The gravel crunches beneath Jenna's feet as she wades through the thick fog pooling around her thighs like water in a shallow pool. She can barely see the top of her boots, let alone the soles of her feet. It's only a matter of time before her legs disappear entirely.
Something skitters across the top of Jenna's left boot—she jumps back.
"Ah—!"
"Jenna?" Allen asks in a concerned tone.
"I'm fine," Jenna replies—her voice cracks. She resists the urge to shudder. She's no scientist, but something about the way the forest seems to be waking up as the fog rises… Luke would tell her correlation doesn't equal causation. The rising caws, trills, shrieks and coos in the distance would beg to differ.
She shakes her head and turns to the old blue-haired guy in charge. He's fiddling with some kind of old-fashioned scanner—a small handheld device with four buttons, an antenna and a tiny yellowed screen displaying a bunch of red and white blips on a radar grid.
He turns his head towards her. Jenna gets a distinct feeling that he's raising his brow. He then turns his head back towards the scanner and goes back to fiddling with it.
"We're the white dots, right?" She asks after a long beat.
The man hums.
"Yes, and no," he replies before tilting the device towards her and pointing at the two red dots following alongside the five white dots centred in the middle of the yellowed grid, "We are the white dots. You and Mr Lasker are the red dots."
"How come?"
"You're not wearing a mask," he says, fiddling with a dial on the side of the device to zoom out the map, "So as far this is concerned, you're no different from the canavari."
Jenna furrows her brow, "Like those purple dinosaur things? With the frill necks?"
She waves her hands around the sides of her neck to illustrate her point. The blue-haired man tilts his head towards her again.
"Trust me, Miss Jenna," the man says in a serious tone, "When the fog is this high, the firfirli are the least of our concerns."
Something roars in the distance.
Jenna swallows and glances at the others trailing behind them. She makes eye contact with Allen over the broad shoulders of that peach-haired twink's dad. His eyes are as wide as hers.
She turns back to the dinosaur monitor in the leader's hands and watches as the screen updates their position every half-second. As few red dots appear along the edges of the grid before disappearing a half-second later.
Right. Good to know there are worse things than those stupid little lizards out here. Fantastic.
───※ ·❆· ※───
The fog has risen to Jenna's hips. They've been walking for a while now, though not long enough for it to be more than 15-20 minutes.
The blue-haired man's dinosaur monitor dings—Jenna's head snaps towards the sound.
"What—?"
"Shh!" The man interrupts, his hand snapping into the air to halt the party in its tracks.
Jenna gives Allen's arm a gentle squeeze before jogging to the front of the group to check the monitor herself. The blue-haired man doesn't stop her from looking at the screen as he signals for the rest of the team to be dead quiet.
Five white and two red dots sit in the centre of the screen, as she'd expected, but at the bottom right of the screen… a white dot is circling a larger red dot. Something makes a deep cawing noise in the nearby distance—Jenna's head snaps towards the sound.
The blue-haired man signals for the group to gather closely.
"Is it—?" The buff peach-haired man asks in a hushed voice.
"Yirtici," the blue-haired man confirms with a sharp nod—he turns towards Allen and Jenna, "Quieten your breaths and soften your steps. We cannot afford to attract its attention."
"What about the white dot?" Jenna asks in an equally hushed voice, "Doesn't that mean there's a person out there—?"
"Patrol teams subjugate the canavari all of the time," the man replies before stepping back, "And they're far more equipped to fight them than us. Now be quiet."
Another deep caw sounds from beyond the trees, followed by a series of screeching and the sound of rustling leaves.
Jenna falls into line behind Allen and the buff peach-haired man as the leader motions for the group to enter single file. She glances behind her at the gold-horned woman of the group, who cheerfully gives her a double thumbs up. The woman's nails are also painted black. Jenna returns the gesture with a smile of her own beyond glancing over the woman's shoulder into the thick fog beyond—
Claws dig into Jenna's lower leg. She freezes. The claws move, climbing higher up her calf like an iguana slowly climbing a tree. Jenna's breathing shallows as she slowly turns her gaze towards her fog-obscured upper thighs because something is climbing up her freaking leg—she feels the claw dig into the flesh of her upper knee, then her lower thigh.
