him with the fun fact that he was still covered in his own blood and they could smell a pig carcass from a mile away.

The raptor called again. It was answered by a distant bark.

Owen tensed.

Please go. Please go. He clenched his fists against a terrified tremble. He'd thought about what it meant to be eaten alive, everyone who worked at the park had to face that fear, but knowing what it meant to be chewed on while still breathing was a whole different ballgame. God, please. Please just go.

He knew damn well he'd tested his luck to its limits when he'd gone into the raptor enclosure when the rookie fell in. He had barely made it out before the raptors had turned on him. What was going to stop this one from taking one look at the mangled human lying on the ground and eating him?

The distant bark called out again. The raptor in the carport hissed and trotted away.

Owen let himself breathe; gasping for breath as his whole body shook. He'd always had a healthy respect for the raptors; a fear that could be used to keep him sharp. But it had always come down to never putting himself into a situation he wasn't at least seventy percent sure he could get out of.

This wasn't that. He was so very dead the second one of them found him like this.

Where the hell was Barry? Why would he leave him—

The bark of a raptor echoed back to the shed. It was closer than before.

Okay, how about where the hell was that tranq gun? He needed a weapon if Barry was going to leave him like a bag of bones in a shed with the door wide open.

He grabbed the broom from the corner— as if that would do anything against a raptor. He forced himself up and peaked around the edge of the door.

There was still a tranqed raptor in the carport.

Which meant at least three raptors were out, but he could probably lay good money down on all four having escaped.

Why would Barry leave him in a shed with the door wide open and a tranqed raptor at his doorstep? Unless...

His eyes flicked back and forth mechanically, already detaching himself from what he knew he was going to find.

Except...he didn't.

There was no bloody mess outside the door. Barry hadn't lost a fight with one of the raptors; with Blue, because that was who was knocked out in the carport. She looked like she had gone down hard. She was on her side with her left leg awkwardly crumpled beneath her, but there was nothing to suggest there had been any kind of struggle. Just Blue taking a nap and no Barry.

But that didn't mean the others couldn't have got—

"Nope, he's fine." Owen wasn't going to start writing people off as dead until he saw the body. "He's just...doing some reconnaissance. He's probably got a really good reason for leaving me here with Blue."

He stared at Blue for a long while, watching her breathe. This was the longest he had been this close to her in years. He tightened his grip on the broom. How longhad it been? What if she woke up? The raptor tranqs were only reliable for an hour. Anything after that and you risked them coming out of it.

He gripped the side of the door. Did he close the door and hope Barry showed up soon? Or did he try to make a really slow crawl for it?

"...fuck it."

He threw the broom out the door and pulled himself out of the shed. He wasn't going to sit there and wait to get eaten by one of his raptors. He'd go around to the back of the shed – out of line of sight of Blue in case she woke up – then...think about what to do next when he got there.

He kept an eye on Blue as he made the slow and agonizing trip around to the back of the shed. She never moved beyond the gentle rise and fall of her sides. It was almost peaceful.

He had the insane urge to poke her with the broom.

---

Between gasping and sweating through the pain and passing out for a little bit here and there, it took most of the afternoon to get around the shed. Blue should have woken up three times over. He should have been so dead by now.

He didn't know if he'd call it lucky that he had always been a survivor. It was always pretty goddamned shitty in the moment. It was only in retrospect that you could think, oh wow, was I ever lucky! And right now was not a retrospective moment.

He was down a leg, probably had some serious brain damage, and his choice in weapons to fend off a raptor attack were a knife or a broom. And just to keep him on his toes, he had to deal with all that alone because there was no sign of Barry behind the shed either.

"Where the hell are you, Barry? You better have a damn good reason for leaving me out here or I'm gonna leave a frozen rat in your lunch bag," Owen grumbled as he grabbed another handful of grass and dragged himself forward. "Two frozen rats. And one in your car."

There was no Barry behind the shed but there was a gyrosphere waiting for maintenance. Now that was something he could work with. Every gyrosphere had an emergency call button. All he had to do was hit the button then relax and wait for someone to rescue him.

And even if the emergency call button was broken, those things could stand up to a dinosaur stampede. If he could just get inside he'd be safe until Barry came back or someone else found him.

He dragged himself over to the gyrosphere and shoved at the door until it opened. He stared up at the touch screen. That was really high up there when your vantage point was lying on the ground, half dead with exhaustion. There was no way he'd be able to reach it without getting in.

"After this, everyone is gonna say, wow, Owen, you were so lucky," he muttered to himself, as he took hold of the gyrosphere's seat. "Rammed a truck into a monster, crawled away from a raptor, then locked yourself in a gyrosphere. Good thinking."

Yep, everyone except Barry. Barry would call him an idiot for not immediately turning the truck around and driving to the docks for evacuation.

He breathed deep and pulled himself up. He belly flopped across the seats. His head swam with the effort. He stayed still and panted against the seat. The smell of a thousand sweaty tourist butts didn't help the head situation any but at least he was in. Mostly in. His legs were still hanging out but he didn't need legs to work the touch screen.

He'd just not think about how if Blue woke up she'd yank him out of the gyrosphere legs first, just like the monster-thing had yanked him out of the truck.

Once he caught his breath, he raised his head. He scowled at the huge crack down the middle of the dark touch screen. "You have got to be kidding."

He reached for the power button anyway. Maybe it still worked. Maybe the crack was superficial. Good enough to work, but not good enough for the eyes of tourists. He pressed the button and let go. The gyrosphere hummed to life.

"Yes! Finally something works!"

That brief flicker of hope snuffed out as the screen booted up. The screen was blacked out. It was on, it had that electric blue-black glow, but there was no image.

"Okay, there's probably a secondary button. Something to hit in the event that the touch screen doesn't work," Owen reasoned. No one would make a digital emergency button be the only way to call for help. That had to violate some kind of safety code, right? He reached under the screen and felt along the back. "There's always a big red button."

There was only a smooth expanse of plastic beneath his fingers.

He ducked his head down to look under, maybe he had missed it. He clenched his jaw at the blank space beneath. He grabbed the edge of the seat and leaned down to check underneath. No buttons. He pushed himself up to look at the steering console. Nothing.

"Oh my god, why?" Owen pressed both hands to his face and swallowed down an enraged scream; there was still a sleeping raptor on the other side of the shed to worry about.

He slapped the side of the touch screen. "Why can't they make a single communications device that works? Who the fuck was in charge of their safety protocols? Everyone– Everyone! Knows your emergency systems need a back up! Everyone! You can't have—"

A curious raptor bark came from the other side of the shed. Blue was awake.

He scrambled to pull his legs into the gyrosphere and close the door. Every second he wasn't inside with the door closed was a second too long. Pain shot through him at every bump and scrape to his swollen leg but he knew first hand that it would be so much worse to have those long serrated teeth sink into his leg and pull.

The door slid smoothly into place and softly clicked shut. He sat in the seat and breathed hard; loud stuttering gasps as his heart raced. He huffed out a tired laugh between breaths. There he was, covered in blood, his leg swelling up with infection, and dinosaurs coming to eat him and the stupid door hadn't even had the courtesy of slamming closed. Just sleek unhurried technology that didn't care if you were about to die.

"At least...it...fucking...works," Owen panted. He let his head fall back against the seat. He could hear Blue knocking things over inside the shed. If he had waited any longer...

He gave himself a moment to catch his breath. He looked between the shed, the valley, and the broken screen of the gyrosphere. He craned his head over his shoulder. The valley's ranger station wasn't far from the shed if you didn't have to crawl the whole way. There had to be somebody there. It wasn't just an exhibit and restaurant it was the emergency evacuation point for the valley. They'd have medical supplies and a landing pad for the helicopter.

He turned back to the shed and frowned. What about Barry? What would happen if he came back and Blue was still there and no one to warn him she was awake?

Blue made a loud wavering trumpet call. Somewhere in the distance there was a call in response. Was Blue calling for the others to come to her? Or was she trying to find the rest of the pack so she could go to them?

There was more banging and clattering from the shed then everything went quiet. Owen white-knuckled the arm rests. He knew logically Blue couldn't get into the gyrosphere but try telling that to his own lizard brain that was busy screaming about all those teeth going into his leg.

Blue's muzzle poked around the corner of the shed, snuffling in the grass. She was following his trail of blood.

The trumpeting in the distance got louder, followed by short angry barks. Blue's muzzle disappeared. She barked at whoever was coming.

Owen grabbed the gyrosphere's controls, half expecting that they wouldn't work. He breathed in relief as the gyrosphere rolled forward. Wherever Barry was, it wasn't here with a bunch of raptors on their way back.

He'd go to the ranger station and tell them Barry was missing and that the raptors were in the valley. They'd say Barry was fine and that they already knew the raptors were out. Then they'd call in a helicopter to take him to the hospital and hopefully he wouldn't lose the leg.

---

The sharp tang of fear flooded through him as he crested another hill, the shadows growing longer, and the ranger station at least another mile away.

The journey to the ranger station had taken longer than Owen had expected. Twice he'd veered off course and woken up at the bottom of a hill with no idea how he'd gotten there. The combination of concussion, blood loss, infection, and dehydration was taking its toll. He had to make it to the ranger station before night fall because he wasn't going to be able to find his way in the dark and he definitely wasn't going to last until morning.

He needed that professional. And water.

Dear god, he was so thirsty.

He pushed the control stick forward and sent the gyrosphere gliding down the hill. It's top speed wasn't much faster than a brisk walk. He didn't know if it was broken or slowly running out of battery but he refused to entertain the possibility that the gyrosphere would quit on him. It was going to make it because he had to make it. He was going to be one lucky son of a bitch just one more time.

Fifteen minutes later Owen stopped the gyrosphere at the edge of the long paved walkway between the ranger station and the monorail platform. A cold sinking pit settled into his stomach. There were no lights on inside the ranger station and the front doors were wide open. And more concerning: it was a mess.

He blinked hard a few times, wondering if it was a hallucination because there were no messes in the public parts of Jurassic World. Hell, there were no messes in the restricted parts either. Claire would never have stood for it.

He watched scraps of paper and plastic cups blow across the main entrance as the valley sunk into twilight. There were toppled chairs and tables in the restaurant's patio. Backpacks, sunglasses, souvenirs, all sorts of stuff tourists never left behind without screaming about it, were scattered between the ranger station and the monorail platform.

It was the telltale signs of a whole lot of people leaving in a hurry.

Why hadn't he been one of those people? Why hadn't Barry brought him here?

Owen heaved a breath and rubbed at his bleary eyes then pushed the control stick forward as the darkness came on. It probably wasn't as bad as it looked. The hunger and thirst and bone deep all over ache was making him morbidly bias.

He kept an eye out for station staff, ACU, visitors, survivors, anyone. But the closer he got the more it became clear: there was no one. There wasn't even blood. Everyone was just gone.

He rolled to a stop in front of the main doors. There were no stairs at the front of the building. He could drive the gyrosphere right on in.

He glanced over his shoulder then back at the long shadows washing over the Jurassic World logo just inside the main doors. How long had the doors been open? What else had just rolled on in? He'd only ever been in the visitors portion of the ranger station once but from what he remembered there would be plenty of spots to launch an ambush if you were a hungry raptor.

He backed the gyrosphere up a few feet and considered going down the steep hill the ranger station was built into and around the back to the employee portion of the building. He'd been in there dozens of times but it was surrounded by a twelve foot fence and a single gate that was never left unlocked. He'd have to hope that when the valley zone staff left they'd left in hurry and forgot to lock the gate because he wasn't climbing that fence in his state.

Owen looked between the increasingly dark visitors' entrance – why hadn't the emergency lights come on? – and the sun quickly dipping below the horizon. Did he take the gamble on the employee gate being open? Or the tourist trap being raptor free? At least the monster-thing couldn't get in there, that thing was way too big.

He rubbed at his face to keep himself awake then pushed the control stick forward. If his luck had ran out and the gate was closed he'd just be right back here but this time in the dark. And he really did not want to do this in the dark.

It was eerie inside. There were all the signs that people had been there, and recently, but everything was perfectly still.

He stopped in front of the visitor information desk just beyond the doors. The counter was high enough for an adult raptor to crouch behind.

His eyes swept back and forth across the desk, looking for signs of raptors. In the last rays of sunlight and the dim glow of the gyrosphere's interior a single sheet of paper caught his eye. It was taped to the glass of a small refrigerator pressed up against the information desk.

It was a sign, hand written: Jurassic World Dinosaur Springs Fresh Spring Water™ $6.99

He wheezed out a noise that was supposed to be thank god!

He'd take his chances with a raptor ambush if it meant water.

He shoved the control stick forward. The gyrosphere barely crawled towards the refrigerator.

"Come on, don't give out on me now," Owen pleaded. He brought the gyrosphere up alongside the refrigerator and opened the door. He leaned towards the fridge and nearly fell out.

"Shit!" He scrambled to grab hold of the touchscreen console and pull himself back in. He leaned back in the seat and panted. "Okay, slow down. You gotta think this through."

He breathed deep and set his hand on the control stick. "Here goes."

It was a solid five minutes of tedious back and forth manoeuvring to get the fridge open then lined up with opening of the gyrosphere. All the while the last six bottles of water mocked him. They were so close yet so far away.

"Stupid fridge, stupid gyrosphere," Owen grumbled as he finally reached a shaking hand out and snagged a lukewarm bottle of water. He clawed at the bottle cap. His fingers didn't want to co-operate, too weak from his ordeal to grasp the little plastic cap. He stuck the cap in his mouth and twisted the bottle. The cap popped off with a splash of water that made him groan.

He chugged the whole bottle of lukewarm water in seconds.

It was the best thing he'd ever tasted in his entire life.

He reached for a second bottle and paused. He leaned forward ever so slightly, careful not to fall again. There was a second handwritten sign.

"Oh, holy shit, yes!" Owen gasped.

Right beside the refrigerator was a rack of overpriced snack food—Jurassic Snax! Just 2.99$!

He grabbed the rest of the water bottles then nudged the gyrosphere forward. He scooped out a handful of Chunky Cretaceous Chews and some Ankylosaurus Almond Bars— an awful fruit bar the consistency of leather, and a granola bar with extra almonds respectively.

He sat in the gyrosphere in the dark ranger station and ate and drank until his head stopped spinning from hunger and thirst. He tossed the empty water bottles and wrappers onto the seat beside him. No point in making it easy and leaving a trail for raptors follow.

Now what? Find a phone? Find a person? Or do something about his leg?

"Easiest one first."

He rolled the gyrosphere around to the other side of the information desk and negotiated the small space until he was finally in reach of a phone. With shaking fingers, he brought the phone to his ear.

"Of fucking course," he cursed. There was no dial tone or electric hum of activity. He tossed the dead phone back on the desk. It landed with a clatter, enough to catch the attention of anything nearby, but he just couldn't care anymore. He was so goddamn tired.

He scrubbed at his eyes to keep himself awake. "People? Or leg?'

He gently probed the bandages. It still really fucking hurt.

"Okay…" Owen sat back in the seat and blinked into the darkness. The only light coming from the dim glow of the gyrosphere's interior lights. "The security cameras have battery back up too. Someone should have seen me by now so..."

His eyes slipped shut and his head dropped forward. He snapped his head back up.

"No. Do not fall asleep." Owen grabbed one of his four remaining bottles of water and splashed some onto his face. "Stay awake, damn it, or you're gonna get eaten."

Maybe he still cared a little bit. Getting eaten would suck.

He breathed deep and shook his head, fighting the exhaustion barrelling down on him like a train. If no one had come by now he didn't have time to go looking.

He peered into the darkness to his right. He couldn't see them but he knew the Gallimimus Gift Shop and the Stegosaurus Café were over there which meant to his left was...the...the...

His head dropped forward again, pulling the rest of him with it. He jerked back upright. He gripped the control stick tightly, forced his eyes open, and swung the gyrosphere left.

"First aid station."

He wound his way through dark dinosaur displays and dead hologram stands until the gyrosphere's lights flickered and faded then went out. He gently rolled to a stop four feet from the first aid station doors.

The gyrosphere wouldn't budge. He was dead in the water.

Owen stared into the darkness and contemplated the farthest four feet of his life. He had to haul himself and his chewed up leg out of the gyrosphere, across the floor, and through the door all in the pitch black. Preferably without passing out from pain and blood loss.

"No sweat. You're gonna...gonna be so damn lucky after," Owen muttered. He shoved on the gyrosphere's door until it swung open. He huffed and panted, already out of breath just from opening a door. "Everyone's...everyone's gonna say it. Owen? You're so...lucky!"

Owen shoved himself out of the gyrosphere before he could talk himself out of it— and promptly dropped to the floor like a sack of bricks. His chewed leg folded under him. He screamed in pain before he could stop himself.

"S-so l-l-lucky," he groaned as his whole body shook, stars and sparks dancing in front of his eyes.

The uncontrollable shaking settled into manageable tremors. When the stars and sparks stayed on the edges of his vision he sat up and dragged himself to the door.

He thanked whoever chose levers over knobs; human accessibility over raptor safety. There was no way he would have been able to get his shaking fingers to turn a doorknob.

He yanked down on the lever and wriggled himself through the door.

With a last heave of effort he pushed the door closed. He leaned back against it, chin already dropping down to his chest as exhaustion consumed him.

His last conscious thoughts were of the water bottles he'd left in the gyrosphere.

Chapter Text

Rain poured down onto his face. He turned his head out of the deluge only to press his nose into a puddle. Water flooded his sinuses. Snorting and sputtering, he jerked his head back. He coughed hard, his lungs insisting he'd breathed in a whole lake and not a shot glass of water.

The rain slowed to a trickle, then finally to a steady faucet like drip. He lay in the puddle, still coughing, and wondered why he was back outside again.

"Didn't I..." Owen blinked his eyes open and frowned at the green circle of plastic above him. That wasn't the sun.

