Heart of a Monster

Chapter Three

I just laze around my enclosure, watching the people outside curiously and learning to copy their interactions. Some shout at me and throw things at the glass; others smile and blow me kisses, still others look disgusted by the cage I'm kept in, and still others ignore me.

Each one is imprinted in my memory.

Then as I watch a small boy stare at me in childish wonder, the lights go dark save one row of red blinking circles. Someone escaped their paddock.

I sit up in my nest, watching shadows flit by before one catches my eye. A tail flickers back and forth behind a person standing outside my enclosure. Golden eyes reflect the red light before the glass shatters.

Even in the near pitch black room I can keep track of the boy. Talons click on the broken glass scattered around randomly. Then he's gone, sprinting down the hallway on unsteady claws, fleeing the InGen technicians who want to capture him again. 

He makes it down the hallway and dives into the access tunnels. The InGen techs make sure that I'm still in my cage and head on down the hallway. I wait until I'm sure they've gone the opposite way; away from where the boy went; and follow the red talonprints left after he walked through the fallen glass.

I hang down from the ceiling, watching the InGen techs as they rush down the hallway following the signal of my clawed out implant. Then I let go of the ceiling beam and sprint down the hallway I dove into. My talons click on the floor, but even above the sirens I hear a second set of breaths, a second set of talons clicking along the cold floor.

Something is following me.

I take advantage of the maze-like tunnels, and dive randomly around the corners. A faint red glow surrounds me, disorienting me and making all the tunnels look the same to my young eyes. The talons behind me speed up as I do, thumping softly on the cold concrete pathways.

I come to a steel door with a fingerprint lock similar to the locks outside our paddocks. I slice the neck of the guard, and use his fingerprint to get through. I don't really know how I did it, my brain just sort of went into autopilot and I moved without meaning to. Operating on instinct I guess.

I come up to the end of the hallway, following the scent of the Indoraptor boy's blood. A guard is slumped dead next to a fingerprint locked door; which lays open. Talonprints lead off into the mud outside. Someone comes chasing down the hallway behind me, I turn and see the girl who raised me.

"Blue! Don't do this! Don't leave me alone!"

Her father raised the original raptor Blue, and I was raised by her from the moment I hatched. At least, the raptor half of me was raised by her. My human half doesn't remember anything. I smile weakly at her, growling out our code to let her know I'll come back.

She smiles at me, and tosses me something. I catch it, and examine it. A net, weighted at the ends by solid steel chains. I know she means for me to catch the Indoraptor boy. I turn and flee into the rain, speeding up as thunder cracks overhead and the mournful call of the new Mosasaur echoes. They replaced the original one with a half-human like us. From what I've heard, he's pretty much a mermaid but half Mosasaur instead of half fish.  

I shake off the chills racing down my spine, water droplets scattering into the mud around me. I keep running, eventually ending up in the trees outside the paddocks we were in. The tracks falter and then disappear altogether. Looking straight up, I see Indie perched in the tree above me. A old Pterodactyl nest makes a perfect spot for him to hide from the storm.