Kaprodonychus Posted September 4, 2016 Author Share Posted September 4, 2016 58 minutes ago, rpicardi1 said: Would make sense given a child will be taught by someone as they grow up. An infant born with an implant would not know what to do with it. I could picture raising a child in my story being like this... mum: OK kids remember these rules rule number one: don't touch your implant rule number two: don't stab your implant rule number three: don't try to eat your implan- JIMMY!!! WHAT DID I JUST SAY!! DONT TRY TO EAT YOUR IMPLANT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteradontalons23 Posted September 4, 2016 Share Posted September 4, 2016 Thx for answering....hmmm will you include boss fights in the story or no? Also would like to see Chris having flashbacks of his life before the island...like maybe his father teaching him stuff that could somehow help surviving in ark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted September 4, 2016 Author Share Posted September 4, 2016 4 hours ago, Pteradontalons23 said: Thx for answering....hmmm will you include boss fights in the story or no? Also would like to see Chris having flashbacks of his life before the island...like maybe his father teaching him stuff that could somehow help surviving in ark the bosses will be added later into the story. There will be more bosses and they will have unqiue back story. I do intend to have a backstory for everybody. Especially the 5 main characters. However, some will just be more unqiue then others Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted September 5, 2016 Author Share Posted September 5, 2016 Just updated the notice board. For the bestiary part, it's a more detailed and formal version of dossiers with a lot more information. Don't worry, the dossiers will still come. They'll come Before the new chapter for the guide. The guide will look nice and pretty with hand drawn images of everything (hopefully) really excited about this guys. Hope you are too. However, most chapters won't actually be released for a LONG TIME. The writing will possibly be done, however I do tend to stay on track and continue with my stories and dossiers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteradontalons23 Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 Make a dossier that remakes the trike or a dino similar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted September 10, 2016 Author Share Posted September 10, 2016 1 hour ago, Pteradontalons23 said: Make a dossier that remakes the trike or a dino similar The offical ark guide I'm writing will remake all of the animals that have been announced. I have written a dossier for the titanoceratops as well as the nasutoceratops on my Ark rising Obelisks *dossiers* page if you're interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteradontalons23 Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 That's what that was oh I thought you meant that was like a long neck one lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted September 10, 2016 Author Share Posted September 10, 2016 3 hours ago, Pteradontalons23 said: That's what that was oh I thought you meant that was like a long neck one lol Yeah lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted September 26, 2016 Author Share Posted September 26, 2016 Ok since its been a while since I wrote any chapters, I've realised that survivor chapter 2 is REALLY LONG!! Like, longer than any of my other chapters...and I'm still writing it. I'll just edit it and finish it off a bit more and post it incomplete yet again. I'll continue on with it and then get some other stuff down after. I have 3 hybrid dossiers done, yet I do not know if I should post them now or not...as they are very important hybrids Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaEndGame Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 On 26 September 2016 at 11:53 AM, Kaprodonychus said: Ok since its been a while since I wrote any chapters, I've realised that survivor chapter 2 is REALLY LONG!! Like, longer than any of my other chapters...and I'm still writing it. I'll just edit it and finish it off a bit more and post it incomplete yet again. I'll continue on with it and then get some other stuff down after. I have 3 hybrid dossiers done, yet I do not know if I should post them now or not...as they are very important hybrids Looking forwards to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted September 26, 2016 Author Share Posted September 26, 2016 Just did a very terrible and quick edit. I'm in Costa Rica right now so I can't use Microsoft Word for editing. Nor do I have much time for writing or editing. Terribly sorry for this inconvenience. But the part I'm up to for survivor chapter 2 is here. Hope you like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteradontalons23 Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 Ummmm I don't see it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted October 10, 2016 Author Share Posted October 10, 2016 3 hours ago, Pteradontalons23 said: Ummmm I don't see it You have to go back one page and find where i originally had chapter 2. Hope that helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 Just like to make a little comment on both here and on my other page about an issue that I have been informed about. Today I got a private message from a friend of mine who is also a fan fic writer here (will not say names) and was verbally attacked by an anonymous person on their email (so this did not occur on the forums) The person said that they were a supporter of mine and continuously said that my friends work was "unoriginal" and "uncreative." It says a bit more verbal stuff but I'd like to leave it like that. I for one would like to request everyone of my supporters that they please stop this. This is not a competition of who's the best writer on the forums and who has the most views. We are simply here to entertain readers with our own imaginations. Please do not take this as a complaint. I think that we can all agree that us writers really appreciate you guys. But please do not attack other writers. Some of us can handle tough criticism like my friend and I, but some others can't handle it at all. If the person who spoke to my friend is reading this, I would like to privately talk to you for a bit. Don't think I'm gonna yell at you or hate you. I'll simply ask you some questions and if I'm lucky, I'll try see if I can get this resolved. My friend that shall not be named is completely fine. I just wanted to address this so this doesn't happen again as well as find out who said it. - Kaprodonychus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaEndGame Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 One must wonder what goes through some peoples heads. I hope you guys get this resolved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 3 minutes ago, DaEndGame said: One must wonder what goes through some peoples heads. I hope you guys get this resolved. I hope this gets resolved too. I don't want anyone else feelings to get hurt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted October 31, 2016 Author Share Posted October 31, 2016 Hello all. I came to drop by to apologise for not posting cool new content on this page and my other page. Fear not. I am still writing new stuff for all of you guys to enjoy. i'll explain whats the issue. Heres my poor excuse. Both the upcoming chapter and the survivor chapter have been slowed down due to some difficulties. But I am trying to get one done at a time. I have also been drawing my first piece of art for this story. if you want to see what it will somewhat look like you can go to my deviantart page. I will have a link so you can all see my account and gallery soon. school is also being a bit of a pain but I manage to get time to write some interesting stuff for survivor chapter 2. Some people will die........ here is some good news... there will be 6 fanfics!! Awakening Resurrection Black Gates Redemption Risen From Ashes Strange Lands There will be probably be more but with different characters and stories (e.g. the first survivor on the island) there will also be my official guide for everyone that's interested in lore and the animals! so much to do in my spare time. I hope this excites you more than this excites me!!! More dossiers will also come....maybe even with some pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaEndGame Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 My thoughts when I saw the notification for you commenting here was something along the lines of a parody of one of the songs from the original Willy Wonka movies. I cant remember which one. #oh my god, can it be# #can it really, really be# #is it a new chapter# But the good news is good enough to stave me off, for now... PS; has your school work been such a pain as a 20+ page document reverting to an old save that only has 8 pages? 'Cause mine did, this very morning. *gunshot* dont worry it missfired... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted October 31, 2016 Author Share Posted October 31, 2016 5 hours ago, DaEndGame said: My thoughts when I saw the notification for you commenting here was something along the lines of a parody of one of the songs from the original Willy Wonka movies. I cant remember which one. #oh my god, can it be# #can it really, really be# #is it a new chapter# But the good news is good enough to stave me off, for now... PS; has your school work been such a pain as a 20+ page document reverting to an old save that only has 8 pages? 'Cause mine did, this very morning. *gunshot* dont worry it missfired... Don't worry my friend, your hunger for chapters and dossiers will be satisfied soon. The sacrifices will come Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted December 6, 2016 Author Share Posted December 6, 2016 hello. I'm just going to apologise in advance about the upcoming survivor chapter 2. For those who read it, please take a seat. I had no idea how long it was until I started editing it today. This is what Microsoft word tells me: font size: 16 pages: 69 words: 20,706 .....so yeah.....enjoy...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted December 6, 2016 Author Share Posted December 6, 2016 Survivor chapter 2: It's coming ~ John ~ 15 years before Arrival Day 1 I hid in the trees, completely at a standstill. I was worried that I was going to stand on a twig or bush and blow my cover. The person trying to find me didn't bother trying to hide themselves in their surroundings. They just walked along and searched every tree, bush and rock just to find me. I closed my eyes and hoped that she couldn't find me. If I was to distract her, maybe I could have a few seconds to dart awa- "Found you!" She yelled. She was standing by the side of the tree with a large grin on her face. Her arms were crossed at first but she couldn't help but giggle in victory. "Ok sweetie you found me." I smiled at my 4 year old daughter. "My my Lucy you are getting better at this!" I exclaimed. "Hide and seek is my favourite game." She grinned and showed her little baby teeth. Already, a few adult teeth are growing above a few of them. She danced around a little bit in her small pink dress her mother made for her. Her blonde hair flew around her as she spun around. I couldn't help but grin in delight to see my daughter so happy despite the horrid place that surrounds us with death. Already, the bright sky began to dim and the sun slowly sunk underneath the horizon. After that, the howls and calls of many different animals began to echo through the woods; very low and unsettling calls if I may add. "Ok Lucy we need to go now. It's almost night time and we haven't had dinner yet." I slowly pushed her along but she remained where she was with her arms crossed once again with a pouty face. "That's not my name." She said stubbornly. I sighed in protest and called for her once again. "Princess Buttercup the big scary dragon is coming and we must retreat to our castle for safety!" Once I said that, the pout quickly transformed into a beam and she started running out of the woods and back to the house giggling. I watched her run down the hill that leads her back to the ranch and barnyard, and then I turned back slowly to the woods again. A couple of minutes ago, they were a fun and quite place to play hide and seek; now they'll soon be patrolled by small to medium sized predators. I can almost hear them...barking away like hounds and hunting down phiomias. It's like I can hear the herbivore screaming while its hunters look down at it in glee, baring their sharp fangs. All I heard was one loud snap and the screaming stopped. A cold breeze started to fly past me to signal that the screaming animal has passed. Lucy was already home in her mother's arms by the time I turned around. She was a fast girl. I was about to join them back at the ranch until I heard strange and abnormal calls from behind me. Too far for me to know what it was coming from, but close enough to know that the creature wasn't far. It was the strangest call I have ever heard. The sound was a mix of rapid clicking like a dolphin and snarling. Whatever it was, it sounded highly aggressive. The calls began to quickly change into low growls and savages barks as soon as I started to move down the hill. I quickly rushed down the steep hill and ran over to my wife, Susan who was waiting for me by the front gate of the house. She could see the worried face I wore and made her go uneasy. "What's wrong John?" She placed her hand on my cheek and looked at me with a concerned look. "Where's Lucy?" "She's with the Linda in the house why?" "Lock all the doors and windows." "Why? What's going on?" She began to panic and squeeze my hand. I went to speak but a loud, reptilian howl from the woods interrupted our conversation and disturbed our cattle of muttaburrasaurs and nasutoceratops'. The sky began to darken and it was almost impossible to see without the lanterns around the house. "...what...was that?" The trembling voice of my wife was brought to my attention and made me realise that taking care of my family was my top priority. "Get inside...now" I stuttered while opening the front gate. I quickly nudged Susan into house. I stepped into the house to see Linda the maid trying to stop Lucy from crying and our hyenadon, Cheddar, growling at the windows. "What are those things daddy?" Lucy looked up to me and sobbed. She tried her best not to shed a tear. "I don't know sweetie," I said to her, "I don't know." Susan pulled me away from the entry way and took us into the storage room under the stairs where we usually have our private conversations so Lucy can't hear us. "Ok since Lucy is not here to freak out about the creature. Can you tell me what it is?" She stood there with her arms crossed and hoped for an answer. "What?" "Don't 'what' me John I'm not Lucy. You can cut the whole 'I don't know what it is' cr*p with me. We're all scared right now and at least Linda and I should know what's out there." I stared at her for quite some time with a blank expression. She looked right back at me, a little agitated that I still haven't answered her question. "...well?" She said. "...I...I really don't know..." I gulped and hoped that she knew that I wasn't joking. Her agitated face began to form into a petrified face, her skin turning pale and her eyes widening. "I'll get the gun for you. You just watch out for those things." Susan pushed the two of us out of the storage room and went to look for the rifle. I walked back to the entrance and turned left to the kitchen. All the windows were already blocked with wooden planks, yet cheddar was persistent to jump out from one. I pulled the old mutt away and peeped through the window, having no idea what to expect. It was almost pitch black outside. Only the few lanterns and fireflies glowed up the darkness around the front garden. The cries and honking from the muttaburrasaurs running past made the atmosphere twice as scary. You would hear the occasional grunts from the nasutocertaop's gathering the heard together and intact, but the hadrosaurs were two terrified. The nasutoceratops grunts and roars began to increase as the end of the herd began to trot past the front of our house. 