TIMESCAPE

11

Dante checked his watch. 5 hour and 47 minutes remaining. They'd been walking for almost an hour. Katrina had been telling him about herself. How she was an archaeologist, how she had been on a dinosaur dig once, although that wasn't her specialty. She assured him her life was far from being Indiana Jones, but that it was still exciting, to her at least. And that she had never found any "treasure" (much to Dante's disappointment), although treasure was an extremely relative term. She had also explained to him that the dinosaur that took Paige wasn't a pterodactyl. It had another name, Pteradon, or something like that. Dante couldn't remember. It had been awhile since she'd studied dinosaurs, Katrina had said. She could tell it wasn't a pterodactyl because of its size. Pterodactyls only grew to have a wingspan of three feet or so.

That was what Dante remembered. She had said a lot more, but he had been preoccupied thinking about his near death experience. His mind was trying to wrap itself around the idea that all of this was really happening. The adrenaline in his body had calmed down, but he was still in shock. And exhausted. If it hadn't been for Katrina...

Katrina was now explaining how she had found a flare. Apparently each of their jackets was equipped with a flare inside the lining, in case of emergencies. Katrina had felt something inside her coat and had pulled it out just when she had needed it. Dante felt inside his jacket lining and noticed his own hidden flare for the first time.

"Anyways, that's why I decided to go into archaeology..." Katrina turned to look at him. "Am I boring you?"

"No, not at all. I like listening to you talk," Dante hoped she couldn't tell that he had zoned out again.

"Do you? You've been very quiet."

"That's because you were the one talking. I didn't want to interrupt." Dante hoped she wouldn't call him out. Just then, something squealed in the distance. A dinosaur! It had to be. Dante looked to Katrina, hoping she had some kind of answer. She was just as scared as he was. "What do we do?" he asked.

Katrina shrugged "Climb a tree? I don't know what it is, it could be harmless, or it could want to eat us."

"Good idea," Dante looked around quickly, spotting the nearest tree "I got dibs on that one!"

Katrina rolled her eyes. Dante dashed for the tree, stepping up onto its branches. He was able to climb quickly because of the way the branches were spaced, it was more like stepping up stairs than climbing a tree.

Katrina didn't have it so easy, but she was in shape and made quick work of her tree as well. She had to jump up just to reach the first branch, but then was able to swing her legs up and roll around so she was sitting on the branch. And just in time too.

Two dinosaurs, about four feet tall with webbed spines stretching along their backs made their way through the trees. They stopped at the foot of Dante's tree, looking up at him and squealing to each other. They tried to scratch at the base of Dante's tree, but it was too thick. One of them tried to climb up after Dante, but rolled over the branch and fell on its back. Dante breathed a sigh of relief, he was safe. They couldn't reach him up here.

They turned away from him and went over to Katrina's tree. "What kind of dinosaurs are they? Danted hissed over to Katrina.

"They're spinosaurus. Babies. Adult spinosaurus are a lot bigger than that. The biggest carnivores that we know of."

"Are they called spinosaurus because of their....you know," Dante mimicked a spine on his own back.

Katrina rolled her eyes "Yes. It's because they have spines. You're so smart."

"Let's hope they don't call their parents," Dante said.

The spinosaurus' began to scratch at the base of Katrina's tree. Her tree was much thinner than Dante's. It wouldn't take much work to knock the tree down. And that was exactly what the spinosaurus were trying to do. One of them jumped up and kicked at the tree. The entire tree shook. Katrina clung to the trunk, hanging on for dear life. Then the spinosaurus went to work scratching at the base with their claws. Soon a pile of chips had formed on the ground. This wasn't looking good.