Hawke lay on the sun-warmed rock longer than he should have. He wanted some time to rest, to recover, and to process the simple fact that he was still alive after all that madness.
But rest meant vulnerability in a place like this. And vulnerability here meant death. At any moment that damned T. rex could return, or another predator could appear, attracted by the scent of easy prey.
'Get up already. Come on, you can do this.'
He rolled onto his side with a groan, then forced himself to sit up. Water dripped from his hair, pooling on his lap, forming tiny puddles on the rock.
"Okay, I'm safe for now."
He stood up on his wobbly legs and looked around for the first time with real attention at what he had risked jumping over.
The lagoon was large, large enough to seem like a small sea from so close. Crystal-clear water in a beautiful blue-green hue, its intensity changing with depth, shifting from light green at the edges to a deep, mysterious blue in the center. Surrounded by stone walls on three sides, forming a kind of natural amphitheater, as he had seen earlier from above. On the fourth side, the shore sloped gently down to meet the forest again, a tongue of land that invited exploration, or danger.
On the other side of the lagoon, something moved among the trees. Something enormous.
William stood motionless, ready to dive back into the water if necessary. His muscles still trembled from the run, but the adrenaline was already beginning to subside, leaving a heavy weariness in his bones.
But what emerged from the vegetation was not a predator. Thankfully.
Long necks.
Three of them, so long they seemed unreal, rising above the canopies of the smaller trees. The small heads disappeared at the top, disproportionate to the massive bodies that finally appeared between the tree trunks.
Long-necked dinosaurs. Giant herbivores are harmless if you aren't underneath them to be trampled. He recognized the general shape, those gentle giants of...
'Wait. How do I know this?'
More fragments of knowledge were floating without context in his mind. Information without origin. But it didn't matter now.
The three giants moved slowly to the edge of the lagoon, a prehistoric march that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Each step made the ground tremble slightly, tiny waves forming on the surface of the water with each impact. The heads descended in graceful movements, the necks curving like perfectly controlled organic cranes. Then they began to drink, their wide mouths sucking water in enormous gulps that made concentric ripples on the crystalline surface.
It was beautiful to see.
William stood paralyzed, watching. Arched necks reflected in the water like distorted mirrors, creating duplicate images that danced with the movement of the waves, a heart shape if you tilted your head to see, the kind you make with your hands. And behind it all, an orange sun began its slow dive towards the horizon, painting the sky in shades of fire and purple that reflected in the lagoon in a spectacle of warm colors.
For a brief moment, he forgot where he was. He forgot the danger, the hunger, the broken system, the loneliness. He simply stood there, fascinated, watching those colossal creatures exist in their primitive peace.
One of them raised its head, water cascading from its mouth in streams that glittered like liquid diamonds against the sunlight. It looked in William's direction for a long moment, its large, dark eyes processing his presence with the lazy curiosity of someone who had no natural predators, not yet. Then it went back to drinking, completely uninterested.
Humans shouldn't be a threat to creatures of that size. They were barely worthy of attention.
"Prehistory."
The words came out in an involuntary whisper, almost a breath.
"I'm in the fucking prehistoric era."
The weight of the realization fell upon him like a meteorite hitting the earth. It made sense, it was completely insane and absurd, but it made sense. Dinosaurs walking around as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Giant plants that looked like they came straight out of a documentary about the Jurassic period. A primeval forest as far as the eye could see, without a single sign of human intervention. Different air, denser, perhaps richer in oxygen; each breath seemed deeper, fuller, as if the lungs were being fed by something more potent. It was still strange to think that human lungs processed that air, how?
There was no other plausible explanation.
'But how? How the hell did I get here?'
Time machine? The idea seemed as tangible as it was absurd, but what else could it be? He woke up in a stone hole with no memory, in a world full of living, very real dinosaurs. Either he had traveled through time or... or what? Had he been transported to another world? Simulated reality? A bizarre experiment by some advanced civilization? Perhaps the work of some divine being.
For what? Why? What sense does it make to send someone here?
And the system. That damned buggy system. Was it part of all this? Was it intentionally faulty? What was its purpose? A test? An experiment? Punishment?
The questions had no answers. They only generated more questions, in an endless spiral that would only cause headaches if he continued down this path.
He shook his head, pushing away the useless thoughts. Time to focus on what mattered: survival.
He moved away from the water's edge, walking along the rocky bank. He needed to find a minimally safe place before nightfall. And he needed to do something about food, eventually. The lagoon water solved one problem, but his stomach wouldn't take long to complain about the other; it was already beginning to give vague signs of discomfort, silent reminders that the human body needs energy.
'But first…'
He focused on the interface in the corner of his vision.
```
EVOLUTION SYSTEM - BETA
LEVEL: 1 [LOCKED]
Squats: 0/100
Running: 0/10km Push-ups: 0/50
```
'There has to be some way to mess with this. Some hidden menu, something.'
He tried blinking repeatedly. Nothing happened. He tried thinking "menu" repeatedly, focusing intensely on the word as if he could force the interface to obey. Nothing. He tried making hand gestures in front of his eyes as if the interface were a touchscreen.
Obviously, nothing.
There's no instruction manual. There's no tutorial. Just this broken piece of junk.
He tried thinking of specific words, as if they were commands. "Status." Nothing. "Inventory." Nothing. "Skills." Nothing. "Settings."
The interface suddenly changed.