Chapter Text
Journal Entry #Whocaresanymore: December 19th, 2015
Okay, I don’t have a lot of time to write this, so I'll make it quick.
Everything has fallen apart.
Indie broke out of containment. She’s on a rampage.
I don’t know how many losses we’ve suffered. Frankly, I don’t want to know.
The guests are flying off the handle. Couldn’t blame ‘em.
’We pride ourselves on the safety of our guests and our animals’. That’s what the higher ups always told us. That’s what they told the guests.
I should’ve known there was something going on from the start. Something deeper to all of this.
We played God. Now, we’re paying the price for human ignorance.
Every. Single. One of us.
Masrani is dead.
InGen is taking over…
Hoskins thinks he’s in charge. And I just— He shouldn’t be!
God, and now we’re scrambling to pick up the pieces of HIS mess!
First, he wants me to retire from my job as Indie’s trainer. Now, he’s bent on the notion that the raptors can kill her.
I couldn’t let that happen. I should’ve, after everything that has happened, but…
I couldn’t.
I guess this is my fault. All my fault.
…I don’t know what to do… What can I do?
Will fleeing from our problems really solve them? Doubtful.
Owen can’t placate the raptors any longer, and I can’t get through to my own Rex.
We’re outsiders to her and her new pack. We’re in her territory now.
We’re her prey.
I practically raised her. Trusted her.
Whatever bond we made after all those months… It’s gone now.
I want to help her. I really do. But that doesn't seem like a viable option right now...
I can only hope that we make it
“Jordan!” A sharp, alarmed scream hurls me right out of my journal and back into reality. The van slammed on its brakes, violently jerking me forward. The seatbelt chokes me around the collar and chest as the breath draws out of my lungs.
My journal tumbled off my lap and into the floorboards below. I thrust my arms out and onto the dashboard before I could slam my head against the windshield. Getting a concussion wasn’t on my list of things to have happen to me today— besides I was about 80% sure I had one already judging from my splitting headache.
Thanks, Delta.
”Natalie!” I snapped out through bared teeth as my brown, curled hair obscured my vision. My glasses slipped right off my nose and joined my journal in the depths of the van. I cursed under my breath, wishing I had extra contacts in my bag for the day’s catastrophe. But, alas, I was practically blind as a bat at the moment.
I leaned down and began to fumble around for the specs. At this late an hour, in the middle of the jungle, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack… if that needle was practically invisible.
Natalie, my alleged partner-in-crime, sat in the driver’s seat. She was a decent enough driver when it came to rougher terrain. I had seen her tactfully navigate around the rocks and dips in the jungle roads in order not to disturb the injured dinosaurs in the back of her medical vehicle. ‘I make this jungle trek look smooth as butter’, she’d proudly claimed one day.
Right now, though…? I think I’ve met rookie sixteen-year-olds that could drive better than her. But, I was in no state to be driving or complaining— which she had told me three times already—, so I had to live with her occasional stops or sharp turns around the tighter bends. I only wanted to hurl maybe once or twice. Perhaps writing my latest journal entry while speeding like a missile through the backroads wasn't such a good idea. But I needed to write my thoughts somewhere.
People needed to know what I had seen. What I had experienced.
Natalie reached a hand over to roughly shake my arm as I continued to search. Her other hand was currently wrapped in a death grip around the steering wheel; it had been ever since the raptors got loose in the jungle. It would take a will of steel to be able to rip her from it. Or, a dinosaur.
“Jordan—“ She stammered in a thick British accent, her words coming out as a strangled croak.
”What?” I groaned in exhaustion and mild annoyance as my fingers felt along the smooth glass of my spectacles. Aha! I snatched them up and quickly placed them back in its proper position, while making sure to brush the hair out of my face with a hand so that I could see better. Smudged, but not broken.
When I turned over toward the paleo-veterinarian beside me, I found she was looking off into the distance with a petrified, blank stare. The van’s headlights scoured across the jungle floor before us and gifted a ghostly hue to the trees surrounding the path. Up ahead was a tight bend in the road, a clear safety hazard under such dim lights and no proper signage. The headlights were not the best in terms of night vision, but it was better than driving around in the pitch black with hungry, bloodthirsty dinosaurs on the loose.
I squinted in the direction Natalie was concentrated on. There was nothing there but the gentle, rhythmic sway of the leaves. I rolled the window down and reached out quickly with a hand before pulling it back into the safety of the vehicle. No wind.
I couldn’t see her at first. Then again, who really could? She was good at fooling people. That much I knew all too well.
The Indominus Rex was deathly silent, with astonishing camouflage to boot, when she wanted to be. We all learned that lesson the hard way.
The blotched greens, blacks, and browns of the forestry ahead of us began to shift and ripple as if they were alive. A large, mottled muzzle peeks out from the branches and into the shaft of light. As the light shone upon its scaly surface, the skin is revealed to be a stark white. Albino. A rarity in the animal kingdom. Well, amongst dinosaurs, at least. And it was certainly a distinction from the shadows crowding the undergrowth and the night sky above.
A low rumble sent gentle vibrations along a watery ditch just beside the path. The clear signal of something approaching, something big. Fifty feet tall, to be more precise.
The theropod drew nearer, allowing us to see her in full scope. Her large, serrated claws; her gnarled, crooked fangs that glistened and dripped with scarlet red drops of blood; her cold, reptilian stare. I shuffled in discomfort at the sight of her broken teeth and disheveled appearance. No one had taken care of her.
The large theropod took a step closer and leaned down, her large head tilting sideways like a curious bird. Her eyes resembled the crackling embers of a dying fire.
She silently sized us up with the gaze of an apex predator as she swiveled her head side to side. Even if she couldn't see us physically-- which I knew she could-- she would no doubt be able to see us via our heat signatures.
Why would a genetically engineered dinosaur designed for a theme park need the ability to detect thermal radiation? Ask Dr. Wu. I'm sure he could go on for hours about it-- if he was even still alive.
"Jordan..." Natalie whispered as she leaned as far away from the windshield as her seat would allow. Her hand still hadn't given up its iron grip on the steering wheel.
I didn’t hear her. I was rooted to my seat, my nails digging gouges into its leather exterior. My heart thumped loudly in my ears. It was almost deafening.
The Indominus Rex blinked, her third eyelid shutting sideways like a reptile. Natalie was a mere afterthought for her. I was her target. And she was wired with every primal instinct to kill.
Once, I was her alpha. Perhaps her mother.
I cared for her. Nurtured her.
Now, she was to be my demise.
Indie roared, the sound a thunderous boom amongst the panicked silence. Natalie screamed and shielded her ears with her palms. I flinched at the sheer volume but forced myself to hold my head high.
Where did it all go wrong? Was there simply one moment that changed everything? Could I have prevented it if I’d done something different? Or was it all a mere cascade of inevitable events that changed the course of Jurassic World’s “perfect and safe utopia.”
Hmm. Now that…
Maybe, that's a tale to tell from the beginning?
I’m Jordan Dawson. And this is my story…