The last he checked the sun wasn't green and it didn't have a big steel pipe coming out of it. His eyes followed along the pipe, then down to a bright yellow handle and beside that, a black and white sign of a stick man in a wheelchair pulling the handle. His eyes drifted left and right, over three sides of a wide plastic stall.

He was in an emergency shower.

How did he end up in the first aid station's emergency shower? Had someone found him?

Owen looked to his right. Water sloshed against the back of his head, a small stream of water trickled out from under his cheek. He was lying over top of the drain.

He flung his left arm over his chest then leaned to the right until the drain was uncovered. As the water drained out behind him he stared dumbly at the scene before him. Daylight shone through a row of small high windows, lighting up the inside of the first aid station. The place was a wreck. It looked like it had been ransacked by a pack of angry raccoons. Every cupboard door was open, the contents scattered across the floor.

Had it been like that last night? It had been too dark to tell.

"Uh, hey?" Owen called out as loud as he dared. "Anyone there?" He listened carefully for a few minutes but there was no response.

He glanced back up at the shower head above him. The park's emergency showers were all gravity fed with 25 minutes of water in the tank, a safety measure for the dilophosaurus venom. If the water had ran out it meant he'd been lying at the bottom of the shower for nearly half an hour.

Whoever had dumped him in the emergency shower was a shitty first aider. You never left an unconscious person in water.

His eyes drifted back to the mess of the first aid station. The more he stared at it the more it became obvious that someone had been rifling through the cupboards for a reason; not trashing the place for fun.

He frowned when he spotted his vest thrown over an open cupboard door and his phone – screen crunched to pieces – a few feet from there. He tracked a trail of his clothing from the opposite side of the room to a nearby pair of scissors and a ring of bloody scraps that had been his jeans and underwear.

He looked down his chest. Okay, so he was lying naked in the emergency shower. And man, that was one ugly bruise on his chest.

Owen propped himself up on his elbows. He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment while his head spun then called out again. "Hello?"

There was still no answer.

He was beginning to suspect he was the shitty first aider who had dumped an unconscious person into a drowning hazard.

Groaning, he heaved himself upright to a sitting position. He hissed in pain as his leg dragged across the wet plastic beneath him. His chest tightened as his eyes slid along his body to his leg.

Oh, god, his leg.

His stomach heaved at the sight of his leg. His calf was badly swollen, skin shiny and smooth and the angry red of an infection. And where the monster-thing had bitten him, a huge crater circled by discoloured skin; mottled grey verging on yellow.

This was bad.

This was very bad.

This was not a first aid situation. This was an ICU situation.

But he had no way to call for help and there were dinosaurs that would eat him if he went outside and no one knew where he was and—

"Stop. Stop," Owen ordered himself. He was panicking. He couldn't afford to panic. He had to keep it together long enough to get out or until help arrived. He took in a deep shaky breath and let it out. Two more and his heart beat began to slow down. He could do this. One step at a time.

"Okay, you've got an infected bite. You're in a first aid station. This is Jurassic World. There's amox-clav."

Owen looked out at the mess of the first aid station. Somewhere in that mess was the amoxicillin clavulanic acid. Standard antibiotic for infected animal bites. They always had it on hand at the raptor enclosure and the rest of Jurassic World was no different.

"Right. You can do this." He psyched himself up for what was going to be one fucking awful time as he dragged his leg around behind him, looking through the mess of the first aid station.

He grabbed onto the outside edge of the stall and pulled himself upright, hand over hand. He'd broken out in a hard sweat by the time he got his good leg beneath himself.

Owen shuffled out of the emergency shower, careful not to slip in the water that had pooled out onto the floor. Two steps out and he stopped. Just around the corner of the stall was a plastic waiting room chair with a little pile of medical supplies. He leaned down awkwardly, trying to keep his bad leg straight, and pawed through the pile.

Everything he'd want was right there: suture kit, iodine, a scalpel still in its plastic package, two boxes of sterile gauze pads, medical tape, tylenol, three squeeze bottles of saline, gloves, tweezers, and most importantly the amox-clav. Even his watch was there.

"How did…?" Owen looked across the room for signs of life. There was still no one there but him. He looked back at the pile of medical supplies then followed the trail of his clothes around the room again.

Had he gotten all of this, stripped down, cut his pants off, and then hauled himself into the emergency shower only to collapse? That seemed like the sort of thing he should remember.

He shook his head. He could worry about memory loss later. If he remembered.

He grabbed the amox-clav and opened the bottle, he shook out two tablets and swallowed them dry. He grabbed the tylenol next and did the same. He would have preferred something stronger but Jurassic World wasn't in the business of distributing narcotics.

"Wait. What if..." Owen looked down at the bottles. If he had brought these all the way to the shower he must have already taken some. He wouldn't have waited with a bite like this. But how much time had passed? Was it a double dose? Or just a little early? He sighed at the gap in his memory, then put the bottles back with the rest of the medical supplies. "...well, guess I'll know if I get the shits."

He grabbed his watch and set the timer for his next dose in eight hours.

"Right, now the leg."

He shimmied down the wall and eased himself to the floor beside the chair. He gently tugged his leg out in front of him and poked the skin around the bite. It hurt but not as much as it should. He pressed harder, fingers prodding deeper. The puncture almost felt springy, like there was something inside pushing against him.

Owen pushed a little harder and hissed in pain. He could feel something under his skin, like bubbles ready to pop. He yanked his hand away, terrified he'd already popped a bubble of infection and sent an army of bacteria into his blood stream.

He had taken the amox-clav. He could wait until someone came, right? He had experience in cleaning out and draining off wounds in animals but they never got this bad before he treated them. And it couldn't be that much longer before Barry figured out he was missing and sent out a search party.

He looked at the angry red of his leg. How long would it take for help to arrive? Maybe he should clean it and drain it. What if he waited too long and got septicemia? Or gangrene?

Visions of his leg rotting off had his hand darting out for the medical supplies.

Hand on the iodine, he hesitated. What if he fucked it up and gave himself septicemia that way?

His eyes flicked over his leg. He blew out a long explosive breath. "I'm gonna do it."

He got to work wiping his leg down with iodine, put the gloves on, picked up the tweezers, and grabbed the saline. He stopped; tweezers in one hand, saline rinse in the other. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was going to hurt.

He clenched his jaw then dug the point of the tweezers into the wound.

By the time he was done cleaning the bite out he was a sweaty shaking mess but there was no time to stop now; he'd started bleeding again. He had to stitch it closed. He wasn't sure how much blood he'd loss over the last couple of days but the obvious answer was too fucking much.

He rinsed the wound out one last time then wiped his leg down with iodine again for good measure. He grabbed the suture kit and set his shaking hands to work.

He managed two jagged running stitches then taped a couple of gauze pads over them.

When it was all said and done he tossed the medical tape and used gloves aside then slumped against the wall. He didn't bother to fight the exhaustion settling over him.

---

The beep-beep beep-beep of his watch woke him up. Eyes still closed and groaning, he fumbled with his watch until he turned the alarm off. Even that simple movement felt awful. Every muscle and joint in his body was screaming at him.

Owen cracked one eye open to check the time: 3:34 pm. He frowned at the time.

"Why'd I set...oh. Right." He willed his arms to move, despite the angry protest from his muscles, and scooped up the two pill bottles. He doled himself out tylenol and amox-clav, grimaced at the way they stuck in his throat, reset the alarm, then slumped back against the wall.

Saying he felt like shit was an understatement.

He gave himself a couple of minutes to sit on his ass and wallow in pain. He would have happily done a few more minutes of sitting on his ass and doing nothing but his bladder was making itself known. He sighed, he really did not want to move but the thought of pissing himself really wasn't doing it for him.

He pressed his hands to the floor and pushed himself up with a groan.

"And we're moving," he muttered to himself.

He staggered across the first aid station to the bathroom. He flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. He frowned. The back up generator should have kicked in ages ago. Futilely, he flipped the light switch again. Still nothing.

He settled on leaving the door open to let the daylight in. He used the toilet and flushed before thinking.

"Damn it." He watched the toilet bowl refill. How much water was left in the pipes? How long was he going to be stuck here without power? A day? Two? And he'd wasted water flushing a toilet. Well, hopefully it wouldn't matter, some one had to find him soon, right?

He limped to the sink and froze in front of the mirror.

He looked like hot garbage. He was covered in scrapes and cuts and bruises, but the thing that had him staring was the bruise on his chest. Looking down at it, while crumpled in the emergency shower, he hadn't realize the shape.

It was roughly triangular with two red marks at the bottom. Claw marks. It was a raptor footprint.

"Jesus." Owen brought his hand up and gingerly touched the edge of the bruise. He used to get these bruises all the time. Only they had been an eighth of the size because the raptors had been babies.

The raptors were over three hundred pounds of teeth and muscle now. They weren't babies using him as a spring board anymore. If they jumped on him now or he took a direct kick it would cave his chest in.

He carefully pressed against his ribs and breathed deep. It didn't hurt like all his ribs had been crushed by an angry raptor kick. Hell, he wouldn't be worrying about it if they had, he'd just be dead meat on the ground.

He stared at the bruise in the mirror.

Was I was stepped on?

He shudder at the thought. Sometimes when they caught a pig they'd step on it to hold it down, not hard enough to kill it, just to keep it still. He'd seen it dozens of times. A pig squealing frantically under their foot as they snaked their head down to sniff at their prey. Then their jaws opened wide and—snap! No more squealing pig.

He touched the angry red marks left behind by claws. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or a memory but he could see the huge claws coming down and feel the warm breath of a raptor on his face.

That had to be why Blue was tranqed in the maintenance shed. She must have surprised Barry and nearly—

Owen closed his eyes and shook his head. He wasn't going to agonize over something that he'd survived. He was fine now. Barry had saved him. Blue hadn't torn his throat out. And soon he'd be off this damn island and never have to worry about dinosaurs eating him again.

He jammed his hand under the soap dispenser then trickled the smallest amount of water onto his hand. He stared hard at the soap as he worked up a lather and refused to acknowledge the phantom pain of teeth on his neck.

Hands washed, and minimally rinsed to save water, he checked the time: a little after four. Sunset was getting to be about five forty. That gave him...an hour and...a half of daylight left?

"Gotta find a radio." Owen lurched out of the bathroom and stared at the mess.

It had to have been him that tore the first aid station apart. No one had known he was coming here and there hadn't been anyone in the building when he rolled in the front door. But he didn't remember anything past...

...rolling in the front door.

No, he definitely remembered getting water and crappy granola bars. And sitting in the dark, leaning against the door. Blue had been just outside, because Barry had— No, that part had been out in the valley.

"That's not good." Owen frowned as he tried to piece together the last two days.

Claire had asked him to go check out a new paddock after work on Friday. He'd driven the truck over to the paddock and run into that thing.

He shivered at the crystal clear memory of a monster dragging him out of the truck by his leg: the feel of a giant's tooth shearing through his flesh, the birds eye view of its claws as he dangled upside down, his hands briefly touching scaly skin covered in short bristly feathers, then the sick feeling as the ground came rushing up towards him.

The memory stopped before he hit the ground. The next thing that came back with any clarity was Barry telling him to not look at his leg and that he was getting the jeep.

He must have passed out before Barry came back because there was nothing before he woke up in the maintenance shed with Blue outside the door and he made his getaway in the gyrosphere.

"That's completely reasonable," Owen assured himself. "Memory loss directly after the event and being unconscious doesn't count as memory loss. And it was a really long day yesterday. You're probably fine, just tired, and not having complications from head trauma."

He bit his lip as he surveyed the mess on the floor and the ring of bloody shredded clothes.

"But you should remember ripping this place apart and cutting your own pants off."

Owen braced himself in the doorway with one hand then reached the other up to gingerly touch his head. He hissed in pain as his fingers ran over a gash along the back of his scalp and a few tender spots on the side of his head.

"At least there's not a hole in my head." Owen let his hand fall back down. There wasn't anything he could do if he'd suffered a more serious injury to his head except not over exert himself and try not to fall down again.

"Which I must have done in the emergency shower...and when I got out of the gyrosphere?" Owen looked over at the exit. A foggy memory of staring at the door from the other side surfaced. No matter how hard he tried to focus on it that was all he could remember. He wiped his hand down his face and huffed out a long breath. "Okay, I need to find crutches or a cane or something. I can't keep falling down with a head injury...multiple head injuries."

He hobbled through the first aid station, checking closets and cupboards. He finally found a pair of crutches in the office at the back. They were tucked away in a corner behind a desk. They looked small, child sized small. They were extendable but...

He took the crutches and sat down in the office chair beside the desk. He pressed the push pin on the bottom of one and pulled the crutch out to it's maximum length.

"That's way too small." He stood up and held the crutch down anyway. It barely came up to his waist. "Fuck."

He sank back down into the office. It rolled back a few inches. He looked down at the chair. He twisted his torso. The chair swivelled. He planted his good leg on the ground and pushed. The chair rolled back a foot.

"That'll do it." Owen grabbed the edge of the desk and rolled himself around then kicked off the desk and rolled to the door. "Well, that's a hell of a lot easier than dragging a leg around."

He checked the time again: almost five.

"About forty minutes daylight, twenty minutes twilight." Owen rubbed at his forehead. His brain just didn't want to do the math. "Forty and twenty that's...that's an hour. Right. An hour to find a radio...and some new clothes."

His pants were a pile of bloody rags now and his shirt and vest were covered in dirt and blood. Not a good look on anyone. And going through the park naked, looking for a radio, wasn't exactly his idea of a good time.

He looked around the wreck of the first aid station, thinking over what he'd found. A few hospital gowns and a couple of blankets. Neither would really do a good job of keeping his junk away from angry dinosaurs.

Where the hell was he going to find clothes? The lost and found?

"Do they even have a lost and found?" Owen wondered. Then the answer hit him. "Gift shop."

There would be a ton of clothes in the gift shop. And the restaurant was right beside it. There would be water and even if the power had been out for two days there was probably still something edible in there. And there might even be a radio behind the cashier's counter at the gift shop or in the back of the restaurant. That settled it. Gift shop was a go.

Owen wheeled himself around the first aid station, gathering up a few essentials. The tylenol and amox-clav, the contents of his vest, his wallet, and his knife. He stuffed it all in an empty tissue box and set it across his lap. Who knew, maybe his rescue would come sooner than he thought. He didn't want to waste time coming back for his stuff if someone showed up.

He put his boots on despite the blood encrusted at the top. If he had to do some quick thinking on his feet he wasn't about to slice his foot open on the first piece of broken glass that got in his way.

He looked down at his bad leg. It already dragged on the floor without his boots on, now it was completely in the way. He rocked back and forth in the office chair, testing his ability to hold his bad leg up.

That was going to hurt like a son of a bitch after a couple of minutes.

He spotted one of the blankets he'd found earlier and rolled it up. He slid it under his bad leg. The blanket propped it up just high enough not to drag on the ground.

"Good thinking," he encouraged himself. He turned and started kicking his way to the front of the first aid station.

It was slow going to the door. Picking his way through the mess with his bum leg had been one thing, now he had to stop every couple of feet ad kick all the junk out of the way to get the chair through.

He checked his watch when he reached the door: 5:12pm. Sunset would be around twenty minutes to six. That gave him about forty minutes of real daylight for his search. He frowned, no it was more like thirty minutes. Could he do it in thirty minutes? Was it worth it? If he didn't move fast enough he'd have to make his way back in the dark.

He tapped his fingers on the side of the chair. What the hell else was he going to do? Sit and wait for tomorrow morning?

"Let's do this." He grabbed the door handle and pulled it open.

Fifteen feet away was a dinosaur. Owen tensed. The gallimimus whipped its head around and squawked in surprise at the sight of a human. It took off through the main doors, its footsteps slamming into the distance.

Owen let out a nervous laugh. "At least you didn't want to eat me."

He took a quick look around for any other surprises but nothing else moved. It was dead silent now that the echos of the gallimimus had faded.

Owen rolled the chair forward. He stopped and looked around again. Something didn't feel right. Like something was missing. He looked again then realized, "The gyrosphere is gone."

He stared at the empty place he was sure he had left the gyrosphere. Had he come out here and moved it? But how would he have done that with his leg?

Someone must have come and taken it. But to where? And why bother? It was out of power. And why wouldn't they have looked for him?

He moved forward cautiously. He didn't call out. He didn't want to attract attention. Sure it was a gallimimus this time, didn't mean it would be the next.

He rolled the chair to the main entrance and looked out.

"Well, that solves that mystery."

The gyrosphere was outside, upside down. The seats had been torn out, the foam strewn across the pavement. It hadn't been a someone who had come and moved it, but a something.

Owen took his knife out of the box and tucked it under his leg, the handle sticking out the side if he needed it fast.

He rolled the office chair as quietly as he could to the visitor information desk. There might be a radio there that he had missed the night before. He stopped at the Jurassic Snax! stand and snagged the last four Ankylosaurus Almond Bars. There was no water left in the fridge. He must have taken it all last night. He scooted the chair around to the other side of the desk.

He hadn't noticed it in the dark last night but it wasn't smooth wall behind the desk, there was a door with a familiar sign: STAFF ONLY.

He opened the door and poked his head in. The hallway was dimly lit, the only light streaming in from a few open doors that must have windows beyond them.

He listened carefully for signs of people but it was as silent as the rest of the building. He checked the time: 5:19pm. He was losing daylight fast. He looked between the door and the gift shop. Possibly a radio or definitely pants?

"Pants." He looked down at his leg and grimaced. Pants would tug on the bandage on his calf every time he moved. "Shorts."

He rolled his way over to the gift shop, dodging the occasional backpack that had been left behind. It didn't take him long to find a shirt and shorts in his size: an olive green t-shirt with the Jurassic World logo blazed across the chest and khaki shorts with little Jurassic World logos on every button. There was even a belt, socks, and underwear in his size— also proudly displaying the Jurassic World logo.

