Chapter Text
A singular breath; a mere second and all that once was, has suddenly dissipated. All she remembered were horns, a laser, and a shattered heart.
And yet, a purpose; the adrenaline from a single loss was enough to get her to move her legs. All logic and reasoning had left her; she had one thing, one singular thing in mind, her children.
Standing in front of the controlled theropod, she had no other choice but to do what she did best. The only thing she ever knew, that she knew how to do,
The only thing she lives for.
With the raise of her hand, she looked into the curious theropod’s eyes. A silent negotiation; a deal.
‘Leave them be.’ Her eyes spoke. ‘ But if you must, take my life with you instead.’
‘Is this what you truly desire?’ The abelisaur let out a grumble.
Behind her, her brood gave out sharp hisses in retortion. They had just lost a sibling. They didn’t need to lose their mother now either.
‘Yes.’
Darkness; the jaws of the Carnotaurus came down on her. The deal has been sealed. A life for three other lives. Something about this seemed familiar, like she was somehow reliving a distant memory from a distant past. The life she was truly meant for perhaps? She always knew this life wasn’t meant for her. She always found herself out of place. Stemming all the way back when she was just a little girl; she never found herself drawn to the social life humans were meant to have.
Yet somehow, dinosaurs were the only things that were able to fill that empty hole in her heart. Turn her from this careless and apathetic disgrace for a human being into something more; something not quite humane, but something out of this timeline, something humanity would never be able to understand–
Wait. Something’s not right. Why was she still thinking? She couldn’t possibly be alive…could she?
No, she doesn’t feel alive at all. She feels…cold. Really cold. Like she was completely stripped bare and dunked into a frozen lake. Yet somehow, this feeling still didn’t feel right; it wasn’t something her brain could comprehend.
Unless it wasn’t her brain doing the comprehending.
The cold icy dunk soon subsided into a tingly electric feeling, which was all she could describe. She was dead. She knew she was dead. But how did she know? Why is she knowing? It felt like a thousand hands were grabbing her and dragging her every which way.
Suddenly there was no darkness. No sound. Nothing. But somehow she was still able to comprehend and think. Was this purgatory? Hell? She’d never been the religious type, but she knew the basics; heaven and hell, but this didn’t seem like anything a scripture would describe.
All she could do was think; create thought with whatever was powering her consciousness at the moment. Her life, her dreams, her aspirations, her goals, the things she held most dear at heart. All of that circling back to her brood, her kin, her family. Her Atrociraptors. The only family she ever knew.
‘ Ghost, Tiger, Panthera, Red. ’ She let their names playback like a record.
‘ Ghost, Tiger, Panthera, Red.’ Their names became a crescendo in her not-mind.
Until their names spoke in a voice she couldn’t even recognize.
‘ Ghost, Tiger, Panthera…’ She stopped. Wait, what was the last one’s name again?
‘ Ghost, Tiger, Panthera…’ She forced her strange mind to remember, but this random voice she never heard before kept her from even “thinking” straight. If straight was even a direction in this space.
‘Ghost, Tiger…’
‘Ghost…’
A blank canvas. And she was suddenly dragged down low. She couldn’t feel, think, hear, or anything.
She’s served her purpose, and now, she’ll leave this earth knowing she died for what she lived for.
…
“So, what of it?” A man dressed in white spoke.
“It doesn’t matter.” A disheveled, half asleep scientist hissed back. “If we don’t have the Lockewood child, or the juvenile raptor, it won’t work.”
“And what do we do with the egg?”
The scientist spun around in his chair to look the other man in the eyes.
“Leave it in Paddock 3. We can deal with it later.”
The other man grimaced. “Paddock 3? Didn’t that paddock belong to–”
“I said it doesn’t matter.” The scientist stood up. “I don’t have the time to deal with little things like this, and Dodgeson certainly doesn’t either...”
A sigh left the other man’s throat.
“Whatever you say, Doctor Wu...”