'Predators' The larger nasutos were hanging at the back, protecting the hadrosaurs. I bet that bloody Austroraptor pack is back. I paid the citadel guards to eliminate these pests. I guess they ran away and the guards were too lazy to catch them. Susan was right; I should've paid trackers. Stupid things probably picked up on new animal calls while they were gone. What's the next thing they're gonna mimic, my rifle? I continued to peep through between the plank and the window. I could hear the grunts and roars of our matriarch nasuto, Miss Blossom, holding off the predators with some of the Bulls. They all swung their horns around and would occasionally charge. Judging from the predators calls, they weren't hitting them. One of the predators jumped by the window and entered the front garden...it wasn't an Austroraptor. The predator was a quadruped; however it stood on its hind legs to roar back at the nasutos. It was too dark to see specific details, but it had an extremely long snout filled with long and jagged teeth. "What is that?" Susan crept up behind me holding my rifle. "Jesus! Don't scare me like that." I whispered. "Sorry. Here's your gun. Now you gonna tell me what it is?" She handed me my rifle. I grabbed it but I was too busy looking at the creatures. "Grab Lucy, Linda and Cheddar and stay in the basement." I whispered "What? We never had to go into a basement ever since the young tyrannosaurus entered our farm. What are those things John?!" I can hear her begin to panic. The beast that entered the garden stopped roaring and looked back at us. Only its body shape and its bright yellow eyes were visible. I quickly turned back to my wife and had to calm her down. "Susan you need to be quiet. The beast out there can hear you. Now can you please do what I told you to do now?" I kissed her on the cheek and remained quiet. She began to tear up and she gave me a quick hug. "I love you John. Promise me that you'll be ok?" "I promise." "Thank you." She kissed me on the cheek and ran off to grab everyone. Cheddar was not far behind her. I turned back and put the gun through the gap only to see nothing. The animal calls have all gone to a stop. The only thing I could see now were the nasuto Bulls as well as Miss Blossom standing around all confused. They just disappeared... The herbivores began to head back to the herd until the roar broke through the silence and sent shivers down my spine. The roar began to cause a lot of a commotion and the cries of a nasutoceratops began to echo out through the farm. Miss Blossom ran right through the stone gate around the front garden and continued to run around roaring in agony. The rest of the nasutos ran away in fear. The predators were attacking all around her and some were even on her back clawing away. Her tail got too close to the window and completely smashed the glass. In panic, I quickly spotted a silhouette of one of the predators and fired my rifle. There was a loud thud followed by one final roar and the predators retreated back up the hill and into the forest. Now all I could hear were the crickets and a whimpering sound. Very quietly, I still held onto my gun and grabbed a lantern before I went outside to investigate. The front garden was completely torn to sh*t. There was no way that it was getting repaired anytime soon. In the middle of the garden laid Miss Blossom. Her blood began to paint the stone pathway and plants nearby red. She was the animal whimpering. She was struggling to breathe...I shot her...the bullet must've been the reason why she fell to the floor. The claw marks and bites wounds from the predators were already draining her life away; all I did was basically give her a ticket to hell. She'll bleed out before I can call for help. There's no way to save her. Instead, she's going to suffer for another few minutes before she dies. The great beast tried to lift herself off the ground, but all she did was injure herself some more. She was too weak to pull herself up anyways. All she did was squirm and slowly dig her feet deeper into the garden soil. I was too upset to do anything. I was a child when she first hatched. I protected her until she grew up a bit to protect me from others. Then when Susan and I had Lucy, Blossom became her best friend and protected her too. I looked deep into her watery, terrified eyes. No matter how much she aged, her eyes never changed. They always reminded me when she was a baby that could barely walk. She breathed a bit more until she stopped squirming. She must've laid in some Narcoberries, numbing the wound. I sat down beside her and rubbed my hand behind her nostrils. She responded with a soft and innocent call and gently rested her head on my lap. Her eyes still dripping with tears, I knew that it was her time. Probably the most favourite family member, the big and gentle giant will always have a place in our heart. Tears ran down my face while I rubbed her head. We sat there for quite some time before her pain started to kick back in. Her breathing began to go faster and she started to moan and almost wail in a reptilian way. I should've put her out of her misery ages ago, now I can't cause my gun has fallen underneath her when I was sitting next to her. All I could do now was comfort her through the pain; however that was going to be very difficult since she was a dinosaur. I softly whispered her favourite lullaby I used to sing to her when she was a calf, orphaned and alone underneath a cherry blossom tree, still waiting to hatch. She began to cry. It was probably saddest thing I ever heard. Hearing this big dinosaur just cry in pain. Eventually, she stretched out with one big squirm and then rested again; taking her last breath. Her eyes closed, leaving one more tear to escape and flow down her scaly yet beautiful face. I doubt anyone would know how that feels; watching your beloved pet squirm and cry on the cold ground in pain, knowing that you can't do anything to help them. All you can do is just watch and pray that the pain goes away before they pass. I collapsed back on the floor again and busted out crying beside the fallen herbivore. It wasn't long until I realised that Lucy, Susan and Linda were all by the door staring at me and the dead nasutoceratops. They were all crying, except Lucy. She walked over and placed her chewed up teddy bear, Max, on Blossom's nose. "She looked like she needed a teddy to sleep with." She said before sitting on my lap and holding my hand. "Oh sweetie...Miss Blossom isn't coming back...She's gone to a better place." I held her tight and comforted her so she didn't get cold. "Oh. Well at least she'll have Max with her forever." She smiled and walked back inside the house. I could hear her beginning to cry while she was walking back into her bedroom. Linda followed her. Cheddar the old hyenadon trotted over to sniff the dead nasuto. Instead of trying to eat it like he does with every other animal on the farm that dies, he whined and licked its face. He continued to whine a bit longer and then also ran back inside the house with his tail between his legs and his head drooping down. I guess he had a connection with her too. I thought it was time for me to also head back inside the house. Susan waited for me to come to the door before she said anything. "It was sweet of you to sing for her," She sniffed. "Are you ok?" "Yeah I'll be fine." I said "I want you to send a letter to the citadel via the dimorphodon." "What for?" "Those animals killed Miss Blossom. How long do you think it's going to take for them to kill the rest of us? We'll need people to help us catch them." "They didn't catch the Austroraptor pack before. What makes you think they'll stop these things?" "I don't. One way or another, we'll find out what those things were. Night 1 I couldn't sleep that night. I sat up straight in my bed while Susan cuddled up to me for comfort while she slept. Lucy lay between us due to her nightmares. Cheddar slept at the end of the bed, snoring away. I could hear Linda leaving her room and walking downstairs. She's probably trying to go clean up the kitchen after Blossom smashed one of the windows. Such a sweet woman. I was about to go down to tell her to rest for the night until Cheddar quickly woke up and sat upright, growling at the window above the bed. I got onto my feet while still standing on the bed and turned around. The window showed the left side of the house, facing the woods that were up the hill. Down below, I could see the figure of one of the predators slowly sneaking up the front garden. The b*stard is probably going for Ms Blossom. I quietly walked over to the window to the left side of the bedroom, where it showed the front of the house. Out this window, I could see more of the creatures moving into the garden. They moved to the centre where Ms Blossom was lying, however they didn't seem to be interested in eating her; in fact, they completely ignored her. The animals continued to creep forward towards the house. Their long heads were looking right at the kitchen... Linda! She's down there! Without hesitation, I grabbed my father’s old javelin and opened the window, tossing the spear into the side of one of the animals. The javelin landed right behind its left shoulder. It looked up at me and roared after jumping in shock. The others turned around to see what has happened to their pack mate. They also started to growl at me. Down below, the screams of Linda woke up Lucy and Susan from their slumber. Linda then ran up the stairs and shut herself in her bedroom. Now that their target is no longer in reach and one of their members has a metal stick in their side, the animals slowly retreated back into the darkness. The animals continued to growl until they knew that they were out of sight. I turned back to see the others slowly waking up all restless and a little annoyed. "John what's going on?" Susan rubbed her eyes and looked very agitated. "It's nothing sweetie. Just get to bed. We're going to send the citadel the message as soon as we wake up in the morning. No delays." I kissed her on her forehead and tucked us and Lucy in bed. The two went back to sleep very quickly; so did Cheddar. I however still couldn't get to sleep. I turned over my side to face the Window looking out the front garden. Outside was yet another one of those predators staring right at me. It was standing on top of Ms Blossom’s body and was not afraid of exposing his face in the only working lantern. Only a part of its face was visible. From what I saw, it looked like a large Kaprosuchus with tonnes of jagged teeth varying in size. Some teeth were pointed forward, some backward. Its fiery amber eyes looked dead straight at me. I could almost hear its low breaths and growls. If I didn't know any better, this one was the alpha. I was about to turn away, hoping it was all in my head until it moved its head down to Ms Blossom's neck. I pressed my hands on the glass as I watched the beast start to brutally tear off her head with its powerful jaws in horror. It continued to gnaw at it a bit more until completely tearing her head off with one final snap. More blood gushed out from her corpse and all over the pavement in the front garden. It was horrible; I could almost hear every bone snapping in half, the sound of the beast tearing her flesh apart and even possibly her blood spurting out everywhere. I looked away and tried my best not to gag or vomit. Once I looked back, both the animal and Ms Blossom's head were missing. Only a blood trail of her head was seen heading over the stone fence and into the woods. In disgust I ran away to the bathroom to cough up the upset part of my stomach. The disgusting taste and foul smell of my own vomit made me cough up more. Luckily for me, my stomach had settled for now so I can finally get some sleep. These monsters are in no hurry to leave this place. Day 2 The dreams I had were unsettling and confusing as usual; never ending nightmares with multiple scenarios. The main one I remember was me running up the stairs to my bedroom with Lucy who was bleeding out from the side of her stomach. Behind me was just an abyss; no kitchen, no bottom story, no way for me to get out. Each stair step I left corroded away and was sucked into the darkness. The stairway began to be never ending, always adding more stairs at the top and continuing to push me down deeper into the abyss until I eventually slipped and fell, still holding her in my arms. The black abyss became a giant moving black cloud of smoke. The smoke darted around us until rising above us and forming into the shape of the head of the beast I saw last night. It's eyes were completely white and the rest were pitch black. It looked down at me and Lucy as we slowly fell to our deaths as if we were in slow motion. It then did its terrifyingly loud roar and opened its mouth to snatch us. The giant head plummeted down towards us and clamped its head shut, waking me up from my dreams once and for all. "Sweetie? Are you ok John?" "Daddy? Wake up daddy!" I was woken by my wife and daughter nudging and pushing me to wake up. Both were still in their Pyjamas. They all seemed worried. "Are you ok?" "Yeah just a bad dream." I rubbed my eyes and sat up straight on the bed. "But honey...you were screaming. And it's almost the middle of the day." What happened?" After she said that, I began to picture the large monster head engulfing me and Lucy again. I don't know why I let it bother me more than it should. But it was something about it that made me terrified...it made me feel like their next target. "John?" Susan politely asked me again with a gentle nudge. "...nothing to worry about." I quickly hopped out of bed and to try and change the subject. "Have you sent Snap with our letter yet?" "It took me ages to get the damn dimorphodon out of its catch. But yes I have." "When did you send it?" "Maybe an hour or two ago." "Good. Did he bite you?" "No, in fact he looked very scared." "Must've been from last night" "Yeah...I need to tell you something." Susan looked to the ground and was very nervous to continue. Perhaps she started to regret changing the subject. "Yes?" She