"You'd think we were in Jurassic World or something," Owen murmured as he pulled on the shirt then struggled into the rest of the clothes as the shadows grew longer. At least the belt was easy once he had the shorts on.

Finally, he pulled his boots back on. He sat up and looked between his watch, the cashier's counter, and the first aid station. He really didn't have time to go rummaging around behind the counter for a radio. The sun was going down now.

He dragged his bottom lip through his teeth. He kicked off the floor and sent the office chair gliding towards the counter. He still had a solid twenty minutes of twilight. He'd just take a quick look. Nothing thorough. Just in and out. Maybe there was a radio right there and he could call in his rescue tonight.

The chair coasted towards the counter. Owen put his hand out and grabbed the counter top. He pulled himself around to the other side of the counter, taking note of the snack stand not too far away— he'd grab a few things on his way back.

A quick glance at the shelves behind the counter didn't turn up a radio. He poked around in a couple of cupboards and dumped out the contents of a purse. Nothing useful. Not even a forgotten phone in the purse.

He was resigning himself to rolling back to the first aid station in the near dark of twilight when he saw the big glass bowl on the counter. It was full of kid sized pocket flashlights. He plunged his hand in and grabbed a flashlight in the shape of a stegosaurus. He pushed the button on its back. Its mouth lit up.

It wasn't very bright but he'd at least be able to see a couple feet in front of him.

"It's something at least." Owen fished out a second one – a triceratops – in case the first one went dead on him.

He grabbed a paper bag – stamped with the Jurassic World logo of course – from a stack under the counter. He rolled the chair out from behind the counter and coasted over to the snack stand. He stuck the flashlight into his mouth then grabbed handfuls of everything that looked like it would contain nuts or oats. Something to fill him up and give him some slow release energy, instead of gorging himself on chocolate and candy then feeling like shit while still being hungry after.

There were a lot of Ankylosaurus Almond and Nutty Nasutoceratops Bars to be had.

"Who thin's t'is 'it up?" Owen mumbled around the flashlight. He dropped four Very Berry Brachiosaurus Bars into the bag then called it a day. He rolled up the top of the paper bag and added it to the pile on his lap. He took the flashlight from his mouth then looked across the ranger station. There might be another ten minutes of workable twilight outside but inside the long shadows had already given way to darkness. "Time to go."

He rolled the office chair through the darkness, only a dim pool of light to guide him.

A backpack slipped into the light. He stopped. He wasn't racing against the sunset anymore. It was already dark and he had a flashlight. What was an extra minute to check a backpack? He stuck the flashlight into his mouth then leaned over to pick up the backpack.

He yawned around the flashlight, nearly dropping it. He took the flashlight from his mouth and yawned again. That seemed to be the signal his body needed to flood him with a worn down exhaustion.

"Guess that extra minute was over doing it," Owen muttered to himself. He unzipped the backpack through ever increasing yawns only to be disappointed. There were some park pamphlets, three coffee mugs from the gift shop, and a small woman's jacket. "Wasted my minute on tourist junk."

He pulled out the jacket, intending to check the pockets for a phone, and sent a fourth coffee mug crashing to the floor.

Owen's blood went cold as the coffee mug shattered in the silence.

He turned the flashlight off; it would only serve to give away his position. He eased the backpack to the floor then sat perfectly still in the dark and listened.

There was no curious raptor bark or trumpet call. No roar of a monster.

His hands were moving to turn the flashlight back on when he heard it: the quiet click of nails on concrete just outside the entrance. Owen tensed, hands frozen on the flashlight.

The click of nails on concrete stopped, replaced by a deep snuffling noise. And then— click, click, click on tile.

Something had come into the building.

Owen moved one hand to rest over top of the things in his lap then ever so slowly leaned to his left, reaching for the backpack. His fingers brushed the teeth of the zipper. He reached in and, one at a time, took out the remaining three coffee mugs and tucked them between the paper bag and his stomach.

Every soft crinkle of paper made him wince.

Whatever it was standing at the entrance it seemed distracted, sniffing at something on the ground.

Owen took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He pushed the office chair backwards, away from the pieces of broken coffee mug.

The sniffing stopped.

Owen froze.

A minute went by in silence.

The sniffing started up again, followed by the clicking of claws.

Was it getting closer?

Owen breathed deep, took one of the coffee mugs, and threw it at what he hoped was the entrance. A second later there was a loud crack as the coffee mug shattered against the big glass windows of the ranger station.

The thing in the building let out a disgruntled shriek that he'd recognize anywhere.

Fuck, it's one of the raptors!

He threw a second coffee mug, aiming further to the right. This time he was rewarded with a satisfying smash of ceramic hitting concrete.

The raptor hissed. The click of nails hurried towards the entrance.

Owen rolled the office chair towards the back wall as fast as he dared, then pushed himself along to the visitors information desk. If the raptor came back in he'd never make it across the whole ranger station in time, but maybe he could make it to the staff door behind the information desk.

The raptor gave an agitated barked. The click of nails grew closer, it had come back into the building. Was it hunting him? Or just curious about new surroundings?

Owen hurled the last coffee mug into the gift shop. There was a loud smash followed by the rainfall tinkle of safety glass breaking and falling to the floor. He must have hit a display case.

The raptor dashed across the station and crashed into something. Nails scrabbled against the floor. It shrieked and hissed and slashed and kicked at whatever it had hit.

Owen didn't waste his opportunity. He rolled the chair as fast as he could. He slid behind the information desk. He felt along the wall in the darkness until his hand bumped into the door handle.

The human accessible not at all raptor safe lever style handle.

Oh, god, let it lock from the other side.

He yanked the door open and whipped himself across the threshold. He closed the door as quietly as he could then felt up from the handle for a deadbolt. He found it a foot above the handle. He locked the door then pushed away from it and awaited.

The raptor was still shrieking; banging and clattering something against the floor. Then: BANG! Something big crashed into something solid, taking out what sounded like half the gift shop with it. There were three angry barks then hissing and snapping and the crunch of glass.

More overpriced souvenirs crashed to the floor, an occasional snap or hiss interjected into the chaos.

Owen rolled the chair away from the door, his breath coming in deep and shaky. The raptor sounded content to take it's temper out on the gift shop. He felt along the wall until he reached a door. He rolled himself in and closed the door behind him. He felt for another deadbolt but found nothing. He'd just have to hope that the outer door would hold up to an angry raptor.

He reached for the flashlight then stopped. What if something was in the room with him? What if one of the raptors had found their way in earlier?

He squinted into the darkness. All he could see was the slightly less dark rectangle of a window across from him. He heaved in another shaky breath and made his choice: he picked up the flashlight and turned it on.

Either he was alone in the room or a dinosaur was going to eat him. It wouldn't matter if it was in the dark or in the light. At least with the flashlight on he'd know it was coming.

He held the flashlight out and peered into the dim shadows as he rolled the office chair further into the room. There were a few chairs around a table, a fridge, a counter with a little sink, some cupboards, and a couch.

He'd closed himself up in the employee break room.

Owen tossed his bag of Jurassic Snax! and his box of essentials on the couch then kicked off the wall and rolled the chair back to the fridge. Maybe there was water inside.

He pulled the refrigerator door open. The ripe smell of rotting fish and eggs blasted out. Gagging, he shoved the door closed.

"Nope, ugh, not– ugh, not an option," he choked out. He scooted the chair over to the cupboards and looked for a glass. He found a mug, the name STEVE blazed across it. He pulled himself down the counter to the sink. Hopefully there would still be enough water in the pipes.

Owen set the flashlight down on the counter then held the mug up to the faucet. He turned the tap on. He sighed in relief as a slow stream of water came out.

He filled the mug, careful not to spill a single drop, then turned the tap off. He chugged the water down then filled the mug again. He set the mug down on the counter then massaged his temples. His body was exhausted but his head was busying cataloguing everything that had gone wrong.

He'd been running on empty for two days while seriously injured. He was completely alone, unarmed, and had one good leg. There were two doors and a single deadbolt lock between him and an angry raptor. There was a monster loose on the island that had a taste for people.

All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep for a week, preferably somewhere that he wouldn't run the risk of being eaten but he wasn't that lucky today.

Owen rolled the chair back to the couch. He put the paper bag and the box on the floor then eased out of the office chair and laid himself out on the couch. He checked the time. It was still a few hours to go before his next does of medication. He should try to get some rest while he could.

He turned the flashlight off and closed his eyes. Something crashed out in the gift shop. The raptor screamed. Owen sighed then reached over to the office chair and grabbed his knife off the seat. He settled back onto the couch, folding his arms over his chest, knife in hand.

Another crash came from the gift shop followed by a strange thwump thwump thwump noise. What was the raptor—

"Helicopter," Owen whispered. He grabbed the back of the couch and heaved himself upright. He cocked his head towards the sound, listening in the dark. The steady beat of the helicopter was joined by another, maybe more.

The raptor screamed at something. The noise of the helicopters, maybe? The raptors had never been too keen on the sound they made.

"Why are they flying at night?" Owen wondered, shuffling himself back into the office chair, flashlight in hand. He knew a few of the Jurassic World helicopter pilots had the training for night flying but it was generally against park policy to do it. Too dangerous on an already dangerous island.

"Maybe they're evacuating people? But why do it at night when the risks are higher?" Owen rolled the chair over to the window. He stopped and listened. The helicopters were still in the air but they sounded further away. He held the flashlight up anyway and flashed out SOS until he couldn't hear them anymore.

"Shit." Owen leaned back into the chair, body aching. He turned the flashlight off. He had to conserve battery life for next time. There had to be a next time. "They'll be back. They gotta go somewhere."

He put the flashlight on the windowsill then crossed his arms. He tucked his chin down to his chest and settled in to rest as well as he could. They'd be back. And when they came, he'd be ready and waiting.

Chapter Text

Owen leaned forward and pressed his ear to the employee door. He closed his eyes and listened, focusing the best he could despite the all over ache. The raptor had stopped tearing apart the gift shop around midnight but he could still hear it out there, snuffling through the wreckage of the ranger station.

He wished he knew which raptor it was then he'd have a better idea of how long it might hang around. He doubted it was Charlie, she would have gotten bored after a couple hours and left, but any of the other three might stay for days, might leave in the next ten minutes. It all came down to who it was and why they were so pissed off.

Something fell and bounced across the floor on the other side of the door. There was a surprised snort in response then the scrapping sound of things being dragged across the floor.

Owen waited for the scrapping noise to pass by, only daring to roll the office chair back when he was sure the raptor was far from the door. He needed to find a quieter way of getting around. Office chairs weren't built with stealth in mind. Every time he rolled down the hall it sounded like thunder to his ears.

Rubbing his head, he rolled back to the break room. He'd woken up slumped against the window, a splitting headache already well under way. He was counting down to his morning dose of tylenol.

He closed the break room door and checked the time. "Finally."

He kicked off the door and glided over to the couch and his little supplies cache. He took his tylenol and amox-clav, ate three granola bars, and drank some water then cast a bleary-eyed look around the break room. Now that he had daylight he should really start searching the employee offices for a radio and anything else useful. He should be taking stock of his situation. Getting prepared for the worst case scenario: that he'd have to walk out on his own. But he was just so tired and everything hurt.

He closed his eyes and pressed his hand to his forehead. "Nap first."

He wasn't going to get anywhere feeling like this. He'd have a nap. It would give the tylenol time to kick in and when he'd wake up he'd feel better. "Like a million bucks."

Hissing in pain, he shimmied himself onto the couch. His leg felt worse this morning but he was chalking that up to the stress of last night and sleeping in the chair and not a raging infection that was going to kill him. He grabbed the blanket he'd been using to prop up his leg and unrolled it. He laid back and spread the blanket over himself. He was cold because he was tired and recovering, it wasn't that raging infection he didn't have.

He dozed on and off for the next two hours before he gave it up. The all over body ache was staying and that headache wasn't going anywhere either.

Owen sat up and took stock of his shitty situation. "Okay. I'm stuck in the Valley. No one knows I'm here. Power is out and the phones don't work. But if the power is out then..." He frowned as the conclusion escaped him. "The power is out. If the power is out then...the power is out. If the power— the generator!"

He frowned. "Why isn't the generator working?"

Owen shuffled himself back into the chair and pushed himself over to the window. He peered down into the yard, there was a truck sitting in the middle. His eyes flicked across the yard to the garage and workshop. He couldn't see the generator from this angle.

He opened the window and cut out the screen with his knife. Grimacing, he stood up, bracing himself on one leg, and leaned out, careful to hold onto the ledge. It was a long way down if he passed out and took a swan dive. The tourist entrance came in at ground level on the one side but the station was built into a steep hill that meant he was actually on the second story. All the business parts of running the park happened below the tourist trap.

He spotted the generator peeking out from the other side of the garage. Its large dinosaur proof cage seemed to be intact. It looked fine but there was no power to the building and he couldn't hear it running.

"Why isn't it running?" Owen sat back into the chair. He picked the problem over for a few minutes before shaking his head. The generator not running was a long term problem he didn't need to worry about. The goal was being rescued in the near future, today preferably, not camp out in the ranger station. He should focus on finding a radio. Or a truck.

There was a truck in the yard.

He stuck his head back out the window. The truck was parked across the driveway, like someone had ripped into the yard and ditched the truck without caring about who'd bitch about it later. Had they been rushing to make it here for the evacuation? Or had something been chasing them? Either way, get to a truck and drive out was officially a workable solution.

Owen gently pressed a hand against his wounded leg. The truck was down there, free for the taking, but there was a lot of ground to cover between him and the truck. Not to mention driving with a head injury could land him in another accident.

"Plan A it is; radio for help and make someone else do all the leg work."

He kicked off the wall, heading for the hallway. There were five other rooms off the hall. One of them had to have a radio.

Three hours later, after a painfully slow search of three offices, a bathroom, and a storage room, he had come away with a twelve pack of water bottles, a litre of shelf stable soy milk, two apples, a banana, a first aid kit, six packages of instant oatmeal, and one radio without a battery pack.

Owen sat at the table, eating the banana, and glared at the dead radio. It was plan B now, get down to the yard and hope the truck worked. Except, his search of the rooms had revealed a problem with that plan: there was no way to the ground level.

The offices were all strictly for 'guest services' employees and since they didn't need access to veterinarian supplies, automotive tools, or field equipment there was no way down to the yard. Someone in risk assessment had probably sold it as a safety feature; dinosaurs coming in for medical treatment couldn't gain access to the tourist centre if there was no access to gain. He'd bet good money that there was no way down that was accessible to the public. That meant he'd have to leave the building, go down the hill, and figure out how to open the gate for the yard all while a raptor stalked him. There was no way that didn't end with him getting eaten.

If he couldn't open the gate he could try getting all the way to the gyrosphere corral and grab another gyrosphere but that was even further than the truck and there was no guarantee that they'd be charged and ready to go at this point. He didn't know what the battery life was of a gyrosphere but the one he had come to the ranger station in had died two days ago. Did he really want to take his chances on gyrosphere battery life? Plus there was still the raptor situation. If he had to search for a charged gyrosphere that was more time out in the open. There was no way that didn't end with getting eaten too.

His luck had finally run out. He'd have to wait. Either for the raptor to leave or for help to come.

---

There were helicopters in the night again. He was awake this time to hear them coming and going. He flashed an SOS out the window each time. None of them turned around to investigate. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe all they could do was report it. Maybe someone would come in a truck in the morning.

---

Breakfast was an apple and instant oatmeal soaked in soy milk. He'd debated on saving the apple for later but ultimately decided it was better to eat as well as he could while healing rather than ration the little he had. He wasn't going to be one of those idiots who died in the desert with half a bottle of water. If he didn't eat, he wouldn't heal. If he didn't heal, he wouldn't be making any escape attempts.

After breakfast he listened at he door – something was out there – then changed the dressing on his wound. It still looked angry and red but it wasn't a shiny skin balloon anymore, so there was that. A bit of clear fluid was leaking out from between stitches. A careful sniff didn't reveal any signs of a worsening infection. Between cleaning the wound out and the amox-clav he must have saved his leg.

Or at least, stopped himself from immediately dying of an untreated blood infection.

He tried resting in the afternoon but the situation was far from restful. It was hot, he was injured, and there was a raptor between him and escape. He busied himself instead; making a walking stick out of a broom handle, the rubber foot off one of the chairs, and some duct tape.

He hobbled back and forth across the break room with his new walking stick, practising for a scenario where he'd need it. It wouldn't pass any safety guidelines but it sure beat giving away his position every time he wanted to move.

---

There were no helicopters that night. It left him plenty of time to think about how fucked the situation must be. It had been four, maybe five days, since that thing had gotten loose and the Valley zone was still abandoned.

Someone should have come by now. Next to the t-rex and the mossasaurus feeding, the gyrospheres were one of the biggest tourist draws the park had. Shit had to have really hit the fan if no one was coming out to the Valley zone to clean up.

The best case scenario he could come up with was that they were leaving the Valley zone cordoned off because of the raptors. They weren't Jurassic World's problem, they were InGen's problem. As much as he couldn't stand Hoskins he would be a sight for sore eyes right about now if he turned up with a bunch of InGen guys in an armoured truck and more tranquilizer guns than he could count. But if that was the case why hadn't InGen launched a retrieval mission yet?

He didn't want to think about the worst case scenario: that Barry had made it out and told them he was in the Valley zone but that they weren't going to come for him because it was where they had trapped the monster. He couldn't blame them if that was the case, risking the lives of multiple employees to save one guy that they understandably probably thought was dead wasn't worth it.

Neither scenario was a comfort in the dark.

Chapter Text

His third day stuck in the break room started with the curious bark of raptors drifting in from the open window. His eyes snapped open as the first barks faded from his ears. He eased himself off the couch and dropped his butt into the office chair. He rolled over to the window and stuck his head outside into the early morning light. It was easy to spot them. Echo and Charlie were down at the gate; sniffing around, chattering at each other. They looked good, healthy and uninjured, if a little cranky with each other by the way they kept taking little nips at one another. They must have been able to avoid that monster of a dinosaur.

