It had been just over a month since Carlo arrived at the Mojave Sanctuary.
"Joining me are the miracle survivors of the Jurassic World incident, the Nublar Six."
"These children were tragically left behind on the island while attending an adventure camp and were presumed dead after the disaster."
"Yet, against all odds, they fended for themselves and managed to survive on the island for nearly a year."
Nestled deep within a mountainous forest in Missouri stood a rustic wooden cabin. A simple wooden fence enclosed a small yard, with fine lines strung between the posts, suspending old pots and tin cans that clinked and rattled softly whenever the wind blew.
Parked just outside the yard was a pickup truck, its front-left tire and spare completely deflated.
The cabin itself possessed an old-school, retro charm, extending to the furniture inside. However, space was tight. Aside from crates of instant meals, junk food, and two modified weapons, there were very few traces of daily human life.
Or rather, few signs of permanent residency.
A laptop sat on a wooden coffee table, playing a news broadcast from a few years ago, right around the time the Camp Cretaceous crew had first escaped from Isla Nublar.
"But the most important thing is, we made it out. We all made it out alive."
The video frame froze on a "family photo" of the six. Right in the center, Darius, guided by his own sentimentality, held Yaz's drawing tightly against his chest.
On the paper was a cute, chibi-style drawing of a dinosaur with an oversized head. Beyond the Camp Cretaceous group itself, it was unlikely anyone else would recognize which dinosaur it was supposed to be.
"On the night of [Month] [Day], at 11:19 PM, a dinosaur attack occurred. One person was injured, and one..."
After freezing for a few seconds, the video automatically skipped to the next clip. It seemed like just another routine accident report, but the names on the casualty list were impossible to ignore.
Tap tap tap...
"Bye, Brand. Tell Mom I love her."
The wooden floorboards creaked under leather sneakers. Having just hung up the phone with his older brother, Darius walked over quickly and paused the news archive playing on the laptop.
"Phew…"
Exhaling sharply, he collapsed onto the couch. The sudden impact kicked up a cloud of dust, sending him into a fit of coughing.
"Cough, cough... cough, cough, cough..."
Darius waved his hand to clear the airborne dust. He looked completely drained, resembling a college student who had just endured a grueling two-week stretch of classes without a break.
He was indeed the owner of this cabin, and he had indeed lived here alone for quite some time. However, ever since Brooklynn's death, he had been obsessively tracking her killer, leaving him with zero time to clean the place.
"Sigh..."
Grabbing a throw pillow, Darius lay down sideways across the sofa. Balancing the laptop on his stomach, he clicked over to the next video file.
Sound of helicopter rotors...
The logo of the Mojave Sanctuary was embedded in the upper-right corner of the video. Darius blinked in surprise, turning down the volume slightly as he watched the footage, an involuntary smile tugging at his lips.
Across an endless expanse of desert, several Dreadnoughtus toddlers huddled within the shadow cast by Carlo's massive frame, following him as he... migrated? Well, even as a self-proclaimed dinosaur expert, this was a sight Darius couldn't quite decipher.
"Dad... if you were still here, knowing that dinosaurs have hurt so many people... would you still love them?"
"I think... I probably still would."
Darius gently lifted the fossilized Velociraptor tooth necklace hanging around his neck, murmuring to himself.
His restless mind finally seemed to find some peace. Watching the monotonous rhythm of the migration on screen, his eyes grew heavy, and he drifted off to sleep, bit by bit...
Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!
The abrupt, jarring blare of an old-fashioned landline telephone jolted Darius awake. Gasping for air in his sudden panic, he realized the laptop screen in front of him had gone dark to save power.
He glanced at the phone, then at the wall clock.
2:40 AM.
Are you kidding me?! I swear I just blinked. How has it been eight hours?! Where did the time go?!
But more importantly... who would be calling at more than two in the morning?
"Uh... hello?"
Darius walked over and picked up the receiver, but there was no response.
"Hello? Is anyone—"
Clatter of cans...