"Jen—?" The woman starts.
"Stick—I need a stick," Jenna shoots back as the faint impression of a lizard's claw appears along the edge of her mid thigh, "There's something onme—"
Allen's head whips around, his eyes wide, "What—?"
"Shh!" The leader hisses from the front of the group—he doubles back and approaches as Jenna feels something tail-like smack the top of her right boot, "What's going on?"
Jenna watches the red-haired woman snap a nearby branch off of a tree with a flinch of her shoulders. A deep screech echoes in the distance—it's close. Too close.
The lizard's claws dig into Jenna's thigh as it climbs a step higher. The faint outline of its spiked head is now visible through the slowly rising fog. The leader freezes.
"What is it?" Allen asks, his eyes wide, "What's wrong?"
"Mother of a rodent," the leader growls under his breath in a faintly dutch accent before his head tilts towards Jenna, "Stay very still, Miss Jenna, that thing is very dangerous."
The lizard climbs a little higher before settling its head against the dip of her pelvis. Jenna takes a moment to close her eyes and just breathe. Of course. Of course there's a murder lizard on her leg. Why wouldn't there be?
"What's—holy diarrhoea!" The peach-haired twink shrieks, leaping back, "What's that thing doing here?!"
"Riain!" The leader snaps.
A deep, reverberating screech echoes from up the path.
"No!" A distant woman screams.
The lizard digs its claws into Jenna's thigh—heavy footsteps rapidly approach from the rear. Jenna snaps her head towards Allen, who stares back at her in growing horror over the buff man's shoulder.
"Get off the path," the blue-haired man breathes out—his head snaps towards the approaching woman's scream, "Get off the path!"
"I can't!" Jenna snaps back in a shrill voice.
"The lizard—is it venomous or poisonous?" Allen shouts, his head snapping towards the leader, "What kind of dangerous is it?"
"Venomous!" He shouts back—the approaching creature caws at a terrifying pitch, "The two front teeth are venom injectors, but it's fast—!"
"How fast—?" Allen starts.
"Got it!" Jenna shouts, her heart slamming against her ribcage as she stares down at the creature clinging to her hip just below the heavy fog line.
The woman's scream is getting closer and closer—she only has one shot to do this. She flexes her hands against her sides as the blue-haired man ushers his team off of the gravel path like they were caught meandering along the train tracks.
Screeching.
Screaming.
Cawing.
Heavy footsteps.
"Jenna!"
She takes a deep breath and grabs the lizard's head like a snake catcher slamming a serpent's jaw shut. She rips the furious creature off of her leg—its claws cut deep—and flings it into the fog seconds before a massive orange and blue blur shoots down the path with a screaming woman clinging for dear life on its back.
Jenna dives out of the way, barely missing the beast and the thick ropes whipping through the air behind it before one of the ropes snags her foot and slams her face first against the gravel. She barely has time to register the pain before she's being dragged through the stones by the heel at a breakneck pace.
"Ahhhh!" She screams, bracing her arms across her face to keep the stones from shredding her cheeks like a cheese grater.
───※ ·❆· ※───
"Oh my Gods!" The woman clinging to the creature's back shrieks in horror, "Who are you?!"
"Is that really—ow!—important right now?!" Jenna snaps back as the stones tear the feeble mesh covering her midriff to shreds—she grits her teeth and flips herself onto her back when the horse-sized lizard takes a sharp turn to the west, "Stop the damned dinosaur!"
"I don't know how!" The woman shrieks back, "I've never done this before!"
Jenna shouts in pain as a particularly sharp stone scratches its way up her back as she's dragged across it at full speed.
"Are you insane?!" Jenna shouts, trying to crunch forward just enough to get her hands around the rope— "Agh!" She's slammed back into the gravel as the stupid dinosaur somehow picks up the pace, "Pull the damned rope!"
"Why in Gehenna would I do that?!"
"To slow the fucking animal down, woman!" Jenna screams back, her abs burning as she tries to crunch forward again, her arm outstretched to reach for the rope and get it off of her fucking ankle, "Yank the damned rope!"
"But—!"
