Project Sorna

Fourteen

                      I slipped into the discarded and over-turned office, steering clear of the burst pipe in the hall. With that, I furrowed my eyebrows and began to pay attention to my surroundings. The first thing I did when out of the doorway was make a brief 360 degree search of the place. Then there was the note. I remembered the note, a bitter throb in my throat. My hand felt the piece of paper in my back pocket and they finally unraveled it.

                      Staring at Fredrick's note made the anxiety only worse. My palms sweaty, I let the paper loose and threw my hands over my head, locking my fingers. I wept and it took a moment to recover from my arrhythmia of stress. No. Instead of continuing to cry, I enclosed one hand over the middle finger of the other and waited to calm down. It worked.

                      While my back was turned, something shuffled from outside of the room. Curious, I strode back out and focused my vision down the hallway of nothingness. A bird scuttled down the hall towards me and flapped through the split-open roof that cascaded light. I breathed  sigh of relief and made my way to a restroom. There was a strange site.

                      A plastic lounge chair had jutted part-way through the wall. I took the chair with both hands and pulled, staggering back as the chair was freed and the hole was widened. I wiped the sticky sweat away before inspecting the hole and walking into the bathroom. The sink, though cracked, had collected rainwater. I splashed my face with water before looking in what was left of the mirror. A helmet appeared in the reflection and I whirled around to see a rifle aimed at my stomach.

                   "Don't make another move." The soldier warned me, staring intently. I flicked my eyes to see his finger on the trigger. He meant business.

                  I stopped cold, raising my arms to show surrender. I stared at his disguise, his face was concealed with a gray rag material, he lacked a right eye. Instead, there was a scar there, plain as day. I notice a lot of things.

                  I didn't talk, just stared. The more I looked at the man's scar, the more bitter my gaze was. The soldier wasn't Fredrick. And that was what I was thankful for. I actually wanted Fredrick around to save me.

                 "Good girl." The man said. He thrust the strap that latched to the rifle over his shoulder and pushed me to the wall, his gloved hand had a strong hold on my shoulder.

                "I want you to listen-and listen closely."

                My lungs heaved for air. "Who the hell do you think you are?" I whispered. The hostile stranger in the helmet gave me a furrowing look and cocked his head.

               "I don't know about you, but it's better if you just follow my orders."

               He lowered his arm, clenching something in his grasp. He never showed it to me, so I just thought it would have been best to admit something. Might have been the volatile thing to do with an anonymous stranger hard on my case all of a sudden.

              "I'm armed. I have plenty of weapons on me, so don't you dare do something you'll regret." I hissed, mustering as much bravery within me.

              "I've done plenty. Just follow my lead, I'll be behind you." He said and coaxed to start walking. I sneered, taking a moment to observe him but nothing interesting came in mind.

              We set off for another area, he told me each direction to go and I abided without a second thought. Soon, we were pushing through the foliage with screeching and squalls and roars going off in all directions, obviously the place was populated with dinosaurs. I'd rather not deal with them.

              Rushing water. That's all I heard when I crossed into an uncharted territory. My feet went slower and but nevertheless I was wary of the mysterious man on my trail. Suddenly, I was jolted from my gait by a creature with sharp talons jumping from the foliage. The loud creature was a velociraptor. It's eyes were wild, more wild than anything I've looked into.

             As if the situation couldn't get any more heart-throbbing, his mate revealed herself. She stood and the male raptor stood their ground, ready to tear me apart and flashed their sharp teeth. I immediately took the survival dagger out of my boot and braced myself for attack.

            Two shots fired. I jolted a second time, but by the time I put the pieces together the velociraptors were already dead on the ground. A pressure point jabbed at my chest. I knew right then and there it was my heart dropping.

            I turned around to see the man easing down his rifle with eyes that told me he was to blame. It was him that shot them. He saved my life. A complete stranger out in the jungle had saved my life, and I couldn't even classify his name.

            "T-Thank you." I stashed my knife. The guy shrugged his shoulders, comfortable with the armor on his body.

            "It's nothing, kid." He said, "Now let's see...I remember that female. Velociraptor, right?"

           "Um, yea. That's a raptor. Or at least was, but still." I assured him as awkwardly as I could. As he paused for a moment to think, I rolled up my sleeves and had to risk getting some grim on them. 

          "I guarantee you she has a tracker."

         "A tracker? Is a tracker necessary for the assets that are still on this island?"

        He didn't reply, he just gave me this both sly and conspicuous look. I exchanged a look with the deceased couple of velociraptors and him for a few seconds then shrugged.