Echo trilled inquisitively then pressed her forelimbs against the gate, testing its strength. She stepped back and stared.

"What are you looking for?" Owen murmured. Even now, trapped as he was, he couldn't help but be fascinated by the raptors. He'd seen them test fences and gates a million times over and he was always surprised by what they came up with.

Echo leaned forward, hooked her claws through the chain links in the gate, and pulled. An angry hiss floated up to him when it wouldn't budge. She pushed forward instead, using her chest to throw her weight against it. The gate flexed. She barked in triumph then switched tactics, opting to kick the gate instead of body slamming it.

Owen cursed under his breath. Beyond the problem of the raptors getting into the yard before he did there was the very real possibility that once they saw the truck they'd tear it apart for fun. They hadn't been inside a truck since they were knee high and they saw trucks all the time from the paddock. They knew about trucks and that you could get into them. The novelty of having one to themselves now would be huge.

"Come on, go away and leave the yard alone," Owen muttered. "There's nothing down there. Why even bother with the gate? You've got a whole valley to check out. Chase some dinosaurs. Eat something big and scaly."

Charlie stopped her investigation of the fence to watch Echo trying to kick the gate in. She went over to stand beside Echo and added two sharp kicks of her own to the gate before Echo turned and snarled at her. Charlie snarled back and postured aggressively. From his years of observing them he was fairly certain neither had any real intent to attack, they were just airing their grievances.

"We're super cranky today, huh?" Owen's fingers itched for a pencil and notebook. Yeah, he might be trapped in ranger station with a monster hiding somewhere and four raptors on the loose, but how often did he get to observe the raptors in a new environment? In just five minutes he had so many notes about fence safety and social behaviours.

With a screech Echo lunged forward and snapped at Charlie. Charlie jumped back and hissed. They stared each other down until Charlie huffed and turned her head away— the raptor equivalent of a this is beneath me shrug. Charlie went back to her investigation of the fence.

Echo watched Charlie for a moment, giving her own dismissive huff and head turn, before switching tactics at the gate. She crouched down and started digging at the bottom. It would have been a futile effort back at the raptor enclosure, the gate connected with the concrete bottom that encased the entire raptor enclosure to stop them from digging their way out. But here? Expecting digging behaviours from something as fuck off huge as a brachiosaurus was just a little bit ridiculous. And why would they design the ranger station in the valley zone for raptors? It was entirely within reason that the fence didn't even go below ground. They hadn't had raptor proof doors, why would they have raptor proof fences?

Echo stopped digging and tried to shove her head through the shallow indent she'd made. She could barely get her muzzle through. That didn't deter her. She hopped back up and went back to digging.

"Why the hell are you so determined to get in there?" Owen wondered. They had the run of the whole valley. They could go terrorize fun new things for however long they wanted and then eat it. There was no one out there to stop—

"I'm such an idiot," Owen groaned. There were no humans out there to stop them but that didn't mean the big herbivores were going to just stand there and let the raptors attack them or that the smaller dinosaurs wouldn't run for cover.

The raptors had spent their whole lives hunting nothing bigger than a terrified sixty pound pig in an enclosure. They had been entirely dependent on humans for their consistent and nutritionally balanced meals. Which they had probably missed most of for nearly a week. The raptors were cranky and wanted into the yard because they were hungry and the easy food came from the other side of a fence— from humans.

Owen pressed his hands to his head and cursed. He had been waiting for the raptor in the ranger station to get bored and leave but it was waiting for people to show up and feed it. And now two more of them had showed up also very likely looking to be fed. And the person who fed them the most? Who's scent was all over the ranger station? Owen fucking Grady.

"Fuuuck!" Owen groaned. He scrubbed his hands over his face and swore again. He pressed his fingers against his temples as a headache threatened to flare up.

The timer on his watch went off. He didn't move to stop it. He let it go until it gave a last handful of frantic beeps before turning off on its own.

He heaved a sigh and leaned back in the chair. What was he going to do? It had been days now. Almost a whole week and no one had come for him. At this point he had to assume it was the worst case scenario: no one was coming and he had to make it out on his own. But how was he going to do that with the raptors between him and escape? And likely actively looking for him.

He pushed the chair away from the window and over to the table. He took his medication and then pawed through the expensive granola bars for the least worst ones— Nutty Nasutoceratops.

A quick scan of his dwindling supplies scattered across the table told him he'd have enough food to last into next week but water was on short supply. He'd drank four bottles in two days and used another for cleaning his wounds. He'd probably drink two more bottles today so that left him with...

His brows furrowed as he worked through the numbers. "Four and another one plus two today..." It didn't add up in his head. The lack of sleep, food, and blood taking their toll. He counted it out on his fingers. "Right, seven bottles gone out of a dozen which leaves...four? No, five."

He pulled two bottles out of the pack for the day then counted the remainder just to make certain.

"Five," Owen said, firmly. "Plus whatever I can drain from the taps."

He grabbed the empty bottles and rolled the office chair over to the sink. He drained out every last drop he could from the faucet. He held up two almost full bottles. "Okay, call it three more days before water is a problem." He glanced towards the employee bathroom. "The bathroom situation is going to suck."

An awful screech came up from the yard. Owen whipped the office chair around and rolled back to the window. What if that thing had made its way out here?

His eyes frantically scanned the horizon. He breathed a sigh of relief. There was no monster-thing to be found. He flicked his gaze down to the fence where the raptors had been. Echo had wedged herself beneath the gate. She thrashed and squirmed, determined to get free. She rolled onto her back and kicked: one, two, three. Bang BANG BANG. On the third kick the gate tore off its hinges and clattered to the ground six feet away. Echo scrambled up and screeched at the gate in triumph. Owen made a mental note to find out what kind of hinges and closure that gate had and to never ever use them at the raptor enclosure.

Charlie gave an excited bark and trotted over to sniff at the gate. Echo screeched again then turned tail and darted into the yard.

"Please, not the truck," Owen pleaded.

Charlie chirped and trilled then followed after Echo. They disappeared from his line of sight and got into something. Whatever it was they were making one hell of a racket.

He watched the empty end of the yard and listened to them enjoy themselves destroying things when the realization slammed into: he was wasting a golden opportunity. If the other raptors were nearby they would have come to investigate by now. Charlie and Echo had been down there for a good chunk of the morning screeching at each other and kicking a gate down. If Blue and Delta hadn't heard that by now then they weren't around. Which meant he couldn't get to the truck but he could get to water, the restaurant was only a few hundred feet away. There might even be some nonperishable foods.

Owen grabbed his knife and the walking stick. It was now or never.

He rolled the office chair to the exit and listened at the door. It was silent. He breathed deep then cracked the door open. He paused and listened again. Still silent. He poked his head through, his eyes widening in shock. He knew the raptor out there had been trashing the place but this...it looked like a tornado had ripped through the ranger station. The gift shop was a shambles of broken glass and fluff from stuffed toys, the dinosaur displays were knocked over and in pieces, and what looked like half the contents of the first aid station had been dragged out into the main area and stomped on.

A chill ran through him when his eyes landed on a small clearing in the debris. Right in the centre of that clearing was the bloody remnants of his vest. The raptor that had been ripping the ranger station apart had found his vest and carried it out on purpose. It was looking for him.

His heart gave a terrified flutter in his chest. It was literally a miracle that whichever raptor had destroyed the place hadn't been able to track his scent to the employee door. Why wasn't he dead yet?

His hand tensed on the door handle. Did he risk it or stay put? If he went out there he'd be leaving new scent trails leading right back to his hideout. If he didn't go out there he was going to run out of water in three days and have to leave anyway.

Owen clenched his jaw and stood up, balancing his weight between his good leg and his broom handle walking stick. He couldn't waste anymore time agonizing over his choices and gawking at the wreckage. At least one of the raptors was actively looking for him and right now he knew where two of them were for certain and he had a good idea where the other two weren't. This was his chance and he had to take it. He might not get another one.

He hobbled and limped out the door as fast as he could, closing the door behind him. He didn't want to come back to an uninvited guest that would eat him.

His eyes flicked over the wreckage. He'd need something to carry the food and water in. His eyes landed on a backpack.

"Backpacks..." Owen stopped and looked around the mess. He'd had to shove multiple backpacks out of the way the other night but he had only ever stopped to check one. That one backpack had nearly gotten him killed but that didn't mean the rest would be complete failures. Any one of them might have a phone in them.

He limped over to the nearest backpack, navigating around a huge chunk of wooden desk and a mess of dinosaur themed keychanis. He awkwardly bent down and snatched the backpack up. He ripped it open and pawed through the contents. It was just extra socks and maps of the exhibits. He dumped the backpack then slung the bag over his shoulder. It would work fine to carry food and water. He picked his way through the mess towards the next backpack on the way to the restaurant.

After three more backpacks with nothing useful in them he had the sinking realization that a phone in an abandoned backpack would be unlikely. He always had his phone in his pocket and most women he knew either had employee shorts on with pockets big enough for a phone or they put it in their purse which they practically never put down. Why would a tourist be any different? Tourists were all about the pictures, they'd never put their phone out of reach.

Checking the backpacks was going to waste his limited amount of time. He needed to get the water from the restaurant. That would give him more time. If he was still stuck here, and hadn't been eaten by raptors, he could always come back to check the backpacks later.

He had to do a wide arc around the ruins of the gift shop. Every crunch of broken glass underfoot made him wince. What if this was what finally drew the raptors' attention?

The restaurant was easier to navigate. The raptor hadn't been in there and whoever had been in charge of the evacuation here had, had all the tables pushed aside and the chairs set up in neat rows. It was not lost on him that the tables had been pushed in front of the windows and turned on their sides. It wasn't much of a barricade but it was better than nothing.

His skin rose in goosebumps as he moved down the rows of chairs to the kitchen. It was eerie as hell, everything neat and orderly, just waiting for people, while the rest of the building was trashed.

He stopped in front of the kitchen doors and listened. He couldn't hear anything inside but he wouldn't be sure until he took the plunge. He cracked the door open, listened and waited, then stuck his head inside.

The kitchen was cast in shadows. The only light coming in from the window of an emergency exit and the faint red glow of the exit sign above. He waited. Nothing popped out and attacked him. He shouldered the door open and slipped inside.

It wasn't nearly as neat and tidy as the dining room. There was food on plates and in pans in the early stages of rotting scattered across the counters and empty boxes piled into one corner. He cast a wary eye at the boxes. Something could be hiding in there, not a raptor, they'd be too big, but that didn't mean one of the smaller carnivores couldn't have also escaped.

He shifted his weight between his good leg and the walking stick. He was already tiring out. This was the most walking he'd done since his leg had gotten ripped up. He shot the boxes another suspicious look before—

A chair screeched across the floor in the dinning room.

Owen's heart stopped.

The floor vibrated from a loud thud then everything went still.

He sucked in a shaky breath and turned around slowly. He reached out and pressed his hand against the kitchen door, opening it less than an inch. He leaned forward and looked through the gap. His lungs stopped working. Blue was lying on the floor licking at a gaping wound on her leg. He hadn't considered that maybe Blue and Delta hadn't gone to investigate Eco and Charlie's ruckus in the yard because they were injured. The wound on Blue's leg looked bad.

Owen eased the door closed. An injured raptor didn't mean a safe raptor, it meant the exact opposite in fact. Blue had lived her whole life always receiving immediate medical attention for serious injuries. She'd have no concept of long term pain from an injury. This was a new and probably scary concept to learn in a new and confusing environment. There was no telling how she'd react and unknown was the most dangerous thing involving a raptor.

Okay, what did he know? She had been following him for several days and had been shot with the tranquilizer gun at least once. She was probably hungry (please, let her not have eaten anyone). She was injured but not so injured that she couldn't silently stalk prey. She had probably been stalking him since he left the employee offices but she couldn't have been too close behind if she'd lost track of him when he went into the kitchen. She knew he was nearby but not exactly where.

Now what?

His first thought was to barricade the kitchen door. That thought was discarded as fast as it came. What was he supposed to do? Hope she didn't notice him hauling appliances across the floor? He glanced at the emergency exit. If he went out that way he might be running from one raptor only to fall into the jaws of two more.

His eyes scanned the kitchen for another option. They landed on a door. The walk-in fridge. His eyes flicked down to the handle. A pull handle. All the raptors knew how to defeat pull handles. But they knew how to defeat lever handles too and none of them had tried to get into the employee offices he'd been hiding in. Maybe they'd forgotten in all the excitement?

Did he really want to stake his life on the raptors continuing to forget? Because if Blue remembered he was trapping himself in a tiny dark box until she tore him to pieces.

Last option: stand very still and hope she went away on her own.

That was a terrible idea.

It was also the best idea he had with the information he had. There was a chance that she just wouldn't come into the kitchen, that she would look for him somewhere else. And if he didn't trap himself in the walk-in fridge there was always a chance he could make a run for it if she did come in.

He didn't like those chances.

He backed away from the door and ever so slowly made his way silently across the kitchen. He stopped in front of the emergency exit. It was the best of three really shitty options. He'd stand very still and hope she went away but if she didn't he would slip out the emergency exit before she came into the kitchen and just hope like hell he wasn't being herded into a kill zone.

He looked out the tiny window in the emergency door, hoping there would be cover not too far away. He wasn't sure whether what he saw counted as lucky or not. The emergency exit wasn't at ground level. It led to a fire escape. He wouldn't be escaping one raptor to walk immediately into another but it was also two stories worth of stairs and he had one good leg. Could he make it down that in a hurry? All he could do was wait and find out.

He checked his watch.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

He should have brought water with him. And the meds.

Thirteen minutes.

Twenty-one minutes.

His leg was on fire. He desperately wanted to sit down but he knew he'd never be able to get up in time if he had to move.

Twenty-five minutes.

Twenty-seven minutes.

A blood-curdling raptor scream tore though the dinning area. There was a snarl in response then an explosion of chairs clattering across the floor. The dinning area filled with hisses, screams, and screeches. He'd heard that particular brand of raptor violence once before, when Blue and Echo had fought for control of the pack.

Owen's heart hammered in his chest. This was it. It was time to go. He wouldn't survive a raptor dominance fight any better than a direct attack. He pushed the emergency exit open and stumbled through, his injured leg dragging from standing so long. He closed the door as quietly as he could. They probably wouldn't hear the door over their angry screaming but he wasn't going to push his luck. He was two shaky steps from the door when he heard agitated barks from below. Echo and Charlie. They had heard the fight. Which meant it was Blue and Delta in the restaurant doing their best to tear each other apart.

He made himself freeze even though everything was screaming at him to run from the violence breaking out behind him. Charlie and Echo darted out of the yard and took off into the valley without a second look. Apparently they didn't want anything to do with the fight for dominance either.

He watched them disappear over a hill.

They were gone.

They were gone and Blue and Delta were up here trying to kill each other.

"Oh, holy shit, the truck!" Owen whispered. He threw himself down the fire escape three stairs at a time. He hit the ground hard at the bottom and winced as pain shot through his leg. It didn't matter, if he fucked up his leg more if he could just get to that truck. He had to keep going.

He veered around the broken gate – thank you, Echo! – and beelined for the truck. He slammed into the side of the truck and tore the door open. He hauled himself in and slammed the door closed. He looked down at the ignition.

There were no keys!

"Shit! The keys! Where!?" Owen frantically searched the truck cab but there were no keys!

He snapped his head up. The garage. There would be more vehicles in there and the keys would be in the office.

He kicked the truck door open— and nearly lost his leg to snapping teeth.

Delta.

He stabbed his walking stick at her face. She stumbled back, letting out an angry scream. Owen scrambled over the seats to the other door. He yanked on the handle and tumbled out just as Delta launched herself into the truck. He threw the walking stick at her face like a spear then slammed the door closed and ran for the garage.

There was a crash of glass behind him. He didn't waste time looking back. He skidded to a stop in front of the garage door, his wounded leg screaming in pain. He pulled on the door. It didn't give. It was locked.

This was it. He was going to die right now.

He swung around just in time to see Delta leap at him. He ducked and rolled. She went sailing overhead and crashed into the garage door. He sprung up to his feet and nearly collapsed from the pain that shot up from his leg and went straight through him. A desperate animal noise escaped his throat when he tried to put weight on it. There wasn't going to be anymore running.

Delta flipped onto her feet and snarled at him.

He snapped his hand up and mustered every bit of energy he had left, "Delta, hold!"

Delta hissed at him and stepped forward.

Owen hobbled a step back, his heart thundered in his chest. "I said hold!"

She crouched down, a menacing string of hisses and clicks falling from her throat.

"Delta!" he scolded. He reached for his knife with his other hand. "Hold!"

The hissing stopped. She went absolutely still.

Owen's heart raced in his chest. Every muscle tensed, waiting for the impact he knew was coming. At least it would be quick. She was way too pissed off to think about toying with him.

The impact came from behind.

He had a fleeting second to think oh, I forgot about Blue, before he slammed into the ground.

The world spun on an angle, a terrible whining ring filled his ears. He caught flashes of Delta and Blue screaming and tearing at each other. A huge clawed foot slammed down inches from his face. His heart stopped. The foot tore up from the round, spraying dirt and gravel in his face. His heart launched into his throat, thrumming so hard he felt like he was choking.

He had to move. He was going to die but he had to move.

There was a bang and crunch of metal as one of them crashed into the garage door.

He sucked in a breath – no mind to the dirt that came with it – then tucked his arms beneath himself. He had to move. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and started crawling. He had to move. He tried not to think, not to panic, about feet coming down and crushing him or claws and teeth tearing out his spine. He kept his eyes forward, looking for cover. There was the truck, but that wouldn't keep a raptor out for long. He looked further ahead, the veterinary clinic. If he could make it to the veterinary clinic...

