Chapter Text
Darius was being chased, that much was certain. A pack of velociraptors was hot on his trail as he followed another guy sprinting through the jungle. He stumbled as he slid under a fallen tree branch. Get to the helicopter, he thought, heart racing. He just had to make it to the helicopter and then he’d be safe.
Pushing through blades of grass, he fell into a clearing muttering, “Raptor bones?” when they clattered together underneath his hands. He pushed himself up and kept running, he had to. Following the man, he jumped from a grassy cliff and felt himself fall into a shallow, rocky river.
He heard the doctor call out. "Hurry!"
"Wait," Darius exclaimed. "We can use the river to mask our scents and—"
The man didn't heed his warning, leaping out of the river and then onwards.Within seconds one of the raptors pounced on him, and then two others. Haunting screams came from the victim before turning eerily silent.
That was until the sound of heavy footfalls came behind him.
Slowly, he looked up.
Towering above him was the body of a T-rex.
“Aw, crud,” was the only thing Darius had to say as its mouth came clamping down on him.
Game Over
Darius dropped his hand onto the desk rattling trinkets and school papers. “Dang it.”
“Roar!” came a voice from right beside him.
Darius jumped in his seat with a scream before lifting his VR goggles off of his head. His older brother, Brandon, stood hunched over in front of him laughing his butt off. Darius folded his arms and leaned back into his chair, a frown settling onto his face. “Not cool, Brand.”
“Yeah, like you know what cool is,” he replied, mouth tugging into an annoying smirk. “Those dinos get you and that old dude everytime.” He plucked one of the magazines off of Darius’ desk and flipped through it carelessly.
“His name is Dr. Meriwether.” The wheels of his chair squeaked against the floor as Darius moved to take the magazine from Brand’s hand and flipped through it himself.
“His name oughta’ be ‘dinner.’”
Various dinosaur species passed through his eyes as he skimmed through the pages. This magazine was an older one and featured only illustrations of the creature but he had plenty of recent ones with photographs of real living ones. However, Darius wanted the real thing—not illustrations, photographs, or virtual reality. “Brand, I’m so close! If I can just get around the T. Rex, I beat the game and win the—”
“Trip to Jurassic World,” Brand finished. “I know. You’ve mentioned it, like, a thousand times. But if straight-up gamers say this thing’s unwinnable, how’s some little dino-nerd kid gonna beat it?”
Darius cast his gaze to the floor and closed his magazine, cutting away the illustrations. “Great pep talk, bro. You been working on that?”
Brand sighed, running his hand atop his mound of curls. “Look, Darius… I know getting to Jurassic World was your and Dad’s dream, but there’s more to life than just dinosaurs. You never leave your room anymore, dude. Dad…he wouldn’t want this.”
Darius watched as his brother stood up from the edge of his bed. Brand, he didn’t understand—no one did. His dad had told him that when things fall apart, you have to pick up the pieces and keep going. This was him picking up the pieces. This was him trying.
He needed to win this, not just for himself but his dad, too.
“I hear you…” He said slowly. “But even if winning is dumb and hopeless, I still gotta try, you know?”
Brand’s face relaxed into a partial smile, somewhat of a truce. If there was one thing Brand could appreciate, it was his brother’s determination. It was a trait they both acquired from their father, a trait that helped Brand excel in sports and Darius in school. “I guess so, D. Can you at least, like, take a break? Maybe work in a shower—cause you’re smelling pretty funky, man.”
Darius chuckled as Brand ruffled his hair. Maybe Brand had a point. Darius hadn’t taken a shower in a couple of days, too focused on the game to do anything outside the bare necessities of survival.
Brandon stood at the doorway, arm on the frame. “All right, you do you, D. Just do it quietly. I don’t want Mom on my case again for you staying up…”
Darius had already tuned him out, digging through the magazine for anything that could clue him in on how to win. There had to be something he was missing.
Putting a pause to his search, he stared up at the ‘game over’ flashing red on the screen in front of him. Maybe Brand was right. What chance did he have at beating the dinosaurs and winning the game? It had been declared impossible by even the best game players he watched on Youtube.
His chair rolled back as he stood and walked over to his dresser. His dinosaur tooth necklace hung over a picture of him and his dad. It was the two of them standing in front of a dinosaur ride at Disney World—the closest he ever got to Jurassic World. He took the cord of the necklace into his hands and laid on top of his bed.
The weight of the tooth was light in his palm, enough to slow his racing mind and let him relax into his dinosaur-print comforter. He stared at the ceiling watching the fan spin as the ticking of his clock lulled him to sleep.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been dreaming when he woke up with a start, an idea brewing in his brain.
Gasping, Darius shot up from his bed. “That’s it!” His own momentum threw him over the edge onto the floor with a thud. “Ow,” he groaned.
After turning on the lights he searched through his bookshelf for the book he was looking for, getting frustrated with each incorrect one. He needed to find it. A brown book had caught his eye and he flipped through the pages until, finally—
“Got it!”
—
“I still don’t understand why I have to go to this stupid camp,” Yasmina grumbled as she and her mom walked down the aisles of the supermarket, on the hunt for any last minute items she may need before embarking on her two week “vacation” to Camp Cretaceous. Already in the cart were sunscreen, advil, and a mini first aid kit thrown in there after a small argument with her mom on why she’d need a first aid kit at camp. She was ready to leave; The fluorescent lights and incessant pop music playing throughout the store made her bones itch.
“It’s part of the sponsorship, Yasmina,” her mom said for maybe the hundredth time. “If Jurassic World is going to be your sponsor you have to participate in the camp’s trial run.”