"Now!" Jenna roars—her fingers touch, scratch, grasp at the fraying threads tying the rope together until—she grabs the coarse rope and pulls at the tangle knot holding the stupid thing in place—
The orange beast screeches and rears back, flapping its taloned flightless wings as the woman riding it yanks at the rope around its neck as hard as she can.
The second the rope comes loose, Jenna's body is sent flying past the creature's feathers, reptilian legs and right off the path—she shouts as her back slams into the trunk of a large tree.
Shouts and panicked caws reign down around her as Jenna's ears scream from the impact. Her arms shake as she pushes herself onto her hands and knees—the pain is blinding.
"Pull harder!"
"I'm trying!"
Jenna turns her head to face the commotion—to see what's going on.
She freezes.
Small little frill-necked lizard-chickens she can handle.
Her breathing starts to quicken.
Venomous iguanas climbing her damned leg like a fucking tree she can handle.
Her fingers begin to tremble in the dirt.
Cave collapses, fucked up sky portals, near death experiences she can fucking handle, but this? This?
Her eyes trail up the deep blue and black scales of its leg to the sleek orange, blue and white features lining its body in stripes and spot-like patterns depending on where she looks. From the fan-like feathered tail to the feathered, striped plume standing tall on the massive creature's head.
Her blood runs cold as she stares into the beast's beady yellow eyes inset into its orange, white and blue reptilian face. She'd recognised that bone structure anywhere. The sharp teeth, the long snout, and that distinct, deep, bone-chilling caw that she's only ever heard in movies.
That's a raptor. That's an actual, literal raptor thrashing against a trio of tight lassos pulled taught against its long neck. Cold sweat drips past the side of Jenna's jaw.
It's only a matter of time before that thing breaks free of the trio trying to hold it down, and when it does… when it does…
Jenna's breathing turns shallow.
They're all going to die.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Ana holds Blake's good hand in a death grip as they carefully make their way through the macabre village towards the outer treeline. She tries not to focus on the dark stains littering the dirt or the drag marks leading back to the firepit—thunder claps in the distance. Ana's grip on Blake's hand tightens.
"You think it'll rain soon?" Ana asks—she pauses and turns towards what looks like some kind of rudimentary wooden cage big enough to fit a small bear… or a family of four.
She shakes her head to perish the thought. It's obviously some kind of animal cage. The edges are even decorated in a series of pearlescent pink horns.
Ana furrows her brow. Why pink?
"Probably," Blake replies after a long beat, staring up at the narrow gaps between the towering canopy—Ana follows his gaze. The sky is grey and definitely darkening, "We should—"
"No way," Ana interrupts, squeezing his hand as she returns her gaze to the village's end. They resume walking, "That woman—it's not safe here."
Thunder cracks overhead. Blake brings them both to another halt.
"Blake—"
"Think about it, Annie. We can't afford to be caught in the rain," he says, tightening his grip on her palm, "At least here we have… shelter—"
"She tried to kill you, Blake!" Ana exclaims, turning to face him with horror etched into her brows—the lip of his orange turtleneck sweater is stained dark red, "This place is way more dangerous—!"
"But she didn't," Blake shoots back, "She let us go—"
"We are not staying overnight in an abandoned village occupied by a deranged psychopath," Ana retorts, flinging her unoccupied hand out wide, "You didn't see her, Blake. She was—she was—"
"She was what, Annie?" Blake snaps.
"She was covered in blood, Blake!" Ana claps back—something snaps behind her. She spins on her heel—her eyes dart between the stained huts, the stained dirt and the towering trees but no one is there. They're still alone. She balls her unoccupied hand into a fist, "I couldn't really—see much, but her eyes… Blake, she was going to kill you."
Blake visibly swallows, the fabric of his stained turtleneck shifting with the movement.
"That's… my point, Annie," he replies after a long moment, his tone strained, "If she wanted to k–kill me, I'd already be… fuck, okay." He takes a deep breath and turns towards the edge of the village, "I'm alive right now. We're both alive right now. Clearly that's… intentional."
"Monsters like to play with their food, Blake," Ana states, staring directly into the brunet's eyes, "And they always get bored of it eventually. I'd rather risk the rain."