Move. Go. Don't think about it.

Panting and frantic, he dragged himself across the yard, his heart starting and stopping and racing at every snarl and scream and crunch of metal as their fight roiled across the yard.

Move. Go. Don't think about it. Move. Go. Don't think about it. Move. Go. Don't think about it.

A squeal of pain rang out, followed by the low churring noise that passed for a raptor whimper. The fighting stopped. Silence except for whoever was whimpering in pain. Whoever had won stamped their foot and trumpeted.

Move. Go. Don't think about it.

Another churring whimper. Crashing and quick yelps of pain. A foot stomping. A snarl. High hatchling-like chirps of distress then unsteady footsteps away.

Whoever had lost was running away to lick their wounds. Whoever had won was still here. The fight was over. The distraction was done and he was only a couple of feet from the door. If he could just make it a little further.

Move. Go. Don't think about it.

His blood turned cold as heavy raptor footsteps approached him.

That now familiar feeling of the terror of being eaten coursed through him. Owen reached for his knife. He couldn't not try. He wouldn't win but for a couple of seconds he would feel a lot better about the whole dying thing if he at least attempted to survive. He rolled over to face whoever had won.

It was Blue.

It was Blue and she had the injuries to prove it. There were deep gouges and bites scattered across her body. She stopped and stared down at him, her sides heaving in long laboured breaths. She took another step closer and stopped, her eyes narrowing down on his knife then flicking up to his face.

He stared right back at her, breaking his own rules. Staring down a raptor was a surefire way to piss them off. It's what they did right before fights broke out. He wouldn't win a fight. He was taking his chances, pushing his luck, that maybe Blue had, had enough fighting for one day. That if he didn't act like an easy meal he wouldn't become one.

She didn't move. Blood dripped off her making little pools on the ground. Her breathing stuttered, turning into a hoarse cough. She gave a weak trill and a few clicks then promptly collapsed to the ground.

Owen stared dumbly, heart and head racing with adrenaline that had no place to go. He'd been anticipating a fight to his death and now...and now...

He finally blinked. He looked between Blue lying on he ground, her sides fluttering in short shallow breaths, and the vet clinic. He scuttled backwards the last few feet and reached for the door. He laughed, hysterical. The clinic had doorknobs.

He turned the knob and fell into the veterinary clinic. He pushed himself upright and closed the door. He leaned against the wall and let it all come crashing in.

Chapter Text

The adrenaline crash came on hard, compounded by the sheer number of times he'd nearly died – maybe been left to die – in a week. He leaned his head back against the cool wall of the veterinary clinic and tried to get control of his breathing. A shaky breath out, a shaky half breath in cut off by a hysterical laugh that turned into gasping for breath like he'd run a marathon that soon had him doubling over to cough out a lungful of sand and dirt from the yard.

"Always knew Delta had a bone to pick..." he muttered to himself. He didn't trust any of the raptors to not eat him, but he trusted Delta the least. She'd never listened because he asked her to, she did it because Blue wanted her to. She was loyal to Blue and no one else. He frowned. "Maybe not so loyal anymore."

Sweat trickled down his forehead into his eyes. He wiped his face against his forearm, leaving behind a smear of blood and dirt. He reached up to touch his face but stopped. His hands were covered in blood and dirt too. His eyes darted over his hands and arms, his legs. He was a mess; scrapes and cuts crusted over in dirt and deeper gouges still bleeding. The bandage on his leg was hanging off. He'd torn out one of his long running stitches and the bite had come open. The second stitch was still in place but oozing blood.

"At least—" Another not quite right laugh erupted out of him, followed by another gritty cough. "At least the second one stayed in."

Owen tore the bandage the rest of the way off and threw it aside. He struggled out of his shirt and flipped it inside out. The inside wasn't exactly clean but it was better than the outside; a fine sprinkling of dirt as opposed to clumps of dirt. He wrapped the shirt around his leg as best he could then tied it off. It didn't need to be good, just good enough to get him to wherever they kept the bandages. It was a vet clinic. They had to have bandages somewhere.

He leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes, and focused on breathing. The erratic gasping gave way to...not so erratic gasping. An occasional shiver rippled through him as the last of the chemical surge of fight or flight faded away. He could feel his body wanting to slow down, to rest. He didn't have that luxury just yet.

"Better get this over with now." Owen took as deep a breath as he could, braced his shaky hands and good leg on the floor. "Okay, here we go." He pushed up.

Everything hurt all the way up. He leaned against the wall as he breathed hard through the pain. His 'good' leg ached. Best case scenario he'd just banged it up a little and a wicked bruise was in the process of turning him black and blue. Worst case scenario, he'd broken something scrambling down the fire escape.

"Wouldn't that be the icing on the cake," Owen grumbled. Another bout of shivering hit him; his body protesting being up right. He breathed in and out, slow and measured until it passed.

Once the shivering stopped, he eased weight onto his bad leg. A pitiful noise stuck in his throat as red hot pain spiked through him. There was no way he was walking on that. He looked around the small entry room of the clinic, hoping for another rolling office chair, more than willing to settle for another broom handle.

No such luck. The valley staff were using the front room to store the less delicate field equipment. There were lots of rope, tarps, cage traps, and thick rubber gloves that would cover your whole arm if you had to stick your hand into a dinosaurs butt. No chairs. No brooms. No medical supplies. He'd have to check the rest of the clinic.

"Why wouldn't they keep their first aid kit at the front door?" Owen complained. He pressed a hand to the wall and put all his weight on his mostly okay leg, only letting the toe of his bad leg touch the floor to keep balance, then got to hopping through the vet clinic.

There were two short halls off the front room. The first hall led to offices. He didn't bother looking for phones or a radio. He could come back and be disappointed when he wasn't bleeding. He hopped back to the second hall. There was a spotless surgery suite behind the first door he tried. He hopped across the surgery suite, leaving a trail of dirt and blood on the pristine floors, to the supply cupboard.

"Jackpot," Owen said, pulling the cupboard doors open. It was fully stocked. Everything neatly labelled. His eyes scanned over the shelves, there was just barely enough sunlight filtering in from the hall to read the labels. Stitches were out, his hands were still too shaky from the adrenaline crash, but surgical strips would work just as good. Gauze pads, tape, and saline wash were next. He stuffed it all into his shorts pockets.

He hopped back to the front room for better light, his whole body screaming at him for daring to still be on his feet. Foot. He eased himself down to the floor with a groan, gave himself a minute to feel sorry for himself, then set about cleaning his wounds and assessing the damage.

The slow methodical work of cleaning himself up, of fixing something, soothed his frayed nerves. Normally, he'd go spend an hour or two finding half imagined problems with his bike. It let him put things into perspective, take control of some tiny aspect of his life. That wasn't an option here so first aid it was. He let his mind wander over the raptors' behaviours rather than his own crushing realities (oh god, he'd never been so alone).

Charlie and Echo had come this morning without the others and taken off at the first hint of a fight. Delta, normally loyal to Blue, had fought with her instead of trying to rein in her sisters.

"Fight for dominance?" Owen wondered aloud as he untied his bloody shirt from his leg and tossed it aside. He grabbed the saline and flushed dirt out of the re-opened bite wound. Saline splashed across his leg as another tremor swept through his hands. That fight for dominance had nearly gotten him killed. "Guess it had to happen sooner or later."

They had all known that there was a very high probability they'd have a big throw down over the pack's hierarchy soon. The original raptors of Jurassic Park had been ruthless once they had reached adulthood; they'd started off with eight and ended up with just three by the end. As far as the vets could tell Blue and maybe Delta were just beginning to exit adolescence.

Not for the first time he wished they'd collected more data on the feral raptors of Isla Sorna before they'd been wiped out. All the remaining reports on raptors were about raptors raised in near isolation without parents that had been dumped together in a concrete box without acclimatizing them to each other first. Those early raptors were all essentially feral children. Feral children with really big claws and teeth. His were a little bit better off, they'd been raised together, but there was still no way to tell what was just surly teenage behaviour and what was a serious adulthood fight until they saw the outcome. It was all new to the raptors. And him.

Owen finished cleaning up the last of his scrapes. By some miracle it all seemed to be superficial except for the stitches coming out. A couple of pieces of tape here and there, a bandage to protect it, and he was...mostly okay to go.

"Go where?"

He struggled to his feet – foot – to stare out the barred window at the front of the room. The garage hadn't gotten any closer. It was still all the way across the yard. That was a long way to hop on one foot. Longer to hop on one foot while the raptors were loose.

Was Blue still right outside the door?

He hopped closer to the window until he could see her sprawled out where she'd fallen. Was she unconscious? Resting? Laying a trap?

"No going out that way." Owen glanced over his shoulder. "Unless..." This was a veterinary clinic for Jurassic World, they had to have a way to tranquilize the smaller herbivores and bring them into the clinic. He made his way back down the hall that led to the surgery suite, one agonizing hop at a time.

The second door down the hall was a closet full of cleaning supplies. He grabbed a mop from a bucket and laughed darkly at the rush of relief that flooded through him. He was thankful for finding a mop.

"You know things have gotten bad when a mop is a good sign." He eased away from the wall, slowly putting his weight onto his okay leg and the mop. There was no new gut wrenching pains. Just the same ones from before. "Oh yeah, things are really looking up now."

The next door was a second surgery suite and the last door was locked.

"It's locked!" Owen laughed. He'd never been so happy to find a locked door. He had a good idea of what they'd lock up: guns. It's what they locked up at the raptor paddock.

He hobbled back down the hall. He'd passed by a fire extinguisher cabinet recessed into the wall. He grabbed the fire extinguisher and hurried back as if the door would disappear if he left it for too long.

Owen stood in front of the door, balanced himself on one leg as best he could, then smashed the fire extinguisher against the handle. He didn't stop to consider if something could hear him until the metal on metal clang echoed through the hall. He cast a worried glance towards the front door and listened. No snuffling sounds. No curious raptor barks. Blue was still out, the others were still gone. He turned back to the door and bashed the handle three more times in quick succession. The handle bent. He sucked in a deep breath and slammed the fire extinguisher down as hard as he could.

The handle fell to the floor with a rattle. Owen popped the door open.

It wasn't guns.

Well, it was but it wasn't the kind of gun he was hoping for. It was the tranquilizer guns, all neatly racked down one side of the room. The rest of the room was dedicated to shelves upon shelves of darts, CO2 cartridges, and high dose painkillers for the dinosaurs.

At least they were fully stocked. And it was what he'd been looking for anyway. He didn't want to kill Blue, he just didn't want her to kill him.

Still, a high powered rifle would have been nice.

He tucked the tranquilizer gun under his arm then grabbed a box of CO2 cartridges and a box of darts with a familiar label and brought it all back to the front room. He set the tranq gun and the CO2 cartridges down then pulled open the box of darts and read the labels. It was the same kind and dosage they had at the raptor paddock.

Owen glanced up at the window. Did he really want to go out there with a tranquilizer gun and nothing else?

Not really. But there was nothing to survive on in the vet clinic. He'd have to leave eventually or starve. At least right now he knew exactly where one of the raptors were. He connected the CO2 cartridge and loaded up a dart. It was still a long way to the garage but what choice did he have?

He limped himself up to the barred window. Blue was still outside. She hadn't moved since she collapsed. He bit his lip. If this were a regular old day at the raptor paddock he'd never entertain the idea of dosing up one of the raptors with a tranquilizer when they'd collapsed unless there was a whole vet team standing by in case they stopped breathing.

"Sorry, Blue," Owen murmured, crouching down beside the door. If it was a trap she'd attack high up where she'd expect his chest to be. "We're gonna have to take our chances."

Taking a deep breath, Owen cracked the door open. Blue didn't come barrelling into the clinic. She was sprawled out exactly where she had fallen. He breathed out and took his shot. There was a soft thwit! Blue didn't make a sound. He closed the door and waited. The dart took at minimum ten minutes for full sedation. The raptor paddock's safe practice was to wait for fifteen.

That gave him fifteen minutes to gather what he could.

He searched the offices. No working phones. No radios. No hidden office snacks.

"I'm gonna have to tell Claire her workplace emergency training paid off," Owen grumbled to himself as he carried an armful of boxes of darts to the front door. "Everyone was extremely diligent about keeping their radios on the their person at all times."

Except for him. He couldn't remember if he'd still had it on him when he went to check out the new paddock. It had been after work. Had he left his radio back at the raptor paddock to charge? Or had he taken it with him and lost it in the chaos?

He piled up the boxes of darts and cartridges at the front door then went back down the hall for the fire extinguisher – he'd need a way to open the locked garage door – and the bucket from the cleaning supply closet. He piled the boxes into the bucket then stared down at his meagre collection of supplies. He'd left the cushy employee break room for this?

"There better be a truck in the garage. And keys. Or I am so screwed."

After some thought he added three thick coils of rope from the mess in the front room to his little stash. As if that made things any better.

Owen loaded a dart into the tranquilizer gun and went to the window to check on Blue. Still no movement. He checked his watch: two minutes before he would be confidant the sedative was working. He looked back out the window, trying to spot every possible place a raptor could be hiding. He half hoped he spotted one of them now, then he could take a shot and let the tranquilizer take effect. Better than his only option if he was caught in the open: shoot as many darts as he could and hoped they overdosed before they ate him.

He glanced at his watch again. It was go time. He braced himself against the wall and cracked the door open.

Blue didn't move.

He nudge the door open wide with the tranq gun.

Still no movement. If this was a trap she was extremely committed to it.

Owen limped into the doorway and leaned against the frame on his good side. He slowly raised his mop-crutch and gave Blue a good poke in the shoulder. She still didn't move. Had she...? His eyes flicked up. Her flanks were slowly rising and falling. Not dead.

"Oh, Blue," he sighed, eyes travelling over her now that he knew he had time to look.

She looked awful.

Delta had taken a chunk out of the back of her neck. She was covered in bite and claw marks. Her left leg had a deep wound that was puffy and infected. It was a miracle she'd won that fight.

He looked between Blue and the garage. Owen with the bum leg desperately wanted to get over there and find a truck. Trainer Owen that had spent the last three years raising Blue was deeply concerned for her. If no one took care of these injuries soon she'd die.

"I am such an idiot," he groaned.

Owen turned around and went back into the clinic. He grabbed what he needed from the medical supply cupboard and hurried back. He crouched down beside Blue and got to work as fast as he could. The sedative would only guarantee him another twenty minutes before she started to wake up. If they'd been at the raptor paddock he would have told the vets to patch her up from nose to tail. They weren't at the raptor paddock, there was only him and he had a time limit. He had to pick and chose.

A quick assessment and he'd made his choices. The huge wound on the back of her neck was still oozing blood. It would rip open as soon as she got up, if she got up at all. And the infected wound on her leg, that one looked bad. He expected if it was left any longer it would kill her in a couple days.

He gave himself five minutes and started with the wound on her neck. It was weird for a bite. Small but deep, like someone had scooped out a chunk of flesh. Almost as if Delta had torn open an abscess. He knew Blue hadn't had an infection there before all this shit went down. So what had left such a huge hole in her neck?

Owen winced when he realized what it was: the hole left behind from her tracker. Delta must have ripped it out during the fight. That had to have hurt.

The infected wound on her leg took longer. It was a mess. How was she even walking on it? Let alone, fighting on it?

"Guess we match now," Owen murmured as he cleaned it out. He slapped some surgical strips across it and slathered it with an antibacterial cream then taped the whole thing over. She'd probably rip it off as soon as she woke up but it was the best he could do.

"Sorry, Blue, this is all I can do for you," he apologized, filling up a syringe with an antibiotic. He plunged it into her then pat her side. "Good luck, girl."

He went back into the clinic and stared down at his supplies. The reality of his situation sunk in, how was he going to get all that across the yard with one free hand?

"No way I'm leaving the tranq gun." Owen clutched the tranq gun to his side. No way was he going across the yard injured, half dressed, and unarmed. He glanced over his shoulder at the locked garage door. He'd have to take the fire extinguisher, he didn't have time to go looking for something else to smash the handle off. He'd never be able to carry the rope and the bucket too unless he put the tranq gun down, which he was definitely not doing.

"Two trips. I can do two trips in fifteen minutes." Owen looked down himself. He still had a nasty bruise on his chest from being stepped on, he was covered in scrapes and cuts, and he had one good leg. "Oh yeah, that's a lie."

He looped a single coil of rope across his chest and stuffed his pockets full of darts and cartridges. He stared down at the bucket, still mostly full, and frowned. There was just no way to bring it all. How had he not realized? It was so obvious he wouldn't be able to do it. He worried his lip, troubled by what it could mean for his repeat head trauma.

"You're wasting time," he chided himself. If he was going to drop dead from a brain injury he probably would have done it by now. He tucked the fire extinguisher under his arm and made for the garage as fast as one leg and a mop could take him. His brain offered up problems even faster.

How was he going to open garage bay doors without the power on? Ram a truck through the door? Fix the generator? He'd never be able to fix the generator today, the trek across the yard was already wearing him out. And what about Blue? If he had to fix the generator tomorrow the smart thing to do would be to consider a more permanent solution to that problem.

That last thought made him cold inside. Yeah, the raptors wanted to eat him and yes, they had screwed up all his plans for rescue but they were just animals doing animal things. It wasn't their fault. They didn't deserve to die because someone had made a mistake and set loose a monster— he didn't deserve to be eaten because someone had made a mistake and set loose a monster.

Panting, Owen stopped in front of the garage door. He glanced over his shoulder. Blue was still passed out, no signs of waking. He leaned the tranq gun against the side of the garage, checked one last time for the other raptors, then smashed the door handle with the butt of the fire extinguisher.

He stopped and panted and checked his surroundings. Nothing. He smashed it again. He stopped again. Smash. Stop. Smash. Stop. Smash. The handle twisted. The door popped open.