Yasmina scoffed. “Oh great, so I’m a guinea pig. If they’re my sponsors shouldn’t they want me to practice? The Olympic trials are next year, I should be training.”
“I think it’s a great opportunity. You’ve been training so hard, Yasmina, and you should take a break, make some new friends—”
“Can I get some new headphones?” she asked, putting an abrupt stop to her mom’s long tangent. Yaz didn’t need friends anyway, she had told her mom that plenty of times and they both knew why.
“What happened to the pair you had?”
“Lailah stole them,” she huffed. “Please?”
“Fine. You won’t be able to use them while you’re there, though. It’s a phone free camp. Where is your sister, anyways?”
Yasmina shrugged and tossed the box in the cart. She could already tell this camp would be a living hell.
…
Later that nigh, Yasmina lay in her bed scrolling through her instagram page. Her actual account was barren but so many of the people at her school had been posting left and right about all the fun they were having during summer break. There was one particular post she scrolled past of a girl on her track team and her friends at some party. She had a big grin on her face with her arms wrapped around two other girls. For someone who didn’t train nearly as much as Yasmina (which was a near impossible feat), she had a strong record.
Yasmina sighed, clicked off her phone, and stared at the wall opposite of her. Trophies and medals adorned every inch of the gray space. Her mom had insisted she put them on display as a way to look back on all of her accomplishments. For Yasmina, they served as a push to maintain her good work.
She had a reputation to uphold. She was supposed to be strong, for her coach, her team, and her mom. That’s what she was—always was—her mom’s “strong girl.”
—
Kenji’s hands flew against the buttons and knobs of his playstation controller. Summer break so far had been a dud, no cool vacations or anything. Most of his friends had already left for their summer houses or family trips in the Maldives, meanwhile he was at his dad’s stupid mansion and would probably be there for all of break—alone probably.
“Aw, are you serious?” Kenji groaned, throwing his hands up in the air at yet another death in his game. “Stupid skeletons,” he muttered, clicking the respawn option. Behind him, he heard the door open and, assuming it was one of the maids, he ignored it.
“What’s this I’m hearing about you pranking one of the maids?” His father asked, voice recognizable even without hearing it for the past two weeks. Nope, not the maid. How’d he even hear about that? All Kenji had done was give her a little scare with a fake roach, no biggie.
Well, until she fell and sprained her wrist.
Yeah.
Kenji shrugged, his eyes focused on his video game. It was easier than letting the guilt swell up in his chest. Easier to avoid his father’s criticizing gaze. (Maybe one day he’ll realize none of it was easy) “I was bored.”
He was too busy staring at the screen to notice his father stalking towards him. The man plucked the controller from his hands as easily as one would a grape.
“Hey!”
“If you’re so bored, perhaps I should send you to a new camp that’s opened up at Jurassic World.” His lip curled upward in a snarl before throwing the controller to the other side of the room.
Kenji flinched and sunk deeper into his couch. “You want me to go to some lame-ass camp? Dad, c’mon I’ve been to Jurassic World a kajillion times.”
“Well, the number’s just increased. You’re leaving in two days.” With that as his final word, maybe for the next three weeks this time, his father left the bedroom, and shut the door behind him.
Kenji rolled his eyes and scoffed. He pulled one prank and all of a sudden he’s being shipped to some dumb ass camp? What did it even matter to his dad? It wasn’t like he actually cared about Kenji at all.
—
“Ben, baby? Are you in your room?”
The question was unnecessary. There were few spaces where Ben would be found, his bedroom—amongst school and his therapist’s office—being the most common. With school being out for the summer the number narrowed down to two and in that instance he was in his room flipping through the pages of a book.
Naomi Pincus gave a single knock before nudging the door open while in the process of putting in a pair of dangling earrings. “Honey, your dad and I need to talk with you before I leave for work, m’kay? Can you come to the living room, please?”
Ben’s heart shot straight into his chest. “What, why? Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing at all. Just come here.” She smiled, revealing her set of teeth, but it didn’t fully reach her eyes and did nothing to ease his worry. If anything, it only amplified it.
Panic arose in Ben as he followed her into their living room. Was somebody dead? In the hospital maybe? His mom said that nothing was wrong but her tone was way off, was she lying to him? His grandpa Glenn was fairly old, did something happen to him?
His mom sat down on their couch next to his dad and Ben took a seat in the armchair opposite of them. He watched her twist the rings around her fingers before his dad took her hand into his. It seemed to give her the resolve needed to begin. “We've been thinking and…to be honest we’re worried about you, Ben.”
His dad nodded. “Yes, when you’re not at school, you lock yourself in your bedroom. And I know it’s the anxiety but we’ve talked to your therapist and-”
“You talked to my therapist?”
“Yes, and she agreed that it might be in your benefit to get you out of your comfort zone. And there’s this program going on at my job, a camp actually. I think it’ll be really good for you. There’s kids your age there, and it’ll be a fun experience too.”
“Your job? Don’t tell me it’s at Jurassic World.”
“Jurassic World is completely safe,” Ben’s mom said, confirming his suspicion, “and it’s a way to try new things. Please, Ben? Besides this, your father and I are at a loss of what we can do to help you.”
Warm tears wetted Ben’s cheeks. “No, I-I don’t want to go.”
“Ben—”
“You’re going,” his father said with a tone of finality, cutting her off. Ben’s eyes widened and his dad softened his voice, if slightly. “There’ll be kids your age, and who knows, you might learn some things about yourself. Your mom and I agree that this is what’s best for you. ”
What’s best for me, he thought bitterly, digging his fingernails into the couch cushions to stifle their trembling. Ben stared at his feet, willing himself not to cry but he could already feel the tears swelling up in his eyes. As if they could possibly know what’s best for him.