My stomach growled like an angry dog.
Not quiet, either. Loud. Raw. The kind of sound that echoes when you're already afraid of making noise. It twisted through my gut and curled up inside me like a cramp, long and hollow and sharp. I hunched forward, clamped a hand over my stomach, and winced.
"Not now," I whispered.
But my body didn't care.
It had been what—two days? Three? Since I'd had anything that could be called food? I wasn't sure anymore. The time had started bleeding together since the crocodile pool, since waking up here, since the raptors and the trap and the date burned into that cursed laptop screen.
But the hunger wasn't the worst of it.
The worst was the other pressure.
The kind of pressure you don't think about in movies or survival games. The kind that builds in your gut, hot and urgent and humiliating.
I needed to piss.
And probably more than that, if I was being honest with myself.
My whole lower body ached with it. I'd ignored it in the cabinet, frozen and afraid. I'd ignored it while building the trap. But now it was front and center. My legs twitched. My bladder throbbed. My breath kept catching because my body was too full and too tense.
I paced a few steps, hand pressed against my thigh, cursing under my breath.
If I went outside the lab—I was dead. That was a fact. The brush was too thick, too open. If even one raptor circled back…
No.
No way.
I needed to relieve myself in here.
I scanned the wreckage, desperate. A cup? A canister?
Then I saw it.
Another bucket.
Not the clean kind. Not the one I'd used to build the net.
This one was deeper. Heavier. Still had a crust of something dried at the bottom, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered now except emptying the heat in my gut before it made me scream.
I grabbed it and ducked behind one of the fallen shelves.
It was undignified. Messy. The smell hit the air immediately—sharp and acrid, the human scent of stress and salt and things you don't name.
But it was done.
And the second I capped the bucket—an idea clicked into place.
I held it in my hands. Heavy now. Sloshing slightly if I moved too fast.
And I thought:
Raptors smell.Raptors hunt by scent.What if I used this—
I didn't even finish the sentence in my head.
My brain did the rest.
The logic spiraled out, sharp and cold and perfect.
Raptors track scent. Probably damn well. Smell blood. Smell meat. Smell prey.
So what happens when the smell of fear and waste explodes in a space already layered in their interest?
Distraction.
Trap enhancement.
Bait.
And noise, if I played it right.
I moved quick, moving with more urgency than I'd had in hours. I found another length of rope—thinner than the trap rope, but long enough to reach from the door to the desk leg. I tied one end to the bucket's handle, looping it twice for safety.
Then I carried the whole mess—bucket, rope, idea—to the metal side door.
It was rusted and barely hanging on, but still solid enough to serve.
I wedged the bucket just behind the door, almost touching the inside surface, and ran the rope up and through the door's bent handle.
Then I looked around for something small, something weighty but not loud.
A rock.
Flat. Palm-sized. Sitting near the broken wall.
I placed it just so—propped at the base of the door, under the bucket's bottom rim, holding the entire thing at a precarious angle.
I stepped back and looked at it.
The whole setup was disgusting. Absolutely grotesque.
A piss bucket. A trap made from sweat and shame.
But if a raptor came through the door—if it nudged the entrance even slightly—it'd knock the rock loose. The bucket would tip.
Noise.
Scent.
A moment of chaos.
A weapon.
I stared at it for a long time.
The air already smelled wrong now—sharp and human and terrible. It clung to the roof of my mouth. Made my stomach lurch. My skin crawled at the thought of how far I'd fallen from who I was before this.
Shredder, the joker. The kid who snuck into places for a dare. Who made people laugh. Who climbed school roofs and ducked deans and lived like he'd never have to pay the bill.
Now?
Now I was building bombs out of bodily waste.
Now I was preparing to fight prehistoric monsters with nothing but rope, traps, and instincts.
I covered my mouth with both hands and squeezed my eyes shut.
It hit me all at once—the stench, the desperation, the fact that this plan made sense.
That this might save my life.
Or might just delay the moment I got eaten alive.
I started shaking.
Not from cold.
From everything else.
From the thought of teeth. Of claws. Of eyes that could see in the dark and breath that smelled like meat.
I staggered backward, sat hard against the ground, and hugged my knees.
And for the first time since I woke up here, I let myself shudder.
Small. Quiet.
Not crying. Not breaking.
Just letting it tremble through me.
Because if I didn't let it out, even just a little—
I was going to fall apart.
And I couldn't afford that.
Not here.
Not now.
Not on Isla Sorna.