Owen tossed the fire extinguisher to the ground and hobbled inside. He was going to have to figure this out quickly. The door handle was ruined, he couldn't lock himself into the garage now. He either had to find a truck or high tail it back to the vet clin—

There was a car key on the front desk.

A big red tag with the number seven scrawled in black marker was attached to the key.

He twisted around in the doorway to look at the truck out in the yard.

There was a big black seven stencilled on the side of the truck.

"Oh you have got to be kidding." Owen lurched to the front desk. He grabbed the key and held it up. "Actually, please don't be kidding."

Another painstakingly slow race across the yard left him winded. He stopped in front of the truck to catch his breath and stare at the huge dent in the hood, the busted out windshield. Delta must have crashed right through the windshield when she came after him. It had barely slowed her down.

He caught his breath and went around to the driver's side door. Inside, the seats were torn up and covered with glass and smears of blood. Was the blood his or Delta's? His homemade walking stick was jammed between the seats, blood on the handle. Had he actually hurt her with it? He swept the glass from the seats, his arm came back sticky with half dried blood. Had all that really happened such a short time ago that the blood hadn't even dried? It felt like months since he'd woken up to hearing Charlie and Echo's curious barks in the yard.

He pulled himself into the truck and took the key from his pocket. If the truck worked he was leaving right now. No more waiting for help. No going back for anything.

"Here goes." He slid the key into the ignition. He bit his lip. God, he hoped this worked. He turned the key.

The truck rumbled to life.

"Yes!" His eyes widened. If the truck was running... "Radio!" He grabbed the radio and hit the talk button. "Hello? ...hello?"

Nothing. Fear started to creep up on him, what if there was no one? What if they'd left without him? What if they were all dead?

He checked the channel and breathed in relief. The radio was still set to the valley zone's radio channel. "Of course there's nothing, there's no one in the valley." He set the radio to the park's emergency channel. There was...something. Static and...a crackling voice maybe? It wasn't just background noise.

"Why isn't the signal coming in?"

The geography of the island made radio communications hard unless you had line of sight but that was why there was a radio tower up on the mountain. The radio should work.

Unless something had happened at the radio tower.

Maybe that was why the office phones didn't work? He'd just assumed that the phones were hardwired. They were plugged into a wall, the cable had to go somewhere, right? But none of them worked now so maybe they weren't hardwired? He shook his head, he wasn't a communications technician.

He clicked the talk button on the radio.

"This is Owen Grady, I'm out in the valley zone, uh, the gyrospheres, the...sector four!" He waited. There was more crackling. If they were responding to him he couldn't tell. "I've sustained heavy injuries but waiting for evacuation isn't an option anymore. It's not safe to stay here. The raptors are in the valley. I'm going to make my way to the Main Street evacuation point. I'd really appreciate a doctor when I get there...and a shirt."

He waited for a response. The radio crackled.

"Guess they heard me," Owen said, reaching over to grab his first attempt at a walking stick. He tossed the mop out the door. He had a lot more faith in a broom handle with non-slip rubber on the bottom than he did the smooth end of a mop. If he had to get out and do any walking he'd rather not take his chances.

He cast one last glance towards the vet clinic, "See ya, Blue." then he hit the gas.

The drive to the service road was picturesque. Dinosaurs grazing, a gentle breeze making waves in the grass, rain clouds in the distance. The dinosaurs lifted there heads to watch him drive by. They snorted then went back to grazing, unworried by a human in a truck.

He stopped the truck on the top of a hill to try the radio again. Still the same static crackle. He was on high ground now. It should work. He glanced up at the skyline. It looked...wrong. Where was the radio tower? His eyes dropped lower to the forest canopy.

"Well, shit."

The tower was crumpled over, bent right in half, with the wreckage of a helicopter twisted into it.

"That must have been why they stopped flying at night," Owen mused. "But why fly at night at all?" He hit the gas and kept going, a creeping dread following after him like the clouds on the horizon.

A herd of ankylosauruses slowed him down not long after. Each one had to come and snuffle at the truck before they passed it by. One in particular had to stop to shove it's nose against the driver's side window. It let out three huge whuffs before deciding that the truck was harmless and turned to waddle after the others. Any other day he would have loved it, you didn't work at Jurassic World because you thought dinosaurs were boring. Right now he just wanted them to go.

As soon as they had passed by he took off. It was just a few more loops around hills before he'd hit the big gate of the staff entrance, tucked away where tourists wouldn't see. The rain clouds rolled in as he drove.

He rounded the last hill. He took his foot off the gas and let the truck roll to a stop. He'd been trying to work out how he'd open the gate if it didn't have power. Pull it open with the truck maybe? But that wasn't a problem. The gate was wide open.

It wasn't torn off its hinges or smashed open, it had been left open. On purpose.

A gust of wind swept across the front of the truck blowing a fine spray of water droplets across his chest. He didn't move.

"I really don't like that," Owen said, staring at the empty service road. In the event of an emergency all the enclosures were supposed to be locked down. This was the exact opposite of locking down. Anything could come and go as it pleased.

He crept the truck forward; a slow crawl through the gate as the sky turned overcast. It was eerie. Silent except for the wind. Even the sound of the herbivores had faded away. He tensed as the truck passed from open grassland to forest. If the raptors were lying in wait to ambush him this was where he'd expect it. And what better place to hide if you were a giant monster dinosaur? Lots of trees and brush to hide in, as he passed by leaving his rear open to attack. Granted, right now his rear was a truck bed, but he'd already seen what a dinosaur could do when they decided to pick a fight with a truck. The truck didn't win.

The road in his rear view mirror stayed empty. Nothing burst from the trees in front of him. Nothing to suggest anything had—

He slammed his brakes as he rounded a bend in the road and nearly crashed head on into an overturned jeep.

"Get attacked by dinosaurs, die in a head on collision." Owen pressed a hand to his chest to steady his pounding heart. He stared out at the jeep.

It had come crashing to a stop against a tree, a stain of old blood splashed on the bark. The doors were all open. There was more blood on the road. No bodies. He was just going to believe everyone got out okay, all things considered, and that their bodies hadn't been dragged away and eaten by the raptors.

He backed up and squeezed the truck between the trees and the jeep. Metal screeched along one side, trees on the other, as he pressed forward. The jeep rocked as the truck made contact. He put a little more pressure on the gas pedal. Inch by inch the truck scraped passed the jeep. He winced through the noise, everything would be able to hear it.

As soon as he was through he gunned it. He wanted to be long gone before anything came to check out what had been making so much noise.

He made it a few hundred feet further before the road was blocked. Not a vehicle but a dead parasaurolophus, a cloud of flies buzzing over it. It was small. That still meant about two tons of dinosaur meat blocking the road. There was no pushing that aside with the truck. He'd run up against it and get stuck. He'd have to use the rope to pull it out of the way. Which meant he'd have to get out of the truck.

Owen ran his fingers along the rope across his chest. "Here goes." He picked up the tranq gun and pushed the truck door open. His fingers tightened on the traq gun, waiting for something – Delta – to rush the truck.

The forest stayed quiet.

He poked the walking stick out first. There was no growling snap of jaws. He slid out of the truck. Still nothing.

"I hate this so much," Owen muttered as he limped towards the parasaurolophus. His dumb monkey brain was screaming at him to find cover and not go towards the very large dead animal that would attract predators. His plucked chicken brain was busy thinking about how stupid this was, arming himself with a slow release tranquilizer and a stick. "I would give anything for a real gun right now."

He stopped beside the parasaurolophus and stared down at the wound that had killed it; a big jagged rip in its neck. There were teeth marks. Too big to be a raptor's, too small to be the monster dinosaur's. Something else with teeth was loose on the island. His dumb monkey brain shrieked at him to turn around right now and get back into the truck.

Owen swallowed down the dumb panicky instinct to flee and got to work. It wasn't a fresh kill, maybe a day or two old, and it was still mostly intact. Hopefully that meant its legs wouldn't tear off as he pulled it aside and that whatever had killed it wasn't coming back for seconds. He tied the rope around its hind legs then without stopping to consult all the reasons why it was actually an incredibly bad idea to go off the road, he stepped off the road to loop the rope around a tree.

By the time he'd set up his makeshift pulley system and tied it off to the truck he was a sweating panting mess. It was one thing to hop around on smooth tiled floor or groomed gravel yard and a whole other awful thing to navigate the forest floor where one wrong step could send him crashing to the ground and leave him a helpless tasty meal for the first thing with teeth that happened by.

Owen climbed into the truck and let his head sink down to the steering wheel. He panted against it, "Come...on...you don't even," he heaved in a deep breath, "have to do...the heavy lifting." He made himself sit up right and start the truck.

The tires squealed in place for a moment, then, ever so slowly, the truck began inching backwards, dead parasaurolophus in tow.

A few minutes later and it was out of the way. Owen stopped the truck and stared at the cleared road. He knew he should get out and get the rope. What if he needed to clear the road again? But his aching bones weren't going to put up with a second trudge through the brush. He'd just have to hope he wouldn't need it. He lurched out of the truck, untied the rope, and left it where it was.

Exhausted, he slung himself back into the driver's seat and started the truck down the road. He'd find someone soon. He'd hit the intersection of the employee road with the tourist route in a minute. There'd be someone there keeping an eye on things, patrolling and looking for stray tourists. There had to be.

The wind picked up and brought a steady rain with it as he came to a stop at the intersection of the service road and the public road. The gate had been left open. That was two for two. He inched the truck through the open gate, rain splashing through the broken windshield. A new pit of worry dug into his gut. Had the rush to evacuate the valley been so chaotic that none of the park employees had thought to close the gates behind them? Or had every second counted? What if it was too dangerous to come to this part of the island? If the gates were still open that meant no one had been back to close them. There were at least two large carnivores loose. And the raptors. Either of those things would be an emergency in their own right. Together?

"Yeah, that would close down half the island." Owen scanned the treeline. It was next to impossible to tell if anything was watching him back. Any potential movement was masked by the bobbing of the leaves in the rain.

Which way did he go now? Was Main Street still the plan? Or should he be trying to find cover before something tried to eat him? He didn't know what he was dealing with out here and he was not in any shape to find out.

He glanced to his left, no point in going that way, that road would take him right back to the valley via a long rambling scenic route. If he went straight through he'd end up at the aviary for whatever good that might do him. A right turn to Main Street still seemed like the best option. It was the most fortified position in the park; designed with large carnivores on the loose in mind.

"Maybe the radio..." Owen turned the volume down low before he turned the radio on. Who knew what was out there listening?

A voice spilled from the radio. The words were fuzzy and some cut out altogether but they were there.

"—nd employees are to proceed t— emergency shelter. Park security— escort you to the nearest air or sea evacu— as safety permits. All remaining guests and employees are to pro— shelter. Park security will escort—"

It was a loop.

Owen grabbed the radio and pressed the talk button. "This is Owen Grady, anyone out there?"

The loop kept going. He tried the other channels. There was nothing on them and no one responded. It was just the loop on the emergency channel.

"Why isn't there anyone on the radio?" Owen tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as the loop quietly played through again. Rain pattered down harder on the hood of the car, a steady shower of droplets bouncing into the truck. "Why isn't there anyone on the radio?" Dread crept up his back, squeezing its way up to his head. It was last call.

He let his foot off the brake and spun the steering wheel to the right. He slammed on the gas and took off towards Main Street, towards the ferries. That's where the people would be. That's where they would concentrate people for evacuation. There's where he needed to be right now because if no one was on the radio it meant everyone was busy loading up the last ferries to leave the island.

He snatched up the radio. Maybe someone would think to check. Maybe someone was listening but didn't have time to answer. "This is Owen Grady! I'm in sector four, heading to the ferries right now!" he shouted into the radio. "I'll be..."

The shattered remains of a restaurant came into view. Part of the wall had been smashed in giving him a window to the carnage on the other side. He dropped the radio and clenched both hands around the rain-slick steering wheel, bracing himself for what was around the corner.

It was like a bomb had gone off. An overturned shuttle bus loomed ahead of him, splashed in blood and crunched in on one side as if something had fallen on it. Or stepped on it. Body parts were strewn across the street. A swarm of compsognathus, not bothered by the rain, were feasting on what was left. He veered the truck onto the restaurant patio, crashing through tables and chairs instead of driving over the remains of bodies. The compsognathus hissed and scattered at the truck as he drove past.

There was no telling how those people had died – bus crash or dinosaur – the compsognathus had done their job as scavengers.

It only got worse the closer he got to Main Street.

"I'm coming up on sector three via the...uh...Triassic Trail? Maybe? I don't know the street name, I'm coming up to the petting zoo," Owen said into the radio, weaving around bodies where he could and trying not to think about it when he couldn't. He'd have nightmares later, right now he needed to get through the park. At least the rain was washing away the blood. "A little advice on how to to get down to you would be highly appreciated. The road...isn't clear. Should I go around sector three? Or through?"

The loop played in response, stronger now.

"All remaining guests and employees are to proceed to the nearest emergency shelter. Park security will escort you to the nearest air or sea evacuation points as safety permits."

He came up to the grassy open field that surrounded sector three, the busy centre of the park, and stopped the truck. It wasn't an open grassy field anymore. It was a graveyard.

The field was littered with wrecked ACU vehicles and the broken remains of barricades. And bodies. So many bodies. There was no wondering how these people had died. Huge footprints and muddy tears in the earth covered the field. That monster had come here and torn through these people like a fox in a hen house.

The wind picked up, wafting the smell of rotting meat through the broken windshield despite the steady rain. His empty stomach heaved up a mouthful of bile. He spit it out the window. Thunder rolled in the distance. He glanced in the review mirror, it was overcast here but behind him it was down right dark. A storm was rolling in. The ferries would want to leave before it hit.

He spit the taste of bile out of his mouth then hit the gas. He drove straight forward. The truck would never make it through the muddy carnage in the field. He'd have to go through sector three.

Lucky him, the Main Street gate was wide open.

He braced himself as he passed through the gate, he knew what it was going to look like but seeing it was something else. Store fronts were smashed to pieces, barricades had been swept aside like toys, park vehicles had been crushed flat. And everywhere there were bodies.

There was no going the direct route past the Innovation Centre, a wall of park vehicles had been smashed up against a series of concrete barriers making an impassable wall of debris; rust coloured water pooling beneath it. He could get out, try to find a way around on foot, and hope to find another vehicle on the other side...

"Nope." He spun the steering wheel away and hit the gas. There was no fucking way he was going through the literal pools of blood on foot. He'd take the long way around through the mosasaurus stadium.

He blew past the remains of stores and people and came up on another set of concrete barriers at the monorail station.

"Shit."

The truck wasn't getting through that maze of concrete.

"Shit!" He slammed his hand on the steering wheel.

The truck wasn't getting through. The only way he could stay in the truck was to backtrack ten minutes to pick up the service road that looped around the island and hope it was passable. That was ten minutes back the way he came then twenty minutes down to the ferries if everything went his way.

Or he could get out, find a car or a truck or something, on the other side of the barriers, and be at the ferries in five minutes. Assuming there was a truck. Assuming nothing ate him.

Owen kicked the door open before he could over think his situation. He needed to move. If he stopped now that was it, he wasn't going to get another chance. Every minute counted, he had no way of knowing if they'd heard him on the radio and the rain was coming down harder. If it was going to turn into a full blown storm the ferries would want to leave before it hit. They'd leave him behind.

"There'll be something on the other side," he assured himself. He braced the walking stick on the ground, grabbed the tranq gun, and slid out into the rain. "There'll be a truck on the other side."

The monorail station was eerily empty; there were no bodies and any blood had been washed away in the rain. If it wasn't for the deep three clawed gouges in the concrete he'd have sworn it was just after hours in the park.

Shivering against the rain, he lurched through the concrete maze. Slowly. Too slow. He was wasting so much time on a maybe.

"This is such a stupid idea." He didn't let himself stop while he second guessed his choices. The service road was a maybe too. "It'll take just as long to find a truck with this leg as it would to drive around the whole damn island." He pushed himself forward. He'd find another truck. He'd make it to the ferries.

He aimed for the monorail station's office. There were usually a couple of Jurassic World Utility Vehicles parked around the side. Really, they were just glorified golf carts with the Jurassic World logo blasted across it used to drive around VIPs but he'd take what he could get. He could ditch it once he found something faster.

He was panting by the time he slumped face first against the office wall. He leaned against the wall, flopped over onto his back. Rain needled against his bare chest as he breathed hard, catching his breath.

"Th– this whole in– injury thing...sucks," he panted. He shimmied along the office wall until he reached the corner. He poked his head around the side of the building.

There was one golf cart.

"Just a little bit further," he encouraged himself. "Then you get to sit down."

He slid along the rain slick wall until he reached the golf cart. He leaned in. His shoulders heaved in a deep sigh.

No key.

"Of fucking course there's no key." Owen braced himself against the golf cart. He heaved in breath after breath. "This sucks so hard." He was cold, hungry, tired, and wet. And he had to keep moving.

The way back to the front of the office took twice as long. Every few steps he had to stop to hang his head in the rain and gasp for air. He wasn't sure how much further he could go on foot.

"I'll just...check the...mosasaurus stadium," he muttered to himself between gasps. There were always a couple of vehicles over there for fainters at the feeding shows. "If there's nothing...I'll go...back."

A clattering sound, muted by the rain, bounced off the walls of the monorail station. His heart raced in his chest. He stopped and listened. The sound didn't stop. He took a deep breath and eased himself to the corner of the building. He poked his head around the side then quickly ducked back. Something was moving through the barriers. He frowned to himself as his brain processed what he'd seen.

He poked his head out again and stared in disbelief. The herd of reddish brown fur kept coming, letting out the occasional low baying. It was...

They were...

Cows?

"What...?" He stared in confusion. Why were there cows? How did cows get on the island? Why was there a whole herd of cows just out for a stroll on Main Street. "Cows? How?"