got even more uncomfortable when I replied. "It's Blossom...she's been uhh...mounted" "What?" "It'll be easier to understand if you just went outside..." Still in my pyjamas, I stormed down the stairs in anger and past the kitchen and reached for the door. Linda was ready to great me from the kitchen with breakfast but backed away because of my foul mood. I could only walk a few steps outside until I'd be walking through a puddle of blood. Blood trickled down from the sloped roof and onto the pathway. The blood came down like a slow waterfall, practically making it impossible to dodge. There were some points were the blood would stop dripping down, allowing me to jump out and have a look outside. Susan was right....Ms Blossom’s head was mounted to the front of our house. She was pinned to the wall by from what looks like large fangs. She also had one large tooth piercing each eye. I had no doubt in mind those teeth belonged to those creatures last night, but I fail to see that they would be that intelligent to put use their own teeth to nail down that large head. However, the alpha last night was the one who tore her head off in the first place... "Uhhhh excuse me? Is this Muttaburra Ranch? The farm with the most muttaburrasaurs?" Behind be at the front gate were a small group of soldiers waiting outside with a small pack of different dinosaurs. The majority of them were medium to small sized animals, however there was one Tyrannosaurus accompanying them. "Yes why?" I asked quickly "Well from this letter we got from a very angry dimorphodon that fell landed outside of the Citadel, it says you were in immediate danger from what it says 'large crocodile dinosaurs?' He opened up the Small scroll just to double check what he was saying was correct. "Judging from the large carcass in the middle of your garden, the mounted head and the destroyed Windows to my right, I guess that it was true?" "Y-y-yes that's correct." I tried my best not to cringe after the words 'giant crocodile dinosaurs'. C'mon Susan you could've said something better. "Would you care to let a few of us in so we can discuss more inside?" "...Yes. Yes come inside." I rushed to the gate to unlock it for them. They left their animals outside and stepped into the tattered garden. The younger soldiers blocked their noses to not smell the foul stench now coming from Ms Blossom's corpse. With their shields, they stopped the blood from pouring all over the front entrance. They didn't bother to leave their weapons outside. Susan and Linda grabbed Lucy and moved her away from the kitchen table. Only 2 out of the 10 soldiers sat down. A few soldiers started assessing the situation, scribbling notes on paper around the destruction. Some even stayed outside to observe the dead ceratopsian. "Please sit down Mr?" The soldier I spoke to first was one of the two sitting down at the table. "Walsh, John Walsh." I said. I went to shake his hand while I sat myself down at the table, but he was already talking to the soldier next to him. He was young. Definitely younger than me. In fact, most of these people look like they just joined the Citadel's forces. There's only a few that looked like they've been her for a while. It was easy to tell who was new. Pretty and clean faces, bear no tattoos or scars, looks awkward in their armour, and only care about the job at stake. Some looked excited to be here, others seemed uninterested or simply didn't show their emotions. There was one man and woman by the animals. I could see the both clear as day by looking out the front door. Both big and bulky. The woman had more tattoos than the man, but the man had the sides of his head shaved and had a lot more scars. The man had a tattoo on his right arm. The top was a row a predator skulls. Underneath them were tally marks. I guess that's how many of them he's killed. "So Mr Walsh, my name is Duncan Martisley. I'm commanding this small squad. You can call me Duncan. The rest you'll call them by their last names. Next to me is Dandrum, he's our animal expert. By the door is Jenkins, our fastest runner here as well as our rifleman." "Never missed" Jenkins quickly added. I know he was just boasting, but it seemed like he was lying. "Right. The two assessing your family now are Ingrim and Cherry. The ones wondering around your farm should be Starhighm, McDonald and Smith. And finally the two with our animals are Torres and Sharlin." "I see." "Now tell me John," he leant forward on the table ready to ask me questions. "Let's get started." He smiled and leant back and opened a small notebook and pulled out a pencil from his pocket. "So your name is John Walsh correct?" "Yes." "Please name your wife and children." "How is that necessary?" "Basic procedure John. If we want to help you, we'd like to know everything. Now names?" He waved his pencil around my face looking for an answer. "Well, there's me, my wife Susan, we have our maid, Linda, and I have two kids, Lucy and Abbey." "How old are the kids?" "Lucy is 4. Abbey is 7." "Ok John. I see one girl. Where is the other one?" "Abbey is at the Citadel starting school. I still don't see how this is relevant." "John. Do you want our help or not? Like I said before. We need to know our clients before we help them. I don't like this either but these are the new laws. This is to ensure the safety of the soldiers as well as to prevent further...accidents." "Oh, sorry. Keep going." "Thank you. How long have you been in this house for?" "All my life. I was born and raised here. Then when my parents got old and I came back from school, I took it as my own." After a few more questions, I finally told him what happened last night. He was very intrigued and disturbed by what I had to say. I chose my wording carefully so he didn't need to ask questions. "Good." He finished writing in his notebook and looked up to me smiling. "I think we're done with those types of questions. Now let's begin with the animals. I'll get Dandrum to ask you questions about the creatures you saw last night." He switched spots with Dandrum and he greeted me with a quick nod. He dropped a large book in front of him and started flicking through pages. "Reptile, amphibian, bird, mammal or other type of fauna?" He had is face looking down at the book. His explorer hat also covered the majority of his face. "Excuse me?" I said to him all confused. "The creature. I need a description of the animal so I can see if it's a new species, or if it's something we know and can handle. Now, reptile, amphibian, bird, mammal or other?" "To be honest I don't really know. I only say its figure and a part of its face." After saying that, he slowly looked up at me completely agitated. "...Reptile." I stopped my own sentence and finally answered him. He then looked back down and flicked to another page. "Bipedal or quadrupedal?" "Both." He frowned at the book and thought about it a bit. Then he flicked through a few more pages. "Length and height?" "On all fours, presumably the same length as a Carno and around half its size. One its hind legs, same length, around carno height." The more I answered, the more confused he got. "Head length?" "One could probably fit more than half of my body in its mouth." "You said you saw part of its face, tell me more about it." "Very crocodile like. Jagged teeth." When I said that, he instantly flicked to a page with a few large crocodilians. "Was it fast or very slow?" "Extremely fast. You'll see them and they can disappear just like that." "How many were there?" "I dunno. I'd say 7?" "Hmmm...Weird." He flicked through some pages and stopped. He had a read through one page and turned it around to me. "Some of your descriptions were a little off but this is what I got. Kaprosuchus." I looked at the picture of the Kaprosuchus. They had their similarities but it just wasn't it. I looked up at him and shook my head. "This isn't it." "I agree." "You do?" "Yes. No way would a Kaprosuchus use its own teeth to pin a Nasuto's head on a roof. And from judging the corpse by the floor, it was poisoned." "There's no way she was poisoned. If that was so, then those animals would've killed her a lot faster than they did." "Some animals have developed venom that works overtime and attack the body a lot slower than other types of venom. Besides, a Kaprosuchus is strong, but it's not strong enough to take down a matriarch Nasuto with a few bites and scratches. Good hunters, but not that good. Also there is not enough water, let alone a swamp for these Kapro's to run back to." "So what do you think it is then?" "I don't know. Possibly a new smaller and venomous quadruped and bipedal spinosaur. But even I'm unsure what it is. Let's just hope it's a stranded Kapro pack." He stood up and nodded his head at me for a thank you. After he left the house to go outside, Duncan sat back in his original spot to talk to me again. "Now that we have developed a little understanding of this 'creature', I can show you how we're gonna try and catch them. Come with me." We both sat up and started to walk to the front door until there was a loud smash above us. We stepped back and watched Ms Blossom’s head roll down the front entrance roof and land onto the pathway with a loud thud. Roof tiles also fell and broke into pieces from the fall. Two men and one woman peeped down from the roof to look at us. "Jesus f*cking Christ could you break their house anymore?!" Duncan yelled at them. They seemed very embarrassed. "Sorry sir, we thought you'd like to look at the fangs." Smith scratched his head and pulled a weary smile at us. Duncan swore under his breath, and then lifted his head up while still not making eye contact with them. "I'll look at that later. I want the remains of the nasuto in the barnyard. Oh and try not to destroy anything else please? Starhighm, get these two boys under control. Then I want you all back patrolling the area. Notify me if you find something weird." He seemed frustrated already. Guess that's what working as a soldier for the citadel is like. "Yes sir." The woman saluted to him, but nearly slid off the roof due to her not holding on anymore. Duncan sighed in annoyance and escorted me out of the house and garden and to where they put their beasts. He passed the larger animals and stopped in front of a whole bunch of cages filled with small mammals, all trying to break out. "Since you're a farmer I take it that you're familiar with purlovias? He asked as he pulled a pair of keys out of his pocket. "Yeah, giant rats to target specific animals or humans. They can be a bit of a pest too." "Well you don't have to worry about these guys eating your livestock - Smith! - these will target your pests by sniffing the fangs from the Nasuto and then bury themselves around the perimeter of your farm and around your house and barn." He held up the tooth that was given to him by Smith when he called out his name. It looked a bit more like a claw when I looked a little closer but I didn't say anything about it. Smith took the keys and the majority of the soldiers surrounded the cages. One each top corner of the cages were look sticks with a shark hook on one end. As one soldier pulled up a cage, the other grabbed a sticked and hooked it on one of the Purlovia's collars and held it down while the other soldier carried the cage away. Once they placed it on the ground. The soldier who carried it would unlock the cage and quickly grab the other stick. They would slowly put the stick in the entrance and hook it on their collar before the other soldier unhooked theirs and pulled their stick from out the side of the cage. They continued that process until one soldier each had two Purlovias and were standing in a straight line. The overgrown rats would try to break free, jump up and even snap at the people that got too close. Duncan and Dandrum were the only soldiers without purlovias. Instead, Dandrum had small pieces of flesh and Duncan had the large tooth in his hands. Dandrum tossed a piece of flesh to each Purlovia. They all looked down and started chowing down on their meal. As this was happening, Duncan slowly moved past them and waved the tooth along their noses. Once he was done, he walked back to me. "What was that all about?" I asked "Oh Purlovias get distracted very easily, they will only pay attention to what they think is more important to them first. In this case, eating is more important than hunting and tracking down the animal that originally had that tooth. Give it time, once they finish eating, their domestic nature will tell them to do what was next. Which is-" "Finding the animals, yes I get it now. But why give them food first. Wouldn't it be easier to give them their treat AFTER they have found the animals?" "They may be domestic animals John, but as you saw before we fed them, they were ready to attack any of us. They're still rats." We turned back to the soldiers to see that the rats finished eating and start to act up. "Hmmm, that's not normal." Duncan said, "I mean, I've only done this procedure 3 or 4 times so it could be normal. But I've never seen them act up like this." "What animals were you tracking in your past experiences?" I asked. "Wolves, bears, Utahs, even a Carno." "Then let's just hope that they're acting up because of the smell of bad dental cleaning." I said looking back at the rats. Duncan stepped forward and made a whistle call with the help of his fingers. In return, the Purlovias looked at him and then straight forward, waiting for the soldiers to set them loose. In sync, the Soldiers all unhooked their sticks from the rat collars and watched the rats run out into the distance. 