"Annie—"
Crash!
Their heads snap towards the sound—it came from within the nearest log hut. Ana and Blake share a wide-eyed look.
"You think that was a—?"
"Maybe," Ana replies, staring at the dark trails leading down the circular hut's three log steps, "Stay here—"
"Absolutely not," Blake interjects, tightening his grip on her hand, "Just because that woman let us live doesn't mean we should talk to her."
"And what if it isn't her? What if it's a survivor?" Ana asks, gripping his hand equally as tight.
"What if it's an accomplice? Or a wild animal?" Blake shoots back, his tone strained. "Hypotheticals won't—"
"Solve anything?" Ana finishes in a sharp tone, "What happened to giving monsters the benefit of the doubt?"
"I never said—you're a nurse, Annie. You know how dangerous it is for us to get caught in the rain right now."
"I'm not a nurse, I'm a student!" Ana cries, her vision blurring as tears spill out onto her cheeks, "Do you think we're trained to handle any of this? I'm not a first responder!" She furiously wipes the tears from her eyes, "You're asking me to choose between a murderer and the chance we won't find somewhere safer to hide."
Blake hesitates before reaching forward and pulling Ana into an awkward hug—she feels his gasp in pain against the top of her head. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to stop the torrent of these useless tears.
Another crash sounds, followed by the distinct sound of a humanoid groan.
The couple freeze and separate, staring at one another with wide eyes.
"Who's… who's there?" grunts the raspy voice of a woman distinctly different from the one who threatened their lives at the burnt firepit.
"Survivor," the pair mutter simultaneously, their heads moving in unison towards the circular log hut.
"Please… help me…"
Ana's feet begin to move before the thought enters her head and she's climbing the log steps one sticky step at a time before coming face to face with the stained and shredded canvas drape acting in place of a door.
"Ana!"
She takes a deep breath and goes to push it aside, her other hand clutching the strap of her shoulder bag in a deadly grip. Blake's right—she's a nurse in training. A future medical professional. What kind of awful nurse would she be if she ignored a cry for help?
She takes a deep breath and pushes aside the blood-stained canvas.
"H–hello…?"
───※ ·❆· ※───
"That accursed—" Aerys curses—he whips his head towards Damhan, "Give the boy to Riain and find the girl!"
"No!" Allen shouts, tightening his grip on Damhan's shoulders, "Don't put me down!"
"Mr Lasker—!"
"Please!" Allen begs, staring directly into the glass eyes of Aerys' gas mask, "I know I'm a liability right now—I get it—but please. She's my best friend. Don't leave me behind."
"You can't even walk," Riain balks.
Allen grits his teeth, "I am aware."
Aerys stares at him for a long beat before turning his head towards Alexios—the doctor. The man nods and Aerys turns his head back to Allen.
"First sign of danger and Damhan drops you," Aerys grits out, "Do we have a deal?"
Allen's fingers flex around the purple fabric tightly gripped between them.
After a short beat, he nods.
Aerys nods back—he turns his attention to Damhan, "Make sure the girl doesn't get herself killed."
"Yes sir!" Damhan replies—he turns his head to Allen and tightens his grip on the Englishman's thighs, "Hold on, kiddo!"
"Oka—ah!"
The large man breaks into a shockingly fast down the path, leaving the rest of his teammates in the dust.
Allen clings to his shoulders for dear life. For such a strong man, Damhan is fast. Faster than Jenna. Allen grits his teeth and holds tight.
Damhan will definitely catch up to her—he knows it.
───※ ·❆· ※───
The raptor thrashes against the ropes holding it in place as Jenna watches the line slowly slipping through the ex-screaming woman's grip with every violent tug. Cold sweat runs past the blood on her forehead to the tip of her jaw as she watches the rope's end get shorter, and shorter—the strawberry blonde's grip is too weak. She can't—she's going to be the one to break the chain—
The raptor roars and Jenna scrambles to her feet before she can even process what the hell she is doing. She leaps at the ever-shortening rope, grabs the ends and pulls.
"Wh—?" The woman seems to glance over her shoulder and balks, "Where in the seven circles is your mask?!"