He breathed out a strained laugh as his brain connected the dots. Jurassic World didn't just ship in thousands of pounds of meat every day, they shipped in live animals too. Enrichment for the carnivores. He'd never been over to where they kept the cows. He'd just picked up the raptors' weekly pig and never thought much of it. The cows must have broken out of the feedlots in all the chaos.

"Okay, cows, you stay over there," Owen whispered, slowly edging around to the front of the office. People always underestimated how dead a big herbivore could make you if it decided you looked at it funny. And he'd be willing to bet those cows had been having a really shitty week and wouldn't take too kindly to a surprise human that moved weird.

The cows kept weaving their way through the barriers, agitated by their new surroundings. There was no changing his mind now, the cows had effectively blocked his exit. It was onward to the mosasaurus stadium or wait around until the cows moved on.

Wiping the rain from his eyes, he took a deep breath and forced himself to keep going. Every step felt like lifting lead weights. He was half way to the stadium when the cows' low baying turned into the high sounds of distress. And then; a plaintive raptor trill followed by a few harried clicks.

The little warmth he had left in him drained away with the rain. He craned his head over his shoulder. It was Blue, looking all the worse for wear. She was moving through the barriers, head hanging low, and limping in that awkward half hop the raptors used when they were favouring an injured leg.

She stopped, raised her head, and stared right at him. Owen sucked in a shaky breath. She gave a weak trumpet and pressed her clawed hands against a barrier, shifting her weight forward. Owen tensed, readying for her to launch herself over the barrier to finish what Delta had started. She gave a disgruntled snort and slid back down before plodding on through the barriers.

Owen wrapped his arm around the walking stick and braced himself. He checked the tranq gun. Still loaded. He lifted it with shaky hands and took aim as Blue rounded the last barrier.

Blue stopped. She cocked her head at the cows as if only now noticing them.

A cow gave an indignant moo at her gaze. The herd pressed closer together. They'd never seen a raptor before but clearly they knew Blue was dangerous. A handful of the braver cows stepped forward, making short false charges.

Blue stared, no hint that she was readying for attack. No careful calculation. Just an utterly blank stare as she tried to process the first cows she'd ever seen.

Owen took his shot while she was distracted.

He missed.

The dart broke against the barrier beside her and crumbled to the ground.

"Oh fuck." Owen kept his eyes on Blue while jamming his shaking hand into his pocket for another dart. He desperately wanted to check his surroundings for the other raptors. He'd watched them hunt as a pack for years. Blue could be alone. Or she could be the distraction while one of the others came up behind him.

Blue snaked her head around to sniff at the broken dart. She huffed against the cracked plastic casing then lifted her head to stare at him. She started a high wavering trill only to be cut off by the excited chirps of a pack of compsognathus.

The compsognathus flooded around the barriers, not hesitating to dart past Blue. They raced straight through the herd of cows, chirping and squawking, sending the cows into a panic. The cows surged towards Blue. The compsognathus kept coming right at him.

He yanked his hand from his pocket and tightened his grip on the tranq gun, ready to use it to bat the needle sharp teeth of compsognathus away from him. They passed him by just as they had everything else, apparently in a hurry to get to the mosasaur's underwater viewing. They disappeared inside in a flurry of excited chirps.

Owen had all of thirty seconds to wonder at the weird behaviour and then the monster dinosaur burst from behind the station office and bit a cow in half.

The cows stampeded in every direction.

Blue let out a shrill hiss.

The monster threw half the cow across the monorail station and let out that awful metallic sounding roar.

Terror stuck his feet to the ground. It had been right there. He'd been standing maybe twenty feet away from it and hadn't noticed. And it was so much bigger than he remembered.

Huge claws, bigger teeth.

Teeth dripping in blood.

It let loose another roar that shook his bones.

It snapped wildly at the panicking cows.

A cow let out a horrible high pitched noise as it was snatched off the ground.

Scraps of cow went flying in every direction.

A leg landed at Owen's feet in a splash of blood and rain.

He sucked in a gasping breath.

He had to go.

Right now.

He spun around, no care to not turning his back on a raptor, on a carnivore, and made his break for the underwater viewing.

The compsognathus had the right idea. The underwater viewing was underground and the tunnel was small enough that, that monster wouldn't be able to follow him in.

God, he hoped it wouldn't be able to follow him.

The ground shook.

Blue hissed and screamed.

The monster roared.

Owen ploughed through the pack of compsognathus as he staggered into the tunnel. Heavy footsteps slammed into the ground behind him. The compsognathus chirped and hopped around his legs. The pounding of the footsteps came closer. He kicked the compsognathus out of the way and hustled deeper into the tunnel.

He turned around to see Blue racing towards the tunnel at a dead run, huge clawed fleet pounding down behind her. She leapt through the curtain of rain into the tunnel just as teeth closed behind her. She crashed into him with a surprised squawk. His breath punched out of him as she bowled him over. They both went down in a scrabble of limbs, claws and hands flailing wildly.

The monster shoved its snout into the tunnel entrance and huffed out a putrid breath. Everything in the tunnel scrambled away. It let out an ear piercing roar and yanked its head back. Claws swept in from the other side seconds later, catching an unlucky compsognathus from behind.

Owen scrambled backwards on his butt, knocking over compsognathus, until he bumped into Blue. They all clustered into the centre of the tunnel, a momentary truce as everyone hid from the greater threat.

Chapter Text

The sky turned dark. The thunderstorm rolled in with a crash of lightening and the roar of pouring rain. Hot meaty puffs of breath buffeted around Owen as the monster shoved its nose into the tunnel and sniffed. Lightening flashed over the mosasaurus lagoon. The tunnel lit up with the brilliant flare of light putting the huge shearing teeth into sharp contrast.

Owen pressed back, shoving himself harder against Blue.

Blue snarled and snapped.

Owen lurched away, trapped between two sets of ripping tearing teeth as the compsognathus jumped and squealed around him.

Without warning a compsognathus hurled itself out of the mob and shot towards those terrifying teeth. At the last second it hopped up and nipped a chunk out of the monster's nose. It darted back to safety with a triumphant squeal. The pack went nuts, chirping and hissing and hopping madly into the air, as they fought over the bite sized chunk of monster.

A compsognathus jumped into his lap, hissed, then used his leg as a springboard to launch itself into the fray. Owen's heart thrashed in his chest at the press of claws on his leg. His nerves fired off, screaming danger! Run! Hide!

The chunk of monster flesh disappeared into tiny snapping jaws. There was no hesitation now, more compsognathus wildly leapt forward to rip little chunks from the monster's nose now that they knew it couldn't get in.

The monster snarled and yanked its snout out of the tunnel. It bent down to angle its head to look in.

Another flash of lightening over the mosasaurus lagoon lit up the tunnel. Owen gasped at what those few seconds of light offered up this time. It was a scene from a horror movie. There was a huge gaping wound across the monster's face, it's eyes were a bloody mess ringed in scorch marks. It had to be blind with injuries like that. The ACU must have hit that thing with a rocket launcher to its face and it still kept going. What the fuck?

The compsognathus screeched and hissed, spreading out at the entrance, a united front of shrill chirps and squeaks.

The monster cocked its head, snorted, and turned away. Thunderous footsteps mixed in with the storm and then the sound of cows being ripped to pieces.

The compsognathus went quiet. Slowly, every head turned to him. One compsognathus hopped towards him, it's head cocked to the side, "Chirp? Chirp?"

Owen's breath caught in his throat. He'd heard the horror stories, whispered over drinks between InGen employees, about people being eaten alive by packs of compsognathus. It took a long time to die by the minuscule mouthful and you were aware for most of it.

Very slowly, he shuffled backwards across the wet floor of the tunnel until his back was pressed against the glass. He pushed himself to his feet. No jerky panic fuelled movements to make the compsognathus more interested in him. He couldn't slowly back away to safety but he could still be big and tall and intimidating.

Not that big and tall and intimidating had stopped them from attacking the monster.

"Chirp? Chirp?" Another hop closer. It danced on the spot. Three more broke from the pack to join it.

Owen tensed as they sized him up. He could feel that moment coming on, that point of no return when the compsognathus would decide to jump forward, launching their attack.

The lead compsognathus let out a blood curdling screech and hurled itself at him. "Skreee!"

Blue whipped her head around and snatched it out of the air like one of her rats. There was a surprised squeak, abruptly cut off. Blue dropped the twitching body to the ground.

The remaining compsognathus watched her rip a leg off their companion and crunch through the bones like it was nothing. Almost as one, they darted away to hide under a bench in a dry alcove in the wall across from him. They paced in circles beneath the bench then piled together, necks and tails weaving into a ball of dinosaur.

Blue flicked her head up, swinging a bloody piece of compsognathus into her jaws. She swallowed the rest of it down in seconds. She turned towards the remaining compsognathus and let out a series of sharp clicks then turned her head to stare at Owen.

Owen raised the tranq gun, his blood turning icy when he didn't see the bright pink tail of a dart in the gun. He hadn't reloaded!

It didn't matter anyway, Blue would kill him long before the dart took effect. He reached for his knife, his last chance, and came up empty. Where was it? Had he dropped it running for the underground viewing? Did he leave it in the truck? Did he even have it when he got in the truck? The last he remembered having it was when Delta was trying to eat him.

He held the tranq gun up and tried to look confident and in charge. Hard to do when you were cold and wet and terrified. His hands trembled around the tranq gun. "Blue, hold."

Blue stared at him for a long heart stopping moment then snapped at the air between him and the compsognathus before flopping to the ground with a whumpf. She made an odd warbling keening sound that he'd never heard from the raptors before. She snapped at the air again then dropped her head down between her claws, not caring about the puddle rapidly forming around her.

Had she passed out again? Was it exertion? Or an injury?

There was no time to care. He had to take the shot. He stuffed his hand into his pocket for a dart and just as quickly yanked it back out. He'd sliced his finger on a shard of plastic. A dart must have broken open when Blue had knocked him over. He swallowed down a curse and pressed his fingers to the outside of his pocket. All he could feel was a lumpy mass of broken plastic.

A fresh wave of terror raced through him. Had he gotten stabbed when he fell? The full dose for a three hundred pound dinosaur would kill him outright. What if he was absorbing it through his skin? How long before that would kill him? Had he survived everything just to die from a tranquilizer overdose? What had he been thinking, jamming loaded darts into his pocket?

The tranq gun clattered to the ground as his fingers flew to his belt, yanking hard to rip it open. He fumbled with his shorts until he had them half way down his thighs. He ripped the pocket out and threw it away— thank god for the cheap production quality of tourist crap. He dropped to his knees and scooped up rain water from the ground, rinsing his leg as best he could then splashed more rain water over his shorts. He squeezed out the liquid from fabric. He would just have to hope tearing the pocket out and a gross puddle water rinse was enough.

In the dim light that filtered through the mosasaurus lagoon, he stared down at his leg, inspecting his skin for red prick marks that he'd never see in the gloom of the tunnel. He could just make out the dark purple-red outline of a nasty bruise already forming down the side of his leg where he'd fallen. He ran his finger over his leg, feeling for evidence of a puncture. He couldn't tell. He wouldn't know if he'd lethally stabbed himself until he was dying. It wouldn't be the worst way to go, considering the situation. At least he'd be dead when Blue started eating him.

Why had he put loose darts into his pocket? That was such a profoundly stupid thing to do. It was the kind of stupid shit rookies did that nearly got them killed. Like standing around completely unarmed in a tunnel with a bunch of predators and his shorts around his knees.

He yanked his shorts back up and stood. He scanned the tunnel floor for his walking stick. It wouldn't be much of a spear with it's rubber tipped end but at least it would put some distance between him and whoever decided to attack first. He spotted it on the other side of Blue. No way was he going for that. He crouched down and picked up the tranq gun, he might get a few lucky swings in with it before they got him.

A crack of lightening lit up the pool behind him, casting a long shadow into the tunnel for a brief terrifying moment. Slowly, he turned his head. He couldn't stop the full body flinch at the giant eye looking back. The mosasaurus was watching.

The giant eye blinked at him. The mosasaurus twisted around. It's huge mouth, big enough to swallow a shark whole, slowly opened giving him a front row seat to a row of—

Owen jerked his head around. He absolutely did not need to see that. His heart wasn't going to be able to handle seeing the size of those teeth with only a few inches of glass between them. His eyes flicked over Blue and the compsognathus and their smaller but just as deadly sets of teeth. He looked back down at the tranq gun turned club.

I'm gonna die here.

---

The storm raged on. Water flowed into the tunnel and disappeared into the drains in the floor. Night fell. The monster dinosaur came back every now and again to sniff and growl into the tunnel. Each time Owen froze where he was, plastered against the glass of the tunnel, while Blue tensed and crouched, drawing into herself. Even the compsognathus had decided not to push their luck a second time. They stayed in their alcove, wound tightly into a ball.

At some point into the night he felt his body sink down against the glass, too tired to keep him upright anymore— or the effects of a lethal tranquilizer dose slowing his heart down until it stopped.

A chill set into his bones. He drew his knees up, trying to conserve body heat and stop the shivering. The cold only seemed to dig in deeper. Maybe he'd freeze to death before they ate him.

---

Warm puffs of air woke him. His eyes blinked open. A scaly nose filled his vision. He sucked in a sharp breath and tensed, waiting for the teeth that would tear him to pieces while he was still alive. Blue snorted in his face and turned away. She went to the tunnel entrance and let out a bark before trotting off.

Owen stared at the entrance where Blue had disappeared. The rain had stopped. Long shadows lay across the tunnel entrance. It was morning.

It was morning.

He propped his elbows on his knees and held his head as his last flicker of hope snuffed out. He'd escaped the monster dinosaur, he'd spent the night in a tunnel with a bunch of predators, maybe been dosed with an unknown amount of tranquilizer. By some miracle he wasn't dead and he'd missed the boat.

There was no way the ferries were still at the dock. They would have left hours ago. They had probably left long before night fell. Hell, they had probably left as soon as it had started raining so they wouldn't get caught in the storm. He had nearly been eaten more times than he wanted to count yesterday and it had all been for nothing. He was never going to make it.

A dull ache spread across his head. He ran his hands through his hair, grit rolling under his fingers as he rubbed at his scalp. He winced as he grazed over the tender spots. Had he hit his head again yesterday? Was this a regular headache? The side effects of not eating or drinking for most of the day? Or was this what he got for doing strenuous physical activity with a concussion? How serious was his collection of head injuries?

"Bad enough to make me stupid," he muttered at his knees. In the light of day he knew he'd made a lot of really bad choices in the last twenty-four hours. Stupid desperate choices. The kind of stupid that he'd never make normally. He rubbed at his arms, trying to drive the early morning cold out of his skin, as the memories of yesterday played over in his head.

It wasn't all bad choices that had led him to sitting in a puddle in the mosasaurus tunnel. No, it was more concerning than that, he'd been forgetting things. He knew the island like the back of his hand and he'd forgotten street names in his mad rush to get to the ferries. And where was his knife? Or the antibiotics? Had he even thought to keep those on him? What had he done with the key to the truck?

Oh, shit, the key!

He held his breath and reached into the remaining pocket of his shorts.

There were four CO2 cartridges and no key.

"Probably just left it in the truck." He frowned down at his lap. "...did I turn the truck off?"

Did it matter if he hadn't? The truck couldn't get through the concrete barriers. He'd need to find a vehicle on this side to get him...

...to the ferries which were already gone.

"Wait." A tiny flicker of hope sprung up in his chest. Even if the ferries were gone they must have left someone behind to secure the dock for when they came back. "They've got to come back. To check on the animals. Clean up the park."

Retrieve the bodies.

The slaughter outside the Main Street gate flashed through his mind. His stomach churned. He pushed the images away.

"They'll come back to check on the animals," he repeated. That sounded reasonable. And not at all like a head injury talking.

A plan slowly came together under the ache in his head: he would go back to the truck and take the long way around the island to the dock. He wouldn't get out of the truck. He'd wear his seat belt and drive the speed limit and not crash into anything. He'd arrive at the dock worse for wear but still very much alive.

"Unless I sit here too long and something comes back and eats me." Owen pushed himself to his feet with a groan, his muscles cold and stiff from spending the night in the wet tunnel. His head swam, everything tilting to the side as his vision went fuzzy at the edges. He leaned back against the glass and let his vision clear. The ache in his head eased a little but the trade off was what felt like a full body hangover.

Resisting the urge to sit back down for just a few more minutes, he hobbled across the tunnel to his walking stick. It must have went flying when Blue knocked him over. As he reached down to pick it up he caught sight of four dead compsognathus under the bench they'd retreated to. There were scraps of the pocket he'd torn out in their mouths. Had he inadvertently tranqed a compsognathus pack and saved himself last night? Four had died but maybe the rest had just passed out. That would explain a lot about why he hadn't woken up to being eaten alive.

A frown crept across his face. It didn't explain Blue. He'd never gotten a second shot off at her. She'd just decided to sleep between a bunch of easy prey all night without attacking.

No, he must be remembering yesterday wrong. He must have hit her with the dart that first time. That would explain the way she had just flopped over a couple of feet away from him and stayed down. And it would explain why she hadn't immediately killed him this morning, the raptors never wanted to eat right away when they came out of a drug induced nap. They were always a little nauseous afterwards.

That wouldn't last for long. And it didn't mean she wouldn't kill him just because she felt like it.

Owen shot a quick glance up at the entrance where Blue had disappeared then a quick look over his shoulder to the opposite entrance. She wasn't stalking up behind him yet. He'd have to be careful when he made his way to the truck.

Scooping up the useless tranq gun off the ground, he limped his way over to the tunnel entrance. The closer he got the more he began to notice an odd...hum. A steady high pitched drone. He stopped a few feet from the mouth of the tunnel. His empty stomach heaved. It wasn't the gore of an entire herd of cattle being torn to pieces or the slaughter house smell making his stomach churn, it was the sound. That steady droning hum. Every fly on the island must have come to Main Street once the rain had stopped.