Outside, the aluminum cans hanging along the yard's fence suddenly slammed together, shattering the silence. The rattling persisted for a few seconds before cutting out entirely.
Something was wrong.
Ever since the dinosaurs escaped, Darius had barely tasted the comforts of normal human society before being thrust right back into a state of high alert. Fortunately, the survival skills he had forged on Isla Nublar remained fully intact.
Moving with absolute silence, he picked up a specialized cattle prod, one significantly more powerful than the shock prod Owen Grady had used against the Indominus rex.
Creak...
The sound of footsteps treading on the wooden steps of the front porch echoed through the door. Timing it perfectly, Darius flung the door open and thrust the shock prod straight ahead!
Smack.
The shock prod was intercepted mid-air by a pale hand, gripped so tightly that it couldn't budge an inch.
"Uh... welcome home, Darius."
"Ben?"
Standing before him was a fellow member of the Nublar Six, the guy who had survived weeks entirely on his own, beating Isla Nublar on hell-mode. The dearest friend of Bumpy the Ankylosaurus, and effectively a nerfed version of an ARK survivor: Ben!
"Ben... Ben, what are you doing here?"
Darius was utterly bewildered. Ben stepped up onto the final porch stair, drawing himself up to stand face-to-face with Darius. Compared to the old days, he now towered over Darius by a full head.
"I... am really not used to this."
Darius gestured between their heights, relaxing his posture considerably. Ben, however, seemed visibly distracted.
"Yeah... me neither."
Ben made a move to usher Darius inside to talk, but Darius initiated a quick hug first, clearly wanting to catch up properly.
"It's so good to see you... Oh, how's college going?"
"I'm actually on break."
Ben kept looking over his shoulder, scanning his surroundings like a kid who had flunked a test and was terrified of going home to face his parents. He pushed past Darius into the living room.
"Listen, I know it's been a long time since I reached out to any of you, but I've really... missed... you guys?"
Darius watched Ben rush around like a man possessed, pulling the curtains shut and flicking off the lights. His tone grew increasingly hesitant.
"I remember the view out here being really... beautiful," Ben murmured, pulling back a single slat of the window blinds to peer outside. He didn't look like a guy admiring the scenery at all.
"Uh... yeah, it is. But there's nothing to see at night."
"Does it rain much here?"
Ben cut in with his next question before Darius could even finish, switching off another lamp. Chatting while staying frantically busy, he was certainly multitasking.
"Ben, we've known each other a long time. You need to tell me why you're actually here."
Darius stepped into Ben's path, actively putting an end to the evasive small talk. Ben paced in place, looking flustered as he tried to organize his thoughts.
"Right... okay... Look, just promise me you won't freak out."
Ben took a deep breath, laying everything out.
"That night... that horrible night... That Allosaurus... it wasn't an accident."
"You're tracking that one-eyed Allosaurus too?! Me too! I almost caught it today! So close! I even called Brooklynn's number..."
Darius grew animated, words tumbling out in a rush as he recounted his morning, but his voice died out just as quickly.
"Darius... Brooklynn... she's dead."
Ben gently broke the silence, staring at Darius with a look of disbelief. While this wasn't the core of what he came to talk about, he hadn't realized Darius was still so deeply trapped in his grief.
No, perhaps it was precisely because he couldn't let it go that he kept acting as if she were still there.
"Yeah... I know. But her dad never deactivated her voicemail... so... I just wanted to apologize to her."
"It wasn't your fault, Darius."
"Yes, it was! If I had just paid more attention to the messages she sent me, if I had just shown up to meet her that night like we planned... things... things would be different."
"That is exactly why I'm here, Darius. It wasn't an accident. Even if you had gone, it wouldn't have changed a thing."
"What...?"
Darius, who had been looking down in self-reproach, snapped his head up to look at Ben. Before he could argue, Ben unleashed a barrage of points.
"This wasn't some random incident. There are way too many coincidences! What was Brooklynn even doing out there that night? She didn't tell you, did she?"
"Why did she and that Allosaurus happen to be at the exact same place at the exact same time?"