4 started burying themselves around our house. The rest ran through the paddock and buried themselves near the fence line. "So what happens now?" I turned to Duncan who had a big smile on his face while he watched the rats run away. His smile disappeared when he realised I was talking to him. "Oh now we wait." He said quickly. "If this plan fails, we'll get our trikes, Raptors and our wolves to fight. We'll use this big guy as our last resort." He stepped away and quickly patted the side of the Tyrannosaur's left calf muscle. It did a low growl in reply and moved his leg. Duncan stepped away from it and looked a little uneasy. Then he walked back to me. "For the rest of the day, we'll be patrolling and protecting you and your family." He patted me on my shoulder and started walking back to my place. By then, the sun and sky started to turn orange, and I could hear the other Nasutos roaring at the other herbivores to group up and rest for the night. I walked back inside my house to see Linda still cleaning the kitchen while Susan was cooking dinner. Lucy was scratching Cheddar's belly while he lay on the floor by the fireplace. I smiled for a bit until I realised that something was already wrong. "Sweetie?" I asked politely. Lucy stopped and looked up at me, beaming away. "Yes daddy?" "Come here for a second. You too Susan." Susan glanced over from the kitchen. She was stirring a bunch of the remaining vegetables from the garden in a large pot filled with boiling water over a fire. She extinguished the fire with some water and walked over. Lucy and Susan both followed me back to my bedroom upstairs. When the two were inside, I shut the door so no one could hear us talk. "What's wrong daddy?" Lucy looked up at me confused. "Show me your arm darling." I ordered. She did a little stretch and stuck her right arm out. "Other arm Lucy." She switched over with another big stretch. Her hands were dirty and covered in hair from the hyenaedon. I turned her hand over to see her implant. Nothing. Not a single shard was visible. "How is that possible?!" Susan proclaimed. "Lucy when did this happen?" "Shhhhh." I said. "Let's not notify everyone else about this ok? We can deal with this when the soldiers leave. Until then, I don't anyone else seeing her without a long sleeve shirt or on some long gloves on her arms. Anything to cover up where her implant usually is." Susan was a little worried about this, but she tried her best not to freak out. "Ok. But as soon as they're gone, we're gonna fix this." She demanded. "Anything you want dear. Now let's get some dinner." I kissed her lips gently and gave Lucy a big hug. I walked downstairs while Susan walked Lucy to her room to change her shirt. Outside I could see the soldiers having a barbecue on the pathway in the front garden. They must've already moved Blossom's remains into the barnyard. "The fire doesn't need to be on. Just let the veggies boil for a bit more." Susan yelled from upstairs. "Sure thing." I replied. I grabbed a wooden spoon and started stirring the pot full of different vegetables and hot water. The vegetables were all the ones that matured before the accident. It confused me why so many however. Nothing else was being cooked; no meat, eggs, rice or pasta. Perhaps she was getting it later? "It's just vegetables for tonight." Susan walked downstairs carrying Lucy with her. "Unless you want to go to the barn that smells of rotten flesh just to get a few eggs." "I'll go. Be back in and out. Do you want any?" "We won't have any. Don't want you to rush." She smiled at me and then started sitting Lucy down at the table. I grabbed a fire torch and slowly started to walk out to the side exit of the house. This led me to the dinosaur shed, where I used to keep Cheddar when he was little, same as Ms Blossom... But now it's filled with tools, weapons and other sorts of gear belonging to the soldiers. Starhighm and Ingrim were sitting down having a little chat together. Both women looked back at me and gave me a small smile. "Hello sir. How can we help you?" Ingrim had the courage to talk to me while she sat down with Starhighm. Starhighm however didn't look like she was in the mood to talk to me after the roof incident. "Oh no need to help me. Just getting some eggs." I pulled the keys off the hook that was beside the door and pointed to the barn house. "Put sir, the nasuto is-" "I know, it will smell. But that's ok. I'm sure I can handle it." I smiled to them and gave them a slight wave before I went into the barn. Gosh...it smelt to high heaven. It was revolting. It was even worse because I knew something else was in here. It had to be scavengers. I saw a rake that was for some reason right in front of the doorway. Perhaps one of the soldiers that moved her in here tried to prank the next person who went it here. Well, they failed. I stepped on the end and grabbed it before it hit my face. After grabbing it, I stepped off and slammed the door behind me. It got the animals in here a startle. They appeared from behind Ms Blossom’s corpse and gave me a loud squawk. Tanycolagreus family; another problem I have to deal with. No problem however, there only 3 of them; two parents and one smaller adolescent. The youngest still bore some of its baby feathers that made it all puffy looking. The mother of the group attacked first, giving itself a run up and jumping at me. I was too slow to react unlike any other time and slipped. The smaller predator also missed and only hit the rake out of its hands. The sharp points of the rake did pierce her calf muscle, causing her to run away in pain, dragging the rake with her. The male this time jumped at me and wasn't so unlucky. He landed on my back and pushed me to the floor. The pest grabbed my shoulder with his teeth and started shaking. The female came back, still with the rake in her leg and grabbed my right elbow and started doing the same. The youngster still didn't know what to do and so he stayed on the corpse. I couldn't really move; they are small creatures, but their weight and bite force is painful. I started to feel a burning as well as a stinging pain as their teeth got deeper in my skin. Their teeth were blunt from eating bones, so they had to continuously let go and clamp back down to get deeper. F*cking stupid dinosaurs if I say so myself. I waited for the female to let go of my elbow so she could bite again. Once she did, I quickly grabbed her calf and the rake and pushed the blades deeper into her leg. She yelped in pain, causing the male to loosen his bite. With my left arm, I pushed at the ground and rolled over. The male fell right on the female and so did I, crushing her to death. The roll managed me to get onto my feet and also gave me enough time to grab the shovel by the side door I walked in. The shovel was extremely sharp; it sliced the male’s throat when it lunged at me again. It fell on its slide and tried to get back up, however it lost too much blood and just wriggled on the dirt floor, tainted in blood. It died once I stepped on it to get to the adolescent. It cried for help and tried to run away. I kicked it while it was still on the nasuto, causing it to break its leg when it reached the ground. It kept trying to get away, crying even more. Too end its cries, I jumped from Ms Blossom’s corpse holding my shovel high in the air, and cut its head clean off once I landed. Blood spurted out from its neck and its eyes remained petrified and scared. I looked back to see if the dodos in their pens were ok. They were all slaughtered. The eggs all cracked and eaten. The hay the dodos would lay in was painted red from the blood. Everything was dead. For some odd reason, I wasn't mad that they were dead, nor that I was attacked. I was mad because they dug underneath the wall, killed everything, and were eating Blossom. The one dinosaur I didn't want harmed. Now she's dead, decapitated and is now food for any animal smart enough to get inside. For f*ck sake can't they go somewhere else? Or killed a different Nasutoceratops? No, it had to be Miss Blossom. From sheer anger, I grabbed all 3 tanys by the tail and stormed back outside. Neither Starhighm nor Ingrim were there. I walked inside with the still bleeding scavengers behind me. Susan's welcoming smile quickly turned to a very shocked and worried face when she turned and saw the dead animals and wounds on my arms. "Oh sweetie are you ok?!" She panicked and ran to me. "I thought the squawking was you collecting eggs from the dodos." "They're all dead. And yes, I'm fine. Just a few bite marks." I said grumpily "Do they need to be stitched?" "No Susan I said its fin-" A loud, reptilian howl broke over the hills and my paddock. It seemed to get everyone's attention, the soldiers, me, my family, the herbivores, and even Cheddar who spent this entire time sleeping, the poor hyenaedon whimpered and ran all the way upstairs. "It's coooommmiiinggg." Lucy whispered. "You get everyone upstairs Susan. I'll try and suss this out." I ordered while pointing upstairs. I turned around the walk out the front door until Duncan walked in and blocked the door. "Please don't go outside." He stopped me with his hands and shook his head calmly. "Why not? I want to know what those things are!" I yelled. "You will. Remember we have Purlovias around the farm. They'll catch them. Just in case, we sent out all our animals out as well. We left the Tyrannosaurus here for your own protection. Jenkins will be on the roof all night scouting the area. So please. Calm down." I really wanted to punch someone due to how angry I was. I had no idea why I was angry, perhaps I'm still angry from the barn incident, maybe not. "Fine." I said. I tossed the three Tanys on the kitchen bench, not caring if blood stained the boards and walls. "Cook these." I grunted to Susan while still looking at Duncan. He looked a little afraid, but annoyed that I was annoyed. "Just please...don't go outside until I give you the word." He begged "What will you and the others be doing?" I said. "We'll take shifts. Some of us will patrol the night and others will sleep in your basement...if that's ok of course." "Sure. Just make sure that these animals get caught." I said. "Understood." He walked back outside to start making orders and we all did our own thing. We had dinner and he and his crew started to get ready. Night 2 Tonight was quiet for some time. The animals grazed happily around the farm and the soldiers took their shifts. Jenkins was on the roof, watching out for us. Duncan told us to all stay in my room just in case. For a whole bunch of awkward newbies, they did seem to know what they were doing. They were a lot better than the soldiers years ago that failed to do anything. All of a sudden the silence broke out with a loud snarl from a Purlovia, then another, and another. "They're coming!" I could hear Jenkins screaming outside as he started firing his primitive rifle repeatedly. The sounds of footsteps running downstairs began to shake the second story floor. A loud whistle blew out. Outside was a little brighter than last night. So I could almost see figures running around in the paddock. They were the soldier’s animals. They appeared to be chasing something. I could see about 2 to 3 animals being chased. They didn't dare turn back to fight. They just kept running. One of the dire wolves managed to grab one with its teeth. Eventually all the others were caught or shot down by Jenkins. "All clear." He yelled out again. By the window, I could see soldiers running up to the downed animals with lanterns and fire torches. I quickly got out of bed and grabbed some shoes. "Where are you going?" My wife sat up and looked at me worried. "It's safe now. I just want to have a look what they caught." "I wanna go with daddy!" Lucy complained. "No sweetie, you stay with mum in here. Susan, keep her inside. Ok?" "Ok." When she gave me the nod of approval, I quickly ran down the stairs and went outside. Wolves and raptors were dragging the now dead corpses to the group of soldiers who have Circled one corpse with their lights. Some looked back and me and whispered to each other. Some were happy with themselves, others not so much. Dandrum stormed back to my house in anger. Before I got there, I knew that he had an argument with Duncan, but I didn't know what it was. They moved out of the way for me so I could see what they were looking at. My high hopes for tonight turned into sheer disappointment after what I saw. I stood in front of a whimpering Alpha Austroraptor. What made it worse was it had my father’s javelin...right behind its left shoulder. "I believe we found what you were looking for Mr Walsh." It was Duncan who walked up to me with a big smile on his face. He shook my hand and continued smiling at the Austro. "Heh. Yeah, thank you for this." I played along with his triumph, but deep down I was screaming. "As I recall, you said there was 7? Well so far we have 3 so we'll try p Catch the other 4 tomorr-" "It's not them." I cut in. "These are not the creatures I saw last night." Duncan's happy side quickly turned into an annoyed and confused expression. "Look we used the too-" he cut out and grabbed the fang from his pocket. "-CLAW and it matches there missing sickle claws." He pulled the Austro's leg to show that their sickle claws were missing. "And also, the javelin is pierced directly where you describe it was." He stammered. "And those 'weird calls'?" He turned and kicked the Austro. It made an unusual squawk and cried a bit more. "I don't think they can be any more weird!" He yelled. "We're gonna find those other 4 Austros, and then we're gonna leave. So I suggest you go back to your farm and attend to your weeping family. Torres! Sharlin! Take him back to the farm." He demanded. The two with the tattoos stepped forward and escorted me back to the house. I was extremely p*ssed. To think that the soldiers would've grown a brain over the years is stupid. I can't believe I actually tried to accept them. We were halfway to the farm until the two soldiers stopped and looked at me. "What happens now remains a secret between the few of us. Got it?" The muscular woman said. "Ok." I didn't really know what to expect. "Good. Just follow us." She ordered. She and Torres took me into the barn house. Dandrum was sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the barn with a fire in front of him. 4 other chairs also circled the fire. He waited for us to get closer until he said anything. "You think it was staged, don't you?" He said confidently. "Uhhh yeah? Hey what did you do with Blo-" "The 3 of us took the courtesy of burying her behind your shed with a little help from the Dominium while you waited in your room. No point to leave her rotting in here. I gave your family the same talk I'm gonna give you now. This is a big secret you can't tell anyone else but us. Promise to keep it a secret?" He said with a serious face. "Promise. Now can you tell me what's going on?" "Not yet, we're waiting for one more person." He turned to the side door which burst open. Out appeared Jenkins, the tall but skinny male with short, brushed over brown hair. "How was my shooting?" He asked "For an Austro attack. Pretty good. For the animal we're actually tracking, pretty sh*t." Dandrum exclaimed. "I thought you said you never missed?" I questioned. "And you probably thought that we were better than those soldiers that came to remove the Austros." Jenkins grinned and sat in one of the chairs. "How do you know about that?" "We did some little homework before we arrived. The questions Duncan asked you were just to make sure that you are who you say you are." Dandrum answered. "Anyways, now that we're all here, we can begin." "So wait. None of you here are from the Citadel's watch?" I asked after a brief introduction. "The 4 us here aren't. However the others are." Jenkins replied. "So who do you work for then?" "That's classified. All you need to know is that we work for an organisation that is...how do I put it?....interested in strange fauna." Dandrum tried to carefully chose his words so he didn't reveal anything. "So why are you here?" I asked. "To capture these animals; study them in a secure facility. Once we're done with them, we'll try our best to relocate them to a safe environment or even try to domesticate them if it's possible. Jenkin's darts put the animal to sleep and slows down its heart rate so it's 'half dead'. The foolish guards won't be able to tell the difference and wonder on home." I sat on my chair and thought about it for a while. "So...what happens if they come back here once you're done with them?" "We kill em." Torres's sudden sore and deep reply sent chills down my neck. "Exactly, thank you Torres. We kill them." Jenkins added with a large grin. "So since you know it's not an ordinary animal we see