"Don't have one!" Jenna shouts back with an incredibly strained grin—the orange dinosaur thrashes and she digs her heels into dirt. Even with both of them pulling it with all of their might, they still lose an inch of rope—the sweat on Jenna's hands is screwing up her grip, "Why the hell are you people trying to catch a freaking dinosaur?!"
"Who are you?!" A long-haired man screeches from the dinosaur's opposite side.
Tug. Slip. Tug. Slip. They're running out of rope. Shit.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jenna snarks back.
"Yes, obviously, I would," The man snaps, "If you're relying on a gift, it's not going to hold out for long!"
"The hell're you talking about?!"
"Cube's up!" A second woman shouts from the edge of the forest, a well-timed raptor stomp parting the fog enough to reveal a masked purple-haired woman fiddling with some kind of weird sci-fi rubix cube. She grabs a series of ground spikes from within and slams one into the ground right next to the cube.
She scrambles to her feet and races a few feet away to slam the next spike into the ground.
"What's with the tent spikes?" Jenna shouts, the rope slipping down to half a foot between her hands as the raptor thrashes, screams, and writhes—the two men holding the other two ropes leap back to keep their lines as taut as possible.
"They're anchors," the strawberry blonde replies as she leans far enough back that her thick, puffy hair touches Jenna's chest, "We need to capture it alive—no!"
"Ah!" The purple-haired girl shouts as the dinosaur swings its fanned tail at her head, snatching the last of the rope from between Jenna and the strawberry blonde's hands—the raptor's tail hits, slamming her body straight into a nearby tree and knocking her out cold.
"Nina!" the long-haired man shouts in horror—his grip on the rope falters.
The raptor rears back, fighting harder now that it finally has the freedom to move—it spins on its heel, its tail violently whipping through the haze. Jenna barely manages to tackle the strawberry blonde into the dirt before the tail slaps past their heads with a loud crack!
"Are you okay?!" Jenna shouts, covering the shorter woman with her entire body before—shit! She grabs her by the waist and rolls them out of the way before a massive reptilian foot has the chance to slam down onto their spines.
"The pylons!" The long-haired man shouts in a panicked voice, "Someone grab the pylons!"
"I don't know where they are!"
"Sappho!"
The woman under Jenna's arm flinches—she shouts back, "I don't know!"
"Useless!" The man snaps.
The raptor screeches, yanking hard against the final two ropes around its neck.
"Watch your mouth, asshole!" Jenna snaps back on the woman's—Sappho's behalf. She feels something sharp jab into the palm of her hand and yanks it away with a strong curse—the fog parts just enough to reveal the black and silver objects lying in the dirt all around them.
The tent pegs.
"The pylons," Sappho breathes. She reaches forward to grab one before shouting in pain the second she pushes her arm too far forward, "Ow—!"
"What's wrong?" Jenna asks, pulling herself off of the woman's back.
"My rib—" she gasps, "I can't—!"
Jenna stares at the woman for a beat, before snapping her head towards the raging orange dinosaur winning the tug-a-war match between the two idiots who tried to capture it. She scratches her nails into the dirt.
"What do I need to do?"
"What—?"
"What do I need to do?" Jenna repeats, staring into the eyeholes of Sappho's mask, "Stab them in a circle around the raptor or what?"
The raptor screeches a deep, blood-curdling caw. Jenna swallows against her dry throat.
The woman seems to stare at her for a long beat before turning her face back towards the metal pegs, "Yeah. Then press the red button on the cube. You… you can't miss it."
"Sappho. Get up and help already!"
Jenna nods and gathers the three metal rods into her hands and pushes herself onto her heels. Right. She's really doing this. She grips the metal rods tighter between her palms and lets out the breath she'd been holding.
It's just baby parkour with a dinosaur. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
"Sappho—!"
"Shut the hell up and focus on keeping the dinosaur still!" Jenna snaps.
"You—!"
She slams the first one into the ground by her feet, "I've got your stupid pylons. Now focus on doing your fucking jobs before you get me killed too, got it?!"
Jenna tunes out the man's snarky response and gets into position. If they're so hellbent on catching a freaking dinosaur, then so be it.
These idiots better make sure they finish the job.