"How did the D.P.W. containment vans respond so quickly? It was like they were already waiting in ambush."
"And why was her cell phone signal jammed?"
"Something is seriously wrong. I've been reading the forums on Dark Jurassic."
Even after all these years, Ben retained his hyper-cautious, paranoid streak, except now, he no longer ran away from reality.
"Dark Jurassic? You mean that website where anyone can post weird dinosaur conspiracy theories?"
Darius was still his old self, too, unless confronted with undeniable proof, he preferred to view the world with optimism, refusing to buy into Ben's theories.
"Some of the theories on there make a lot more sense than you think. Come on, let me show you something."
Ben walked over to the couch and opened Darius's laptop with practiced ease, not even bothering to ask for the password. Darius watched him, utterly dumbfounded.
I mean, yeah, I only use one password for everything, but you could at least pretend you didn't know it.
Suddenly, Ben froze, a look of sheer shock washing over his face. Darius sat down beside him and looked at the screen. A brand-new, viral post was rapidly climbing the trends.
[When the Dawn of Mankind Arrives]
Posted by: Whitemask
The King of Dinosaurs will fall alongside the rising sun, and the fire of humanity will finally purge these forbidden creatures. We are the masters of this Earth. We were in the past, we are in the present, and we will remain so in the future.
Let these beasts bear witness to the absolute might of humanity.
Scheduled Livestream: 5:00 AM — 8:00 AM.
Darius and Ben stared intently at the screen, trying to parse the author's true intent. With engagement numbers like this, it was definitely no joke.
Hiss... purr...
Suddenly, the low, guttural chuffle of a predatory dinosaur drifted through the window. It was incredibly faint, so quiet it could have been mistaken for a passing breeze, but both of them picked up on it instantly.
Ben slammed the laptop shut. Darius silently reached over and turned off the final desk lamp, plunging the cabin into absolute darkness.
Outside the blinds, a shadow resembling a Velociraptor flickered across the moonlight.
"Aunnng—"
Under the silver moonlight, the Dreadnoughtus herd let out a resonant, booming call. The White King rose to his feet and strode to the very front of the herd.
"Aunnng!"
The Dreadnoughtus toddlers dashed past Carlo's towering form, briefly reuniting with their families.
The White King and Carlo locked eyes for a brief moment, exchanging a mutual, low-frequency rumble.
A month of cohabitation had allowed them to grow completely familiar with one another. Thanks to Carlo's innate, natural-born babysitter aura and his inexplicable affinity for herbivores, he got along famously with the young Dreadnoughtus calves.
The biodiversity of the Mojave Sanctuary was a far cry from the Primeval Ecological Zone, and life in the desert could get terribly monotonous. Carlo's sole hobby these days was occasionally leading these little guys out to see their families.
Well... while their fathers weren't always around, their mothers certainly were.
As for where their fathers had gone? Well, they had challenged the White King and lost.
And where did they go after losing? Into Carlo's stomach, of course. Hehe.
BOOM—
A violent explosion suddenly erupted in the distance, followed by the flickering glow of firelight.
Sniff, sniff.
The sharp scent of gunpowder drifted through the air. Sensing an immediate threat, Carlo traded a sharp look with the White King. He raised his head, unleashing a booming roar to call his family, before sprinting directly toward the source of the fire.
"ROOAR—"
Carlo's thunderous roar tore through the heavens, carrying all the way from the Dreadnoughtus oasis straight to the Giganotosaurus oasis.
Hmm?
Kafka halted her patrol, looking toward the origin of the sound with a look of hesitation.
Was that the Boss's roar?
She pondered for a moment before nudging the sleeping Giganotosaurus family awake.
Katyusha automatically took charge in Carlo's absence. She chuffed a quick query to Kafka to assess the situation. Upon realizing that Carlo might be in trouble, she didn't hesitate for a single second.
"ROOAR—"
Answering with a collective, earth-shaking bellow, the Giganotosaurus family set off once more, stepping onto yet another unknown path.
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