now and again, can you please give me some brief info on what you think they are?" "Well since we haven't seen one and your details weren't exactly the best, we can't really tell you anything. All we know is that these are probably intelligent as well as extremely aggressive pack hunters that hunt at night. Based off your introduction with their apparent 'alpha', we can also tell that these are possibly very strong and powerful animals as well. The fact that these beasts continued to come back and harass you is probably very important information. So chances are they might come back later tonight. So all I should say is that we don't know what's gonna happen tonight." By the time he was done, Sharlin went to the front entrance of the barn and peered through a small hole in the door. "The soldiers are coming back." She came back with "That's ok. Cause I think we're done talking." Jenkins jumped up and stretched his back while letting out a loud yawn. "Skinny boy won't be able to find creatures when he's sleeping." Torres exclaimed. "He's right." I said, "Come with me and I'll try and find you some Stimberries. Not the tastiest stimulant but it'll do." Jenkins nodded and followed me to the house. I walked into the side entrance to see Lucy and Susan still there waiting for me. "Why are you still up?" I stammered. "We wanted to make sure that you're ok." Susan replied. "Well get Lucy to sleep. Do we have any stimberries left in the house?" "I have some!" Lucy yelled and started to run up her bedroom. "Why does she have some?" Jenkins asked us. "Sleep issues." Sometimes she doesn't sleep at night to due nightmares and so we have to feed her stimberries in the morning so she doesn't become a night owl. She gets very sick for some reason if we don't." Susan said. "Hm, fair enough." Lucy carefully ran down the stairs with a small, tied up leather pouch in her hands. She gave Jenkins a big smile and handed it to him. "Thank you." Jenkins smiled back and then turned to us. "I'll get my rifle and head on up now. I should be up there at all times throughout the night. You guys take care." He started to jog up the stairs while he waved goodbye. "You too." I said. The others soldiers arrived when me the girls and I were already upstairs heading to bed. I glanced back at them quickly, but none of them wanted to look at me, especially Duncan. A few of them went back outside to follow the routine they had before. Some of them groaned when they found out it was their shift and others cursed at them for being unlucky in a humorous way. Lucy and Linda went into their own bedrooms tonight, despite the Austro's not be the animals we were looking for, they seemed a lot calmer than they were a few hours ago. By the time Susan and I got into our own bed, Dandrum knocked on the door to speak to us. "Come in." I said. He slowly veered the door open and slid through the gap quietly. "Didn't mean to disturb you. But I got word that the Austro carcasses were tossed in one of the rivers near your small farm. You javelin was also tossed in as well. I understand that it had some value to you which is why I'm terribly sorry that this came to be." He apologised and bowed his head slightly. "Oh. No it's ok Dandrum; you don't have to be sorry. But thank you anyways." I said. He looked back up and gave me a small smile. "Good night. I'll give you more info tomorrow." He quietly exited the room and shut the door. After all the drama I had already tonight, my eyes were very drowsy and I sunk in my pillow, enjoying my body relax and rest. I had high hopes that tonight, we will catch these beasts; dead or alive. Day 3 The dream I had was odd. The only odd thing about it was that I didn't have or I didn't even remember the dream I had. According to the stupid religion in The Citadel and superstitious beliefs, it means something either good or bad will happen today. I wasn't sure what to expect. But all I knew that something was off today... From what I could see from the bedroom window, my cattle of nasutos and muttaburras were still all sprawled across the landscape, completely asleep. What also doesn't make sense that they are all sleeping separately. Usually the nasutos would've bundled up the muttaburras so they can all rest together. I guess that since fear is surging in their bodies and spreading like a plague, they didn't have time. But if they were afraid, that would've given them the more reason to group up... Down below I could see a few guards walking by the sleeping animals. They didn't touch or disturb them; they just either walked by them and stared. They were too far away to see why they were staring. The rest of them were huddled by the cherry tree up on the hill in front of the house. "Hey Susan what's going down ther-.....Susan?" I turned to see that Susan was not in bed. Sh*t. I must've slept in. As fast as I could, I got undressed out of my pyjamas and went to get new clothes that were in my cupboard. When I open my cupboard, various pieces of metal shafts fell to the floor. They all appeared that they used to be all attached together, judging from the sharp jagged ends. I sat down and lined them all up after I got myself dressed. I didn't need to complete the puzzle to know what it was; and all I could do was stare at it in horror. "...oh god..." I breathed heavily and stared at the object in front of me. The fear in front of me caused me to get back up and stagger back to the floor. I pushed myself up like an athlete and ran all the way downstairs towards the soldiers. Cheddar was waiting downstairs for me and followed me along the way. We only managed to leave the front garden until we were stopped by Dandrum. "What's the hurry?" He sat up on from a rocking chair I didn't even know we had. Perhaps he found it in the basement with all the other old stuff. There's always something new down there. "I need to tell you something very important." I breathed heavily. "That can wait." "What?" "Right now, there's something else more important than what you have to say. Come with me." He placed his hand on my shoulder and slowly walked me up to the cherry blossom tree. The sleeping muttaburras and nasutos around us began to smell of rotten flesh. "Hey hold up.... I wanna check something..." I stopped and wondered over to the closets herbivore. It was a muttaburrasaurus named Morgan. He was one of the larger males that tried their best to take care of the juveniles and females. Originally, he had bright green scales with a few wavy yellow and blue lines along the sides. Now his skin is a pale green. Almost like a weird slime colouring. His eyes, ear holes, nostrils and mouth were dripping and oozing blood. It smelt to high heaven. He was dead. The lot of them were all dead. Before I couldn't tell from my bedroom window, but now from this of view, I can see how each and every one of them died. A nasutoceratops nearby had his horns ripped off from his head and were stuck in its eyes. Another muttaburrasaurus had the side of its body melted away and was sizzling and bubbling. "What did this to them?" I questioned aloud. "Monsters Mr Walsh; only monsters can be so cruel." Dandrum sighed. "The only ones that are cruel enough to take what people love most and mutilate it into their own pierce of 'art'. A relic; monsters will always leave something behind for you to remember the horrors they did to you and your family." "Please stop." I growled at him, trying to fight back the tears of anger and loss. "I'm not finished. Like I said, there's something important for you to see up by the cherry blossom tree." He pulled me up by the shoulder and walked me up the hill. As we got closer, the soldiers as well as my family turned to me. Susan was drowning in endless tears. Lucy however was quite calm throughout this whole scene. The soldiers moved out of the way to show me the problem. There was a woman hanging off the ground with a rope tied around her neck. The end of the noose was tied to one of the branches above her. Her long brown hair covered her face but from her clothing, I knew who she was. "...Linda." I walked up to her and brushed her hair back. Her eyes were icy blue and stared straight into mine; as if there wasn't any life in them in the first place. Her skin was completely pale, suggesting that she hung here during the cold and damp night. She had blood that has dried up on her forehead. "...this wasn't suicide." I muttered "No one said it was." Duncan came out from behind Jenkins, Torres and Ingrim. I turned to him to see his smug face. He came to walk to me for some comfort but I straight up punched him across the face. The punch caused quite a stir. Most of their reactions were shocked. Others wanted to come in and punch me; however there was Dandrum and his group yelled at them to stand down. "What the f*ck was that for!" Duncan held as he held his cheek in pain. "You said that you dealt with the animals!" I yelled, pointing at his chest. "Now I don't know what are the monsters! The animals that slaughtered my poor Blossom....or you! You expect me to think this is a suicide? She took a blow to the head!" "What are you trying to say?" Smith said. "I'm saying that somebody has killed her and made it look like a suicide." I complained. The soldiers felt a little uneasy; some of them thought I was crazy. "Now my family and I have barely anything!" I yelled. I turned around to see Susan covering Lucy's ears and eyes so she didn't have to see me angry. "John I think you need to stop... you're scaring Lucy." Susan whispered to me while trying to hold back tears. It was only then did I realise that I went over the top. "....I....I'm sorry..." I muttered. "Alright people let's give them some space." Dandrum clapped his hands together to grab everyone's attention. "I’d like to have a word with Mr Walsh alone thank you very much. And I’d also like to have Linda given a respectable burial too. Now scat." Both Susan and Lucy left the area and walked down to the house before Duncan spoke up. "You're not in charge Dandrum." Duncan growled. "No I'm not Duncan. But he's right. It was you who believed the Austroraptors were the problem. You also let your guard down because of it. And guess what, we've lost all of our animals besides the tyrannosaurus which is MIA. And for the Walsh family, they're lucky to still have a house to keep them from harm." Dandrum turned and snapped back at him. "From now on, I'm in charge. I'm surprised you even got promoted *sshole." "You son of a b*tch!" Duncan ran up to swing at him but Dandrum was too quick. He slid to his left and punched Duncan in the face as soon as he turned around to face him. Duncan fell face first in the dirt. He slowly rose up, cursing under his breath. He was ready to get up and swing again until a roar broke out in the distance. It was a predator’s call; nothing like the creatures 2 nights ago, but it was big. Possibly a large predator. "The Tyrannosaurus came back. Put Linda down. We'll come back for her." Dandrum said. He ran down to look for it, and then the rest of the soldiers followed. All but one. "Where's Jenkins?" I said to myself? "He's not dead too is he?" All of these questions began to make me worry and wonder where and what happened to him. I decided to bring forth my questions to Sharlin who was jogging past me. She didn't seem to care if I asked her questions that seemed pointless in her opinion. "That twit?" She cursed, "f*ck I hope he shows up. I'm gonna smash his face and break his teeth." "Whys that?" "Cause that idiot slept through the entire night. He was so fast asleep we couldn't even wake him up." "How!" I was completely stunned. "Is his immune to stimberries?" "Stimberries? Was it you who gave him the bag of berries?" "Yes why?" She maintained her speed while pulling out Lucy’s pouch around her belt containing berries. "Check again." She said. I nodded and opened the contents up. "...narcoberries?" I gasped. "Yeah. Either you gave him the wrong berries or someone has switched them around." "Or he never had stimberries in the first place..." I muttered "What was that?" "Oh nothing," I continued. "Let's go find the Dominium." The tyrannosaurus slowly merged out of the woods, almost covered in blood. It was hesitant to come towards us; in fact it was completely terrified. It limped back a bit and roared at us. We all stopped walking towards it in fear. Sh*t was it a complete mess. Its left arm was complete missing. Parts of its skin were peeling right off. Its bottom jaw was snapped in half and the front part dangled like a stick hanging on a spider web. It was clear that its tail was broken due to it being in a very awkward position, making it hard for the tyrannosaurus to walk and balance itself. Just like the muttaburrasaurus, its eyes, nose and ears were all bleeding. "Ingrim, calm it down." Dandrum ordered. "Yes sir." She replied with a simple nod and slowly walked up to the frightened predator. She raised her hands out to signal that she was no longer a threat. From experience with Cheddar, I knew what she was doing. She was reassuring the scared animal. Carnivores can and possibly will turn on their owners when angry or extremely frightened. Calming them down is the quickest option but it's the un-safest one too. If we want to catch these creatures, we'll need this dominium to be calm and healed so we can fight back. "Hey Terrance." She said calmly. "Everything is alright. You're with me now." She reached her hand out to place it on his snout. His breath began to slow down and he slowly moved his head forward to touch her hand. Once they reached contact however was another story. The tyrannosaurus began to roar in panic and during this period of fear, he snatched up Ingrim with his powerful jaws, shook her around, and then tossed her away, killing her in the process. He turned back at us and made a low and aggressive roar. The tyrant's rampage ended quickly however, as he began to stumble and vomit blood as well as his past meal as soon as he stepped forward. It got to a point where he was vomiting things that shouldn't be leaving his body. Still vomiting out his insides, Terrance still tried to at least kill one of us; however his last step caused him to collapse to the ground. He died from the fall. Terrance's skin began to darken into a purplish colour as if he has been bruised all over his body. The tyrannical beast's body began to wriggle and squirm as if something inside its body was trying to escape. In its stomach region, something inside it was trying to push through the skin, much like how modern reptiles and birds try their best to break out of their eggs. Eventually a second and third one started to try and break through. Eventually, the first one burst its snout outside of the Dominium's corpse. The area began to smell of rotten organs and poison the air of its toxicity. The other two began to burst out too. The three of them opened the visible part of their mouth open to breathe. They all tried their best to crawl out of the corpse with their small but sharp baby claws. They looked crocodile like; they were a pale pinkish colour, like a baby rat. It was a few seconds until they started to change colour. The one closest to us began to change into a swampy green