They wouldn't just be there for the cows. The flies would be—

He threw the tranq gun out of the tunnel before his head could supply images of what else would be attracting flies.

The gun clatter to a stop a few dozen feet away from the tunnel. The buzzing quieted for a moment before returning in full force. He waited. Nothing darted out to attack. Nothing came to investigate the noise. No sounds loud enough to be heard over that steady fly-wing hum. Ignoring the tension winding through his body, he forced himself to step out into the open.

Nothing jumped out at him.

He didn't waste time on the cold sick feeling roiling through him. The flies were good, they'd make it harder to hear him. The blood and guts was fine, they'd mask his smell.

They'd make it harder to hear anything stalking him and the raw meat would attract more than just flies.

"Don't think about it," Owen muttered to himself as he picked his way through the larger chunks of cow. He stopped every few paces to scan for anything that might want to eat him. Not that he stood a chance against anything more than a single compsognathus.

The fourth time he stopped he knew something was wrong. The flies were still buzzing and everything was still but something wasn't right. He craned his head around to check behind him. Nothing was stalking up behind him. But it still didn't feel right.

He walked a little further and stopped again, scanning for danger. Still nothing. Clouds of flies the only movement. His eyes slid slowly from the monorail station to the concrete barriers that blocked the street and then back again.

What was he missing?

Another few steps, another scan for predators. He was half way there when it finally hit him: the truck wasn't there.

The first thought to go through his head was that he had left the keys in the truck and someone had stolen it.

"Who would have stolen the truck?" Owen turned in a circle. He hadn't seen a single live person since everything had gone down. No one had stolen the truck. He must be remembering it wrong. He was remembering a lot of things wrong. He had a serious head injury, of course he forgot where he'd parked the truck.

"I must have stopped further back." That didn't feel right either. He wouldn't have stopped far away from the barrier with his leg as injured as it was. He pressed onward anyway. "It'll be just a bit further down the street. That's all."

It wasn't further down the street.

Owen followed a trail of metal and glass from the barrier to the back of the monorail station's office. The truck had been flipped over and crushed, all four wheels torn off as if the monster dinosaur was leaving behind a personal fuck you. He slumped against his walking stick. He couldn't even muster the energy to be mad about it. Everything else had gone wrong, so why not this too?

He dragged himself back to the underwater viewing. That all over discomfort was getting harder to ignore. He needed to rest somewhere semi safe before he searched the area for another means of transportation. He dropped himself down on a bench further down the tunnel, away from the dead compsognathus. He eased his bad leg out in front of him then let himself go limp against the wall. That brief trip to the monorail office and back had really taken it out of him. He stared down at his messed up leg. He could almost swear he could see it throbbing in pain.

A shadow passed over him. He forced his eyes up. The mosasaurus swam back and forth, watching him, sizing him up. It stopped in front of him and cracked it's jaws open. Its teeth glistened in the water.

A chill went through him. He looked away and closed his eyes. Maybe if he just didn't look at it?

The chill turned into dread induced nausea. It couldn't get at him, but it was right there. And so were all those teeth. And when was the last time it was fed? It had to be hungry. His stomach clenched up, threatening to heave, as he broke out in a cold sweat.

"Nope, no way." He stood up. He was rested enough. The sooner he found some kind of vehicle the better.

The mosasaurus followed him as he hobbled along the viewing tunnel, staring at him, working its jaws. All those teeth flashing in the water. He was never so glad to see the sky in his life.

It took him a painfully long time to haul himself around the side of the mosasaurus stadium, his head and joints aching with each step. It was worth it. As soon as he rounded the last curve of the stadium he saw it: a Jurassic World Utility Vehicle crashed through the door of a maintenance shed. One of those two seaters with the dump bed.

He didn't let himself hope that the keys would still be in it, that it wasn't too damaged from the crash, that it was still charged. He'd had those brief bouts of optimism ripped away from him too many times this past week, too many times today. He shimmied in between the utility vehicle and the door frame. Broken windshield glass crunched under his boots. He braced himself against the door frame and tugged at the broken boards of the door. The smell of old blood grew stronger the more he pulled.

What was he going to find under the boards? He took a steadying breath then pulled the last two boards off the vehicle. The seats were covered in old blood. His eyes clinically flicked over the interior checking for...chunks. His sweep of the utility vehicle stopped on the passenger seat. There, in a puddle of old blood, was a phone.

He reached across the seats and picked it out of the blood. It peeled away from the seat with a disgusting squelch. His heart beat faster. He tapped the phone. Nothing happened. He pushed the button to turn it on. Nothing.

Either i t had run out of battery or the puddle of blood had short-circuited the phone. He tossed it to the ground. No point in dwelling on if anyone would want it back. And no time to go looking for a charger. He leaned around the steering wheel.

"Yes!"

The key was still in the ignition. Now t he real question, had someone bothered to turn the utility vehicle off or had they been too desperate to escape? He glanced down at the gear shifter. He frowned. It had been left in drive. That didn't bode well for the battery. He put the vehicle into park then turned the key.

The vehicle hummed to life. The little digital display that was ubiquitous in all the public facing vehicles flashed on, a twirling Welcome to Jurassic World bounced across the screen, occasionally disappearing under blood splatter. Then the radio came on.

"All remaining guests and employees are to proceed to the nearest emergency shelter. Park security will escort you to the nearest air or sea evacuation points as safety permits."

The loop was still playing.

"It could have been playing for days." He wiped his hand over his face. "How long..."

There was no time frame given. He'd assumed it was current when he heard it yesterday but it could have been playing for minutes, hours, or days. He'd never know.

Had he been doomed before he even started ? Had it all been for nothing?

"Doesn't matter. The plan stays the same." He brushed what blood he could off the driver's seat and climbed into the utility vehicle. "Someone will be securing the dock for return."

He backed the utility vehicle out of the shed and headed for the dock at top speed; a whopping 10mph. It'd take nearly fifteen minutes to get to the dock but it was a hell of a lot faster than his one and a half working legs.

---

The drive to the dock was downright creepy. All that carnage in front of the Main Street gate and here there was nothing. No wrecked vehicles. No bodies— human or animal. But the road was far from empty. It was the same leftovers he'd seen up in the valley. Sunglasses, jackets, backpacks, overpriced gift shop buys. The only difference here was the abandoned luggage on the side of the road. Had people walked to the ferries with predators on the loose? Dropping everything when things got dire and just making a final run for it? The thought of the raptors chasing down a crowd of people – families, kids – and what they'd do to them gave him chills.

Halfway to the dock he spotted an ACU trailer on the side of the road, no sign of the truck that had pulled it there. He stopped the utility vehicle beside the trailer. Did he get out and check it? There could be guns. Maybe a phone. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He looked at the road ahead of him. He wasn't far from the dock now but anything could be between him and the dock.

Anything could be hiding in the bushes beside the trailer too.

He looked up and down the road. Nothing. He sat still and listened. Nothing except bird song.

"Okay, let's do this." He eased himself out of the utility vehicle and staggered over to the trailer. He pulled the back open. The gun racks were all empty. "Figures."

At least there wasn't any blood. Or bodies.

He heaved himself inside and searched through the compartments. He found two personal phones tucked into lockers. He sat down on the edge of the trailer.

"Come on, come on, come on." He pressed the button on one phone. The screen came to life. "Yes!"

A Masrani Corp logo flashed on the screen before it flicked to the lock screen. Someone's smiling kids stared out at him. He smashed his finger on the emergency call button before he noticed the tiny No Signal in the corner.

"Maybe they just have a crappy phone." He grabbed the other phone and turned it on. He waited impatiently for it to boot up. His heart sank when the lock screen came on. No Signal again.

"Could just be the tree cover." That was it. There were lots of dead spots on the island. He just needed to get somewhere clear, then they'd work. There would be better reception at the dock.

Phones in hand, he hobbled back to the utility vehicle. Another eight minutes and he'd be home free. Safe.

Five minutes later he broke out from under the cool cover of the trees and crested the last hill before the dock. He stopped the utility vehicle at the top of the hill. There was no point going any further.

The dock was empty.

No ferries, no ACU mobile command, no people.

He picked up the phones, one by one, and turned them on. No Signal. Why was there no signal? He rebooted the phones. No Signal. Why was there no signal? He was out from under the trees. He wasn't in the shadow of the volcano or cliffs or hills. There weren't any clouds.

"Why? Why isn't there a signal?" he asked the phones. He closed his eyes and pressed a hand to the side of his head. The headache he'd been ignoring all morning made itself known the harder he tried to think. His brain kept turning it over, No Signal. Why isn't there a signal ? No Signal. Why isn't there a signal?

The answer came to him as the image of a helicopter tangled up in a pile of twisted metal.

"The radio tower."

He craned his head around to look towards the centre of the island, as if he could see the toppled tower from way down here. Was the radio tower for more than just radio? Did the cell phones go through it too? For all the years he'd spent on the island he'd never thought to question it. The radios just worked. The phones just worked. He wasn't in IT. He was an animal handler. He knew jack shit about cell towers.

He tossed the phones onto the seat beside him and pressed his hands to the sides of his head trying to ease the headache. There was no ferry. No people securing the dock. No way to communicate off island unless he happened to come across a satellite phone. No one was coming for him because everyone probably thought he was dead.

That couldn't be it. He couldn't be stuck. He couldn't be —

"No. They'll come back eventually. They'll check on the animals. It cost them way too much money to make dinosaurs to abandon them."

He just had to survive until they came back to check on the animals. Get somewhere safe. Should he go back to the valley? He'd only had to deal with the raptors there. Or did he try to get to a n evacuation point ? One not on Main Street. The employee village evacuation point was close by. Or what if...

"What if..." Owen looked north towards the raptor paddock. Maybe there were still people at the raptor paddock. The emergency message had said guests and employees. Technically, he wasn't a park employee, none of them up at the raptor paddock were. They were on InGen's payroll.

What if they hadn't left? What if they had stayed behind to try and get the raptors back into containment? The raptors cost five million a piece. InGen had a lot of money invested in the raptors. He frowned at the thought. If they were still on the island why wouldn't they have looked for him? Or at least stumbled across him while looking for the raptors.

But...how had the raptors gotten out in the first place?

A cold uneasy feeling settled over him. What had happened to the park? How had that monster dinosaur gotten out? How had the raptors gotten out? And there had been that dead parasaurolophus up by the valley that had been killed by something else. How had so many carnivores gotten loose at once? The closest evacuation point was looking like a way better option than being meals on wheels for the nearest carnivore while he crossed the park at 10mph.

Owen turned the utility vehicle around. He'd go to employee village evacuation point. It was the closest one. And his house was on the way. He could trade in the utility vehicle for his motorcycle. He'd get there faster than 10mph once he had his bike. And if the employee village evacuation point was a bust he'd be able to get across the island instead of dying in a dinosaur themed meal cart.

Once he was off the main road from the dock he could almost believe this was just any other day in the park. The employee road was clear. There were no more abandoned suitcases. No abandoned trailers or flipped over vehicles. No bodies. No blood. No dinosaurs.

It was easy.

Until it wasn't.

That general hungover feeling was getting worse. And he was cold. He'd dismissed it this morning as the cold damp of the underwater viewing seeping into him and had thought it was nerves after that but the sun was blazing overhead now and he was cold. Something wasn't right. He glanced down at his leg. The bandage was filthy and wet. He'd ripped half the stitches out yesterday trying to escape Delta. God, was that only yesterday? It felt like a year ago.

One hand on the steering wheel, he hunched down and reached for his leg. He pressed along the wet bandage and hissed. It hurt but it didn't hurt more than before. And it didn't feel like the surgical strips holding him together had fallen off or that he'd ripped out the rest of the stitches. He flicked his eyes down. There wasn't any new blood seeping out or—

The utility vehicle lurched as the left side veered off the road. Owen jerked up right and yanked on the steering wheel. The utility vehicle swung sharply, tipping an inch off the ground before slamming back down in the middle of the road.

"Eyes on the road!" His heart hammered in his chest as he straightened out the utility vehicle. "Eyes on the road! Don't kill yourself in a ten mile an hour accident!"

A trill and some clicks called out from somewhere behind him. That slow relentless cold turned into icy fear. He whipped his head around, his head protesting the movement. There was nothing behind him. He scanned the treeline. Nothing. He snapped his gaze back to the front, head spinning, when the utility vehicle started to veer again.

There was nothing on the road for the rest of the drive but he'd swear he kept seeing something out of the corner of his eye; flashes of blue and grey. Every time he turned to look there was nothing there. His head hated him for it; the constant turning, the concentration as he checked for raptors, the fear that he'd see one. Every jerk of his head to sweep his eyes over the bushes was paid for with a throbbing ache across his forehead and a dizzy sensation that made him want to squeeze his eyes shut until it stopped.

If he was very lucky he was sick and hallucinating. If he wasn't...

By the time he reached the last stretch of road he was an aching exhausted shivering mess. Bone deep relief flooded through him when he finally rounded the last bend in the road and his house came into view. It was still standing. Nothing out of place. Everything was just how he'd left it. He pressed his hand to his remaining pocket. The CO2 cartridges shifted under his hand. Right. He didn't have his house key. Where that had gone he had no idea. He'd have to break a window to get in.

Just the thought was enough to make him want to drop to the ground and give up. He'd have to stand, walk, lift some big heavy object, then smash it at his window hard enough to break it. And if he didn't get it the first time he'd have to do it again and again until he busted it out. His shoulders slumped. Why couldn't it be easy?

He stared bleary-eyed at his house; rubbing at his arms, trying in vain to fight off another round of chills from ripping through him. It was just too much. It was all too much. He let his eyes drift aimlessly over his house, so close but so far away. Across the silver of the trailer, along his deck, up to his solar panels, then down to the window.

The window. Had he...

He raised his hand to shield his eyes against he sun. There was no reflective glare on one side of the window. He'd left the window open! There hadn't been any rain forecasted on Friday so he'd left the window open!

"That's good. Better anyway," Owen murmured to himself as he shivered. "Just cut the screen. No throwing. Just need to get a knife from the toolbox." But what was the point? He might not even make it up the stairs. He was already in the utility vehicle. He could still get himself to the employee evacuation point, even if it was slow going, if he just stayed in—

Wait.

His eyes went back up to the roof. To the solar panels.

His house had solar panels.

Nowhere else in the park seemed to have power but his house would. His house wasn't reliant on the park's grid. A soft whimper escaped his lips as he realized what that meant. The fridge would still be working. And the stove top. His stomach growled at the thought of a fridge full of food, a hot meal. God, a hot meal. He was so damn cold, what he wouldn't give for a hot meal right now. He looked down at his bare stomach, covered in filth and grime, then back up at his house. His house with hot running water and clean clothes.

...he could make it. It wasn't that far. And it wouldn't take that long to clean up a little. Grab some food and clothes. His stomach growled again.

"Yeah," Owen encouraged himself, trying to work up the energy to get out of the utility vehicle. "Yeah, smart idea. Get some food into me. That's half my problems right there. I'm starving. Haven't eaten a real meal in almost a week. Then clean up the wound. It's probably infected again. Clean clothes. Yeah, I can do this..."

But that monster dinosaur was still out there. His tin can trailer frankensteined to a glorified shed might as well be a house of straw if that thing came after him here. No, the smart idea was not getting out of the vehicle. Go straight to the employee evacuation site. Not risk it all on the decision making skills of his stomach.

His stomach growled in protest. His vision went blurry at the edges. He clutched the steering wheel as he swayed in the seat. No, if he didn't eat something soon he wouldn't trust himself to drive the utility vehicle and not fall out. The last real meal he ate was five days ago. And between then and now he'd been through hell and back. He was sick and tired and cold and starving. He needed to eat.

"I can do it." He took a deep breath and heaved himself out of the utility vehicle.

He lurched over to the toolbox he'd left on the ground beside his bike. He kicked it over then used his walking stick to flip open the latch. Tools spilled onto the ground. He bent down, careful of the way his head was spinning, and picked out an orange handled utility knife. Then, slowly, he made his way over to stand at the bottom of the stairs.

Those six steps had never looked taller.

Breathing heavy, he blinked dumbly at the top step. It was a mountain. Six steps. Just six.

"I can do it." He'd made it all the way across the island and been chased by dinosaurs that wanted to eat him. "Eyes on the prize," he muttered, forcing his foot up onto the first step. "Not going to be..." He heaved in a breath. "Defeated by stairs."

It felt like trying to walk after running a marathon. His good leg wobbled under him. He leaned on the railing and caught his breath before taking the next step and then the next. It seemed like the higher up he got the worse he felt. His chills had gone from hard shivering to jaw clenching tremors by the third step. His eyes didn't want to stay open against the pain in his head by the fifth step.

At the sixth step he staggered across his deck and nearly went face first into the side of his house. He caught himself at the last moment and eased his fall against the wooden wall. He leaned back, eyes closed, as he slid the blade out of the handle. He reached over and stabbed blindly to his side. The knife caught on the screen. He sliced a hole he hoped was big enough to reach through. He flopped onto his stomach, face pressed against the frame of the window and reached into his house. He felt for the lock. It took his fingers three attempts before he managed to unlock the door.

He opened the door, elbowing his way inside. His boot splashed into a puddle. He stopped in the doorway and looked down. There was a puddle of rainwater across the front of the room.

I should get a towel before it soaks into the boards.

The thought made everything feel surreal. Dinosaurs were loose in the park, he nearly died – might still die – and he'd left his window open during a rainstorm and now his floor was getting water damage.

He shook his head and immediately regretted it. It sent his head spinning. He clutched at the door frame. His fingers slipped nearly sending him crashing to the floor.

Panting, he worked himself back up right. He looked towards the narrow set of stairs that connected the wooden addition to his trailer. More stairs immediately after that mountain of stairs seemed like a bad idea. He needed a minute to rest. He stumbled the few feet over to his couch and let himself fall. He just needed to sit down for a minute. Just a minute.