The Dino Hunter's Daughter

Wrong Foot

(Not a Camp Cretaceous ep)

After I sped off away from the dock, I lugged my way back to camp, which was slightly destroyed from some dinosaurs and no longer filled with the happiness of the five kids. I walked into my yurt—tent, there wasn't much else to do now, I would have to figure out a way of survival on my own. The book that Hap had given me was still on the bed and my notebook was still on my small desk, the pages crumpled all up, the flattening out I had done didn't do much. I sat on my bed, opposite of the book.

I picked the book up, putting it in my lap, staring down at it, I found myself crying again, the book was the last thing that Hap gave me and smelled like a mix of him and myself, and now he was gone. I felt utterly alone and helpless, defeated too. Why did I think that we'd all make it out alive? Why did I think that I could've possibly befriended the campers? Why did I think that Hap and I could've helped them? Tiff was sailing back to the mainland by now..

Unless the yacht ran out of gas, since it didn't go to Papagayo and refuel like Tiff and Mitch had lied. It didn't matter, even if Tiff was stranded out in the middle of the ocean, the campers wouldn't be able to get to the yacht. I lifted the book up to my face, leaning it against my forehead, sighing as I kicked my boots off my feet. I brought my legs onto the bed, not bothering to take my socks off, I laid on my back with the book on my chest and my hands on top of it.

I stared up at the ceiling of my tent, it was hard to see considering how dark it had gotten, I was a bit damp but I was tired and didn't want to risk doing anything that might draw attention to myself, like if I took a shower to wash the salt off it might make too much noise and attract whatever other kind of dinosaurs were around besides the Ceratosaurus and the T-Rex. So, I laid on my bed, with my damp back against the mattress. It was different sleeping in this tent knowing that no one was around to protect me.

It was a noisy night, birds cawing, dinosaurs roaring and running around, nothing like the feeling of drifting asleep on a yacht slowly cruising down the water. My eyes opened quickly the next morning as I heard the noise of a twig snapping, I sat up, fumbling to get my boots on, not retying the laces like I normally would, I grabbed the small pistol that was attached by velcro under my desk. I stepped out of my tent and pointing the gun at whatever it was.

"Woah!—Courtney! It's me!" Darius nervously said as he put his hand out in front of him, Darius? I lowered my gun. "Jesus—You can't do that, Darius." I rubbed my eyes. "I thought you were a dino." I looked back up at Darius, trying my best to keep eye contact. "What brings you back here?" I asked him.

"Well, you kind of ran off.." Darius said as if it didn't just happen last night, "And I thought you just needed a little bit of space..." Darius rubbed the back of his neck as his looked to the side, not looking directly at me. "I was also worried about you.."

Darius added, what? Why would he worry? "The thought of someone else being out here alone...it..." Darius began to say but stopped short. "I told you not to worry about me, Darius." I recalled as I threw the pistol through the flaps of my tent. "You all have much worse things to worry about." I added.

I was surprised I could uphold a conversation with him this long, maybe the fact that he wasn't giving a lot of eye contact at the moment was helping. "You don't want my help. I bet you all think that I'm exactly like Tiff and Mitch, or that I'm untrustworthy." I concluded, trying to make Darius go as quick as possible, "Do you want supplies?" I asked him, changing the subject, "Just take it."

"No, Courtney, not all of us think that." Darius replied, "Once they've seen that I've trusted you, I'm sure they all will too." He implied that bonding with the other campers would be easy. "And I don't want your supplies just yet." Darius sighed, looking up at me, and now we were making eye contact and I felt my feet sink into the ground, "I'm not good with people of your age." I stated, "I lied when I should've told you all the truth. I've ruined our chance at a good first impression and now.."