colour, similar to the one that decapitated Ms Blossom. This one was a lighter green however. If I had to guess, it would be able to help him blend in with the green algae that float above the water. The other one was began to turn into a brownish yellow, somewhat thylacosmilus like. The third one stayed pinkish colour, just brighter with vibrant patterns. Its colouring seemed to capture me, like an exotic plant. Seeing them began to make me question what kind of animals were they? With them all varying in colour. I guess that when Dandrum and his crew get a good observation of them, we'll find out. One thing that I did know however was that they were definitely the things that are harassing my and killed all of my animals. Not these ones of course since they were just born. At this stage I had a lot of things right now that I began to question; like how did they get into Terrance's stomach? Why are they sitting there with half of their body's out of the corpse, staring at us? Probably my number one question is; what are they? They were probably smaller than Purlovias, so I wouldn't exactly call them babies. They had long snouts and had small, sharp and jagged teeth. Like a Kaprosuchus, they had the large sabres, but they also had a few more like boar tusks and a few more sabres that ran along the front of the bottom jaw. They stopped where the two sets of front sabres on the top jaw came down. They had lots of osteoderms and spikes protruding out of the sides of their body. Down their back were oddly shaped, fin, like spines that appeared to be made out of keratin. From a quick glance, they look like thing, backwards stegosaur plates. Two of the things I noticed were their leathered frills behind their ceratopsian frill. They were like dilophosaur drills, except they were like a spikey butterfly wing when slicked back. When the two started to communicate and have a little verbal fight at each other, the frills would flare up and form into semicircles, just like a normal frill. They also had 3 other pairs that looked thicker but were rectangular and smaller. It was hard to say what it was without a picture but they can be easily described as plant like. Similar to the hand like piece of a plant species X, except flat and rectangular, on the end they bared long needle like spikes. Two sets were on the sides and one set was at the top. When slicked back, the spines would curl back underneath frill it was attached to. The other thing I noticed was their bottom jaw; when they pleased, it could be one whole bottom jaw, just like any other crocodile. But they could also disconnect their bottom jaw like a snake and open it out sideways, showing all their little tiny rows of sharp teeth. Heck even the tongue had teeth. The bottom jaw could probably open out to I dunno, maybe 90 degrees? They had five digit hands tipped with long and sharp claws. Their back feet were 4 digits, one of them being a sickle claw. The three stopped staring at us and pulled themselves completely out of the dominium's corpse. They decided to sit on top of it and looked to the woods for a bit and then back at us. One of them staring to bark and hiss. It was not long after until the other two did the same. "Are they crying?" Starhighm asked. "No," Dandrum replied with a quick and low response, as if he was too afraid to answer. "They’re calling for their mother." As he said that, a quick rustle in the bush behind the corpse began to put everyone off edge. The remaining soldiers huddled together and surrounded both Dandrum and I. Duncan didn't by it one bit. He sighed and decided to walk in front of the Rex corpse and the babies. Too be honest that was just a dumb idea in the first place; just because those animals are babies doesn't mean they're harmless. He looked over the Tyrannosaur and into the bushes. He then sighed and looked at us disapprovingly. "What a bunch of sissy's." He mocked us while feeling his sore jaw after the punch out. "There's nothing there." A few soldiers began to slowly sigh in relief. "You'd rather let yourself consume fear even though there's nothing to be afraid of. You let these two scoundrels fill your mind with 'monsters'?! Look at these three creatures, they may look absurd but that doesn't make them monsters." The three animals behind him began to lose attention to him and look up in joy, their heads moving in a diagonally up and down in an awkward way. While Duncan continued his large rant, I tried to find out what the three babies were excited about. The tree above us was completely clear. So unless the sun is the most fascinating thing in the world to them, that’s not it. It must be something else that's grabbing their attention besides Duncan's sh*tty rant. I had to go back and look at the youngsters, and then I looked at the corpse they were sitting on. They more I looked at Terrance, the more chills I got. It had fresh claw marks on the sides of its belly, causing it to bleed on the side of its body. What was confusing about these marks is that the babies were not in a position whatsoever or are big enough to have created those marks. I scanned around to look for another pair of claw marks around the body. I found another one, but this time, the hairs on my neck stood up and I swear my heart skipped a beat. I stood there and watch 5 claw marks magically move down the dominium's side by about 30cm. Blood quickly trickled down the side of its body. Then it made me notice something else. The babies weren't nodding their heads awkwardly; they were rubbing against something. Much like a cat purring against the side of someone's leg. It was near the end of Duncan's rant until something truly terrifying happened. The claws marks began to be covered by a five digit hand. Then everyone but Duncan began to see the hand become a forelimb. The rest of the body began to become visible. Other bodies began to become visible too. At least 7 other creatures were visible. The last thing that needed to become visible was their heads. Each head was long enough to place the majority of an adult human in their without having to cut parts off or bend in any way. Their mouths just had teeth over teeth. Their amber coloured eyes filled with hate and death were enough to give any sane person nightmares. Like I said to Dandrum yesterday, they were half the size of carnotaurs. When standing upright, they were actually the same size as carnotaurs. They all appeared to vary in skin colour; the alpha that decapitated Ms Blossom was a dark green with a mix of black and yellow. A female that was nuzzling the two youngsters was a greyish white and black. Another one was even an oceanic blue with reef red colouring on the sides. Another female was a mix of dark red and black, almost devilish. The one standing on its hind legs was a dark earthy brown. The last two were weirder. One had a pattern that consisted of dirt brown and brick red. The brick red was mainly on his head area and then thinned out in little streaks down the sides of its body as if they were flames. The last one was almost black in colouring. However this one had green bioluminescent colouring glowing in his mouth and between its larger scales; almost radioactive. The worst fact that we know of now is that they can camouflage... Now all but the almost albino female and youngsters were staring directly at Duncan with toothy grins. "- now after my huge rant, I believe that I've given you enough information for all of you to back me up and let me lead again." He said with a smug look. His smug face began to slowly fade away when he looked at all of our terrified faces. "...what's wrong? Did you even pay attention to me at all?" He stammered. "...Duncan.....shut the f*ck up and move towards us slowly." Dandrum said quietly and calmly. I could see in everyone's faces that they were all trying their best not to run away in terror. "Hey I don't take orders from you!" He yelled. His bickering made the smaller three creatures jump and make a small, reptilian yelp. The yelp caused a chain reaction throughout the whole pack and made them all hiss at some point. We looked back at Duncan who was ready to p*ss his pants. His face turned pale white and his hands were clenched and covered in sweat. He released his left hand and slowly moved it to his belt to reach the sword that was attached to it on the other side of his body. Once he hand a grip on the hilt, he pulled out his sword quickly and turned around and swung on his left. The soldiers all gasped in shock but the crocodilians were not surprised one bit. The alpha, which was behind Duncan at the time, lunged forward a bit and snatched Duncan’s arm with his jaws. He fell on his knees with his arm still in its mouth and screamed. The alpha moved forward a bit and clamped down harder on the arm. From our view, we could see and hear everything. We could hear the bones snap in different places around the hands and arms. We watched some of his longer fingers fall right off from the force of the bite. Blood dripped down from his broken arm and the creature’s spikey chin. The was another few minutes of Duncan randomly screaming even though the creature was no longer clamping down. "It's licking me!" He screamed. Usually I would look at him funny and say 'really? You're upset because he's licking you?' But then I remembered the youngster’s tongues having rows of small sharp teeth on them. So now the tongue would act like a saw, slowly hacking away at his flesh, like a brush sweeping away all of the dirt and dust on a bench. A whole pool of blood flowed out of the creature’s mouth and flowed down to the floor. No one dared to save him; not because they didn't want to, but because they were too afraid that one of the other 6 might jump on them. We watched as Duncan endured all the pain none of us could ever think of. His veins and arteries in his arm began to bulge and turn purplish black. His skin began to bruise right before our eyes and the black colouring in the veins and arteries slowly began to rise up his left arm and up to his neck. It got to a point where the pain was too unbearable for him that he started to lose control of himself. He was shaking his head around aggressively and screaming. Tears slowly trickled down his now pale face. The small pinkish youngster made a little growl at Duncan and went to lunge at him. One of the soldiers picked up on what was going to happen and she didn't like it one bit. Starhighm wasn't ready for another one of her friends to die so she lifted up her rifle and fired at the small monster. The bullet sunk right behind its jawline and into the neck. The animal let out a yelp and fell on the left side of the alphas face. The baby slid down the dominium's body and sunk to the floor, breathing heavily while blood squirted out of its neck and drooled out of its mouth. The whole pack jumped back and shrieked. The other two youngsters wailed and screeched. The alpha made a grunt and threw Duncan forward with his arm. Duncan fell on his face and made another moan in pain. He tried to crawl forward with his only workable arm, tears still dripping and mixing in with the blood on his face. The alpha stepped backwards so he was with his pack, breathing heavily and making low growls. The predator lifted his front legs up and stood almost upright like a bear, making it just a tad bit bigger than a Carnotaurus. His leather like frill began to shake and rattle when he flared it up like a dilophosaurus. The frill itself was beautiful. A mix of green, red yellow, black and orange made the beast look bigger than what it really is as well as scarier. When the monster was finished flaring up all of its frills and terrifying the vast majority, it fell forward on its all fours and let out a deafening roar. The other adults roared along with him. From terror we all turned around and ran for our lives in fear of one of them chasing us. I looked back at the creatures under the tree. I saw the female albino taking the dead baby with its jaws and chewed it a bit before swallowing it whole. She then pushed the two babies forward towards Duncan, where every other adult was there, slowly surrounding him. I felt bad for leaving him behind, but he was so close to the predators I don't think anyone in their right mind would've saved him. The young swampy coloured one jumped on his back and started sinking his small teeth into him. The other small one ran forward and started biting and pulling at Duncan's now black arm. He tried to wiggle his way out with his right arm but the adults kept shoving him back to the floor with their front paws. All we could hear was the Duncan's traumatising pleas and cries, screaming 'help me!' repeatedly. The remainder of us all ran up the grassy hill and past the cherry blossom tree, where Linda's body lay. "Take her with us!" I yelled. No one listened. Dandrum's group were too far ahead to even hear me. I decided to take it in my own hands to take her and try and drag her all the way home. I could only drag her a bit until I could hear the sound of galloping on the other side of the hill. It was one of them. The large dark brown male. The animal was fast; he was so quick that it didn't occur to me that he was there until he was about to jump on me with a highly aggressive growl. I looked up and jumped in fear. I swear I probably even yelled in fear. I was scared so much that I was ready to cry. It all happened in a second; the creature was ready to pounce and eat me alive until a single bullet struck his jaw. The bullet didn't even break the skin; it just got wedged between two scales. The beast merely stepped back away from me and scratched the bullet off his jaw with his left arm. He looked out to my house to see who shot him, completely uninterested in me. The beast then looked down at me tilted his head at me, as if he was smiling evilly at me, then he began to vanish slowly. He camouflaged slowly from one side of his body to the other, as if he was a ghost fading away with the wind. I didn't know if he was gone or not, so I watched the squashed grass under his feet began to stick back up. He was leaving, but I don't know for how long until he and his pack come back. I sat there on my knees in the waving grass with Linda's cold head on my lap for a while as I was still shocked from the jump scare. I assumed that the shot came from Jenkins, since everyone else was still running to get inside; but I didn't look back to check. I was too worried that another one of those creatures was sneaking up to me and was ready to grab me. After sitting there for quite some time, I was frightened by the sound of impact from a saucepan hitting a tree. It was one of Susan's cooking pans that she hangs in the kitchen. On the end had a sharp hook to hang off objects. On the bottom of the pan had small red blood stains, as if someone grabbed it and smacked it on an animal or human and caused them to bleed a little. This then brought my attention to the wound on Linda's head. She had a small cut on her forehead, just under the hairline. It was bruised all around it and had other indents and markings from what looked like a bottom corner of a pan. I was right. It wasn't suicide. This was murder. I stood up and grabbed the pan. The hook part at the end of the handle had pierced and torn off a piece of cloth. It was a light turquoise colouring and was very thing and smooth. The piece was too small for me to have any clue from what it came from. But I knew it had to have come from only 3 people; Susan, Lucy...and me. Sure, one of the soldiers could've done it, but I would've heard them walk into our room and steal turquoise coloured clothing just so they tear off one small piece. Besides why would they kill us? We're hired them to do us a job we simply cannot do ourselves. We're paying them good money and they're doing f*ck all right now. In fact, I swear they made it worse. Killing one of their children was a stupid decision. A storm began to brew up in the distance. The dark clouds began to form into one giant black one and slowly moved towards our vicinity. I ignored the pan and continued to drag Linda's body down the hill and around the shed. Everyone was surprised to see me when I entered through the side entrance. I could hear Susan talking to Lucy upstairs. Jenkins was sitting at the table, holding some ice to his new black eye. I’m gonna guess that Sharlin had a few words with him. He dropped the ice and stood up to talk to me. "Mr Walsh I'm terribly sorry about last night and your livestock," he pleaded. "I was given the wrong berries and my-" "Never mind that." I interrupted. "You saved my life from one of the creature just minutes ago. We're even." I looked into Jenkins eyes and his body movements. He looked shocked at me at first since I wasn't mad at him; then he looked really confused and was then ready to speak more. Slower this time, I guess he was afraid that I will go off my temper if he said the wrong words. "I didn't save you." He commented "Huh?" "You see, that's the problem." I was given narcoberries instead of stimberries. Then when I woke up, my gun wasn't with me. I still haven't found it." "Then who did save me?" I questioned. "We don't know," Dandrum added. "The rest of us we're still running to the house when we heard the gun fired." This was a mystery I couldn't exactly wrap my head around. If everyone was still running then who fired the gun? Susan? Maybe it was her; but she didn't speak up. Hmmm strange. The awkward silence was broken when McDonald turned Starhighm with a very sour look on his face. "You just had to be the hero and kill one of those weird creatures didn't you?" He snapped at her as if he was a school bully picking on the smart student. "Well excuse me *sshole," she called him out. "You should be thanking me. I killed one of them, one less creature we have to deal with." "And you also got Duncan killed in the process. If you didn't have shoot him, he would have probably survived." "If I didn't fire my gun, he would've been mauled by the bab-" "Enough!" Dandrum sat back in his seat and didn't move at all besides changing his expression. "Either way," he continued, "Duncan would've died a very painful death. These 'creatures' do not have feelings for anything but their own pack. They will kill anything that dare harms them. Trust me....I know these animals." "Wait you've known these creatures but didn't tell us about it?" "When Mr Walsh gave me the description, I wasn't sure what to think. But as more evidence began to unravel, I was almost certain that it was them. I went to tell Duncan the news when he caught the Austroraptors but of course he dismissed the idea." He then continued on and gave them the same info he told me when we were in the barn house. Like before, he still tried his best to keep his group secretive. "So you're tracking these beasts down? And why were the Austros here and not them last night?" Cherry asked. "Yes, we intend to catch them and study them. As for the Austroraptors, these creatures are smart enough to frame other creatures from the looks of it. They must've found them and stuck the javelin in one of them and ripped out their sickle claws." Dandrum said. "And take them where?" "That's confidential sadly." "Why do they all vary in colour?" I interrupted. Dandrum looked up at me and then slowly looked down at the floor, fidgeting with a necklace he had under his uniform. "Our organisation has many reasons why that's so. Some say it's because they prefer certain colouring and change their skin colour like a chameleon. Others say it's because of birth. However, the most common theory is actually a message. Their skin colour will resemble different biomes and ecosystems; forests, ocean, snow, mountains, Savannahs and etc. What the message tells everyone is 'no matter where you are, we'll kill you with no hesitation; anywhere, any time.' Meaning that they are the true masters around this island." He pulled out his necklace, showing a long and serrated canine. "On one of the black gate expeditions I was on before I joined the secret organisation. We were attacked by these animals. I was the only survivor. When it was over and they all left, I pulled this tooth out of my father. It was where his left eye should've been. These animals love to leave one person to survive and fend for themselves. They want them to tell the public and have us look like fools but strike the hearts of the feared ones when it's time to sleep. By the end of this, I fear that none of us will survive..." Dandrum rubbed the tooth a bit and put it back under his uniform again. The room was silent. "Where's Cheddar?" Lucy piped in. "Cheddar?" Dandrum questioned. "The fat hyenaedon." Sharlin answered. "John I saw him running down to the hill with you." Susan stated with a slight nod. "Where did he go after?" There was a long pause before I said anything. "Well?" "......I thought he went back with you." I murmured uneasily. Dandrum was reading our expressions and shot up out of his chair, walking straight towards the nearest window. "There he is," he said. "He's not alone either." He pointed up back to the hill. By the blossom tree were 3 small shadowy figures. The spyglass that Sharlin handed me helped me determine that the 3 figures were Cheddar and the 2 remaining babies from the monster croc pack. Cheddar had his tail upright in fool alert and continued to bark at the two. The babies however were completely calmed and stood there and stared at him. They seemed almost confused as to why he was barking at them. "We gotta get him out of there. He could upset them and possibly get himself killed in the process." I stammered and walked out to the front door. It began to pour rain outside when I exited the entrance. The water seeped in between the cracks of the broken cement and soaked the dug up soil. "Cheddar!" I yelled out, cupping my hands around my mouth. "Come here you old mutt!" I could see him turn his head and look at me for a bit. Usually he wouldn't respond until I begin to start closing the door, then he will run for his life just so he could get in. So very quickly, I opened the front door and began to slowly close it with me back inside the house. Cheddar bolted down the hill and left the two babies behind. The babies didn't really know what to do, the yellowish one wanted to chase him but the green one wanted to fight the other youngster. Cheddar was almost to the front gate until the white female popped out of nowhere thanks to her camouflage and stood a few metres in front of the front gate. She turned to her side swiftly and used her spiked club tail to smash Cheddar's legs and impale them. He was still alive, but only just. He began to whimper loudly and try his best to wriggle his way out of the animal’s spikes. The mother of the two baby monsters didn't bother to kill him. Instead, she just slowly walked up the hill, dragging Cheddar along with her. The two babies looked at both the mother and the bleeding out hyenadon. She unhooked Cheddar from her thagomizers and let the two children to eat him alive. The female turned back and stared at me. With her evil eyes, she made a low growl. She then gently nudged the babies, making them move down the hill and back to where the dominium's corpse lay. The babies left cheddar's body on and the wet floor. Lightning flickered and thunder cracked in the black sky. The rained poured heavier by the minute. The mother grabbed Cheddar's corpse with her jaws and began to walk down towards the front gate. I don't know why, but I had an urge to walk forward and open the gate. "John what are you doing!" Susan yelled. I looked down to see that I was walking towards the gate. I couldn't stop myself. I opened the front metal gate, only to see the whitish grey female staring at me. She still had Cheddar's corpse clutched in her jaws. The creature didn't attack me, all she did was enter. I walked backwards, my eyes fixated on hers. They were full of hate and always angry; but completely stunning. She continued to walk forward. I stopped walking when she stopped. She flared up her frills, rattling away. I didn't know what she was doing, but I knew that I shouldn't disrupt here or p*ss her off. She began to growl and rattle her frills even more. "Get away from him!" Dandrum yelled at the beast. The animal stepped back at it and swung her head, tossing Cheddar's body into the house and breaking the window. Susan screamed when she saw her dead hyenadon on the floor with shards of glass in him. The monster roared at me and extended out her bottom jaw. When the beast was done, she turned around swiftly and ran outside and back up the hill. She only got halfway up the hill until lightning flashed the sky; then she disappeared when it died down. Like a ghost, they appear when they want to wreak havoc, and then they disappear without a trace, as if they were never there. I felt Torres's large, thick and muscular arm wrap around my waist and pull me back inside the house. I was then turned around to see the group of soldiers. "Never look in their eyes Mr Walsh. The deadliest creatures have the strongest gaze. Once they lock on, you'll never be free." Dandrum said it as if he quoted it right out of a book. "Was that one of the animals you guys keep rambling on about?" "Don't tell me you didn't see it." Sharlin said. "If you didn't punch me in the eye and made my vision all blurry, I would've seen them." He snapped back at her with irritation and threw his ice pack at her. He missed, but she was already in the mood to punch him again. She started to stomp towards him, clenching her fist. "Woah hey that's enough!" Dandrum stood between them. "I know you're all terrified, angry and upset. But right now we have a job to do. And it's to defend this family here. We're soldiers; we’ve got rifles and blades. Those creatures are just animals with detachable jaws and camouflage skills. That's nothing. Tonight we hold our last defence. For the family!" "For the family!" The soldiers all yelled out besides Torres. For a big guy, he doesn't talk much. I decided I was going to head upstairs to check on Lucy. I could hear her soft and happy voice talking in her room; she's probably playing an imaginary game with her toys. I can understand that since she's the only child here. The nasutos and muttaburras use to let her play with their children once they hatched. But they grow up a lot faster than her...now they're all gone. I opened the door in horror to see that she wasn't talking to her dolls...she was talking to one of the baby creatures outside. It was the yellowish one. My little baby had her little hands all over its monstrous head, patting and rubbing it. "You'll be beautiful when you get older." She said to it. "Lucy what are you doing!" I yelled at her, causing them to jump in freight. The other young croc came down from the ceiling and jumped on my head. He didn't attack; he just thrashed me around until I hit my head on the end of Lucy's bed. I lay flat on the floor of her room. I didn't go unconscious but the creatures were no longer there. Didn't know where they went; they were just gone. I looked under her bed to see something I wouldn't ever see in her room. A rifle. Judging from the emblems and carvings in it, it was Jenkins. Questions I wouldn't have thought that they would’ve been answered had just opened up. Just out of curiosity. I grabbed Lucy by the arm and look at her gloves. A piece of fabric was missing at the end of her right glove. The missing piece of fabric was stuck on the pan outside. Same fabric...same colouring. Out of shock, I grabbed Jenkin's rifle and left the room without saying a word to her. She just sat there looking at me and said one final sentence. "They're coming." She lengthened out coming in order make the sentence eerie and a little uneasy. I went back down to the rest of the soldiers as well as Susan. Jenkins was happy but surprised to see that I found his rifle. "Where did you find it?" "By the bathroom," I lied. "Susan can I talk to you about something?" "Sure." "Alone?" "Oh...yeah." I took her and went to our room. "What's the matter? You look like you saw a ghost" She said. "Lucy is behind it all." I blurted out "Lucy had Jenkin's rifle under her bed and killed Linda. She also probably gave Jenkins narcoberries and used the rifle to shoot the creature outside. She also probably brought back the broken javelin to mock us." I turned and pointed to the shafts belonging to the javelin on the floor. "I know this because she has a missing piece of fabric from her glove on the pan she used to kill Linda." After telling her this. She then started to look very agitated. "...so you're telling me my 4 year old daughter killed Linda with a frying pan and used her strength to hoist Linda's body as if it was a suicide? Where is this pan?" "...outside..." "So you don't even have evidence. She's not even strong enough to even pull herself up onto the bench to grab the pan." "But that's the thing!" I interrupted her. "It's not Lucy. I think she's possessed. It'll explain why she has no implant." She laughed at me as if I was crazy. Perhaps I was. "Possessed?! Oh my god, are you out of your mind! That's our daughter out there and you're calling her a killer?" "I'm not calling her that." "Then what are you calling John? A freak?" "I don't know what I'm calling her. I'm just saying she may be unsafe." "Unsafe? So you want me to leave her with the monsters outside do you? Well this is a complete waste of my time. Don't talk to me until you've calmed yourself down." She was about to storm out of the room and slammed the door until I said a bit more. "Maybe this will help you believe me." "Oh yeah and what's that?" "When I went to see Lucy, she was accompanied by the two young monsters. She was patting them and saying 'you're going to be beautiful when you grow up.' What do you say about that?" She still remained to not look at me, only forward. She kept staring foward, breathing slowly. "Well then I guess not all monsters are ugly." She said firmly and then left, slamming the door. I was furious with her, but I knew that I got my message across. That's her way of coping, not believing or acknowledging it. I sat on the end of the bed, clenching the warm bedsheets. Very expensive if I remember. Had to argue with the seller in order to get an agreement. Better than the thatch cr*p most others have to suffer with. "Mr Walsh?" Jenkins stood by the front door of my bedroom. I stood up and tried to look presentable. "Yes?" "Duncan is alive." "What? Where is he?" "We don't know. We just heard him screaming for help. He's still screaming. We're going to go get him." "Are you crazy? Those things are still out there and you want to go out there during a massive storm?" "That's why you and I are requested to be on the roof and are to shoot anything that gets in their way. Your family stays inside the basement." "Understood. I'll be ready in 5 minutes. Don't wait for me." "It's us against them now. Be prepared for anything. Time to meet death in the eyes." Night 3 Jenkins and I sat on the rooftop with our rifles out, pointed out across the raining storm. We quickly constructed a small wooden platform to sustain us, some extra inventory and it also has a small railing to hide behind from the creatures. We both wore large camo clothing that was brought along with the soldiers. We could still hear Duncan screaming away. I'd guess the animals didn't like the noise he was making and left. I could hear Dandrum at the front gates giving the remaining soldiers orders. He looked up at us and pointed out to the vast and wet plains, telling us they were moving out. Most of them carried blades. Only a few had guns. Jenkins sat next to me with binoculars covering his face. He was observing the area. "Ah the thing is broken." He said, tossing it aside. "Just use the scope on your gun. Remember not to shoot anybody." "Heh aren't you the charmer?" He laughed a little. The group down in the front began to turn left and up into the words where I played hide and seek with Lucy. I could also hear the screams coming from that area. The continuous 'help me' began to become very agitating. "Oh god this is getting annoying." I said. "Don't worry. They're getting close. Better get these rifles ready." Both of us grabbed our rifles and gently leant them on the railing we made ourselves. Man I just hope this scaffolding works. "If only we had radios on the Ark." Jenkins complained. "That way we will be able to communicate in situations like this. "Don't worry. Some poor chap who knows a thing or two about computers will rock up on this god forsaken place and make one. You a Transported or a Native?" I asked "Transported. I arrived 5 years ago. People say I got lucky on my first day; I didn't think so. Sure I stayed on the beach and nothing harmed me, but you know....it's just the fact of knowing you'll never see anyone you ever loved again. I mean Earth was a complete f*cking mess at some points. But it was still Home. What about you?" "I am a native. Born in a village that got burnt down years ago due to a silly accident. Spent most of my time in the citadel due to schooling. I use to be in the library sometimes reading about earth and their animals. I use to always want to see them. Their technology was always a whole lot more advanced. I hope that soon we'll be able to jump the gap and be almost or just as advanced as Earth." I said. We stopped talking and eventually got back onto the task at hand. We could see Torres walking into a bush and lifting up Duncan's body. Everyone else but he and Sharlin looked away in disgust. Duncan's corpse had black veins covering him and had his body eaten out. Not much but some skin, bone and a little bit of fat left of him now. Dandrum looked back at us and shook his head. They slowly began to walk back until a scream from Duncan came out from the woods. However that now doesn't make sense because he's dead... Everyone hung back and stared at the woods with their weapons pointing forward. Torres pulled out a large blade from behind his back and stepped forward into the undergrowth. There was no more screaming, just the sound of bushes rustling and the weird clicking calls once again. There was one more loud hiss and a scream from Duncan's mimicker. This time it was one of those creatures creating the noise. One of the adults jumped off one of the trees so hard they tackled Torres's chest and were never seen again. More screams were emitted by everyone this time. They all started running back but the creatures were to too quick and were snatching up people before they could leave the forest. Cherry fell on the floor and got pulled by her foot all the way up a tree by the mother and got torn to shreds by the two youngsters. Guess they can kill whoever they please whenever they please. Jenkins and I lay on our stomachs firing anything that wasn't the soldiers. I tried to shoot one of the youngsters eating Cherry but the black and white female was protecting them with her body. I then started to fire at the large ones chasing the soldiers down the hill. Nothing was working. When I began to reload, I wasn't that stupid to realise that I was the only one firing. I turned to my right to see Jenkins completely mortified. His face was pale and his mouth open. "...what are they?" He panicked. "That doesn't matter. I don't need you to be stage frightened right now. I need your help." I said to him confidently. "But what are they!" His panicking began to cause him to shake and become louder. I glanced back to see the alpha jumped on McDonald and killed him from the force. He then grabbed him by the head and snapped it for the hell of it. "Listen to me!" I yelled. "Your squad is dying out there! Are you going to protect them with all of your might or are you going to overreact and have them all killed!" He looked at me with terrified eyes. The remaining soldiers were already at the front door although there was one problem... Someone locked the front door. They were trapped outside, violently bashing the door and screaming for help. The creatures began to slow down and lurk in the shadows, taunting them. "I'm going to help them!" As he got up to do so, he was greeted by one of the beasts that was silently waiting behind us. The monster snapped at the top half of his body and shook him around. I could hear him screaming inside. It was the dark brown beast I met earlier. Perhaps this is payback from before; he waited for the right time. When he was done shaking him around, he tossed Jenkins' body off the building and the red and black female snatched him up and took him away when he landed away from the house. The creature jumped down onto the scaffolding, causing me to move up onto the actual roof and hold onto the chimney for support while still holding my gun. I could hear the floors creaking beneath him. Maybe a close and quick enough shot could kill it...or maybe I could destroy the scaffolding. I looked down to see the rope wrapped around the chimney. My gun was already pointing down towards it. My eyes then turned to the gaze of the monsters amber eyes. He got closer, but very slowly. The beast looked down for a glance and then looked up at me to see what I was doing. It was ready to jump at me after I pulled the trigger. The scaffolding began to slide off the roof, taking the monster with it. The creature took a topple, smashing its bottom jaw on the gutter. It finally landed in the destroyed garden unconscious...next to the front door. There was a silence for a slight second, then more screaming. "He's gonna wake up!" I heard one of them yelled. The other creatures looked up at me and roared. The dark brown and black one with bioluminescent lighting in its scales, mouth and nostrils began to charge at me, scaling up the wall. I ran as fast as I could and slid into the trapdoor taking me back inside the house. The beast's head couldn't fit inside with all of those horns so it moved its head to the side and tried to get me that way. It failed. The creature roared at me once more and moved her attention towards the screaming soldiers, then started lurking towards them. I bolted down the stairs to make sure they were ok. At this rate, they were ready to tear the door down. "It's waking!" Dandrum yelled. "Open the door!" To my left I could see the creature shaking his head from the fall and slowly rising. The person who locked the door left the key on the floor. Whoever was playing this sick game on us will pay in the end. I unlocked the door and felt the power of soldiers rush through the door, completely terrified...but one was too late. It was McDonald; he was the last one and was the one to pay the price. The creature that fell from the roof as well as the other one that tried to attack me grabbed him and fought for his corpse, one head on each end of his body. Their fighting gave me time to slam the door shut to make sure none of them were coming back inside. I saw all of the soldiers open the hatch for the basement and ran inside hoping nothing will get them. I wanted to join them but I could hear screaming coming back from upstairs. Lucy and Susan. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. By the time I turned around, the creatures had already busted into the house and ran all the way down into the basement. The screaming began to start again, but this time; these were the screams of pain and death. No one was escaping that mess. Kinda their fault for not closing the hatch. The remaining two crocodilians that didn't go down were the black and white female and the alpha. The two slowly walked inside and looked up at me, both of them growling and bearing their large fangs at me. I got pulled back into my room by Susan. Lucy was sitting in the corner, not frightened at all. "Why did you lock the door?" I yelled at her. "It wasn't me!" Susan wailed with tears streaming down her face. "You were right, it was Lucy all along. She unlocked the basement and locked the front door so the soldiers couldn't come in. Then she started speaking in a weird tongue, commanding the creatures." I looked back at Lucy to see her eyes completely black and her muttering non-English words to herself. Susan barricaded the door, but was already feeling the might from the alpha on the other side. "You are too late." Lucy spoke loudly. However her voice was different, it was an adult woman's voice. "My children will cleanse this place and will avenge their child you killed. There is no escape." "What have you done to my daughter?" I yelled and charged towards her. But an unknown force pushed me back. "Lucy Walsh is gone. Only I stand now. The mighty Enntari!" She looked over to Susan who was now on the ground. Lucy walked towards her, destroying the barricade and the doorway with a flick of her hand. The animals didn't walk in; they waited outside the room. Only their amber eyes were visible in the dark. "You have a strong body." Lucy's possessor said. "I wonder how long you can handle one of my children." She made a whistle and the white female creature snatched my wife by the foot and dragged her away. Her cries and screams for helped echoed down the hallway. "Susan!" I yelled. Tears dropped down my eyes. "You little b*tch!" I yelled at my owned daughter and grabbed her by the shoulder. Her body began to let out a large light and her screamed had a force so strong, it threw me out the bedroom window and all the way outside. The scream continued while I was still outside. The bright light began to get brighter until there was a loud explosion like noise, then the light disappeared. The rain and storm stopped and the night sky was looming over us. I rose to my feet and ran for my life. All I could think about was my poor wife being dragged away by a savage beast that had no heart for anything. God only knows what state she's in now. She's gone. And I'm never going to see her again. I only got halfway up the hill until I got tackled from behind. "Get away from me! I screamed and grabbed a nearby stone, ready to smash someone's head. "I'm not going to hurt you." The man said. I looked closer to see that it was Dandrum, only with a lot more scratches and wounds. "What! How are you aliv-" "Shhhh." He covered my mouth with his hand. "Those things could still be out here. And we're in the open." "Sorry." I whispered. "How are you alive?" "I didn't go down into the basement. I took a left turn and instantly left the via the side exit and hid in the barn for some time. When I knew the creatures were inside the house, I fled. Only to find you here." "So you hid in fear while everyone else was slaughtered?" "...y...yes." He stuttered. "But now I kno-" "'MY WIFE IS DEAD!" I yelled in rage. "AND YOU COWERED IN FEAR!" "I'm sorr-" "Sorry doesn't cut it anymore. I'm notifying the Citadel. We have a new creature terrorising the island. "No. You can't" "Why can't I?" "We didn't believe you at first. What makes you think the next group will? More deaths for nothing." "Well I'll have you won't I?" "No. I'll be heading back to my organisation. Gathering data about these beasts so I can finally capture these beasts. I need your help though. The Citadel will not approve of this incident. You must say it was the Austros that attacked you and a house fire killed everyone except you. They will chuck you in the asylum if you don't. Once you lie to them, I need you to be my eyes and ears in this Citadel. You'll be an officer. Every time you gather important information about anything, you report to me. I'll send you a raven. He'll know where to find me." "What happens during this time?" "I'll be in hiding. When the time is right, you'll be added into this organisation. And hopefully we'll catch these creatures and save your daughter." "Thank you. Judging from the bright light and silence afterwards, I’d take it that those things are gone. Time to go our own separate ways." With a flash, Dandrum punched me in the face and knocked me out onto the cold and wet floor. When I wake up, I'll run to the nearest village and tell them what Dandrum told me. Then I'll sign up to be one of the Citadel's officers. Something isn't right anymore. It's not just random animals coming out of those gates anymore. Monsters are coming now...and they've already tasted human flesh. 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Kaprodonychus Posted December 6, 2016 Author Share Posted December 6, 2016 doesn't look as long as it is in Microsoft word. Wont make much of a difference however Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted December 6, 2016 Author Share Posted December 6, 2016 gonna remove the old survivor chapter 2 now since its big and polished sibling is here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted December 6, 2016 Author Share Posted December 6, 2016 now that this is out of my way. CHAPTER 8 AND SOME DOSSIERS COMING OUR WAY! ALSO MORE AWESOME PROGRESS ON THE ARTWORK IM WORKING ON! now I'm gonna sticky tape the back side of the sheet since its starting to rip and bend.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaprodonychus Posted December 8, 2016 Author Share Posted December 8, 2016 I'm sorta mixed thoughts about this so I want all of your opinions. Should I separate the chapter into 3 parts (so 1 day and 1 night for each part) or should I just leave it altogether? I mean, in 3 parts, it gives readers breaks between them so they're not reading the whole thing in one sitting. But then again it's just more posts for the one chapter and might set some people off. After all it is technically its own story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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